The Ultimate Chance-Chapter 80

"I’ll hand everything over to my assistant if that’s what makes it easier for you." He complied, to her relief. "But if you need me for any reason, you know where to find me."

She knew he was talking about work but her dirty brain spun it into something he didn’t mean—but wouldn’t mind her seeking him for. She cleared her throat before it morphed to that. "Thank you. I’ll have the drafts and look at them later."

He knew she had not been paying any attention earlier so he smiled. "Of course. They are all yours."

Soon after Damon left, she decided to go out for a snack and bumped into Gabriel in the hallway.

"Oh, there you are." He looked excited to see her, and she wanted to die from awkwardness. She would never be able to live down what he witnessed in her office earlier.

"Do you need anything, bro?" She wanted him to leave as soon as possible.

"Bro? You never call me that." He laughed as he went over to her. "I was showing you the rubik’s cubes Angel would enjoy solving. Do you mind giving them to him?" He handed them over to her, and she was about to vanish when he went on. "You know, I always wanted to believe Angel burst out of cracks in stone at birth. The notion that he came out of you and Damon...doing that..."

"Gabriel!" She snapped. It was already embarrassing that her brother had gotten a VIP view of her and Damon losing control. Did he have to say it out loud? Gah! "You should be caring about your nonexistent love life."

"Right. Hey, my love life is not nonexistent. I just haven’t found the right woman." He defended himself.

"Of course."

"Speaking of which, do you mind telling me about Mina? About her ex-boyfriends, what she likes doing on dates...that kind of stuff. Also, I assume she has lots of admirers—I mean, you can’t be that pretty and not have men clamoring for you—but are they as attractive as me? Should I be scared?"

She massaged her temples. Just when she thought she was done being tortured by her brother, here he was, making her life a living hell in newer ways.

As if the heavens heard her lament and were coming to her rescue, she caught sight of Mina walking past. "Mina! Thank goodness."

The woman came over, looking at them both in confusion. Before she could figure out what was happening, Avery pushed her to Gabriel, and he was just in time to catch her.

Avery breathed a sigh of relief. "There you go. You can ask her all you want to know about her love life."

Mina looked at him in confusion. "What does she mean by that?"

It was his turn to be awkward. "Hey beautiful, I missed you so much that I couldn’t help bugging my sister for answers about you."

"Or you could bug me instead. Avery is very busy." She said with an evident ambiguous meaning.

"I’ll be glad to bug you, especially with you looking like this." He flirted.

Hearing a hint of their conversation without intending to, Avery felt her ears would bleed from the assault. "Mother named her son after an angel, only for him to turn into the devil."

....

Since her last discussion with Damon, his new assistant had been handling everything related to the project, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t tempted to look for him. She missed him but on the bright side, she was able to focus better with him away from her.

"Why is it like this?" She asked Mabella about it when she had the chance. "We were together before. I mean, we’re not even together now. Why does his presence affect me so much?"

Mabella had been listening to her ramble about her current situation with Damon for the last few minutes and taking note of what Avery found most puzzling.

"Let’s pretend I’m not his sister. How do you want me to answer you? As a shrink or as a friend?" Mabella asked, making the latter think deeply.

"Will you tell me something brutal if you answer me as a shrink?" She asked, and was immediately scared of the answer. "Never mind. A friendly answer sounds great." She braced herself for what she thought would be rounds of lectures about not letting pleasure come between her and her dreams.

"You are depriving yourself of pleasure," Mabella said, shocking her out of her wit. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"Excuse me? I just told you, this ’pleasure’ is making me lose my focus. I can’t think straight with him in the same space, for heaven’s sake!" She didn’t think her argument made sense.

"Exactly." Mabella waited for her to think about it and when she saw it click, she finally elaborated. "You have made yourself believe whatever is happening between you two shouldn’t be happening. You made him a guilty pleasure. Your mind will subconsciously want this guilty pleasure more now that you taught it to avoid it. We are all humans, right? We all want things we are forbidden from having."

"That makes an odd amount of sense considering it’s about Damon." She sighed. On the bright side, she was not going crazy because she still had some unwanted feelings for him. That would be tragic.

"So how do I stop this from happening?" She asked, feeling relieved even before the solution was presented to her.

"Nope. I don’t tell you that." Mabella wagged her finger with a meaningful smile. "My specialty as a shrink is to help you realize what you are doing that could be causing your emotional and psychological trouble. It’s your job to find out what to do to get rid of these troubles."

Her jaw dropped. What happened to ’answering as her friend’?

Though she had to admit, Mabella had already done more than enough. She was not her shrink but Angel’s.

"So, are you ready to face your troubles with my help?" Mabella once again proposed taking her in as a patient.

"Nope." Avery was quick to reject the idea.

"Your loss."

Luckily, Angel woke up from his nap and saved her from having her mind read by the psychologist who should very well be a psychic. How did she even do it?

"Baby!" She excitedly held her arms out for Angel to hug her.

"Mommy!" He rubbed his sleepy eyes with the back of his fist and hugged her, before hugging his aunt. "Aunt Mabella!"

The woman melted. "Hey, Angel. You’re so sweet."

Probably because he was hungry, Angel got off the couch right after hugging Mabella and headed for the kitchen.

"Were those three words?" Mabella asked in a whisper when he was out of earshot.

"He said four words a week ago. Can you believe it?" Avery was more excited.

"And you didn’t bother to tell me?" Mabella wanted to claw at her.

"I wanted to, okay? But I couldn’t believe it. I thought maybe I was dreaming...that I’d get our hopes high for nothing." She placed her hand on the back of Mabella’s. "I don’t know what you have been doing to him but please keep doing it."

Mabella smiled. It always felt great to receive approval from parents. "I’m not any sort of magician. I just learned his behavior and deduced his emotions from it, which I’m teaching him to embrace. It’s all about letting him know it’s okay to feel everything he feels. Anger, resentment, love, happiness that no one else understands, vengeance..."

The more Avery listened, the deeper her brows knitted. "Anger? Vengeance? He’s five."

"Yeah. And?"

"Okay." She realized what the latter was trying to point out. She must have unknowingly neglected some of Angel’s emotions by thinking he was too young to feel them. Even so, she didn’t think Mabella was targeting that kind of realization. So she probed. "And?"

"And it’s okay for you to feel all those things too. That, along with desire, fear, distrust..."

"Stop." She felt attacked. This woman had a way of making her feel transparent and it didn’t make her comfortable.

"You’re used to having this wall around yourself that no one can penetrate." Mabella continued, obviously having way too much fun.

"Yes. So can you please stop poking needles at it? Thank you."

She was glad when Angel returned with three apples on a platter and gave one to Mabella, then one to her. He then proceeded to kiss them both on the cheek.

"If my heart melts to a mush, it’s all your fault, you little charmer." She kissed his forehead.

It was Damon’s day with him and he had been at work all day, so he had asked her to drop the boy off at his place later. Usually, she would have been sad to let Angel go but despite not saying it out aloud, they both knew why he didn’t ask Mabella to drop him off after their session, as well as why he didn’t propose to pick him up on his way from the office.

It wasn’t a surprise that she looked forward to seeing him even if it was only going to be for a few minutes. So when Angel’s session with Mabella was over, she let him choose a new outfit for her to change into.

If the boy knew what he was doing—which was impossible considering his age—he was a psychic. He had randomly selected one of the shortest white dresses she owned, along with the knee-length leather boots she loved the most. She kissed his cheek in praise. "Well done, my little stylist."