“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s not his scene. Too busy. Too loud. He prefers the sound of birds.” Gus laughs like it’s not an issue. I expect him to expand on it but instead he pivots back to Dubrovnik, saying, “Some ofThe Last Jediwas filmed in Old Town apparently. I’d like to see the comparison.”
But now he has me intrigued. “You don’t see your family much then?” I ask. “You know, with you being a jet-setting popstar and all.”
“No, honestly, I see them maybe twice a year if I’m lucky. Christmas is the big one. I’ve done well at getting home for Christmas Day most years since my career blew up. Mysister pops up a lot more, but that’s because she dabbles in the celebrity lifestyle and enjoys using my fame to get herself into parties and events.”
“You make her sound like a diva.”
Gus snorts. “Well, she’s notnota diva.”
I ponder what it would be like to be the younger sister of a famous popstar and can barely fathom it. “How old was she when Just4Summer really took off?”
He cringes. “Twelve. Maybe thirteen. I was sixteen when we were picked up by the label. It wasn’t until a year later when we guest starred on a McBusted tour that our lives really took off.”
“So, she would’ve been young. That’s a lot for a girl to deal with. You know, alongside puberty, periods, boys and all the drama that surrounds you at that time.”
“You seem to know a lot about it.”
I laugh. “Well, despite the rumours, I was once a teenager. Plus, I practically raised my three younger sisters.”
“I see. I bet they were lucky having had you to watch out for them.”
My lips tip downwards before I can stop them, so I’m glad Gus can’t see my face. “Oh, I’m not sure they think so. I’m told I was rather mean.”
“You? Mean?I refuse to believe it.”
“Ha. Ha.I’ll have you know, raising them brats is the reason I’ll likely die thirty years before they do, purely from the stress of it all. I swear some of their meltdowns altered my chemical makeup. The least they deserved was a littlemean.” This has Gus cracking up.
“Tell me about them,” he says.
“What do you want to know?”
“What are they like?”
I sniff, unsure where to start. “Bitchy. Clever. Awful. Funny. Irritating. Beautiful. Intense. Ambitious.” I laugh. “They’re a lot. Millie is the youngest – she’s the most intense and would probably scream for a solid five minutes if she ever found out I actually hung out with you. I will tell her one day. I’ll save it for her hen do or something.
“Abby is the second youngest. She’s very sweet but sometimes to her own detriment. If I want to talk to one that will use an ounce of empathy towards me, I tend to call her.
“And Gemma is only a year and a bit younger than me. She’s suffering from some kind of daddy issues; I can’t work out where they’ve stemmed from since it was our mum we lost when we were teens.”
It falls out of my mouth before I realise, I’ve said it. It’s a weird one; I don’t love bringing up Mum’s death because it makes people uncomfortable and they don’t usually know what to say and then I feel guilty that they feel weird.
“Sorry, too much info.”
Gus stops in his tracks and turns to face me. “How is that too much info? I feel like we’ve barely scraped the surface of Sara.” I stop a few steps in front of him, glancing up at his scrunched forehead and soft eyes. “I’m sorry to hear about your mum. Must’ve been tricky to lose her at that age and have felt so responsible for your sisters.”
“Dad was around. He worked long hours as a fireman, but hewasaround. It wasn’tjustme.”
“But still,” he says. “That sounds hard.”
Ugh. Kill me. A rising panic grows in my lungs. I don’t like pity. Pity makes my skin crawl. I am fine. I am strong.I am not a victim. And I especially don’t want a man to see me as any type of weak, so I change the conversation.
“How we doing on time?”
I know he almost asks a follow up question. He looks like he isn’t done with his Sara scrutiny but then his eyes are drawn to his watch. “Slightly ahead of schedule. Just gone half three.”
“Come on then,” I say, nodding ahead. “No time to spare.”
