Page 106 of Oh, Flutz!

I check my phone.2:43.At this point, I might be as wrecked as Katya tomorrow, and I didn’t even drink four rounds. Thank god I’d had an unexpected stroke of productivity and packed early. “I gotta go now,” I whisper, reaching over to pull a strand of hair out of her mouth.

“Mm-hmm.” She opens her eyes slightly, lifting her hand to pat my cheek absentmindedly.“Solnishko,” she murmurs drowsily, before her eyes flutter shut and her arm drops back onto the bed.

I have no idea what that means, and I’m too tired to care. I tuck her arm under the sheets and stand up, rubbing at my head and walking over to the door.

“Goodnight,” I whisper, not that she can hear me. Then I close the door, very softly, and I make my way home.

THE NEXT DAY

NEW YORK, NEW YORK—SOMEWHERE IN THE BROOKLYN TUNNEL

If I'd thought PracticeKatya was bad, she has nothing on Travel Katya. Travel Katya is an actual psychopath.

Which shouldn’t have surprised me, really, because I know better than most anyone how much of a control freak she is; and international travel—especially when there’s a major competition lying in wait on the other side—is enough to drive anyone crazy even when they aren’t already predisposed to being a maniac.

And if I’d thought the fact that (for once) we didn’t have to worry about competing once we got there was going to make her chill, I was also sorely mistaken. I could still hear the frantic pacing and bilingual cursing as she tried to figure out how to get a seat change. Meanwhile, I was fulfilling my civic duty as a citizen of The Rest of the State by waxing poetic to anyone who would listen on how overrated New York City is. Although you’re just never gonna get hot dogs as good as those horrible ones street vendors sell out of their carts, right next to the mountains of garbage bags crawling with rats and bacteria. Man. I would love one of those hot dogs right now.

Sadly, there’s no time, because we have three days to prepare for the New Year’s Eve show at Bryant Park we’re here for.

“Do you have the guards?” Katya demands again, rifling through her wallet after checking once again that we have all our papers. I roll my eyes.

“For the millionth time, yes. I have them.”

“Because I handed both of ours to you to put away, and I don’t know if youactuallyput them away—”

I suppress the urge to shake her until she’s sane, but instead I keep my mouth shut and produce the guards from my bag (mine blue, hers red).

Relief washes over her, but only for a second. “And what about the—”

I lean forward in my seat so that the driver can hear me. “Excuse me, how much longer?”

“Are you really goingto drag me to this?” I groan, and Katya doesn’t reply, instead continues to literally drag me down the sidewalk, yanking me through a mass of tourists and making me nearly trip over a discarded stack of newspapers.

“Slow down!”

My partner finally screeches to a stop. “Here,” she declares, and I drop my shoulders, panting.

“Okay, now can you take your picture so we can go? Lee’s going to kill us if we’re late to rehearsal.”

Katya glares at me. “Okay, first of all, this was Alexandra’s request, so really you should be trying to be a good brother and fulfill it for her.”

“I am being a good brother. I just walked with you all the way to Greenwich Village, like two full miles out of the way—“

“Drama queen!” Katya sings, and I ignore her.

“For one picture, with astreet sign—“

“You just don’t get it,” she says, shaking her head in faux disappointment, and I roll my eyes.

“Of course I get it. I’ve lived with a top-one-percent listener for the last fifteen years, a lot of it gets passed through osmosis.”

“Then stop whining and get over there.”

“Okay, okay!” I take a step closer to the sign, then stop when I see Katya starting to cross the street. “Wait, where you going? Don’t you want me to take the picture of you?”

“I’m not posing, you are.”

“I’m what now?”

---