“What?” I snapped.
He threw my underwear back at me. “Since we’re returning things now.”
Glaring at him, I stuffed them into my purse and stormed out.
Damn him.
LEVI
Damn her.
I had spent all week researching everything I could about her through the Harvard database, only to be hit with surprise after surprise. Thea Cunning, age twenty-three, was the daughter to Margaret “The Shark” Cunning.
I had written my very first thesis on The Shark, how she, in her whole career, had only lost three cases in twenty-five years. She was the original gangster of criminal law. Having her working on your case, was basically like having a get-out-of-jail-free-card, in court. We still studied and referenced her cases today. After learning that, it suddenly made sense why her daughter wasn’t the slightest bit rattled by me. Having The Shark as a mother, must have been like having the ultimate crash course in law.
Thea graduated valedictorian at Towson High School Law and Public Policy, and went on to graduate from Princeton University, summa cum laude, in three years with a degree in English studies. Apparently, she had been on track to follow in her mother’s footsteps, but instead opted to take a two years hiatus when she moved back to Maryland. And now, she was currently attending Harvard Law on a full scholarship. Her hobbies were listed as; volleyball, tennis, photography and creative writing. Her biggest achievement, according to her file, “has yet to be realized, and thus, nothing else matters”. She came back to Boston upon her mother’s diagnosis of stage four-lung cancer, and was currently living in her old childhood house.
“Why?” I questioned, sighing to myself when I got home.
Kicking off my shoes, I fell back onto the couch.
“Why, what?”
“Damn it, Bethan!” I jumped up.
My sister, and her giant pregnant self, came out of my kitchen, with the carton of rocky-road ice cream she had pillaged from my freezer. She was dressed in sweats, a Guns N' Roses shirt, and on her head, she wore a beanie.
“Don’t yell at me!” she yelled back.
“I wouldn’t yell if you didn't scare the hell out of me. What are you doing in my house?” I demanded, trying to sound as though I were really angry.
“We were out of ice cream?” she replied, wobbling over to take a seat on the chair.
“So instead of going to the grocery store, like a normal person, you came over to steal mine?”
“You always sucked at sharing,” she replied, taking another spoonful.
I was tempted to snatch it back from her.
What kind of man takes away food from a pregnant woman?
“Bethan, please tell me you have a more logical reason to come here, or I swear I’ll call Tristan.”
“Is that supposed to be a threat? You’ll call my husband? Who do you think dropped me off here?”
I hated them both.
“Bethan—”
“Okay, okay. Tri
stan told me you’ve been sinning all over the city with a girl, and then she turned out to be one of your students.”
“I don’t want to talk about this with you—”
“Levi, for thirty years you have been the good one, the smart one, the shining star, and I’ve never once faulted you for it, or even been jealous of you, because honestly, your life seemed to be a pain in the ass. But now, I’m a human incubator for a tiny person, which means my husband no longer lets me go to the bar I founded, because I scare away the customers. Mom keeps taking me out to buy me dresses with ruffles…ruffles, Levi. People are in my face every ten seconds, screaming about the joys of motherhood, and honestly, it feels like I’m dying. My feet hurt, I have to pee every twenty minutes, and I can’t drink. I’ve never been so bored in my whole life! So, I’m coming to you big brother, to cheer me up, or so help me, I will end up being the next person you will be defending in court, when I snap like a toothpick.”
When she snapped?