Mine

Chapter Twenty-One

Everyone else in the room can see it...

"Uncle BoBo!!!!!" Alihan breaks free of Miray's hand and sprints across the grass to Boran who had pulled into the parking lot just a few minutes after Kubilay and Miray.

Miray's face burns even as her heart swells watching the little boy leap into his arms.

For a free unguarded moment, Boran scoops the little boy into his arms and holds him tight, eyes closed briefly before they meet Miray's over the boy's mop of curly hair. The gratitude in them nearly undoes her.

She hadn't gone to him the night of their phone call, nor the day after. He came to see her the morning before she left Paris to return home to offer her a ride to the airport. She'd said yes, thinking they would talk about what had happened but she was relieved that they didn't, if sad as well.

What had happened had been a stolen moment in time. Nothing had changed. She would go back to her safe life and good home for their little boy.

They'd talked about him, Alihan, on the way. "He's happy, right? He has a happy life?" Boran asked her, as if he knew the answer but needed to hear her say the words.

Miray wondered what he would have done if she'd said no. Would he have scooped her and Alihan up and taken them away with him? "Yes. He's happy. Kubilay is a wonderful father to him."

Boran nodded and at the last minute before she left him, he pulled her into his arms. "I'm not sorry. I love you," he whispered into her hair and let her go. She didn't know if he meant what they had done or the entirety of their relationship but she left him with a grief in her heart but a new resolve. She wasn't sure she understood it but knowing that he loved her and didn't regret what had happened gave her a certain kind of strength.

"You didn't come to our house in sooooo long! Mommy said it's cause you working in another country, but now your working here again and we gonna see each other all the time now cause we're gonna be in the same movie. I'm an actor now like Mommy and Daddy and like you too, did you know that?" Alihan rambles on grabbing Boran's hand.

Miray can see Kubilay's rigid expression out of the corner of her eye but she forces herself to keep her focus on Alihan and Boran.

"You remember me?" Boran asks and Miray can hear the little crack in his voice as he again lifts grateful eyes to her. "You were only a baby when I...um...left."

"Oh yes! We watched your movies and shows on the tv all the time and Mommy shows me pictures all the time too. She says we used to play together lots. I don't remember too much of that but we can just play again. Not working time though. Working time we have to be prof...proffes...."

"Professional," Boran says with a small smile.

"Yep, that." Alihan continues to hold his hand as they make their way towards the studio and Miray doesn't have the heart to call him back. To his credit, Kubilay doesn't either.

Miray will be staying with Alihan for the day on set because Kubilay has a show he was working on across town. He kisses her goodbye in front of Boran and Miray tries to tell herself it's her own discomfort with the public display in front of Boran that makes Kubilay's kiss seem different than usual. It seems more passionate than he usually likes to be in public, like... he's putting on a show for Boran and whoever may be watching them because a few heads definitely turned when Boran walked in with Alihan. It's definitely something to see looking at the two of them side by side and Miray questions again the wisdom of allowing Alihan to do this, but he loves it so much and...she doesn't think she's biased in sayinging her little boy is talented.