Page 68 of My Lucky Star
“Admit it.” Cem held up the phone as evidence. “You don’t want to be friends any more than I do.” His voice was as dark and rich as his eyes fixed on mine. “Besides, as soon as we land in Istanbul, you’re my girlfriend. I think it’s best you stay in character. There will be people in my house. A lot of eyes on us.”
I swallowed a hard lump. “Why? Who do you live with?”
“Emir’s place is so far from the city it makes no sense for him to sleep there, most of the time. And my parents use the annex. I had it built for them. I have a cook and a cleaner, but they don’t live there.
“Wow. That’s a lot of eyeballs. From what Emir said, I thought we’d stay at your house. How’s that going to work? Do we tell them what’s going on?”
Cem bit his lip, casting an angry look at his brother, who seemed to have fallen asleep. “Emir may have left out some details. We can’t tell anyone, it’s not safe. I think we have to make it look like you live elsewhere, like Burcu does. We’ll probably go to a hotel and only visit my house.”
Panic constricted my windpipe. “But... I can’t pretend to be Burcu to your parents! It’ll take them two seconds to figure out I don’t speak Turkish and that’ll be that.”
Cem scratched his beard, looking away. “We’ll come up with a story. I’m sure Emir’s already thought of something. We’ll tell them you’re sick or something. We don’t have to stay at the house. It’s probably best if we don’t.”
“Did your family ever meet Burcu in person?”
“No. I never brought her home. We spent most of our time on set or met in town. Mom watched the show, but that’s it. Her parents didn’t like us together and we didn’t get to the ‘meet the family’ thing. Have you ever brought a boyfriend home?”
“No.”
I peeled the foil cover off the uninspiring in-flight meal of chicken and pasta. Squeezing every drop out of the lemon wedge provided, I thought about the last two boyfriends I’d seen almost back-to-back in Auckland before my move. They’d been actors, a professional hazard it seemed, and chasing their own dreams that ranked far higher than me in their lives. The first one, Wes, had gotten a leading role in a reality show, shot to fame and abandoned me for someone even more famous than him. Climbing the ladder.
The second one, Jake, had been as unknown as me, but with huge aspirations. I hadn’t been part of his plan, but we looked good together, good enough that a public relationship gave us both a social boost. I may have hoped for more, but I’d settled for less. It was easier to focus on my own dreams. That way, we were two people on parallel paths, and as long as those paths aligned, we could go together. But I knew he wouldn’t change his course for me, so I kept mine.
“Tell me about your last boyfriend,” Cem urged, seeing me deep in thoughts.
My throat tightened and I rinsed down a mouthful of dry pasta with champagne. I hadn’t expected to share personal details. His maybe, but not mine. I wasn’t the interesting one.
I understood the physical attraction, sort of. He’d been in a foreign land with no other prospects, and I looked like someone he’d once loved. But if he only wanted to sleep with me, he didn’t need to know me. Sexual attraction thrived well on its own without any backstory, probably more so.
“What are we doing, twenty questions?” I joked, clearing my throat.
“I’m going to need more than twenty.” He looked at me so sincerely and I had to laugh.
“It’s an old parlor game.”
“Okay, we can play it later, but first, tell me about your last boyfriend. I want to know why you left him.”
“What makes you thinkIlefthim?”
“You seem like the kind to run away.”
His words gave me a tiny gut punch.
“Well, I didn’t. I told him I was moving back to Napier and taking this job. I asked him what he wanted to do. That was the last time we talked.”
Cem studied my face, like trying to read between the lines. “Did you give him that speech about how billions of people fail and dreams are toxic?”
“I love how you sum it up.” I pulled a face. “And yes, I may have said something to that effect. It was like an... awakening, you know? Like some people find religion or go organic or something.”
“Yeah. Except you decided to throw your passion in the bathwater—”
“You’re still not using that phrase right, it’s—”
“Don’t care. So, you told your boyfriend you were abandoning your dreams because they never come true. Then what happened?”
“Then...” I sighed, forcing the words out of my mouth. “He accused me of shitting onhisdreams and stormed out.”
Cem’s face morphed into the picture of glee. “Wow. What a baby. Did you notice how maturely and respectfullyIreacted to your insane rant?”
