Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101662 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 508(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
“I’ll be right there, Ava. I’m just going to speak with Gabriel for a second.”
Ava was already pushing the elevator button as she told her mom okay. If she could’ve, she would’ve flown to the fifth floor faster. I didn’t blame her. It was a damn cool floor.
Kierra nodded once toward me as she crossed her arms. “Thank you so much for doing this for her, Gabriel. This is truly remarkable. She hasn’t stopped talking about it since I informed her about the mentorship. Henry and I are both truly grateful for the opportunity.”
“Not a problem at all. It will be nice to have a young mind around. It will keep us on our toes.”
“She’s a tad bit shy at first, but I think being around other people besides her classmates will be good for her self-esteem. She dealt with a bit of bullying this past year at school, which was really hard to watch. It broke her down a bit, but I truly think this is an opportunity that will make her feel confident again.”
“Don’t worry. She’s in good hands.”
“I have no doubt about that.” Her words felt so genuine and kind that it made me want to be even more protective over Ava than I had already planned to be. The last thing I wanted to do was let Kierra down.
Oh, and Henry.
I kept forgetting about that guy.
“I’ll be picking her up after the day’s done. Normally, Henry will be the one dropping her off. If there’s any other issues, by all means, let me know,” Kierra stated.
“Of course.”
As we were speaking, the elevator opened and my mother and Bobby emerged from it. They looked our way before heading over.
Kierra stood taller as I went to introduce her.
“Mom, Bobby, this is Kierra. Her daughter, Ava, is the one interning here.”
Mom raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”
“It seems that way,” Kierra shyly replied with a chuckle. Maybe her daughter got the touch of shyness from her. It slipped out every now and again.
Mom held her hand toward Kierra. “I’m Amma. I’m the office manager here. It’s nice to meet you.”
“You too,” Kierra replied, shaking her hand.
Bobby shook her hand next. “I’m Bobby, one of the architects. I just want you to know I plan to destroy your kid in a game of Mario Kart.”
Kierra laughed. “Don’t be shocked if she makes you cry when you lose. She’s really good at those kinds of things. She’s pretty great at everything, really. If she gives any trouble here, though, please let me know.”
“I doubt you’re the type of person who brings trouble into people’s lives, Kierra Hughes,” Mom said. Which seemed like an odd-as-fuck thing to say, but then again my mom was odd when she didn’t get enough coffee in the morning.
“I’m going to take Kierra up to meet with Ava and give them a proper tour of the office space,” I told them both, and off Kierra and I went.
When we finished the tour, I said goodbye to Kierra and headed back to my office to get to work. Right as I sat down, Bobby popped his head around my doorframe and smiled from ear to ear.
“You lied,” he said, matter-of-factly. “She is hot.”
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.”