<div style="text-align: right"><span style="font-size: 22px">aven miller</span><br/>
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It was almost unfair to realize just how wickedly good Rafael looked. Bright blue eyes peering down at her against the white fluorescent light, a slight curve on his lips that seemed to always be prompted when he was making easy conversation like this. Even back then, both inexperienced with their works, and starting off did Aven know that he would be successful. He had the face, charisma, and talent for it. A soft chuckle left her lips at his response, dark eyes glinting with amusement. "Always the ambitious one," she teased, peeking up at him for a moment before her nimble fingers grasped the red bell pepper in hand. With the precision of a bullet, Aven's hand glided against the ripe vegetable, slicing it into thin, perfectly neat julienne slices. "Alejandro was kind enough to take a chance on me. It took a while before I could work the kitchen just how I'd like to," Aven grinned. It had been what she was notorious for in New York. While her position called for her to work under the head chef, Aven's mind brimmed with different possibilities and combinations that she tested in the dim hours of the night. Rafael used to be there right by her side, experimenting, testing, and critiquing on what worked and what did not. The experimenting had not changed now that she was in Seattle. Now she just worked on new dishes alone.<br/>
<br/>
<i>We.</i><br/>
<br/>
So, Danielle was still in the picture. Aven was not shocked. She would have been more astounded had he, for whatever reason, been single after how things had gone down in New York. Aven listened carefully as he spoke, picking her words as carefully as she would her ingredients. It was disconcerting to be as careful as she was forcing herself to be in the moment since talking to Rafael used to be as natural to her as cooking.<br/>
<br/>
"How is Danielle?" <i>How's the baby? How are you?</i> Aven kept her lips pressed together to stop her onslaught of prying inquiries, aware that crossing the line of propriety would be far too easy with their past. She wasn't concerned about turning this into something physical or another torrid affair, but Rafael was married and Aven lived with a man who she saw present in her future. There was only so much she was allowed to be curious about.<br/>
<br/>
Initially, Aven had attempted to villanize Danielle in her quiet mind. She imagined hundreds of different scenarios to morph the woman into this vile, unseemly being so that maybe Aven could pretend that Rafael was not going to another woman at night rather than her. It had been futile, of course. Aven had seen the way Rafael and Danielle would act around one another - as if they were one, tangled entity. They carried a familiarity with them that came from years of knowing one another, an advantage that Aven lacked. It was that memory - that persistent, agonizing remembrance that Avan was the homewrecker that paradoxically helped her move on. Aven imagined all the good had been fabricated, ripped out of the most perfect fairy tales when her life growing up had been anything but. It wasn't hard to fall for Rafael when he was wrapped as perfectly as any prince charming. It wasn't hard to fall for him either when she realized some part of him was just as fractured and broken as she was. His drinking problem had been bad, and Aven had attempted to help him through it as best as she could, and in return, he never judged her for all her ugly parts. She wondered if he had been doing better in that regard as he seemed to be doing in the other aspects of life.<br/>
<br/>
"That..is a very loaded question, Rafael," Aven said with a pause, a quick-witted smile baring her teeth. She took a moment to ponder the question. "Well, after I moved here a few years back, I had walked into Alejandro's restaurant with a half resume and the audacity to tell him there wasn't enough salt in his pasta dish at the first interview. He somehow hired me anyway, and I've been working here since. In the time, I moved in with my boyfriend and now he's actually working to purchase the bar that's just a few streets down," Pushing all the sliced up bell peppers in one container, Aven's palms pressed against the counter, head tilting in curiosity as she perused Rafael. "So now that you're here, does that mean all the fancy television people will follow?" Aven asked, mischievous intent clear in her tilted eyes.​</div>