Luce di Stella • Kenan Yildiz

Chapter 4: A Very Long Plane Ride

🎶 Espresso — Sabrina Carpenter 🎶

"Welcome aboard, Miss" the stewardess greeted me friendly and I shot her a nod and smile before turning to the seats, we were the last ones to board and as usual, I had President Ferrero in tow who couldn't stop brabbling and sucking up my ass. And now I had to endure him for a 13-hour flight - I would have preferred to be eaten alive by alligators.

I smiled when I saw Dean sitting in the tenth row or so, but that quickly faded when I saw Kenan next to him. Guy was a pain in the ass and always third-wheeling when Dean insisted to drag him along. And the guy was getting bolder, two days ago when us three had gone for a run, he had told me I looked pretty and I felt him check out my ass every time I ran in front of him. He was so unhinged, he didn't care about a thing in the world except for himself - I could never.

"Shall we talk about our sponsor appointments in the US?" Gianluca asked, leaning to me as the plane left the ground and I leaned back onto my seat, my eyes wide open in horror and actually, a part of me hoped that we would crash immediately, so that I wouldn't have to go over sponsorship appointments with fucking Gianluca. But I wasn't a good actor either and couldn't fake being asleep, so I let him brabble for three whole hours. But if the pilot didn't want me to jump out of the plane in the next ten minutes, I'd have to escape.

"Will you excuse me for a minute?" I asked Gianluca and stood up, walking back until I found an easy victim.
"Weah, the President wants to talk to you" I told our new American signing.
"Me?" he asked confusedly, pointing at his chest.
"Yeah, just tell him how your first day was and how you're getting along with your teammates" I said and he furrowed his eyebrows but stood up nonetheless, making his seat next to McKennie free for me.

"The President didn't want to talk to him, right?" Weston chuckled.
"No, he's a fucking pain in the ass, I don't know how to survive ten more hours" I sighed and turned to Dean who was sitting on the other side of the aisle in our row.
"As if you can't tell him to shut up" Cambiaso chuckled from the seat in front of me.
"Just like you did with Gavi" Chiesa chimed in from next to him.

"You did what?" Weston asked me.
"You don't know the story?" Dean asked incredulously and leaned forward. That made Kenan visible for me again and our eyes crossed for a split second, before I diverted my gaze to Chiesa who started gossiping.
"Nations League game last year, we lost against Spain and that made poor Gavi confident enough to ask for her number - she turned him down quicker than a politician changes his mind" Fede told everyone around him and they laughed.

"How can you say no to Gavi? Even I watch his TikTok edits" Andrea Cambiaso gushed and I sent him a weird look.
"I have enough on my plate by having to deal with all of you, I don't have time for an extra hormonal teenage football player" I huffed and crossed my arms in front of my chest. Thankfully, Timothy returned now and changed the conversation.

"He didn't want to talk to me, did he?" he asked me with an amused look on his face and I shook my head slowly.
"Sorry" I mumbled and stood up from his seat.
"Nah, don't worry, I get it - I'm the new guy" he chuckled and sat back down again. Unfortunately, Gianluca stood up from his seat and let his eyes wander to the back, probably looking for me. Dean dragged me down just in time, pulling on my arm and letting me fall onto him and his neighbour - my face straight up onto that area of Kenan.

"Fuck's sake!" I hissed, but Kenan just grinned and grabbed the back of my head pushing it away and down onto the ground while Dean quickly covered his and his neighbour's legs with a blanket, including me on the floor in front of their seats.
"Dean, have you seen Bea? I wanted to go over with this proposal for the next board meeting with her..." Gianluca asked, apparently having walked back the aisle to try and find me.
"Erm... uh... eh..." Dean stammered and I cursed under my breath - that guy was such a bad liar.
"She ran to the toilets before. Had a huge red stain on her ass, must have gotten her period. I doubt that she'll want to come out like that until the plane lands" Kenan cut in.

What the fuck, dude?! But fuck yeah, that was one hell of an excuse.
"Yildiz! That's not how you talk about a board member!" Gianluca scowled him.
"Chill, it's nothing bad! She's also just a girl, not just a board member" he shot back and I raised my eyebrow. This guy had some confidence, wow. And thanks for seeing that, Kenan, although I'd never tell that to your face because I needed to be seen as the board member to be respected around here. No one respects a little 19-year-old girl for nothing.

"Fine. Dean, take care of her until we're at our hotel, I don't want her to feel uncomfortable in this condition. And you, Yildiz - pay attention to your language around her. She's a lady." Gianluca said sternly before I heard footsteps again.
"Hello, lady" Kenan chuckled as he pulled up the blanket to see my very angry face on the floor between his legs.
"You'll pay for this" I hissed at him and shoved me aside while squeezing myself into the middle of him and Dean.

"But that was one hell of an excuse" Dean huffed and nodded at Kenan with a thankful look, I could literally see the tiny beads of sweat on his forehead - he hated to have to lie.
"Great. And what do we do for nine hours now that I'm stuck here between you two knights in shining armour?" I asked sarcastically and glared sideways to both of them.
"Movies" Kenan replied and shrugged.
"You guys each have a screen and I sit in the middle, now how will that work?" I asked and rolled my eyes.

"You two can huddle up and watch one, I want to sleep" Dean announced and took out his travel pillow with which he looked like an 80-year-old granddad.
"Your choice, Beatrice" Kenan said as he pointed at the movie selection on the screen in front of him and I shuddered a bit at how my name fell from his lips. It felt so different than when anybody else said it. I scooted a bit closer to him while somehow not trying to touch him, and tapped around on his screen.

"This one" I said and clicked on my favourite Italian movie: Bianca come il latte, rossa come il sangue. He gave me one of his AirPods and I smiled at him.
"In Italian? Fuck's sake" Kenan huffed as it started and I chuckled.
"You need to practice. And it's also set in Turin, so take mental notes of the places" I told him and grinned at which he sent me a goofy side-eye. My heart gave me a weird feeling inside - was that... a flutter? No, definitely not, it was just the altitude or whatever.

The movie is absolutely shattering, and I think Kenan didn't quite see this coming. It's about a guy in love with a girl from his school, but there's also a girl in love with him there. The girl he's in love with has leukaemia and he wants to donate bone marrow to her, but isn't a match. She then lies to him that they had found another donor in France and tells him she'll be away for two months and to go be with the girl who's in love with him, because they clearly share some deep affection for each other. But then he gets called up by the hospital to donate his bone marrow to someone else and there he finds out that... well, I'm not going to spoiler it for you but it's clearly heartbreaking.

However, the movie makes up to the tears you have to shed by using my all-time favourite song Come un pittore for the closing scene, shot over the rooftops of Turin.
"That was a really beautiful movie" Kenan mumbled when the credits started rolling.
"It is, right? Love movies are so fucking unrealistically beautiful" I sighed.
"You don't believe in that one epic, great love like in the movies?" he asked with an amused look on his face.
"Of course not, I'm too much of a realist for believing in that" I huffed.
"Well, I do" he said and shuffled in his seat, smiling at the screen in front of him. Pah, what a girl.