Catching Avery

by M. E. Clayton

  “Ask Julian,” was all he said.

  I could see Isabella struggling. “It’s okay, Iz. Nicholas is right. This is between him and me.” I gave her a hug and whispered in her ear, “Call Julian.” She hugged me back and gave me a grateful smile.

  Isabella made her way out the door with a very pissed off Quinn trailing behind her. And because Quinn is Quinn, she didn’t leave without a memorable parting shot. “You should stick with Eric, Ace. Better the cheater you know than the cheater you don’t know.” She slammed the door before Nicholas could counter her insult.

  Nicholas took a curious scan of my apartment. The last time he was here, it was to put me to bed after our disastrous night at Xavier’s. I wasn’t sure if he had made himself comfortable or not that night. My apartment consisted of two small bedrooms, one bathroom, a living space and an open kitchen. It wasn’t decorated by an interior designer and it sure wasn’t a penthouse. But what the hell, we couldn’t all have investment sorcery skills.

  I turned my back on Nicholas and started cleaning up the bottles and empty shot glasses. “What do you want, Nicholas?”

  “Need some help?”

  “Nope.” I didn’t look at him. I wasn’t going to play this game. He’s the one who showed up on my doorstep, so he can be the one to kick this party off.

  “I wanted to explain about this morning.”

  He wanted to explain.

  He didn’t want to apologize. He wanted to explain.

  “So explain.”

  Nicholas grabbed my arm to stop me on my way to the kitchen to dump the bottles. “Avery, will you stop and listen to me, please?”

  I set the empty bottles and glasses on my tiny side table and turned to him. My stomach was so tied up in knots, I was surprised I wasn’t throwing up all over the place. “Fine.” I leaned against my kitchen counter, folded my arms over my chest and gave him my undivided attention.

  He looked like he was searching for his words and I knew this wasn’t going to end well for me. “It wasn’t what-”

  I barked out a laugh. I couldn’t help it. “It wasn’t what it looked like? Is that seriously what you’re going to lead off with?” I shook my head and went back to cleaning up. “Just leave, Nicholas. Seriously.”

  He stood firm. “I’m not leaving until you hear me out, Imp.”

  I couldn’t keep myself from physically reacting to him calling me Imp. It felt like daggers all over my body. I finally got the bottles in the trash can and turned to face him again. I threw my arms out to my side. “Then explain, Nicholas, but don’t insult me.”

  I could see the tightening in his jaw before he let out a breath. “I was actually closing up her blouse when you walked in.”

  I could only lift my brow at his ridiculousness. “You were closing her blouse for her?”

  “Why would I insist on this thing between us being exclusive if I thought it was possible that I’d want to fuck some other woman two days later?”

  “Good question, Nicholas, but how about we try something easier. How do you know her?”

  My question was met with deafening silence and that’s when I knew. There was more to him knowing her than he was letting on.

  I could feel my blood start rushing through my body; heating it hot from the inside “It’s a simple question, Nick. How do you know her?”

  “It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I was not fucking around with her. I haven’t been with anyone since I first met you at Xavier’s. I haven’t wanted to be with anyone else since I first met you.” He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans as if I still couldn’t make out the clenching of his fists.

  “So, tell me, how did this woman who doesn’t matter manage to get an audience with you?” I was met with silence again, but this time it was accompanied with a stony expression. “I know she’s not just some random woman off the street, Nicholas. She felt comfortable enough with you to take her goddamn clothes off and she knew Julian by his first name.” I could feel my anxiety ratcheting up a notch every time he refused to answer. Who in the hell was this woman?

  He finally broke his silence. “You need to trust me, Avery.”

  I was starting to feel closed in, so I made my way back into the living room. “Trust you? How can I trust you when you won’t tell my anything?”

  He remained in the kitchen area as he watched me pace my small living room. “Because I don’t need to lie about something like this,” he snapped. “I’m not going to ask you to sleep with only me and then turn around and do the opposite. I’m not a hypocrite and I’m not a cheater. Avery, I’m not your father.”

  I stopped dead in my tracks at his last declaration. How dare he throw that in my face! I turned to face him. “And I’m not my mother, Nicholas, so if you think I’m just going to walk in on you with a half-naked woman and blindly believe you without any explanation as to how you know her, you are out of your fucking mind!”

  I could see him slowly losing his grip on his composure. “Goddamn it, Avery! It doesn’t matter how I know her. Nothing happened and I took measures to make sure she never enters any SMA buildings ever again. There is only you!”

  I didn’t want to ask.

  I really didn’t want to ask. A small part of me was hoping she was just some gold digging socialite who was just trying to get her claws in any of the three of them, but I knew deep down in my soul that’s not what she was. “Okay, so you don’t want to tell me who she is or how she made her way into your office. How about you answer this instead, have you ever slept with her?”

  When I saw him bring himself up to his full height, I knew he had. I didn’t know who this woman was or how she fit into his life, but there was no doubt that he’s slept her before. “It’s a yes or no, Nicholas. I’m sure you can manage that much, right?”

  He was clenching his jaw so hard his next stop was probably going to have to be the dentist. And then, the thought that he was so mad he was clenching his jaw, upped my blood from a simmer to red hot boiling. “Answer the fucking question! Have you or have you not ever fucked that woman?!”

  “Yes!” he bellowed, then his hands were out of his pockets and he was storming towards me. He pulled up short as soon as he stood in front of me. He was staring down at me with so much anger; you would have thought it had been me who had been caught with someone else. “Is that what you wanted to fucking hear, Avery? Does knowing that piece of information somehow help improve this situation?”

  If I hadn’t thrown away the empty beer bottles, I’m pretty sure I would have cracked his skull open with one. “What would help this situation is if you’d tell me who in the hell she is to you or am I just going to have to deal with random women throwing their naked selves at you?!”

  He took a closer step to me, but then it seemed as if he thought better of it, because he stepped back again. And then in the iciest voice I have ever heard, he brought all my feelings crashing down around me. “One weekend and a couple of slam sessions in my office do not obligate me to tell you my entire life story, Avery. Either you believe me about what happened today or you don’t.”

  You know that feeling you get on the downslope of a rollercoaster? You know, where you feel the bottom of your stomach drop. That’s what I was feeling and not for the reasons you may think.

  He was right.

  While he insisted on keeping our relationship monogamous, it didn’t mean that this thing between was serious. He never said he wanted me to be his girlfriend. He never said he was hoping for a future with me. He never made any promises other than the one to be exclusive.

  I let out a broken laugh, because that’s how I felt; broken by a goddamn wrecking ball that I did not see coming. “You’re right.”

  He stood stock still, searching my face, trying to spot my lies. “Av-”

  I put my hand up to stop him. I entire body felt like it was being carved into pieces. “No. It’s okay,” I drew myself up, drawing on every ounce of strength I had. “You’
re absolutely right. Exclusivity does not equal commitment. Just because I felt comfortable telling you personal things about myself and my family, doesn’t mean you were obligated to do the same.” Even as I said the words, they didn’t stop the bleeding. I needed to regroup. “Uh, look. It’s getting late and I need to start on my water and aspirin regimen if I’m going to be worth a shit tomorrow at work.” I gave a depreciating laugh to try to evaporate the tension that still lingered in the room.

  “I could stay an-”

  I started shaking my head so hard, I’m surprised I didn’t get dizzy. “No. There’s no need. I’m just going to finish cleaning up and watch some random movie while I guzzle my weight in water.” I forced a smile. I was two seconds from falling apart and I needed him gone to do it. “I’ll...uh, talk to you later.”

  He stared at me pensively for a few seconds longer before he conceded. He headed towards the door and I didn’t make any move to walk him out. I stayed planted right where I was. He opened the door to leave. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, Imp.”

  He left and I collapsed in relief.

  Nicholas~

  I felt like I was losing my mind.

  Or growing a vagina.

  Whichever it was, neither was positive.

  I knew what she said and I know what she agreed to last night, but I didn’t sleep worth a fuck all night and I woke up this morning not good to anyone. I sat through three morning meetings and I couldn’t tell you what any of them were about or what conclusions they came to. I spent all night and morning obsessing over what Avery has said to me before I left her apartment last night.

  ‘Exclusivity does not equal commitment.’

  That should have made me happy. Those words should have given me peace. They should have given me confidence that we’d get past this little hiccup.

  However, hours later, I was feeling anything but confident or at peace.

  And I can’t believe I categorized the things we did in this very office as slam sessions.

  Avery is not my whore. She wasn’t my booty call. She wasn’t my office pussy. She’s more. She’s been more since I lost my mind over her at Xavier’s.

  The question was, how did I continue to date her without sharing anything about my past? She’s a woman. Soon or later, she’s going to want to talk about my family and my childhood, and that’s just not something I’m ready to share with anyone. Hell, Chase, Julian and I rarely talk about it ourselves.

  Besides, there was no way I could tell her about Katrina, Donna, my childhood, my life…without telling her some of Julian’s and Chase’s secrets. Our successes, our failures and our miseries are all intertwined. No way was I going to break their confidences because Avery was demanding answers that didn’t matter to the relationship we had now.

  I would never fuck around on a woman. Ever. Chase’s dad was example enough of how we’d never treat a woman. That should be enough damn it!

  It was a little before two when Chase called me. “Hey, you busy?”

  “Not at all, I just randomly select investment opportunities, sit back and let you and Julian do all the real work.” The real truth was I couldn’t tell him what all I was working on, because my mind’s been on Avery all day.

  “You’re a dick,” but I could hear Chase laugh. “The party committee is getting together at two. This is their first meeting and they wanted a couple of things okay’ed by us before they really started planning. Julian said he could handle it but since it was your idea and it was all three of us that dropped the ball on Spillner, he thought we might want to show a united front of support on this.”

  Fuck. The last thing I wanted to do was attend a meeting where Avery was going to be in attendance. Not with the awkwardness that still lingered between us. “Yeah, I can carve out a few minutes.” I could feel a headache coming on. “Julian would probably slit our throats anyways if we made him take this on alone. We really need to work on his aversion to people.”

  “Yeah, I’ll get right on that. You know that no doctor in the world can fix that, Sav. Of course, unless Izzy holds a doctorate that we don’t know about.”

  “Izzy?” Chase must have been getting cozy with the girls when I wasn’t paying attention.

  “Isabella is too serious a name. Besides, you heard him yesterday, Nick. That girl is it for him. So, looks like we finally have a sister!”

  I almost reminded him that, half or not, he already had a sister, but luckily my brain jumped in front of my mouth in time. Reminding Chase of his father’s treatment of his mother always ran Chase’s blood cold. ‘Fine,” I relented. “Do you know where they’re meeting?”

  “Julez said they were going to meet in the floor room. I’ll meet you by the elevator.”

  After letting Mrs. Williams know where I was going, I found Chase already waiting by the elevator. Lesa looked up as I came made my way into the reception area and quickly averted her eyes. I had found out that she had been in the restroom when Katrina had snuck through, and while that was a legitimate excuse to leave her desk, it hadn’t helped ease my frustrations.

  I hopped in the elevator with Chase. “Did Julian say how long this was going to take?”

  “Geez, Sav. We’re planning a morale boosting party here. Can you a least pretend to be pleasant about this?”

  He was right. It’s just this situation with Avery was really doing a number on me. “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I groaned. “I’ll be sure to put on my happy face when we get to their meeting.” Little did I know, there was going to be nothing happy about this meeting.

  We found Julian standing outside the door waiting on us. I should have known he wouldn’t have gone in there before us. Julian really needed to take a people-have-feelings workshop or something.

  “Thanks guys. This should only take a few minutes. They had a couple of questions they wanted to ask of us before they decided on the direction of the party.”

  I clapped Julian on the shoulder. “No problem, Julez.”

  The first and only thing I noticed when we walked in was some jackass twirling Avery around like they were at a goddamn 50’s bebop dance.

  And I saw red.

  Next thing I saw was Julian standing in front of me, giving me a pointed look. While I felt Chase nudge me forward while he stayed close.

  I scanned the rest of the room and the only people I recognized were Angela Jackson and the guy who had been sitting next to Quinn at The Shack last week.

  “Oh. Mr. Moretti, Mr. Savage, Mr. Alexander. Thank you so much for carving time out of your day to meet with us.” Mrs. Jackson walked over as soon as she noticed us and shook our hands. When she finally took my hand, I tore my eyes away from Avery and her dance partner long enough to give Mrs. Jackson the attention she deserved as their new boss.

  Chase put his people skills to work. “No problem at all, Angela. We are happy you all felt comfortable enough to seek us out for our opinions.” Chase always called everyone by their first name. I chose to remain professional and use last names, while Julian did his best to not address anyone at all.

  There was a small table immediately to the right of the door when you walked in. Luckily it sat ten, one person at each end and four on either side, as me, Chase and Julian made up eight in the room.

  Mrs. Jackson remained standing at the end of the table as the rest of us each took a seat. Julian and Chase flanked my sides on the right side of the table and they probably arranged it that way in case all common sense fled and I decided to beat the ever loving fuck out of Avery’s dance partner after all. The team sat opposite us. “Let me begin by introducing our team,” she gestured to each employee and she announced them, “Quinn Erikson, Steve Meyers, Avery Ellis and David Sterling.”

  I was doing my best not to be irritated that the girls were sitting in between the men, and if Chase’s posture was any indication, so what he.

  “So, we hear you have some questions for us?” Avery hadn’t looked at me once since I walked in. I needed this meeting to be over wi
th as soon as possible or everyone in this room was going to know our business.

  Mrs. Jackson smiled excitedly. “Yes, yes. The first thing our team would like to know is if the party was going to be employees only, or include a plus one.”

  Chase answered for us. “Well since this party is going to take place in the evening, I’m thinking it would be best if it was a plus one event. A lot of employees may not want to attend if they cannot bring their spouses.”

  Before Julian or I could agree, Steve laid his cards on the table. “Quinn can be my plus one then,” and then he nudge her with his elbow like they were the best of friends.

  She snorted out a laugh. “Steve, your plus couldn’t handle my one,” and she playfully elbowed him back.

  I gave Chase a quick side glance, and I have to hand it to him, his face betrayed nothing as everyone freely laughed at their joking. Well, everyone except me, Chase and Julian.

  And then shit really went south when David spoke up. “Well, then Avery can be my plus one. Makes sense that the committee should attend together.”

  Before anyone could respond, or I could jump across the table and rip his throat out with my bare hands, Julian chimed in, “What’s the second question. We’re…uh, little presses for time.” He clearly understood things were not ideal for me and Chase.

  “Oh, yes. Well, if we’re going with plus ones. I don’t think this room alone will be enough to hold everyone. So we wanted permission to use the conference rooms on the story below as well as this room.”

  This time Steve-The-Asshole…okay, I didn’t know if he really was an asshole, but out of loyalty to Chase, he was…took over the pitch. “We were thinking we could break up the four conference room downstairs to appeal to everyone.”

  “How so?” Julian was really stepping up to the place for us by interacting with these people.

  “Well, one room could house all the food, the second could be the bar, the third could serve as a sitting area for those who wanted to just chitchat and chill and then the fourth could be overflow.” He rested back in his chair and actually draped his arm across the back of Quinn’s chair. “Of course, this floor would make up the entire DJ/dance area and, “he turned to give Quinn a small smile, “the karaoke battles.”