Page 18 of My Lucky Star
“Which one? This place is... far.” Emir rubbed his three-day stubble, bleary-eyed.
I raised my brow in a silent ‘duh’. “Was that a surprise to you? I thought you wanted to send me as far away as humanly possible.”
Emir almost smiled. “And you’re still alive. I’m impressed.”
“I’m not a week-old puppy.”
“No. Apparently, you’re the Turkish Jeff Bridges.” He gestured at my outfit.
I responded with a shit-eating grin, spreading my arms. “The Big Brown Lebowski.”
We’d started watching American movies together as I’d prepped for my stay in L.A., back when stardom had only been a fun dream – one I’d shared with Emir and no one else. He’d believed in me. He’d fought Dad to get me to L.A. and I’d disappointed both of them by coming back as unsuccessful as I’d been before.
I’d developed a passion, though, which carried me all the way to my first bigdizirole. Emir never stopped believing, even if he called me lazy and pushed me to try harder.
“Did you get my messages?” I asked, a little peeved that I hadn’t known about his arrival.
Emir pulled out his phone. “No, sorry. My phone stopped working when I left Turkey.”
“Fear not. I have a local SIM card. I can share my internet.”
Emir’s eyes flashed with suspicion. “How did you swing that? You haven’t been out there, have you? I told you to keep a low profile. You knowAskta Sanslisold to India and Mexico. There are immigrants here. Someone might recognize you.”
I threw him a tired look. “Chill. I haven’t been anywhere. I only talked to one person who came to the door. A location scout. She definitely didn’t recognize me. She wanted to take pictures of the hotel.”
“Really?” Emir turned around, as if taking in the surroundings for the first time, his brow furrowing. “Weird.”
“I know, but she was nice enough and let me use her internet and fetched me the SIM card. So, I let her take some pics. I stayed out of them, don’t worry.”
“Nice enough, huh?” Emir studied me for a moment. I could never hide anything from him. “She hot?”
I shrugged noncommittally. I hadn’t done anything wrong, or scandalous, at least on record. My jaw twitched as we entered a brief staring contest until Emir gave up.
“Any food?” he asked, bumping my shoulder as he pushed past me and into the kitchen.
I followed him. “Sure. But you have to prepare it yourself.”
Emir frowned over his shoulder. “I paid for that lady to cook for you.”
“I saw her once when I arrived. She hasn’t been back.”
“Seriously?”
“Technically, she did cook for me. I just wasn’t there when she did.” I opened the fridge and pointed at the foil trays. “Should we put one in the oven?”
Emir yawned, stretching his neck. “I need some sleep, but the plane food was like... miniature portions. For miniature people.”
An inch taller than my 6 feet, Emir wasn’t one of the miniature people.
“First, I need to figure out how to turn on the oven.” I fiddled with the knobs, looking back at Emir.
My brother scanned the kitchen, then flicked a small switch on the wall. The digital screen turned on and I sighed. I hadn’t been near a kitchen in years, not since I’d had to do my own cooking in L.A. Even then, I’d mostly opted for takeaways, or fasting.
Emir chucked the lasagna in the oven and I boiled the kettle to make some tea. More of the weak English crap. “How’s dad?” I asked, unwrapping the teabags.
“Still waiting for test results.”
“So, it might not be that bad?”
