Page 23 of King of Envy

I wiped my palm against my thigh, hoping it would stave off the tingles. It didn’t.

“How did you know?” I assumed he’d held on to me when I tried to pull away because he knew we would hit another patch of rough air.

When you fly enough, you sense these things.

That seemed like a stretch, but honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he possessed supernatural powers. There was something unnervingly forbidding about him.

To my surprise, Vuk stayed beside me despite the pilot’s all-clear. His gaze slid from my sweaty face to my tight-knuckled grasp on my knee.

Like I said, I didn’t deal well with turbulence.

We were landing in an hour or so, and it would take that long for me just to recover.

You’re afraid of flying, but you chose modeling.It wasn’t a question.

“Chose” was a strong word, but I let it slide.

“I’m not afraid. I’m uneasy.” Okay, sometimes I was afraid, butmostof the time, I was uneasy. “It usually helps when I have someone to talk to. They keep my mind off the fact that we’re trapped in a little tin box in the sky because some genius decided it would be a good mode of transportation.”

A hint of amusement glided through Vuk’s eyes.What do you talk about?

“Anything. Everything. Movies, memes, current affairs.” Then, because I couldn’t resist, “How some people blow so hot and cold you don’t know where you stand with them.”

Vuk ignored that last part and fixated on the last topic I would’ve expected from him.Memes.

“Yes. Like the Kermit the Frog memes? Or the guy blinking nervously?” I spent a lot of time waiting and doom scrolling at casting calls, so I was well-versed in internet jokes.

Whenever I found a good one, I sent it to my sister, but she was usually so busy with her kids or her nursing job that she didn’t respond until days later.

I sent a funny video to Jordan once and spent half an hour trying to explain the joke to him. I never sent him one again.

Vuk slanted a sideways glance at me.I know what memes are. A pause.What do you and Jordan talk about when you fly together? Specifically.

The short answer: we didn’t. I tried to calm myself by reading my favorite fashion and perfume blogs while he worked. I couldn’t tell Vuk that, though.

“Family.” It was the first thing that popped up in my mind. “Our families,” I clarified. “And, um, how they’re going to be one family soon.”

I internally cringed. I sounded like an idiot.

If Vuk agreed, he didn’t show it.Tell me about your family.

I paused, surprised to realize how long it’d been since I talked about my family with anyone outside of it.

“They live in D.C.,” I said. “I have two older siblings, Liya and Aaron. Liya is an ER nurse at Thayer Hospital, and Aaron works at the restaurant my parents own. They’re grooming him to take over after they retire in a few years.”

What kind of cuisine?

“Ethiopian. They’re from Addis Ababa, and they opened the restaurant when I was a teenager because they missed the taste of home. There’s a huge Ethiopian community in D.C. so there were already quite a few restaurants, but none of them can make sambusas the way my father makes them.”

I smiled wistfully at the memory of our weekly Friday night dinners, when the whole house was redolent with the aroma of chicken and spices. Liya, Aaron, and I would bicker over our chores while my father cooked and my mother set the table.

We would often have guests over too. Our house was a revolving door of aunts, uncles, cousins, and family friends, many of whom broughttheirfriends for a taste of my father’s famous cooking.

I loved New York, but in D.C., I had a community. After six years in Manhattan, I was still struggling to find my footing.

I called and texted my parents often, but it wasn’t the same.

“We have a big extended family,” I added. “They live up and down the East Coast, but every holiday season, we have a big reunion at my grandparents’ place in Maryland.”

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