Catching Avery

by M. E. Clayton

  I hadn’t heard from Avery, and while I knew what she was about on Friday night, I had no idea what she did Saturday night. I knew she was supposed to go to her parents’ anniversary party yesterday, but that was it. It was killing me to not know, but I wasn’t going to cave and call her.

  I didn’t do anything wrong.

  Why couldn’t she just let it go? She didn’t know what she was asking when she asked for details about Katrina. I was fucking protecting her from all the evil that was my childhood and she wanted to give me shit about it.

  I worked Friday night until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore and woke up Saturday morning and went right back at it just to keep myself from calling Avery. Now here it was, Sunday morning and I was in my home office working again. I was so deep into work that I was caught completely by surprise when Julian walked into my office. I hadn’t even heard the elevator.

  “Julez, what’s up, man?” I welcomed the distraction.

  He lowered himself onto the two-seater couch that sat on the right side of the room. “Just checking on you. My phone’s been pinging with email notifications from you all weekend. You’re making me feel like a slacker.”

  I leaned back in my chair while I ran my hands down my face. “Sorry about that.”

  He shrugged. “Don’t worry about it, I’m not trippin’. I just decided I should check on you. Have you left the penthouse at all this weekend?

  “I’m just catching up on some stuff, Julez. No need to put me on suicide watch.”

  He just looked at me in his Julian way until I broke. “Did you talk to her Friday?”

  He shook his head. “By the time I arrived, she and Quinn were incoherent messes. They passed out within minutes of me being there. Isabella wasn’t any better. The second I got her in bed, she was sawing logs.”

  I had to laugh. Having experienced them together while they drank, I’m sure it was a sight to behold. “Did any of her incoherent ramblings include my name?” I’m such a vagina.

  “No, and she was so hung over the next morning, she could barely move her head, much less hold a conversation. Not sure when, because I went back to bed with Isabella, but her brother ended up picking her up and taking her home. Well, according to the note she left.”

  I started laughing. “I’m such a fucking clown. I’m drowning myself in work so I don’t do anything stupid…well, more stupid….when it comes to her, and she’s just carrying on with her life, business as usual.”

  “Come on, Sav, I don’t think it’s like that at-”

  “Really, Julian? She’s getting drunk with her friends and going to family parties, meanwhile, I’ve spent my weekend doing everything I can to keep from breaking down her fucking door.” I stood up so violently, I sent my chair rolling back hard enough to hit the wall. “I’m so fucking stupid!”

  Julian stood up as well. “No, you’re not stupid. You’re stubborn, Nick.”

  I stopped mid pace and cocked my head at him. “I’m stubborn?” I threw my arm in his direction. “This from the man who’s forcing a woman into forever against her will?”

  “That’s Chase. Isabella is very much with me willingly,” he stated, casually discrediting my claim.

  “Please. The only reason she’s with you willingly is because she doesn’t fully understand the depths of your obsession with her. If she did, she’d join Witness Protection.”

  “Do you really want to go there?” he asked. “Do you really want to compare obsessions? Last I check, I haven’t fucked Isabella in my office and I sure as hell didn’t announce that I’m fucking in her a room full of her colleagues.”

  “I didn’t announce any such thing,” I mumbled, but it didn’t sound convincing even to my ears.

  Julian just stood there as he folded his arms over his chest and raised a brow at me.

  I let out a breath and sat down on the edge of my desk. “I don’t know what to do, Julez. I feel like I’m losing my mind. Even when we were kids and our lives were in chaos, I never felt this kind of uncontrollable madness.”

  He unfolded his arms and put his hands in his pockets. “You were wrong, Nick. While I agree that every relationship needs trust, she doesn’t really have a reason to trust you.”

  “Bu-”

  He held his hand up, effectively cutting me off. “Just hear me out, Nick. You got together with her under the assumption that you guys were hooking up just to fulfill her sexual fantasy, making all the time you guys spent together based on nothing but sex.”

  “What I feel for her isn’t just sex.” It turned my stomach to hear him reduce out time together to booty calls. It reminds me of how I described the times in my office as slam sessions.

  “She doesn’t know that. She was very descriptive on…uh, what she wanted from her fantasy. All I’m saying is that it is very possible that she may think all your possessive bullshit is part of the role you’re playing with her.” He walked over to the bar to make, hopefully, both of us a drink. He started pouring as he continued. “She walked in on you with another woman, whom you used to fuck, and you offer no explanation. You just demanded that she trust you. Who in the hell trusts anyone, implicitly, after only two weeks of knowing each other, Nick?”

  “Damnit, Julez, I told her I didn’t want anyone else but her.” I said, continuing to defend my actions.

  “Yeah, but does she know it’s because you actually have feelings for her or does she think it’s because you guys are still role playing?”

  He handed me my drink. “Does it matter? She wants an explanation on who Katrina is.” I ran my hands through my hair, seems like I’ve been doing a lot of that in frustration lately. “I’m not ready to go there; it’s too soon.”

  “You have to make a decision. If it’s not too soon to fall for her, which you obviously have, then it’s not too soon to explain some shit. You don’t have to tell her every little detail, Nick, but you can tell her enough to ease her mind about Katrina.”

  I looked down. “I’m really fucking this up, aren’t I?” I downed the scotch in one swallow.

  “I’m just saying that maybe if you explain to her that the possessiveness you’ve been displaying with her is out of this hold she has on you and not that goddamn fantasy, then maybe she’d be willing to give you the blind trust you’re insisting on.”

  I nodded my head. “I’ll think about it.” I let out a laugh. “Fuck, I can’t think of anything else.”

  Julian finished his drink and clapped me on my back. “Alright, I’m going to take off. I just came to check on you.”

  “Thanks, man. I’ll catch you later.” I stayed sitting on my desk as Julian walked out. Maybe he was right. Maybe that damn fantasy was making things more complicated than they needed to be. It never occurred to me that she might think I was always in character around her. Hell, it was my character. It would be extremely arrogant of me to say I was her fantasy come true, but I pretty much was. My need to possess her was real.

  I was pretty sure Julian was spending his weekend with Isabella. He didn’t have the luxury of being able to see her at work whenever he wanted like I had with Avery, so I called Chase. He answered on the second ring. “What’s up?’

  “I need to get out of this fucking building.” It wasn’t even noon yet. “What you got going on today?”

  “Actually I was going to stop by and see Mom.”

  Teresa Alexander. She was probably the exact thing I needed right now. She had always been my sanctuary when I was young and it’s been a while since I’ve actually visited her. She always spoke to the three of us at least once a week, but I suspected Julian spent a lot of time with her on his own. “Great, come pick me up and I’ll go with you.”

  “Be there in twenty.”

  True to his word, Chase picked me up twenty minutes later. I wasn’t in his car five seconds when he started badgering me with questions. “You still fucked up over Avery?”

  I didn’t bother looking at him. “Actually, I am. Thanks for asking.”

  Chase remained unusually quiet and that made me uneasy. “You know something I don’t?”

  He let out a breath as he exited onto the freeway. “All kidding aside, Sav, are you serious about this girl or are you just high off her pussy?”

  I wanted to punch my best friend in the face for referring to her that way, but I didn’t want us crashing to our deaths. “That’s the last time you’ll refer to her as pussy, Chase.”

  I could see him nod his head through my peripheral. “Thought so, man.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Promise not to freak out as we’re going eighty miles an hour down the freeway?”

  It instantly felt as if the bottom of my stomach had fallen out. This situation with Avery already had me on the brink of madness, I wasn’t sure I could take what he had to say without losing my shit. Especially since speaking with Julian had lifted some of the haze and gave me a push to try to figure this thing out with her. “Maybe you should wait until we get to Mom’s. I can’t promise that kind of control when I have no clue what you’re about to tell me.” Chase just nodded and we remained silent the rest of the ride over to Teresa’s.

  As we pulled up to the curb in front of Teresa’s house, I couldn’t decide if the ride had been too long or too short. Fuck this shit.

  “Okay. We’re here. We’re safe. We can no longer endanger the lives of unsuspecting commuters and travelers, so spill.”

  “The girls have plans to hit Xavier’s this weekend.”

  I ran my hands up and down my face about six times before I asked, “How do you know?”

  Chase took the keys out of the ignition and turned to face me. “Brian called me.”

  The look on my face had to reveal my confusion. “Why would Brian call you to tell you that?”

  Chase averted his eyes a little and if I didn’t know better, I’d say he was displaying signs of embarrassment. “I…uh….I…uhm, shit! The next day after we met the girls and it was obvious that Julian wasn’t ever going to give Iz back to the world and you were claiming A as yours, I called Brian and told him that if he ever saw those three there without us in the future, to call me and let me know. So, he called me yesterday and said he got a call from the chic with some serious sass wanting to know if she could request a booth for Friday night.”

  I stared at my best friend for a few seconds before asking, “What’s going on with you and Quinn, Chase?” He didn’t ask Brian just for mine and Julian’s sake.

  He hitched his shoulder up. “Nothing. Yet.” I stayed silent, giving him a few seconds. “But I want her, Sav, and I’m going to get her.”

  How we went from going out so that Chase could get laid to obsessing over a trio of wacky, infuriating, beautiful women, I’ll never know. But I did know one thing.

  “So, we’re going to Xavier’s this weekend?”

  Chase opened his car door to get out, but not before confirming, “Fuck yeah, we are.”

  Chapter 20

  Pride: Because I'll be goddamn; Part 2

  Avery~

  I know I had told Nicholas to never come near me again, but when I hadn’t heard from him since our fight in the conference room, I was hit with the glaring truth that I may have made a mistake. I spent all week at work hoping to run into him in the elevator or the lobby, but he was nowhere to be found. I hadn’t seen Julian or Chase either and I think that helped make thing seems so final.

  I was so confused. I was the one who called things off, but it didn’t make my heartbreak less painful.

  Quinn had insisted that we needed a girls’ spa day, so yesterday after work, we spend all evening getting plucked, waxed, buffed, massaged, moisturized and essentially tortured at Ladies First Spa & Salon. I walked out of there feeling cleaner than I had ever been, but also feeling depressed as hell. I mean, what’s the point of getting buffed smooth all over if no one was going to be touching my buffy smoothness?

  And now we were sitting in a circular booth at Xavier’s trying to pretend like we weren’t here to drown my Nicholas Sorrows. Although, I’ll admit, sitting in the booth was way more comfortable than the high top tables we occupied last time. It’s the little things that bring joy to my world.

  We were only three rounds in when Quinn went all wide eyed. “Is that who I think it is?”

  Iz and I both turned towards the front door and, shit, sure enough it was. “What’s he doing here?”

  Izzy looked at me. “Did you invite him?”

  I shook my head. “No. I mean, he texted me earlier this week suggesting we do a movie or something. I told him I was going out with you guys, but I never extended it as an invitation.”

  Eric was standing near the bar with one of his good friends, Simon; looking around the room. I had a bad feeling he was looking for me. I wasn’t opposed to having a friendship with him, but I didn’t think I was ready for anything outside bullshitting on the phone and Facebook posts. I just hoped he was serious about being friends only.

  I knew they were here for us when Eric finally spotted our booth and started making his way over. This was not good. I may have gotten over his cheating, but I didn’t think Quinn had.

  “Holy shit, are they coming this way?” I didn’t blame Isabella. This was a girls’ night, not a girl and her best friends and ex-boyfriend and his sidekick night.

  Eric and Simon made it to our booth before I could give Iz her obvious answer. Eric smiled as he nodded at me. “Avery,” he ran his gaze over Q and Iz, “Quinn. Isabella.”

  “Hey…hi...uh, hey, Eric. Simon.”

  Without any invitation whatsoever, Simon scooted his way into our booth forcing Isabella into the center, while Quinn had to move over so that he wasn’t sitting on her damn lap. “What the fuck, Simon?” Quinn wasn’t one to be scooted anywhere.

  He threw a smile at her. “Good to see you, Quinn.” He jutted his chin towards Iz, “You too, Isabella. I had almost forgotten what a beautiful sight the three of you are together.”

  “You don’t mind do you, Avery?” Eric was still standing. He was looking at me, waiting for permission to sit. I only saw friendliness in his eyes, but I instantly got a dark, sinking feeling about this. It felt like giving him permission to sit was giving him permission for something more.

  Or maybe the three beers were affecting me more than I thought.

  It didn’t matter because before I could answer him, I heard a resounding ‘oh fuck’ coming from Quinn. I turned to find her eyes bugging out of her head and I instantly knew why.

  I tilted my head around Eric to see three very large, very hot and very formidable looking males mobbing their way towards our booth. The closer they got to us, the more I could see I needed to add ‘very pissed’ to my list of descriptive words.

  I actually started laughing, albeit it was a kind of a hysterical laugh; but I was just so damn happy that Iz was sandwiched in between me and Q and nowhere near Eric or Simon. I had no doubt Julian would have torn this place apart otherwise.

  My joy was short lived, however, when they reached our table and it was Chase who ended up being the one to start shit up. “You motherfuckers lost?”

  The entire table tensed. I expected something like this from Julian, even Nicholas with his quick temper, but Chase?? Chase is the easygoing one. But then it dawned on me how Simon was sitting next to Q. This girls’ night out was turning out to be an epic failure, like the last time.

  Eric spun around at Chase’s voice. “What the fuck?”

  Simon stood up at Chase’s over aggressive question. “And you are?”

  I jumped up to squeeze myself in between the guys. “Whoa…hey, everyone relax.”

  “Isabella,” was all Julian had to say and she was scooching out of the booth so fast, I’m willing to bet her ass was going to have friction burns. I knew it wasn’t because she’s afraid of Julian, so much as her doing her best to keep him out of prison for murder.

  I watched as she went to stand in front of him and the transformation that came over him when she placed her hand on his chest was astounding. I could see him visibly relax and I knew whatever was going on between them was deep, intense and very real on Julian’s part.

  I looked back to see if Quinn was going to help me squelch this testosterone fueled collision, but to my utter shock, she stayed sitting in the booth, drinking her beer with her head facing down.

  What the hell?

  Eric finally snapped out of his stupor. “Wait,” he pointed at Nicholas, “you’re Avery’s boss. I remember meeting you that day I took Avery to lunch.”

  Ugh, he did not take me to lunch. “Eric-”

  I still couldn’t bring myself to look at Nicholas, but I heard him answer, “Yeah. I’m her boss and you’re the ex-asshole who cheated on her, right?”

  Well, damn.

  Before I could intervene, Chase was answering Simon’s question next, “I’ll be happy to tell you who the fuck I am.” I watched in stunned silence as Chase actually, physically moved Simon aside and pointed down at Q. “I’m her man, meaning she is fucking mine.”

  Holy Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

  Quinn perked up at that. “Chase!”

  The daggers he threw at her actually shut her up. Chase had fire shooting out of his eyes and it was a hell of a sight. I’ve never known anyone to be able to put Quinn in her place, but he was doing it. “Not one word, Quinn. Not one fucking word,” he seethed.

  Simon was smarter than I gave him credit for. He immediately backed up and threw his hands up in surrender. “Hey, man. We’re just all friends. Eric and I just stopped by their booth just to say hi.”

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