I stare at him wide eyed. “Why did you nearly punch him?”
“He was texting my girlfriend.”
“What?” I say, gobsmacked.
“Yeah.”
“But weren’t you like sixteen?”
He nods. “Yes. But I was in love with her.”
“Oh. Well. That’s cute.”
He laughs, shaking his head. “Unfortunately, it turns out she was in love with Jax all along. She was just using me to get to him.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. To be fair, I got over it very quickly.”
“Always a sign of a deep, endearing love.”
He elbows me gently. “Mywhat ifled me to what I would be doing now, if I hadn’t become a popstar.”
“And that’s photography?”
He shakes his head. “Honestly? I probably would have ended up doing carpentry with my dad and that would have been totally fine with me. But I loved photography, and art, growing up. After all the disposables, my parents bought me this snazzy camera for my thirteenth birthday, and I took it everywhere with me. So, I’m trying it out again. And I’m enjoying it. I have a laptop back on the cruise. I plan on editing what I have so far.”
“So you want to explore it professionally?”
Gus sniffs. “I don’t think anyone is going to take me seriously. I’m just exploring the person I might’ve been. Eleven years of my life have been committed to music, entertainment, drama. I’m not sure how much longer I have in me for all of that.”
This piques my interest. I haven’t really asked him about his career much; I get the impression celebrities get bored of being asked the same questions again and again. But now Iknow how open he is, I indulge myself. “Was there always drama?”
He groans. “Always. Always, always, always. If it wasn’t me, it was one of the boys. If it wasn’t them – literally, we could donothing– we’d be dragged into something we weren’t even involved with.”
“Yeah. I couldn’t do that.”
“What do you mean?”
“The speculation. The drama. The invasion of privacy. I could never be famous or date someone famous. It would send me wild.”
Gus holds onto that for a long moment. I realise what I’ve said and it’s too late to take it back.
Finally, he says, “I have nothing to compare it to, really. Because this all started when I was so young, but relationships are tricky to navigate when you’re in the spotlight. In some ways, I’m spoilt for choice. In other ways, I find the people whowantto date me, want to date me because ofwhatI am and notwhoI am.”
“That’s really tough,” I say, scrunching up my face.
“It is. And it sucks for me. They want Gus from Just4Summer. They don’t wantme.”
“And those are different people?”
He shrugs. “No, I mean… I’m not faking it when I’m on stage. I’m not a different person. Two sides of the same coin and all that. But I do fear that one day, when that all fades away, and I’m a nobody, there’ll be no one left who’ll want me for me.”
I press my lips together thoughtfully. “Well, at least you’ll be rich.” Gus throws his head back with laughter. I’m sure he’s about to correct me on that matter but wearrive at the port office and wait in the queue.
There’re a few couples and a family ahead of us, but once it’s our turn, I say, “Good afternoon. Do you have any idea when The Adriatic Angel is docking in Kotor please? We missed it in Dubrovnik.”
The woman behind the desk speaks fluent English. I know because I’ve listened to her converse with the last few people. German and French too. But now she blinks at me, her expression wary.
