I Fell For My Nemesis

The mercenaries all looked at each other before scattering. Well. That was easy. 

Avery felt rather satisfied as they finished what they were doing but Christian was quiet. He didn't say anything until they were back in the safety of their apartment but once he took off his gas mask he looked uncharacteristically angry. 

"What was that back there?!" 

"Uh, me saving your life? You aren't bulletproof but my suit is," she said logically. 

"You know why you aren't supposed to fight right now!" Christian argued. "That was really dangerous, Avery! What if it hurt the baby?"

"All I did was a few flips! Those bullets never touched me. I saw a video a while back of a woman who was nine months pregnant doing a backflip on a trampoline and she and her baby were both perfectly fine. I have another checkup next week and you'll see for yourself that nothing happened.."

He flew over to her and gripped her shoulders tightly. "Can you understand that I can't afford to lose either of you? You can't be this reckless!" 

Avery glared at him. "Do you not see the hypocrisy in that statement? I can't afford to lose YOU. I did what I had to in order to keep you safe and nothing more. So don't give me that. You don't know what it's like to lose people. I can't lose any more. I can't."

Christian crumbled at the look on her face and leaned down so his head was touching the top of her shoulder. "Avery…"

"Don't 'Avery' me. I'm going to bed."

She got ready for bed first and pretended to be asleep when Christian came to bed and called her name. She was too upset to talk about this more right now. Couldn't he see that she had only done it to save his life?

Her ire remained the following morning and rather than hang around in the stilted air of their apartment she went to hang out with Vanessa. That had been happening less and less often lately because of how ragged Angelo had been running her for months but she still saw her best friend outside of work at least twice a month. 

Vanessa likely assumed this was because she was married but that wasn't the case at all. Before Christian found out the truth she had been too busy to spend much time with him either. 

"Men are ridiculous," Vanessa scoffed as they did their nails in her living room. 

"I'm inclined to agree but what have they done to you this time?" Avery asked, trying to decide whether she wanted to paint her nails pastel yellow or blue. 

"I got ghosted again for the third time in a month and on top of that I haven't seen Angelo since he ran out on me on Valentine's Day. I think he's avoiding me on purpose. I know he's like family to you but that's a jerk move."

Hang on, they had gone out on Valentine's Day?! Why hadn't Vanessa ever said anything about this?

"You never told me you went out on Valentine's Day!" 

Vanessa sighed. "I didn't want to make a big deal out of it since it didn't go well. I've been trying not to let it bother me but with how well the rest of my dates have been going it's been hard not to dwell on it since I actually know him. Or thought I did."

"What happened exactly?" Avery asked hesitantly. 

She had an idea knowing Angelo but wanted to hear her friend's side of the story before drawing any conclusions. She had known they danced throughout her wedding but not that anything had come of it. 

Vanessa launched into her story as she continued painting her nails a pinkish red. "He offered me a deal at your wedding when I asked him to dance. He said he would dance however much I wanted if I went out with him on Valentine's Day so he didn't have to be a single loser without plans. 

"That benefitted me way more than it benefitted him and after being around him as long as I have I've learned that he doesn't do things arbitrarily. So I started paying more attention and got an inkling that he might like me. 

"I'd never thought of him that way and figured whatever we were doing on Valentine's Day would be casual at best until he showed up with flowers. Aside from the wedding I had never been alone with him for more than a few minutes at a time so we've never done that much talking one-on-one. 

"He was invested in everything I had to say. How many men do you know that do that? My suspicions grew but were essentially confirmed after he accidentally called me pretty in a roundabout way. He kind of floundered when he was trying to explain himself. 

"I tried to corner him by asking him why he asked me out and he started to panic and told me not to go there because it didn't matter one way or the other. I said that it did because he's relatively fun to be around and I could see myself liking him so we should at least give it a shot and that was when he bolted after telling me not to. 

"I don't understand why he would do something like that but he won't respond to my messages and I haven't seen him in person since so unless I stalk him at his house I'm not about to get any answers. I have to hold onto my dignity somehow." 

Vanessa seemed rather frustrated by the end of her explanation and accidentally messed up one of her nails. Avery's heart went out to her. 

She had suspected Angelo liked her too but knew he would never get involved with anyone until Nolan Hunsacher was defeated. Especially after seeing what happened to Avery. 

"It's not your fault, Ness," she said quietly. "I know what his problem is." 

"What is it?!"

How to explain this without giving anything too important away? She didn't want Vanessa to feel like it was her fault in any way because it wasn't but she couldn't betray her and Angelo's secret either. 

"Angelo has a lot going on right now," Avery said hesitantly. "He hasn't been avoiding you specifically. He's been too busy to even get more than a few hours of sleep most of the time. He knows he isn't currently capable of giving anything to a relationship and thinks you deserve better so he isn't even going to try."

Vanessa scowled. "Seriously? That's why he's avoiding me like I'm the plague?"

"I never said I agreed with him. Only that I know why he's acting like that. But why is this still bothering you so many months after the fact? Does that mean you actually do like him? It sounds to me like you miss him."

"Why should I miss someone that can't be bothered with me?"

"When it comes to matters of the heart 'should' usually doesn't factor into things," Avery said wisely.

Goodness knows she shouldn't have fallen in love with her nemesis and gone so far to be with him. She was still dealing with the fallout of that in some ways. 

Vanessa sighed and tears sparked in her eyes. She turned her head, clearly not wanting Avery to see, but it was too late. "That idiot. So what if I miss him? He refuses to talk to me! What sucks the most about all of this was that I didn't realize what I had until it was gone."

So she thought she had taken Angelo's presence in her life for granted. It was true that they did see each other a lot over the past couple of years, especially once Avery and Christian started dating. The four of them doubled all the time. 

Vanessa had gotten used to having him around and now that he had been gone for several months it was hitting her hard. Poor thing. She deserved better than that. 

"Ness…it's not the end of the world—" Avery began. 

"You don't get it! I completely blew it. He's never going to talk to me again because I made things awkward. I would have rather kept seeing him without things going further than not see him at all. Stupid hindsight."

Hindsight could be cruel. She wished there was something she could do for her friends—both of them—but she couldn't get involved. At least not until this was all over. If it ever was. 

"He's going to talk to you again, I promise," Avery told her. "Like I said, he's so busy right now he hardly sleeps. He barely has time to talk to me and that's only because I'm involved in his side project."

"What on earth is he doing that takes up so much time?" Vanessa demanded. 

"…I can't tell you that. It's his business."

"Do you at least know when he'll be done with it?"

"I wish."