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November 8 - November 15, 2023
He’s not the Clyde to my Bonnie or the Damon to my Elena. Shay is and will always be the Lucas to my Haley. A great, protective friend. Like that of One Tree Hill. Who will point out the storm ahead for me while I choose to relish in the sunshine.
I roll my suitcase along the indoor cobblestone, a pathway leading towards The Red Death. It’s the club where Camila works, inside The Masquerade Hotel & Casino.
like Edgar Allen Poe!
She told me the club’s name was a play on Edgar Allen Poe’s Masque of the Red Death,
oh yeah there you go 😂
“It can’t be stupid,” I suddenly tell him, aloud. He gives me another weird look. I clarify, “The circus is art.” Which is nothing short of precious.
He actually laughs, and when I don’t share it, his smile fades. “Good God, you’re serious.” He mutters something under his breath like, Camila needs to stop bringing in strays.
His lips tic, and this time they really curve upward. “You have some demonic-looking eyes, myshka.” He stares right into them, and I barely graze over the foreign word myshka. “They’re nearly black.”
“If I’m a demon, then you must be the devil.” It may be the corniest thing I’ve ever said.
“Maybe I am,” he replies, very deeply. “And yet, here you are.” His gaze remains on me and only me. “And myshka…” His voice turns to liquid sex. “You can’t possess me, even if you tried.”
“Guess what, myshka?” The glow necklace and strobe lights swath him in deep red. “What…?” I hesitate. He stands. Towers, really. And he tilts my chin up. With grays like gunmetal skies, bearing down from up above, he says, “I choose you.”
“You know what I think of gymnasts?” Nikolai says lowly. I shake my head. “Straight-laced…” His hand glides along my spine. My pulse kicks up an extra notch. “Back rigid, legs locked upon landing.” His fingers brush the nape of my neck, and heat gathers across my skin. “Never split apart.”
I bet Thora that she can’t beat me in a handstand competition. A handstand competition? It nearly squashes my fears. I can do that. Easy. “One-handed,” Nikolai adds. Okay…that increases the difficulty. And he’s a guy, but I can beat him. Right? Yes you can, Thora James. Pom-poms are waving in my brain (Go, Thora, Go!) My own cheering squad.
The stupid thing: I don’t want to back out. I want to obtain his power. I want his magic and his confidence. Maybe it’s my competitive spirit or Vegas insanity, but I stay put. It’s like watching a tornado through the window, the windstorm blowing the curtains and peeling off the roof. I don’t disappear into the basement for safety. I watch in curiosity, to see how near it reaches. Leaving means never feeling the pull, never seeing the mighty force up close—never experiencing something that I’ll always re-envision. I’ll construct that tornado piece-by-piece, a replica of what it really was. A
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“Cheers, my demon.” His eyes never leave mine as he throws back the tequila.
“One shot. You don’t have to drink three.” Okay, maybe he does care about the mattress more than he lets on. “I can do three,” I tell him, nodding a few times to myself in encouragement. I want to at least try.
“I can get you a Diet Fizz as a chaser,” Nikolai says, “or a Fizz Life.”
Fizz!!!!!
“Vegas is going to swallow you whole, myshka.”
He’s like a rock that juts out of the ocean, the thing people cling to when they’re caught in an undertow. No matter how powerful a wave crashes against him, he’ll always just be.
“I am breathing.” He shoots me a look. “Breathe normally,” he clarifies. He places a hand right below my collarbones. His palm feels heavy, weighted, but it carries an electric current that zips through my nerves. “Match me, myshka.” He takes my hand and places it on his bare chest, his muscles unintentionally flexing beneath, warm on my skin.
“You said my nose,” I say, wishful thinking, I guess. He laughs. “No, myshka. I said your nipple.”
“Have you done this before?” I question. “Pierced a nipple, I mean.”
“On men, yes. On women, no.” He says, “You’ll be my first.” This lessens what little to no excitement I had. But he seems okay with the idea. “Most of my firsts are crossed off, so you’re lucky.” Lucky. “I think…that’s a strong word.” He rephrases, “I may remember you for a while, Thora.”
“Your eyes are black again,” he says casually, as though he’s not massaging my boob right now. “Thinking of sucking out my soul?” He actually asks this. A real question. His gray eyes penetrate mine for an answer. “No,” I whisper. “You already said that you’re the kind of guy who can’t be possessed.” “But you seem like a girl who’d try, even if it’s a losing battle.” All
“Every day,” he says lowly, “I hold a person’s life in my hands. The circus is based one-hundred percent off trust. I give it all to someone, and they give it all to me. I’m asking you, right now, to trust me.”
“Enjoy your time in Vegas, Thora. I truly hope that you swallow it before it swallows you.”
There was no intention or expectation that he’d ever see me again. Ever. In my entire life. I wonder how many people traverse through his world. How many he eats up and discards like fodder for his performance.
“Look at me, myshka,” he says lowly. I lift my gaze to his. “Don’t count your losses before you see the scoreboard.” While encouraging, he still looks agitated. “It’ll plague you with insecurities that aren’t worth your energy or emotions.”
His large hand cups my oval face, his thumb brushing my cheekbone. His frown darkens, and heat builds across my skin at one thought: what if he’s not acting? “Did someone hit you?” he asks lowly. His jaw muscles tic.
He is power. Man. And strength. He is charm and desire and indestructible things.
It’s easy to be confident in the face of average-standing competition. It’s hard to pretend you’re something greater in the face of someone who’s already beyond great.
And it’s this moment—tear-streaked with a toilet paper dispenser digging into my hip—that I wonder if I’m one of those foolish dreamers. The kind that believes they can sing when they’re so clearly out of pitch. The kind that believes they can dance when they have nothing more than two left feet.
What is life if it’s not in pursuit of the things we love? People search a lifetime to find one soul-bearing desire, and now I’m going to have to find two. Because I’m not good enough at the first. It’s devastating.
I’m clawing at something that doesn’t want me. And to say goodbye is like severing a part of me that I can’t easily replace....
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“I’m not a fucking butterfly,” he says under his breath. Louder, he snaps, “I hate everyone. Sure, I have people’s numbers, but only because they hang around and talk and talk and won’t shut up. I’m not a cardboard cutout that says: please dump your life story on me. But people fucking do it anyway.”
“I think you’re brave,” he tells me. “But there’s a greater chance this city will strip whatever innocence you have left before you succeed, Thora.” He tilts his head at me. “And there’s a good chance you’ll fail. I have trouble imagining a girl like you on the brink of misery in a city that doesn’t want her. So yes, I’m angry. But not at you.”
He tilts my chin up with two fingers, his eyes doing most of the smiling now, searching me. “What black eyes you have…” “All the better to devour you with.” That wasn’t me. I’m not that witty. Camila is back with a bigger, wider grin than she’s worn all night. “Are you two friends?” She radiates at that possibility. And I swear she glances at my nipple, recalling that he was the one who pierced me.
“I can figure it out. A few nights here won’t be that much.” “No, no,” she forces with giant eyes. “I would feel terrible if you had to spend your money because of this.” She reaches out and latches onto Nikolai’s wrist. “You’re friends with Thora, right?” “Best friends,” he says deeply. And he curves his strong arm around the slant of my hips. He tugs me to his side.
Nikolai’s hand rises to the back of my neck, a place he’s fond of touching, I’ve concluded. “You’re glaring at me,” he states. “This is my confused look.” I scrunch my face to relax the muscles. Frustrated, I give up the lame attempt. He’s trying hard not to smile. “Let’s go, my demon,” he says,
I snort, on accident. I cover my face with my hand. A serious face-palm. I’m feeling a lot lamer than usual. I mean, I know I’m half-lame most of the time, with flat comebacks and unintentional demonic glares. But I’m reaching new levels.
On the TV, four guys stand in the cold, surrounded by snow. One sneers, “You must be a real f**king idiot if you think we’d be okay with someone our age sleeping with our girlfriends’ seventeen-year-old little sister.” “She’s a model, man. We’ve spent nights at our friends’ flat—” The television blinks to black. Nikolai sets down the remote. “I hate that guy,” he says under his breath, referring to Julian, the show’s villain. My brows rise. “You watch Princesses of Philly?” It’s a guilty pleasure, only one season to keep rewatching.
squealing!!! 🥰🥰🥰
I don’t know why, but I feel insanely protective of Katya. Just by looking at her. She’s like broken glass in a world of steel and iron. I sense Nikolai studying me for a second, and when I turn to him, I know my thoughts are written on my face.
Nikolai breathes deeply, like he’s run a full marathon. He rubs his lips and then turns his head, searching almost. I’m surprised when his gray irises land on me, about ten feet away. He gestures to me with two fingers like come here.
“Do you need…a hug?” I internally cringe at how lame that probably seemed. The corner of his lip tics upward, barely.
“I can wait here if you want.” “I don’t want that,” he tells me. “I’d rather you join me. Don’t ask me why.” He shakes his head a couple times. “Because I still don’t have an answer.”
Part of me questions whether he sees me as a sibling. Like another Timo and Katya and Luka to fret over. It worries me. Because in no way do I want to saddle this guy with more stress. That’s not my intention by staying in Vegas. If that’s the case, I can step out of his world. “Your eyes are black,” he notes, his lips downturned. “If you want to stay—” “Do you think of me as a sister?” I suddenly ask. “Is that why I’m here?
It’s one of those moments that I just wonder—how did I end up right here in my life? In Vegas. With a fourth generation artist. It’s one of those surreal moments that I don’t want to take back, even if it’s confusing and muddled and gray.
I feel his fingers beneath my chin. He tilts my head, so that I irrefutably meet his powerful gaze. I see the answer in them. Before he even says it. “No, Thora.” His hand slides to the back of my neck, each fingertip hot. His grasp protective.
Nikolai’s thumb skims my cheek, like I’m worthy of more affection.
“To Hex,” I tell the taxi driver, like in the movies. How the badass girl just controls her own fate. And then Nikolai says, “I already gave him the address.” There’s a smile in his voice. Nice one, Thora. “I’m a work in progress,” I say softly, more to myself. He wraps his muscular arm around my shoulders. “We all probably are.”
“I change my mind,” I say. “I don’t want to have the devil as a best friend.” “So says my demon.”
“Do you ever quit?” he asks me, his tone serious. Softly, I say, “I can’t.” “Why? Even if everyone tells you that you don’t possess the right amount of talent, you’d keep trying?” “Because I love it,” I say like there is no other option. In my bones, there isn’t. I feel like I’m fighting for my happiness. And no one else can sense it or see it but me. “You’re cursed then,” he tells me. “There are people with far greater talent, who don’t love it the way that you do.”
