“Oh, come on,” I pressed. “You must have something.”
“Fine. When I was a teenager, I worked at this burger joint. There was a woman who’d always order a cheeseburger… but with no cheese.”
I blinked. “So… a hamburger?”
“Not in her world.” He grinned. “She insisted it was a cheeseburger,just without the cheese.If you called it a hamburger, she’d lose her mind. One day, someone accidentally put cheese on her burger. She flipped out like we’d committed a crime against humanity. She waved it around, screaming, ‘Cheese. Cheese. It’s a scandal.’ Then she hurled it at me like it was a grenade.”
I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. “What happened after that?”
“She came back the next week and ordered a veggie burger. Want to guess what she wanted on it?”
“No…”
“Cheese.” He threw up his hands in mock despair. “Full circle.”
I wiped my eyes, still giggling. “You need to write a memoir.Cheeseburgers: The Luke Fisher Origin Story.”
Luke smirked. “I think I’ll leave the writing to you.”
“Oh, yeah, because my glamorous life screams ‘bestseller,’” I teased.
His expression shifted from teasing to something more serious. “No. You should be writing full time. You’ve got the stories, the voice—it’s all there.”
I rolled my eyes playfully. “My bank account has a different opinion. I mean, I’ve tried to write. I’ve written novels and submitted short stories to contests and magazines, pitched ideas to agents, and entered competitions. You name it, I’ve done it. And every single time, it’s the same: rejection. Sometimes they’re polite. Sometimes they’re brutal. ‘Not the right fit.’ ‘Lacks originality.’ I once got a form rejection where they didn’t even bother to spell my name right.”
Luke winced. “I saw. That’s rough.”
“It is. I just haven’t found my niche. Romance? I can’t make it work. Fantasy? Nope. Thriller? Not my forte. And I’ve made a deal with myself that I’ll keep going until I hit a hundred rejections. Then, if no one sees something in my writing by then, I’ll give up. I’ll accept it’s not meant to be and move on.”
His brow furrowed as if I’d said something deeply offensive. “A hundred rejections? That’s your finish line? What number are you at now?”
I winced. “Ninety-nine. I figure one hundred is a fair number—enough to say I gave it everything. At some point, maybe I need to listen to what the universe is telling me.”
For a moment, he didn’t respond, just looked at me with those piercing blue eyes. Finally, he cleared his throat. “I bet this story you’re writing now is your masterpiece.”
I smiled, something bittersweet tugging at my heart. “You’re awfully optimistic for someone who doesn’t know if I’m any good.”
Luke shrugged, a slow grin spreading across his face. “Maybe. Or maybe I know talent when I see it. Even if it’s still waiting for its moment.”
I looked away, trying to keep the warmth rising in my chest from showing too much. I snuggled the blanket tighter around me. “What about you? Is acting your calling?”
His expression shifted, a flicker of vulnerability breaking through his polished exterior. “Acting? Yeah, it’s my thing. But the fame circus? That’s a whole different story. It’s like walking a tightrope, especially with relationships. Topher’s always been an exception, probably because he knew me before all of this. But figuring out who’s there for you and who’s just along for the ride. It’s tricky. Especially when it’s family.”
I noticed the hesitation in his voice, the unspoken words hanging between us. “Your parents?” I prompted gently.
“Not my dad—he was different. He was there for me until the end. But others… let’s just say their support comes with conditions.”
I didn’t press, sensing the rawness of the subject. Instead, I shifted gears. “You’ve been all over the world, right? What’s your favorite place?”
He chuckled, the tension easing. “Honestly? Wherever my shoes are at the moment. The beauty of my job is that it’s like having a worldwide plane ticket. Sometimes, I even pick roles based on the shoot location. Settling down in one place? That’s not my style.”
I grinned. “Let me guess: you’ve got properties scattered across the globe?”
He shrugged, a faint smile playing on his lips. “A house in LA, the place in France. A penthouse in Manhattan. Investments, mostly. Topher’s idea. But roots? Nah, not for me. What about you? What’s your favorite place?”
That one was easy. “Destin, Florida. Every summer, it was just my mom and me. We’d rent this tiny condo with just a bedroom, a bathroom, nothing fancy. But it sat right on the beach. She stretched her budget to the limit to make those trips special. The last time we went…” My throat tightened. “It was just a few months before she passed away.”
I hesitated, feeling the words catch in my chest. “In a way, that trip led to her passing.”
