Page 139 of The Failed Audition

Timo looks up, his face splotched red and slick with tears. “You bastard…you made me hate you growing up!” His voice trembles with grief. “I thought you didn’t want to be here. You could’ve at leastactedlike you gave a shit.”

“You mean all those nights I drove around New York City, searching for you? Helping you with your homework assignments, making sure you had lunch, spotting you at thegym when I should’ve been training—is that not giving a shit?” He’s still strict, severe. He has trouble softening for them completely, even when Timo is crying.

Timo buries his face in his hands again.

Luka crawls over to his little brother and he wraps his arm around his shoulder. Then he meets Nikolai’s gaze. “Thanks.” My heart fills. “For choosing us.”

I engrain Nikolai’s expression for life, a look measured in deep, familial love. As though the galaxy parted, just for one moment, to show another blindingly beautiful universe. He responds with a Russian sentiment, sounding tender.

Katya whispers, “I can’t even imagine…”

Timo lifts his head. “I can,” he says to Nikolai. “I couldn’t…I needed you. Growing up, I needed you.”

“And you had me,” Nikolai says lowly.

Timo exhales deeply, his eyes traveling over the pies. And then he looks to me and back to Nikolai. “I need you to not worry about me anymore. I want you to live the life that you gave up for us. Can you do that?”

“I didn’t give up my life,” Nikolai explains. “You’re a part of it, Timo. The good and the bad. You’re not keeping me from living, brother.”

Luka squeezes Timo’s shoulder, and Timo nods a few times. He says something in Russian, that I’m certain meansI love you, or a form of the endearment.

Nikolai replies with the same words.

Then Timo nudges the barely eaten pumpkin pie towardsme.“You be the judge, Thora James.”

This one gesture somehow unwinds the coiled air. Alone in a gym, surrounded by pies and four siblings who maddeningly, unequivocally love each other—it’s a moment I won’t forget.

Even if I have to leave their world, I promise myself that I’ll always remember this. Because when I grow old and gray, I can only hope to have a family as passionate and faithful as theirs.

ACT FORTY-THREE

Living with a guy is strange.

It’s not a sleepover, where you legitimately know you’ll return home after a brief weekend, back to your own shower, your own sink, your own bed. It’s been about a month, and I’ve justbarely accepted that I share all of those with another person. A male person. A guy.

The causal nights—where I return from the gym, he returns from Amour—are the most interesting. There are no boozy 3 a.m. make-out sessions on these nights, no flirty drunk tendencies and my sloppy drunk movements.

It’s just…normal.

On the bed, I flip throughOne Last Kiss, Pleasefor possibility the thirtieth time, the spine falling apart. My head is on Nikolai’s chest while he talks on the phone in Russian. Almost every night Sergei and Peter call, just to stay in touch with Nikolai, even if they can’t see each other in person.

I dog-ear one of my favorite pages, lines already marked with yellow highlighter. And then the book is suddenly swiped from my hands.

“Hey,” I say, watching Nikolai skim the page. His phone is shut off.

He’s reading your book, Thora.

My heart spasms, and I spring to action, straddling him to try and retrieve the paperback. “That’s mine…” I have no other defense besides this one. Lame.

He smiles that charming smile and tucks the book closer to his chest. “You intrigue me, myshka. Let me read.”

I gape. “You’re not a reader.”

He tilts his head. “And how do you know that?” He thinks he’s stumped me.

“Because…”Maybe he has stumped you, Thora.

His smile keeps growing, waiting for me to collect my words.

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