Chapter Two

Caleb A. Wyatt loathed interviews.

He detested the inquiries, the fallacies, the conjectures, and most of all the pressing needs of interviewers to garner insights on his personal life.

Sure, he was renowned for his expertise in architecture and recently his art pieces— but every general information there was to know about him was available on the internet.
He'd made sure of that to avoid situations like these.

At one point in his life, he would've bubbled with the anticipation of an interview— especially if it were to be done by the opposite sex. He tended to bring out women's most sultry and carnal proclivities; and that inflated his ego and his...

He shook his head and opened his tie drawer.

Women had become so complacent to him. Easy to read. Easy to satisfy once their needs were clear. All searching for the same things.

The collective clichés of wanting to 'change a man', fall in love, get married and have kids had gotten old.

Caleb scoffed. Don't get him wrong, he valued family life. Commitments or being 'tied-down' just scared him shitless. He wasn't ready for any of that.

Plus he didn't believe in unconditional love– the love you'd read about in romance novels and revere over. So, he decided not to incorporate such societal concepts into his life.

Besides, nothing much intrigued or disarmed him about females anymore—except the sex, of course.

Speaking of sex, Caleb clenched his jaw muscles in frustration. He could just imagine his little white men turning to ash, his balls shriveling and his right-hand man sporting a perpetual limp.

Caleb grimaced. He'd been celibate for almost four weeks.

Four weeks! A month. That was bad. That was very, very bad.

The cogitation made him churn with agony. What was a man without his shlong?

His mind drifted to the last time he'd conquered a female.

Ah, Victoria.

The long legged, blue eyed brunette had been a vixen in bed, and he still had the scars to show. His male member twitched in delight at the memory.

"Good to know that you're still alive down there," Caleb muttered and glanced down at his crotch acerbically.

With a long sigh, he mulled over which tie to choose, then finally opted for his favorite obsidian one.

Why had he agreed to do this again?

Oh, yes.

Ava Castellaño.

When the senior editor at Brent's Publishing's had mentioned the name of his childhood neighbor/rival, a wave of nostalgia, disbelief and curiosity had sprang out at him- tempting him to acquiesce to the interview.

He simply couldn't miss out on such an opportunity.

Ava Castellaño. The girl he'd half grown up with.

His memory painted an explicit picture of her. The deep, chestnut eyes she possessed had always been his favourite feature (and sometimes his least), alongside the inky black of her long hair. He remembered the golden- bronze color of her skin, attributed to her half-spanish descent. She'd usually sported neat little frames– accessories that subjected her to his childish tauntings and name callings.

Caleb smiled.

As he shrugged on his jacket, he wondered how the years had treated her. After his family had moved to England, he'd heard that something terrible had happened, but the details had been too vague to even believe that anything serious actually occurred.

He knew well of her early teenage years. She had been wild, impulsive, a drinker and untameable— traits that repulsed him. So, he had simply stopped asking his father how she was doing, and didn't even think to contact her when he moved back to Seattle years later.

He concluded that she had gotten her life together and was doing fairly well; seeing as she had pursued her childhood dreams of becoming a journalist.

She'd always loved books, which Caleb found mildly odd considering that she had been a tomboy. Rough around the edges. Inelegant. The lack of breasts he'd constantly teased her about had only added to the appellation.

Admittedly, Caleb had always been a bit terrified of the younger girl. She had been extremely tenacious, down to earth, and strong-willed even at the age of 13. She even threatened once to break his 'pretty little nose'.

She'd disturbed him— the clumsy way in which she walked, the loose tendrils of dark hair that always fell out of place, how untidy and disorganized she'd always been.

The way she used to laugh without holding back. How much she made a mess when she ate. The way her syrupy eyes had always scrutinized him, leaving the older boy feeling unsettled; exposed. Vulnerable.

He couldn't have had that back then, especially given his condition.

Caleb had been deemed ataxophobic at the age of eleven- the anxiousness caused by confusion, disarray, unevenness, imperfections. Ava Castellaño had been all of those things, and when he wasn't tormenting her, he'd be sure to steer clear.

It bothered him that he recalled so much about the girl. She hadn't meant that much to him, and the only reason he thought of her now was because she'd been mentioned. Plus she'd been a childhood friend of his sister.

Caleb ignored the pitch deep in his gut when he thought of encountering Ava Castellaño again.

He pushed everything to the back of his head and flashed his reflection a charming smile.

If the aged Ava Castellaño was the same Ava he knew when he was fifteen, then this interview ought to be very interesting.

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