Avery's Game Of Revenge
Chapter 117: Battle Outfit.

Chapter 117: Battle Outfit.

Why wouldn’t she? His old caretaker was now taking her side in arguments. At least this was one person who saw the goodness of her heart and proceeded to back her up. The others were... ungrateful!

A small chuckle escaped her lips as she gulped down the rest of the tea and slammed the cup on the countertop, an intentional act to annoy the man currently staring at her face with a calculative gaze of his.

"Nancy, could you please make coffee for Jodi?" she requested, "In a takeaway cup, please."

With one last snicker, she walked out of the kitchen, bypassing Archie without so much as a second glance back at him. She went straight to her room to get dressed and when she descended the stairs, her looks had the desired effect on Jodi.

A jaw dropping exclamation, "Wow! Why do you look kinda uhm, familiar? Not sure if familiar is the right word but something like... yes, Deja Vu!"

"That is to be expected," Avery affirmed her suspicions, nodding her head slightly, "You probably checked Valentina’s page earlier."

Jodi shrugged, "Yeah, and how would you know... Wait, that’s the dress she wore in the most recent post. Why are you wearing it then...?" She trailed off, switching on her phone immediately to search out the post in question.

With the caption #outfitfortheday hanging above the picture, Valentina was wearing a brown shoulder-less top with just a slight rope to tie around her neck, coupled with a cream colored, designer trousers and similar colored sneakers. The picture was posted exactly an hour ago—not even a day or week ago—and that was the exact same outfit Avery was sporting at the moment. She surely knew wearing this could only mean she would be twinning with Valentina McCAllum on set, right?

Avery’s indifferent voice snapped her out of her thoughts, "Why? I picked this out to wear before I saw the post. Am I expected to change my plan just because someone popular than I am already posted a picture of herself wearing it?"

Jodi shook her head, as that was definitely not the point she was trying to make. "No, I was just thinking... you were kinda apologetic the other day when you both wore identical outfits. I didn’t think you would want something like to that to happen again. Intentionally, at that."

"What can I say?" Avery shrugged, "I guess the character ’Sloane’ is now part of me, making me want to oppose her own character at every opportunity. Will anyone blame me for that?"

"Who cares about anyone else? I, for one, you don’t know how delighted I am to hear that," Jodi sighed, picking up the bag beside her as she rose to her feet. Hissing, she added, "The bitch has been getting on my nerves for the past few days so much that I’ve been yearning to see someone annoy her. She’s wacky at acting and does nothing but blame others for her own mistakes! You’ll surely be the best person to put her in her place."

"And how am I expected to do that?" Avery forced a chuckle, trying to mask the glint of anticipation in her eyes, "I’m just a newbie actress who has no power compared to people like her in the industry."

Jodi scoffed, "If your power and popularity is determined by how long you’ve been in the industry, you think people like me wouldn’t have more international popularity than Valentina McCAllum does? Forget it, you’re more popular than she is right now. You’re almost crowned as the nation’s villain, while she’s merely basking in her cousin’s popularity. Whether she likes it or not, she’ll always be under a shadow. Everyone, including Stuart is simply tolerating her only because of her relation to Emma McCAllum."

"All these still doesn’t guarantee that I can win if I oppose her for even a moment." Avery gestured with her fingers, "Even a teeny winny second.

"Oh really? You doubt my judgement. Why don’t you post a picture of you in this outfit and let’s see whose page would get more reactions compared with Valentina who posted an hour ago?" Jodi challenged, her eyes sparkling with sincerity. "Besides, Mrs Donovan, you are the only one with trusted armor. Look over there."

Avery followed her line of sight, casting a sidelong glance towards the kitchen to see Archie—his back was facing them, but from Nancy’s face that looked red with embarrassment, it almost looked like he was scolding her. "That’s your armor, Mrs. You can rest assured that no matter what happens, and no matter how vicious the online armies are; if she tries to set them up against you, you are protected by someone that can take them down in an instant."

Basking in the slight confidence that came with Jodi’s words, Avery was almost tempted to blurt out how that—her assurance that Archie would protect her according to their deal—was the only reason she decided to venture into an ’only the strongest shall live’ industry in the first place.

"Posting a picture of me in this is actually a good idea," she decided to change the topic instead. "Though it’s sure to attract several hate comments and insults, it’s better than nothing... right? I’m rarely doing anything on that page yet it keeps growing...with antifans, when I don’t even have fans yet."

"You will be surprised to know you have a lot. Sometimes, people just want to dump their grievances on another person openly, and they chose public figures that they already immortalized in their hearts, not considering that the person has feelings too. Broken Hearts PR team is using that to their benefit. Talking about the picture; with your strong mental health, I’d say yes, let’s try it." Jodi agreed, "I doff my cap. If it happened to me, I’d deactivate the account and run away to somewhere hidden."

Avery laughed out loud at that. She gave a quick spin for Jodi to help tie the sash behind her neck properly.

"Let’s take the picture in the car. What do you think?" she suggested.

Jodi agreed immediately to that.

And as they left the penthouse, headed towards the garage, neither of them truly expected that the idea they had thought of on the spot would actually yield exceptional results. For both of them.

The first picture was a single selfie that Avery took alone and the second, a joint one which she tagged Jodi’s account in, thereby attracting traffic to both of their pages. By the time they arrived at the building apartment that was their location for the cast and crew today, both of them had their phones ringing off the hook.

"You know any of the callers?" Jodi questioned, keeping her eyes glued in front as she swerved the car into the single empty space in the parking lot of the building. She had rented the car at the beginning of the week when she started to spend longer hours on set, thereby finding it hard to get a taxi or Uber to transport herself home in the late nights.

"No one important," Avery replied, swiping the dial to hang up on yet another call from course mates and some school mates—whom she’d promised lunch and dinner dates earlier in the week. The new post she made and the thousands of reaction it got in mere minutes, must be what was spurring them to keep calling incessantly for the past few minutes. Even though she had continued to ignore it. "You?" she gestured at Jodi’s phone on the dashboard.

"Same here," was the reply, "I guess they all want to ask what kind of relationship I have with you. Gosh! The notifications are blowing my phone off. You think I can handle whatever jibes they throw?"

The car finally stopped, and Avery pushed the door open to step out. She waited until Jodi did the same before replying, "You are better at this than I am. But I know we should only be scared of people who have the courage to say shit to our faces instead of—" the sound of her phone ringing cut her off, and she raised it up to disconnect the call as usual, only to see who the caller was.

The assistant from CS Agency, the entertainment agency Archie had set her up with, that was owned by the Shermans.

"Excuse me, Jo," she muttered, and proceeded to pick the call.

(A/N: Check the comments to see an image of the outfit.)