With a pop song blasting, sounding like Bruno Mars, Timo hops on one end of the teeterboard, the apparatus resembling a seesaw. Dimitri, much larger, jumps on the other side, catapulting Timo in the air. Instead of flailing about, he gracefully lands on a metal rung.
Timo sings to the song, clapping his hands to the beat and moving his body like he’s in an episode of Dancing with the Stars. As the professional. Not the uncoordinated celebrity.
It’s impossible to stop staring.
I glance around, wondering if anyone else is entranced—and surprisingly, this is not all in my head. The girls on trapeze, a couple on a trampoline, and the cluster of guys by the Russian swing pause for longer than a second.
All eyes on him.
He’s dancing. For fun. Only he’s spinning, shifting his hips, and tilting his head back while walking the bar like a tightrope.
I feel a smile grow on my face.
Timo’s movements are effortless, and I see a bit of Nikolai in him. Even though he’s more energetic, spirited, he compels everyone’s attention the same way as his older brother.
His dangling cross earring whips back and forth with his head. His sweaty dark hair hangs in his eyes, the sides shorter though. He jumps onto another rung, and my heart nosedives. But he easily makes the gap, and claps his hands over his head before doing a backflip and spinning on the tips of his toes.
I’m surprised there’s not a crotch-grab in his freestyle routine.
“Ready?”
I flinch at Nikolai’s sudden appearance, too hypnotized by Timo. Nik towers above me, his hands on his waist as he breathes heavily from finishing his own workout. I scan the length of him, flashbacks of yesterday morning and afternoon playing on rewind and repeat. We had sex in my apartment. Again. And again. Apparently Nikolai’s speed is not only fast but frequent.
Even the memories heat me another time around.
“Yeah.” I rise to my feet, my pulse racing. I expect there to be weirdness between us, for him to silently acknowledge that we’ve had sex. Or maybe it’s just all me.
Thinking about it. Obsessing over it. Focus, Thora James. Right. I’m here for training. I exhale. I inhale. Breathing normally.
Nikolai remains completely strict, the same as usual. He acts like the hardass coach, who in no way would sleep with his trainee. Because that would be unprofessional.
“Give me your hands.” He studies my reaction and gives me a strange look.
“What?” I flip them over, not able to read his expression.
“You’re glowing.” He sprays resin on my palms.
I gape, my mouth slightly falling. “No, I’m not. I’m just…happy.” I need to work on my excuses and my words. Always my words.
His lips barely tic upwards. All business. “You need to execute the modified straddle slide smoothly.”
Smoothly?
I haven’t been able to execute it higher than ten feet from the mat. Smoothly isn’t on the menu if I can’t even perform it at all.
Nikolai wants me to climb fifty feet and fall head-first to the ground, with my legs extended in a split. If wrapped correctly, the silk is supposed to catch me right before my face smashes into the mat. But if I screw up the intricate wrap, I could break more than just my nose.
“Can we call it what it is?” I ask him softly.
He hands me the silk. “It’s a modified straddle slide.” His no-nonsense voice tries to put my head in the game.
“It’s a death drop,” I emphasize.
I’m not being dramatic about this either. The longer title is a butterfly drop into a death drop with some alterations. Honestly, I’ve never even heard most of the tricks he’s taught me so far. Some he flat-out created from scratch. And others, he’s tweaked so they appear more dangerous.
Modified straddle slide really does not encompass the fear that I feel from this one.
“If I thought you’d die, I’d never let you try this above twenty feet.” He steps back from me. “Climb.”
I inhale a motivational breath and start my ascent. Since the beginning of my training, I doubt I’d be able to scale the silk this easily and this fluidly. Nikolai’s instruction has been invaluable. When I begin wrapping my legs in the silk, I try to harness whatever grace I possess.
“You look angry!” Nikolai calls up from the bottom. “Relax your face.”
He knows that’s my “concentration face” and he says if I exhibit that expression during auditions, no one will want to hire me. I open and close my jaw. Go away, bitch face. I think it’d be more amusing if I didn’t just refer to my own face as a bitch.
Now fully wrapped and facial muscles softened, I’m ready for the drop. I think.
Catch yourself, Thora. You can do this.
Nikolai is at the base, his arms crossed over his chest. With a fixed gaze, lines crease his forehead, his focus only on me.
Do it, Thora. My heart slams into my ribcage.
Wait.
“Am I wrapped right?” I ask Nik, just double-checking.
“You know you are.” Though his eyes flit around my body, just to confirm it himself.
Do it.
I hesitate.
“Drop, Thora.”
I pull my knees through loops in the silk, and legs spread, I shoot downwards without the support. I squeeze my eyes closed, scared. Rarely am I ever scared about heights in general. Then I feel my body jerk upwards, the silk tightening around my thighs and catching my fall.
I open one eye. And then two.
I’m upside-down. And still too high up. About seven feet, maybe a little less.
Nikolai approaches, straight-faced. When he stops, our lips are in perfect symmetry, but he stays still, a commander that refuses to kiss his soldier. A teacher unwilling to make a pass at his student.
At least not in the classroom.
“Your face should be an inch from the mat, not right in front of me.” He grips the fabric above my foot.
“I realize this,” I say softly.
“When you begin the wrap, you need to give yourself more slack, more than you think is necessary.”
But the terrifying part is what happens if I give myself too much slack.
He reads me well. “Don’t be afraid.” His gaze flickers to my lips, like he may break his own rules this once.
My heart is on its own death drop.
“Nikolai…?” That’s not me. The voice, with a string of Russian jargon, comes from a petite, willowy platinum-blonde a few feet behind him.
I recognize Elena from tryouts months ago, and I’ve had the good fortune of never running into her here. Nikolai spins around and listens to her talk. I roll out of my position, climbing down from the aerial silk. Elena jabs her finger in my direction, her cheeks flushed with what appears to be anger.
Nikolai runs his hands through his hair, pushing back the longer strands. He replies in gruffer Russian.
I uneasily shift my weight from one foot to the other, noticing how she steps near him. Noticing how her body language isn’t closed off, despite being frustrated and incensed. She leans towards him. Like they’re good friends.
I’ve blocked out his dynamic with Elena, the passion they’re supposed to exude on stage. I just pretend that she doesn’t exist.
The same way he pretends I don’t work at Phantom.
My chest caves, and I realize that training is going to be cut short. By me. “I’m going to go,” I tell Nikolai when there’s a pause in his conversation.
He rubs his eyes, exhausted, by whatever she’s telling him. “I wish you wouldn’t.”