Sweet Recluse

Griiiinnnggg !!!

Ava's eyes flew open as her slumber was rudely interrupted .

She blinked once , twice as she tried to get a handle of things , wondering where she was .

Jack remedied that when he flew on to her face , a Cheshire grin on his little hairy face.

Ava pushed him off , groaning loudly .

The phone was still ringing , Ava did not have a personal phone , it was just the home phone that she used for work and other important things .

So , the continuous ringing meant that it had to be something important .

Jack peered down at her and yawned , like clockwork , Ava did the same before pushing him off again and getting up .

She pushed herself to a sitting position , stretched lazily and threw her blankets off her body before getting on to her feet .

She was naked except for a tiny silk bra and pant that was in her fourth favourite colour , lilac .

She turned back around and grabbed Jack who had snuggled into the bed in her hands , he mewled loudly in protest but Ava did not let him go as she walked on the cold floor down to her table where the phone was placed .

It had stopped ringing so Ava debated returning to bed or waiting to see if it would ring again .

She did not have to debate for a long time because it began to ring again .

She picked on the first ring and remained silent as she stroked Jack's tiny head .

" Hello ? Ava ?? Are you there ? " , A man called frantically into the receiver .

Ava recognized the voice , it was Benny Lavarossi , her editor and personal slave master .

Jack opened his eyes when he heard the voice , he also recognized Benny's voice.

" What do you want Benny ? ", Ava asked quietly , already wishing she had used her pillows to cover her ears and slept through it all , that was what pillows were made for after all .

Benny chuckled nervously and Ava immediately stood at attention .

Benny was a really outspoken guy , if he was nervous , it was because he knew that whatever he was going to say was something that Ava would not like .

" No good morning for Benny ? Huh , Ava ? ", Benny teased , his attempt to probably get a good banter going before he said whatever it was he wanted to say and Ava promptly refused .

Ava busied herself with what kind of 'No' she wanted to say .

A classy one or a drawling one , she could also not decide exactly what would be the perfect time to slam the phone down to create the maximum effect .

" Ava ? You there ? ", Benny inquired , chuckling again .

" Yes Benny , I am trying to decide how to say 'No' to get the maximum effect ", Ava replied softly .

" Come on Ava , just listen . This is life-changing , not just for you but for the publishing house too . Any other writer would beg to sleep with me for an opportunity like this ", Benny said with a laugh .

Ava grimaced .

She could not imagine any of the writers doing that but she would not tell him that , he probably already knew and was just pretending not to know .

And he knew just how much Ava hated being compared to other writers so if he was doing it , he was probably riling her on purpose .

" I am listening , what is this life changing opportunity ? It had better not be another book signing event , I told you already that I am not interested in how much fame and money that will bring me ", Ava said , coughing at the end as her throat dried up with the long speech , long by Ava's standards .

" So , have you heard of Saint Queen Tech ? ", Benny's voice was breathless as he mentioned this .

Ava could hear the praise in his voice , she shook her head .

Everyone knew St. Queens , even if you did not know , you probably used an item or two from their company everyday .

Ava was a recluse , she was not stupid .

" Yes , I have . Where is this going ? ", She asked hurriedly .

She could not think of what a tech company would want to do with a recluse writer like her .

" Well , the CEO has a younger sister that is a fan of your novels , she has been writing to the company asking for the fourth installation of the 'Inferno Trilogy ' , since we have no right to tell you what to write and she was just one of a thousand other fans that did the same , we did not think that you had to know about her ".

Ava pondered this , she still had no idea where Benny was going with this story of his .

" So , what changed ? Why are you telling me about her now ? Did you just find out that she is affiliated with St. Queen ? And who is going to explain to the princess that it is called a trilogy for a reason ? "

Benny remained silent which had to be a feat for him because Benny could never really keep quiet , it also had Ava feeling a deep sense of dread at whatever it was that Benny had involved her in .

" Well , it happened that her brother , you know the one that is the CEO of St. Queen ? Yeah , he reached out to us , he wants to meet up with you along with his sister ", Benny hurriedly finished .

" No ".

Ava put the phone back into its place and turned around , pulling on Jack's ears to wake him up like he had done to her .

Jack opened his eyes lazily and glared at her while the phone began to ring again .

It continued to ring while Ava only ignored it and went back to disturbing Jack .

Another mew from down the bed made Ava turn her head back to the bed , she put Jack aside .

She pushed her hands underneath the cover and pulled out her red fur ball who had just woken up , She had dyed the cat's fur red with nontoxic dye at the same time that she had dyed her hair red .

Miss Jackson was Jack's sister and they fought all the time especially ever since Miss had become a red head while Jack had stayed a white cat .

Miss yawned lazily as Ava hugged her and pulled at her red fur while Jack ran forward trying to get in on the hugging , the same hug he had been protesting against just a moment earlier .

The phone continued to ring incessantly while they all pretended not to hear it .

Ava put the two cats in her arms and headed to the kitchen where she placed the cats on the island before getting out milk for all three of them .

She put hers in her favourite glass while she put their own slightly different milk in one bowl for them to share , she had started that to encourage them to get along with each other , it had not worked .

They all drank their milks in silence while Ava wondered what to have for breakfast , she tried to remember one of the breakfast ideas from the numerous YouTube videos she had began to watch almost everyday .

She remembered a particular one with blended bread , sausages and eggs and decided to try that one .

She turned back to the fridge and was about to get out what she needed when she heard something .

She emptied the rest of the milk into her mouth and picked up a large wooden spatula . Moving quietly , she headed to the living room and looked around in search of where the noise was coming from , nothing was amiss in there , she was about to leave when she heard her front door open .

Ava immediately rushed that way , her spatula raised and ready to hit whoever had just come through her doors .

She waited and sure enough , the attacker rounded the corner , headed for the living room , Ava used all of her energy to sink the spatula into his head and watched as he howled loudly before grabbing his head .

His hoodie fell open and Ava gasped before laughing softly .

Her editor , Benny stood in the middle of her living room with his face in a scowl and his eyes almost tearing up .

He was holding his head as he breathed loudly through his mouth and stared or definitely glared at her .

Ava used her hand to cover her mouth so she did not have to laugh anymore .

" This is entirely your fault , who sneaks into someone else's house and so early in the morning ? ", Ava asked quietly .

Benny rolled his eye as he continued to hold the tears at Bay .

Benny was a young man in his early twenties , probably twenty one or two .

He had shoulder length black hair that was always in a bun , an eyebrow piercing and sleeve tatoos and generally looked like he was in a rock band and not an editor of romance novels with the occasional mysteries .

" Come on , I will make you an Icepack for that head before it swells ", Ava said as she led the way to the kitchen where Miss and Jack were still lapping up their milk .

" Why weren't you picking ? You did not even get to hear all that I had to say before you refused ", Benny yelled , almost as if he was throwing a tantrum .

Ava turned around and sure enough , he was sulking with his blue eyes looking bigger than they usually did , Ava laughed .

Benny never ceased to amaze her , he looked like one of the characters in a novel , talked like a geek but still managed to be the best editor anyone could ask for .

" I heard enough and I liked no part of the enough that I had listened to ", Ava answered and began the rigorous job of scraping ice .

" Look Ava , I told him about you and they agreed to meet anywhere you wanted to , no phones and no pictures , the girl just wants to know you and that is all ", Benny rushed out because he knew just how much Ava hated long speeches .

Ava turned around , the bag of ice in her hand , she pushed it on to Benny's head and stood very close to him , staring at him , he lost immediately , averting his gaze and Ava smiled .

" What exactly does the firm stand to gain ? ", Ava asked .

Benny pretended not to understand what she meant and instead focused on massaging his head .

He eventually talked though .

" Alright , he promised us Ads of our best sellers and hidden gems on his billboard screens around the country ", Benny excitedly gave in .

Ava frowned , that was a good deal .

She trusted her firm and knew that they must have been offered a lot if they were hounding her but Ava could not fathom meeting a complete stranger and his sister , what would they even talk about ?

Just the thought of it all had her cringing already .

And why did the girl want to meet her or had she been mistaken for Ava Max , the musician ?

Ava did not know why this was happening to her but she was not meeting anyone .

She raised her spatula again and pointed it at Benny , he raised his hands immediately , dropping the icepack .

" Get out of my house ", Ava begged softly .

Benny nodded and turned around , Ava followed him so she could change the password again .

" Just think about it , Okay , Ava ? ", Benny pleaded as he was about to be cast out .

Ava hissed and pushed him outside , she waited till she heard his car pull out of the garage before she opened the door again and focused on the lock .

She changed her password and walked back in to her house where her cats waited impatiently for the rest of their breakfast.