9 Gabriel
9
Gabriel
It only took a few days of Ava mentoring at my office to realize that she was shy up until the point she got excited about architecture. Everyone who worked for me was the best of the best, and I’d often find Ava getting them to talk their heads off about what they were each working on. The cool thing about it was that my employees loved to nerd out when speaking about their passions, so it made Ava’s day whenever they’d go into deep detail on topics for her.
She was wise beyond her years, and watching her open up more and more each day, seeing her grow comfortable with being at GS Architecture, made me happy. She was a good kid with a good head on her shoulders. I was glad I was able to give her an opportunity to break out of her shell a bit.
“I heard rumors about you,” Ava said one afternoon as we walked off the elevator to the fifth floor for our lunch break.
“That’s never a good intro to a conversation,” I joked.
“It’s nothing bad,” she argued, “Just weird. Is it true that you lost your memory?”
“That’s true.”
“Like all your memories.”
“Most of them, yes. Anything before I was twenty.”
“So, you’re telling me your whole memory is gone from when you were nineteen and younger? Like, nothing?”
“Yup. Nothing.”
“How is that even possible? You had to relearn everything?”
“A lot.” I nodded. “Some things were just instinct, I believe. But for a long time, it was hard.”
“And then you built all of this?”
“Uh-huh. I became highly focused on my career because even though everything else outside of me felt out of control, at least I had this thing that I could control. This building, my job, is my life.”
“What about your friends from back then?” she asked as we walked over to the buffet for the afternoon. A Mexican food spread from a local restaurant was laid out in front of us, and the smells were enough to make my stomach rumble. Ava seemed less interested in the meal and more interested in asking me a million questions about my memory loss. “Or girlfriends. Did you have a girlfriend? Did you lose your friends?”
“A few people reached out, but it felt very hard to connect. I ghosted a lot of the people because I struggled with being what they expected me to be. Others ghosted me. I didn’t blame them. It was a very dark period.” I handed her a plate. “Why so many questions on this?”
“No reason,” she said, taking the plate. “I’ve just never met a rich person who forgot half their life.”
I laughed. “What makes you think I’m rich?”
She glanced around and waved her hands at everything. “Dude. You have an arcade room at your workplace, a whole room with candy, lunch catered every single day, a meditation room, and a Ping-Pong table. Only rich people do that.”
“Touché.”
“Plus,” she started, “I googled your net worth.”
“Those numbers are always extra extreme.”
“You built properties for A-list celebrities and royalty in England. I doubt the numbers are fluffed.”
Turns out Ava must’ve read my résumé.
She grabbed a few soft taco shells and began to fill them up with chicken and fajita peppers. “So, you didn’t have a girlfriend before you lost your memory?”
“Not that I know of. If I did, she never showed up,” I joked.
“But you didn’t have some kind of feeling in you…as if there was a person?”
I did. Often. I figured that was why I dated around so much and met up with so many different types of women. For a long time, I felt as if I was searching for something, but the older I grew, the more I realized the woman in my head only existed there. She was a figment of my imagination. I didn’t tell Ava all of that, though. It seemed too bizarre to mention to a fourteen-year-old.
“Sometimes, I get nudges,” I explained. “Hunches, I suppose.”
“Nudges and hunches?”
“Yes. As if something is familiar…but they don’t always lead anywhere.”
Ava frowned a little as she added toppings to the fajitas. “That kind of sounds like hell.”
“Language,” I scolded her.
“My mom said hell is a place, not a curse word. Anyway, I’m fourteen, Gabriel.”
“Oh, well, all right then.” Heck, I didn’t know what words fourteen-year-olds were allowed to say.
“Do you have a girlfriend now or are you single?” she asked as she continued to build her tacos.
“Single.”
“Do you like women?”
I smiled. “Love them. Quite a fan.”
“Do you want to get married someday? Have kids?”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“ Tick- tock, tick-tock ,” she said, tapping the invisible watch on her wrist. “You’re kind of old to be single, and you’re not getting any younger.”
Once this kid’s shyness wore off, she didn’t pull her punches. “I’m only forty.”
“‘Only’ and ‘forty’ don’t belong in the same sentence. That’s like five hundred and four in dinosaur years.” She narrowed her eyes as she looked at me. “You have gray hairs in your beard.”
“Trust me, kid. Time flies faster than you think.”
“You’re just saying that because you blacked out and missed twenty-one years of time.”
“Again, touché.” I chuckled. Ava was a smart-ass and I appreciated it. “What about you, kid? Are you dating someone?”
“Gosh, no. Guys my age are just so…gross. That’s why I read my books. Fictional men will always do better by me than real boys. Men written by women are just better.”
I laughed. “I have absolutely no clue what that means.”
“It means the idea of boys is actually better than the reality of them.” She shrugged. “Plus, a lot of boys in the real world don’t like girls like me.”
I arched an eyebrow. “Girls like you?”
“You know.” She grew a bit somber as she looked down at herself. “ Fat and ugly .”
My jaw dropped. I froze in my tracks as I held a spoon of crema in the air. “Who the fuck told you that lie?” I barked, feeling a newfound rage shoot through my body.
“Language,” Ava echoed.
“I’m forty years old. I can say ‘fuck.’ So again, who the fuck told you that lie?” I repeated, still beyond livid that this poor girl was told such bold-faced lies.
“Cory and James Harrison.”
“Who the fuck are Cory and James Harrison?!”
“Twin brothers from my school. They told me that on the last day of school. The whole school year, they’d moo behind me, too, and make pig noises and call me Porky Pig.”
“Where do they live?” I asked, dropping the spoon back into the container. “I’ll kick their fucking asses.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s a crime,” she said.
Then put me in prison.
Or at least let me beat up the assholes’ parents.
“It’s really okay,” Ava said, continuing her way down the assembly line. “I’m fine with it.”
I took her plate out of her hand and set it down on the buffet table. I placed mine down next. Then I placed my hands on her shoulders as I lowered myself to look her in the eyes. “Ava Hughes.”
“Yes?”
“I need you to know a thing. ‘Fat’ isn’t a bad word, but the way those boys used it was as an insult, and that shit’s not okay. And the names they called you are not okay. And them calling you ugly is not okay. Because you are none of those things. Okay? You are not a cow, you are not a pig, and you are the furthest thing from ugly.”
Her eyes watered and she nodded slightly. “Okay.”
“Now say it to me. Say, ‘My name is Ava Hughes, and I’m fucking beautiful.’”
She laughed. “I’m fourteen. I can say ‘hell,’ but not that word.”
“Right now you can. It will be our secret. Say it.”
“My name is Ava Hughes, and I’m fucking beautiful,” she whispered.
“Again. But louder.”
She giggled slightly, feeling silly, but she said it. “My name is Ava Hughes, and I am fucking beautiful!”
“Louder!” I said, tossing my hands into the air. “Louder! Like you mean it.”
She took a deep breath and covered her face for a moment before tossing her hands up like mine. “My name is Ava Hughes, and I’m fucking beautiful!” she shouted.
“Hell yeah you are, queen!” Erika from accounting shouted from the drink station.
I almost wanted to start jumping up and down with excitement, seeing Ava’s confidence building from Erika cheering her on. I didn’t even have to tell her to repeat the words, because she did that on her own.
“ MY NAME IS AVA HUGHES, AND I’M FUCKING BEAUTIFUL! ” she screamed at the top of her lungs, hopping up and down, waving her hands as if she believed every single word. As she should’ve. Because it was true.
Her name was Ava Hughes, and she was fucking beautiful.
“That’s right, kid,” I said, slightly shoving her shoulder. “And if those fuckboys ever say that kind of shit to you again, kick them in their balls.”
She laughed and combed her hair away from her face. I knew she was Kierra’s stepdaughter so the two of them didn’t share DNA, but I swore they had the same smile and laugh—the same spark of light. “Can I eat my fajitas now?” She chuckled.
“Yeah, yeah. Go for it.”
We grabbed our plates and walked over to join Erika to eat our lunch.
“I guess I don’t have to do what Dad said I had to do in order to get them to stop making fun of me,” Ava said as we took a seat.
“And what’s that?”
“Lose weight. He said if I lost weight, they’d like me more.”
Well. Now I wanted to kick her father in his fucking balls. What kind of advice was that? Losing weight would be one thing if it was for her overall health, but to tell her to lose weight so some dumbass, closed-minded boys would like her? Parenting fail.
“But now I know I can be fat and beautiful,” she continued, taking her fajita and biting into it.
“Sure can. But also, never change yourself to fit into another person’s box. Create your own life and ignore the opinions of others. You got that?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “And when all else fails, kick them in the balls.”
Damn straight.
***
The problem with giving kids advice was that it often came back quickly to bite one in the ass.
On a Thursday morning, Ramona, Ava, and I ran errands all morning. I figured it was a good way to show Ava the miscellaneous tasks that popped up throughout the week. Our final stop was at a Home Depot. Ramona stayed in the car to make a few business calls, leaving me and Ava to head inside to get the supplies I needed.
“So you are busy all the time,” Ava noted as she grabbed a cart for me to push.
“All the time,” I echoed. “But it’s a good busy. I like being busy.”
“Me too. Plus, it’s kind of cool to see how things start in architecture and then seeing the finished product.”
“Exactly. The reward is great.”
“Do you have a favorite project you’ve built?”
“There’s a couple—”
“Oh my gosh, look, Cory! It’s lard ass,” a person said as Ava and I rounded a corner. There stood a pair of twin teenage boys, and I knew instantly from the comment who the dickheads were. Beavis and Butt-Head.
Ava’s vibrant personality almost completely dissipated instantly, and that reaction broke my damn heart. It was like watching a shining star be burned out in an instant. Now I was angry.
The twins started snickering and making oinking noises. Ava stepped slightly behind me, trying to hide herself.
“Hey, what the hell is wrong with you two? Knock it off, assholes,” I blurted out. Was I allowed to call teenage boys assholes? Who knew? Didn’t care. All I cared about was making Ava feel safe and protected.
Before they could respond, a man rounded the corner. A big, big man. A man who was probably twice my size.
“Did you just call my boys assholes?” the beast from Beauty and the Beast asked as he puffed out his chest and walked toward me.
I could’ve shriveled up and said no like a little punk, but Ava was still hidden behind me, and I wasn’t going to allow those teens to get away with the disrespect toward her.
I puffed out my own chest and nodded. “Yeah, I did. Because your boys are being beyond disrespectful toward this nice young lady. I don’t like bullies.”
The grown ogre looked at his two boneheads. “Were you bullying her?”
“No, Dad! We weren’t!” one of them stated.
“Yeah! We were just saying hi,” the other lied.
Ogre looked at me and tilted his head. “You hear that? They were just saying hi to a friend.”
“By oinking at her and calling her lard ass?” I bit back, getting even more annoyed as the words fell from my mouth.
Ogre looked at his sons, a small smirk on his face. “You oinked at her?”
The boys didn’t respond, but snickered to themselves, shoving each other.
“Was it like this?” Ogre asked. “ Oink-oink-oink ?” he said, looking in Ava’s direction.
I stepped in front of Ava to shield her from his eye contact. “All right, that’s enough.”
“I’m just making a joke.” He laughed, patting my shoulder. “But maybe little Miss Piggy should avoid a cookie every now and again.” He then shoved a finger to his nose, pressed it down, and made more oinking noises toward Ava.
And.
I.
Blacked.
Out.
At least for a solid five seconds, and somewhere within that five seconds, my fist slammed into the jerk’s face. When I came back to reality, my face was being smashed in by his rock-hard fist. I went flying back against the shelf and caught Ava out of the corner of my eye kicking both twins between their legs and shouting, “You stupid fuck faces!”
The staff came and broke up the fight, kicking us all out of the store. As Ava and I walked back to the truck, Ramona jumped out to see me with one eye shut, and Ava hopping up and down.
“Did you see, Gabriel? Did you see me kick their asses! They didn’t even touch me! They fell over to the ground like little wimps! I bet they never make fun of me again!”
“What in the world happened?” Ramona cried with the most perplexed look. “Geez, are you okay?”
“He’s super! You should’ve seen him take a swing at that guy! Sure, maybe the guy swung more and harder , but boy oh boy, did Gabriel get one hit in! Sure, he didn’t get more than one hit in, but—”
I swung the door open for Ava. “Get in the car, kid.”
“Okay, Boss Man,” she said, calling me the name that everyone else called me at work. If my head wasn’t pounding from my pounding, I would’ve found that real fucking cute.
Okay, even with the headache, I found that really fucking cute.
After Ava climbed into the car, I shut the door for her. I then walked past Ramona and tossed her the truck keys. “It might be best that you drive. Seeing how I can’t see.”
The whole drive back to the office, I sat there grumbling to myself, thinking about how I’d have to tell Kierra about what happened when she picked up Ava later that day.
***
“Wait a second. Let me get this straight. You told her to kick them in the balls?” Kierra asked, alarmed, as I sat in my office with my head down in full-blown embarrassment. I had sunglasses on, too, hoping to avoid Kierra seeing the damage that Cory and James’s father got in.
“I might’ve told her that. But in my defense, I didn’t think we’d have an actual run-in with them and that she’d kick them in their damn balls.”
“If there’s one thing you should know about my daughter, it’s that she takes everything literally. If you tell her to fly to the moon by tomorrow, she’ll have the whole spaceship built tonight,” she joked. “Can I ask you something, though?”
“Sure.”
“Why are you wearing sunglasses and staring at the floor instead of looking at me?”
“Oh, it’s just part of my creative process,” I lied.
“Gabriel.”
I groaned. “Yes?”
“Did you get into a fight at Home Depot, too?”
“I might’ve fallen into an altercation.”
“Gabriel.”
“Yes?”
“Look up.”
I tilted my head up slowly.
She stood from her chair and walked over to me. She sat on the edge of my desk, facing me, and then removed my sunglasses. “Gabriel!” she gasped, her hand flying over her mouth.
“If you think this is bad, you should see the other guy,” I joked.
“You beat up two kids?” she spat out, stunned.
“What? No! Of course not! I’m not some kind of madman.” I flicked my thumb against my nose. “I beat up their father.”
“Gabriel!”
“I know, I know, okay. Violence is never the answer. But those fuckers…” I grumbled as I struggled to open my left eye. “They were oinking at her, and it pissed me off. So I tried to get them to apologize, and then the dad made a few inappropriate jokes about Ava’s weight, and next thing I knew, I was swinging and Ava was karate-kicking the boys’ private parts.”
Kierra’s eyes flashed with a look I wasn’t certain how to decipher. She touched my face slightly and I tensed up from the pain. I had a splitting headache. She then frowned and stood. She headed for the front door, and I felt an ache of sadness, realizing I’d pissed her off.
“Kierra—”
“Don’t,” she ordered, holding up a hand toward me.
She walked out of the room, and I slumped in my chair. What the hell was I thinking? Getting into a fight like that in front of a kid? Telling her to kick her bullies’ asses? I knew better than that. I was better than that. But for some reason, watching that grown man talk down to Ava sent a rage through me that I wasn’t certain I could hold in. It was one thing for teenage boys to be idiots, but to watch a grown man look at Ava and make those disgusting noises…
I sat for a few minutes, debating what I could text Kierra to show the depth of my apology. As I sat with my phone in my hands, I paused when I saw Kierra reentering my office with an ice pack wrapped with paper towel. I didn’t say a word, and neither did she. She walked over and sat back down on my desk, leaned toward me, and placed the ice pack against my face.
I cringed slightly from the chill, but I took a deep breath as she held it in place.
“You’re better than this,” she whispered. “You’re too mature to go around punching grown men.”
“I know,” I agreed. “It was idiotic.”
“It was,” she echoed. “But also…thoughtful. And heroic.”
I sighed. “I don’t want you or Ava to think less of me for this, Kierra. It was an impulse thing, and I hate that it happened. You don’t beat bullies by attacking them. I’m sorry I even gave Ava that shitty advice.”
“Yes. Maybe we should just stick with blueprints with her.”
I huffed, feeling like complete dog shit. “Yeah, of course. Sorry. I just have a solid three rules when it comes to violence, I suppose.”
“What are those rules?”
“Rule number one, never lay a hand on children. Number two, never lay a hand on women. And number three, knock out any man who breaks my first two rules.” Kierra’s fingers slightly brushed against my cheek as a small laugh escaped her. “What’s funny?” I asked.
“Nothing, nothing. This just reminded me of someone I once knew. He used to be like you. He’d do anything to defend my honor.”
“What happened with him?” I asked.
“Well.” She pulled the ice pack away and gently touched the edges of my eye. Her eyes locked with mine and her lips quivered into a hesitant smile. “I fell in love with him.”
“And then you married him?”
“Oh, gosh, no. He wasn’t Henry.”
That didn’t surprise me in the slightest.
She placed the ice pack back on my eye.
“How many times have you been in love before?” I asked. It was probably too personal, but I couldn’t help but wonder how many men caught the heart of Kierra and lost it before she settled in with Henry.
“Just twice.”
“What happened to the first love? Did he break your heart?”
“No,” she quickly stated, shaking her head. “I don’t think he could break anyone’s heart if he wanted to. He was one of the good ones. One of the best.”
“So, you broke his heart?”
“In a way, maybe. But really, life broke both of our hearts. It has a way of taking great things and ruining them.” She shifted slightly on the desk. “What about you? Have you ever been in love?”
“Well.” My eyebrows drew together in a perplexed frown. “I’m still trying to figure out what that is.”
“What what is?”
“Love.”
She retracted the ice pack from my face, her fingers lingering against my skin with an unintentional caress, which made me wheel my chair in closer against my own will, as if she had a magnetic pull on me that I was unable to resist. The warmth of her touch ignited a longing in me that inexplicably made me want to grow closer and closer to her.
I’d be willing to endure endless black eyes just for the short-lived touches of her hand against my skin.
Her lips parted ever so slightly, yet the silence remained unbroken by words. I was at a loss for words, too. All I could do was gaze into her deep-brown eyes, lost in visions of what might’ve been if she wasn’t a married woman and what touches I could’ve given to her if she wasn’t another man’s.
Yet, she was married. She was forever beyond my reach. Still, those fleeting moments, those tender touches fueled dreams I dared not confess.
My body gravitated closer to hers, drawn by an irresistible force that alarmed me as much as it enticed me. “Kierra…” I whispered, the word tumbling abruptly from my lips as my heartbeat quickened.
“Yes?” she responded, her voice quivering with uncertainty at our closeness. Yet, she leaned in, too. She leaned in. She felt it—the pull between the two of us. Each time I saw her, the magnetic pull felt stronger, more intense. More real. At first I thought I was making it up, but she leaned in, too.
“Are you happy with him?” I ventured, knowing I shouldn’t have asked her such a question but needing to know the answer.
“Happy?” she echoed, her head tilting slightly in bewilderment, puzzled by the weight of my question. “With Henry?”
“Yes.”
She was close. So close that her breath fell against my mouth. So close that if she whispered, only my soul could hear her secrets.
Abruptly, she rose from my desk. She shot back a few feet and cleared her throat. “You should ice your eye for a few hours tonight. And take Advil. And have someone check in on you to make sure you don’t have a concussion.”
I rose to my feet and walked toward her, not ready to leave the feeling that I felt—the feeling that she felt. “Kierra—”
“Does someone live with you?” she asked. “So they can check in on you?”
“No, they don’t.”
“Well, maybe someone should stay the night with you, to make sure. Or have someone call in to check.”
“Kierra—”
“Can you not?” she asked, holding a hand up toward me. “I…” Her voice dropped and tears flooded her eyes. “Whatever you’re going to say, can you just not say it?”
“I just want to know if you’re happy.”
“I know and I can’t have you asking me that, Gabriel.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t force myself to lie to you about that, and if I told you the truth, it would be the first time I’ve said the words out loud, and I’m not ready to go there yet, okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Okay.” She sighed and shook herself slightly. “Keep icing your eye,” she said, deflecting. The answer lay in her refusal to address my question; unhappiness was her unspoken truth. Had she been happy with Henry, affirmations of her love for him would’ve rolled off her tongue. Yet instead of declarations of love, she left me with advice for my eye.
“Keep icing,” she repeated, a firm note in her voice. Maybe to silence my questions or maybe to steady herself and come back to reality.
I nodded and placed the ice pack back on my face. The coldness of it seeped into my skin, which was a strong contrast to how her warmth felt against my soul.
As the silence stretched between us, the sudden creak of the door shattered the moment. Ava peeked into the room, unaware of the tension she diffused with her simple presence.
“Mom, are you done yelling at Gabriel? I’m pretty sure he apologized like a billion times,” she stated. Right then, reality snapped back, pulling us from the precipice of my forbidden emotions.
“Yes. I think he got the message,” Kierra said, turning to her daughter. “And I’m happy to inform you that you’ll be going to Cory and James’s house to apologize in person with me later this week.”
“What?” Ava gasped.
“Both of you,” Kierra said, turning her stare to me.
What? I silently remarked.
“Oh, come on. Those guys deserved…” Ava started, but the stern look Kierra gave her made her words stop. “ Fine ,” she grumbled, then looked over at me. “Thanks anyway, Gabriel. I know you were just trying to look out for me.”
“There are better ways than using fists, kid. Your mom made sure to remind me of that.”
Kierra smiled slightly before wrapping her arm around Ava’s shoulders. “Let’s get home.”
“Okay. Bye, Gabriel! See you later,” Ava said.
“Bye, you two,” I said with a small wave.
“Mom?” Ava whispered as she and Kierra walked out of my office.
“Yes?”
“I know you’re probably pissed about what happened, and I get it, but you should’ve seen how he backed me up. It was just like in those books. I think he was written by a woman.”
A small chuckle escaped me as Kierra glanced over her shoulder to look my way. A tiny grin flashed over her face before she turned back forward and continued walking. “Me too, Ava. Me too.”