Page 18 of Pretty Broken Wings

I ball my hands into fists and take a step forward before I force myself to stop. Axel always likes picking at me. I work in civil law, mostly with divorce cases, and the one I’m working on now is nasty. Not that I can even say that now.

“Get the hell out of my house.”

“Chill, bro. I’m hungry.” Axel shuffles things around on my burner now, feeling by hand. “And I came for my glasses.”

“No.” The word is out without a second thought.

“Yes?” Axel turns the gas burner on with a tk-tk-tk, and then the whoosh of the flame. “They’re mine. You taking them is theft. You should know that, Mr.Don’t-Break-The-Law.”

I glare at him. “Your girl broke them thinking I was you. Therefore, she broke your glasses. These are mine.”

Axel laughs, throwing a slice of bread onto the pan, then one at Buddy, who wolfs it down in two bites. “That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

“Don’t feed Buddy. I have a big case this week. I need to be able to read.”

“And I have a fuck ton of meetings.” Axel turns around to face me, sucking his finger while he slips another piece of food to my dog. “I need them. Just order another set.”

I grind my teeth. “They won’t come for weeks.”

“Then hire a personal assistant.” Axel shrugs and moves to the fridge, grabbing the butter. Buddy follows him, panting happily.

“No.” I glare harder at my brother. Every time I’ve hired a personal assistant, they’ve sucked. They’ve either been no help at all, gotten mad at me for the extra help I need, or tried to get in my pants. The last one was one of Axel’s flings, who thought she could get more of Axel by getting me.

She was very wrong.

By the sniff of a smirk Axel makes, I think he’s remembering it, too.

“Get out of my house. And for the love of god, I don’t want any more of your women on my doorstep.”

“Glasses, asshole.” Axel shoves his hand out like he’s waiting.

“Go to hell.” I whirl and move to go down the hallway. I’m over this. Why did I even let him in in the first place?

Axel’s voice follows me, “If I miss these meetings, we could miss out on some great brand opportunities. You know how badly Mom has been wanting that particular pizza.”

I stop cold. Mom keeps bragging about how proud she is of Axel for taking over the business. Tells all her friends at their book club about the new gossip at the store. She also tells me about it and the joy that fills her face whenever she talks about what Axel has done, especially now that he’s apparently bagged her favorite pizza company.

My chest hurts. I want Mom to talk about me that way, but she doesn’t. She’s always gotten stiff about my job. The most she does is pat my back and say she’s proud of me.

For a brief second, I think about walking away. Letting Axel battle the consequences of his own behavior. But then I think about my mom’s disappointment.

So I turn back around.

And once again, I enable my brother to be the star of the family at my expense.

CHAPTER TEN

This fucking light. I throw my highlighter down, and it skitters across the desk and clatters between it and the wall. The light over my desk keeps wavering, making the page under my large magnifier look like it’s underwater. It’s so fucking dim in here, and I’ve been at it for hours. My head is pounding, and I’ve only made it through part of what I have to do.

Buddy whines, getting up from her spot on her couch and walking over to me. She’s blind, but she can still navigate the house really well. I always keep everything in the same spot for her. And let’s be honest, it’s for me too. Buddy has Progressive Retinal Atrophy, a genetic condition that’s left her blind in her old age. I found her in the paper. I don’t normally read the paper—it’s a lot of work with a magnifying glass, and I prefer to use that energy to work. But I always comb the section about the animal shelter, and Buddy was in the paper for weeks. No one wanted a fully blind dog. I named her Buddy after the first seeing-eye dog because I thought it was ironic. The blind leading the blind.

I pull off my old pair of glasses. It has a similar frame to the ones that were broken, but the prescription is old, and it almost makes things worse.

This is never going to work. My head hurts so bad from squinting at the blurry, dim words that I want to hurl. I absently scratch Buddy’s head. The case I’m working on is a domestic violence case, and it’s pissing me off more than it should.

I hate these cases.

Why did I ever take this job? For the thousandth time, I think about how it won’t reverse time.