First it was to his promotion. He'd gotten to it quicker than he'd expected to, which made him pretty happy. It was good to feel like he was doing something right, for a change. Great even. He was doing something instead of sitting around and decaying.
Chel was doing even better. He hated to say he was surprised, but he was. She had found something she'd done well and she'd ******** nailed it. She'd gotten promoted all the way to a full hunter. After all the s**t she'd given him, and all the bullshit she'd gone through spinning in every direction instead of finding a path in life, she came here and she excelled. He could almost say he was proud, but it was more like relief.
"Gross," he answered aloud.
He scrunched up his face.
He was quiet for a second, tapping his pen against the papers in his lap.
Ava hummed in his mind and went quiet. He was sure she was going to recede to wherever she went when she wasn't commenting on his life, but then she piped up, quieter than before.
He clutched his pen and a white knuckle grip and grit his teeth.
"No."
That was a shitty way to put it. But he couldn't help but think it was true. He didn't really have anyone he could rely on more than the next guy. Besides Chel, of course. It wasn't doing him any favors to be distanced like that.
Chris drew frustrated little swirls in the corner of the papers. As important as Chel? He doubted it. But he'd admit he at least needed to try. The way Ava put it made it sound manipulative, but he needed other people at his back. She was right, he was loath to admit.
