I walked with Des down to the ground floor of the building to hail a cab, giving her a hug and kiss goodbye before she closed the door. When she was gone, I trudged back up to my office, suddenly drained. Feeling like a fool was tiresome, but I fully recognized this was entirely my fault. I knew Avery wasn’t worth a damn, had been told so by his sister, and yet I still… this was stupid. But, it’s not as if I was a stranger to that.
When I walked into the reception area, there was a new client waiting for me, so I didn’t have time to wallow in my mess. I approached her, with my hand extended and a bright smile.
“Hi! I’m Tori Kennedy. Let’s get you matched!”
— Avery—
I cringed at the sound of the persistent ringing of my doorbell, knowing it had to be Des. She was one of few people who knew exactly where I lived, and she was the only one who wouldn’t take the hint to go away after the first few unanswered rings.
I spent my weekend doing two of my favorite pastimes, drinking and screwing in an effort to cleanse a certain someone from my palette. It hadn’t worked, and the only things I accomplished were a pounding head, a sore dick, and an exhausted body. Groaning, I pulled myself out of bed and yanked on shorts and a tee shirt to answer the door.
“You don’t have one of your floozies in there, do you?”
I laughed at my sister’s version of a greeting. “Hello to you too, Des. And no, you know I don’t bring women to my apartment,” I said as I opened the door to allow her inside. This was my private getaway space, reserved only for my friends, my family, and myself. It wasn’t a place for sexual escapades.
“If you say so. I should be upset with you, again.” She gave me a dry smile as she pushed past me.
“What did I do now?”
“I just left Tori’s office.”
Shit.
There it was again, that tight feeling that erupted in my chest whenever I thought about her. “And?” I asked, feigning nonchalance.
She rounded on me, placing a hand on her hip. “What do you mean, ‘and’? You hurt her feelings, Avery.”
“And I apologized. What more should I do?”
“Go to counseling? Get help?” she suggested as she dropped onto the sofa.
I chuckled as I took a seat beside her on the couch. “Yeah right, sis. Let me guess, she thinks I need anger management or something?”
“She thinks you need to go jump off a cliff. The counseling is my own suggestion… it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while.”
“Is that right?”
Des nodded. “It is. You’ve been like a completely different person ever since whatever happened between you and Natalie.”
Was it that obvious? I had purposely changed my stance on relationships, and how I interacted with women, but I hadn’t intended for that to rub off onto my sister’s perception of me.
“What are you talking about, Des?”
“Well, you weren’t always this guy. After dad died, you went off to college, then came back and took over the garage, and all of a sudden you were like… the neighborhood casanova or something. And I still haven’t forgotten how you did my friend. She and I have never been the same since then!” I bit my tongue to keep from telling her that girl was never her friend, she was using her to get to me. Not to mention, that shit happened more than ten years ago! “But then, you settled down. You met Natalie, and went back to being the sweetest guy I knew. You were fun. You weren’t a pushover or anything, you were genuinely nice, laid back, and you stuck to one sweet girl, then… the breakup happened, and you changed again. Now you’re always moody, and you never hang out with me anymore. You just work and pick up women, and when you’re not doing that, it seems like I never see you. I want the old Avery back.”
I shrugged. “People change, and their priorities change.”
“So are you saying I’m not a priority anymore?”
Shit.
I pulled my sister into a hug. “Of course you’re a priority, Des. I didn’t mean it like that, I’m saying my business takes up a lot of my time. Ignition isn’t a local thing anymore, it’s growing, and that takes a lot of attention and focus. You didn’t come all the way to Dallas to lecture me, did you?”