Page 49 of The Failed Audition

“You’re drunk,” I breathe, half hoping he’s not.

“I’m nearly sober.” He adds, “Every January, AE has auditions to find new talent, regardless if a show is new or not.Most contracts are renewed and cancelled every new year, so you have a better shot to fill a role then.”

January.

That’s seven months away from now. He’s willing to train me forseven months.“You don’t have time,” I say. “You have a new partner—”

“If I don’t train you,” he says each word like it’s uniquely important, “you will fail, Thora. You’renotgood enough. I can’t put it more plainly than that. I’m sorry.”

I want to be the better person and not accept it—knowing how much he has on his plate. But this is a dream offer. He has so much experience, the kind that I need to survive in this industry. “Why help me?” I ask softly. I expect him to say,I don’t have an answer.

“I admire your courage. I know what you’ve given up to be here. I know the kind of artist it takes to land a role. I know that you won’t receive one on your own. And I imagine you, myshka, two years from now, working at Phantom with the same aspirations, the same dreams, in the same place where you are now. It’s wasted courage. And wasted love. You shouldn’t have to waste those things.”

I’m speechless.

And overwhelmed. When someone reaches out and gives you a hand—for no other reason than to see your success—it’s powerful. And rare.

He wipes beneath my eye with his thumb. “I’d rather feed your hunger than watch you starve, and you’re foolish if you say no.”

I shake my head, another tear slipping. “I wasn’t going to.”

He cups my jaw, tilting my head up so I stare right into him. “Good.”

4:54a.m.

My head spins. Buzzed. No wait—I teeter, sans heels, on my bare soles. The sidewalk hot, even in the summer night. Definitely beyond buzzed. I drank past my limit. They just kept comin’ and I kept grabbin’. I think I was dazed and confused by Nikolai’s offer.

“It was a real offer?” I ask him, his hands firmly on the crook of my hips beside me. I think I slurred a bit of that. But he smiles in my foggy vision and mutters out a response. I only caught: …again… I’ve asked it multiple times?

I’m the sloppy drunk.

And judging by his roaming hands, he’s the flirty one.

It’s everything I imagined in life.

At least my sarcasm is internally on point right now. My mind is amused. I think we’re waiting for a cab, his cousins—lots of cousins—and Timo surrounding us.

We’re back in a group.

It’s hot.

I shed my coat and sling it over my forearm. It whips out of my possession and into Nikolai’s. He blazes me with his intensity, searing trails down my corseted waist, pushed-up cleavage and my thighs in black fish-net. He’s thinking about sex. I’m thinking about sex.

We’re all thinking about sex here.

“Those eyes…” I point a finger at him, my breath shallow. “…are bad.”

His lips rise. And all I hear from his response ismyshka. My nickname, whatever that nickname means, has never soundedmore sexual off his lips. And then his hands fall low to my hipbones, too close to more sensitive places.

He knows this.

Right?

I rest my palms on his sculpted abs. “You’re touching me.”

“I’ve touched you before,” he says huskily.

Truths.

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