Page 15 of Café Diablo

I don’t regret this night. It’s been marvelous.

I’m just smart enough to know I shouldn’t put much stock in it.

8

Ned

On the other end of the phone, my father drones on, talking about jury tactics and witness testimonies and all the things I’ve already double and triple checked for the Bellamy case. He may own Voss Associates, but it’s like he still thinks I’m fresh out of law school and haven’t been running his Waikiki branch for seven years. I’m not an idiot, but he still doesn’t trust me to do my job the right way and keep his firm’s reputation for winning.

Always win.

End of story. Be smarter and wittier and more clever.

Get the job done.

I don’t know why I’m so grumpy. He does this to me all the time. I’m just frustrated and chomping at the bit like a pitbull for a steak. I keep wanting to bitch people out for no good reason and my father seems like a good candidate.

Of course, I know better. My father’s the last person to tolerate insolence. I couldn’t even make a joke about how he didn’t call me on my birthday without him belittling me and asking me why I’m acting like I’m an eight-year-old who needs approval because of my daddy complex. Which is true. I’m kind of pissed at myself for even sulking about it for ten seconds.

“Yes, thank you for the lecture,” I bite out, once he finishes his tirade on the best tactics for the Bellamy case. But my tone only causes him to snap at me, after which he proceeds to drone on for the next ten minutes. “Thank you for your advice, Dad,” I say with a tight lip, when—maybe he’s done for good?—he finishes. “I’ll take what you’ve said into consideration.”

Platitudes. That’s all I have the tolerance for right now.

He finally hangs up and I stare out my office window. The bright sun of Honolulu sparkles off the bay, reminding me that there’s a whole wide world out there beyond depositions and jury trials and making my father proud. It sits in the back of my throat like a dead moth, sour and easy to gag on. Some days, I half-hate this job. Not full-hate. I love being a lawyer. I just get annoyed with the micromanaging.

My phone buzzes again and I expect it to be my father with another ten-point lesson on why I should use precedent in this case, when I see Connor’s name light up the screen instead. I click the answer button and pull the phone up to my ear.

“I’m ready to murder someone and our father just lectured me on judiciary etiquette like I’m ten. So, whatever the fuck you want, I’m not really in the mood for it,” I say crisply, collecting all the files on my desk and walking out to the main office to hand them off to my office assistant Judy and the rest of the team. Everyone looks up at me like the big angry elephant-rex just walked in the room.

“Damn!” Connor says in my ear, his tone way too cheerful for the eggshells my employees seem to be walking on in front of me.

I frown at them all and walk back into my office and slam the door.

Childish? Maybe.

Necessary? Probably not.

Satisfying? Yes!

“Did you just slam your door?” Connor asks, making me rub my temple and consider hanging up on him. “I mean, talking to our father probably constitutes as much, but good afternoon to you too, Mr. Sunshine.”

“Was there a point to this phone call?” I snip, starting to sort through the rest of the paperwork on my desk. “Or are you going to bust my balls like our father and leave me castrated?”

“Jeez, he must’ve been in a mood,” Connor empathizes. “Seriously, you need to cut the cord with that one.”

“I’min a mood,” I growl out, grabbing a pen and starting to cross off some of the lines in my opening statement.

“Well, I wasn’t going to call the kettle black, but when in Rome—”

“This is Hawaii!”

“True,” Conner says, a jaunty quality skipping into his tone. “Ha-wa-ii! Where the local pastime is to getlei-d.” He waits a beat for me to react. I let the dead air hang on the line and ignore the fact that he said something so stupid. “You see what I did there?” he asks. “Lei-d? Like the flower necklace the women sell down on—”

“I know what a lei is.”

“Right, but I was being clever and brotherly and asking you about something else … obviously. Something with black hair and—”

“I’m hanging up now.”

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