Black Rainbow

by J. J. McAvoy

  I turned around to leave when she called out again.

  “I’ll tell the dean. I’ll get him fired. There are other professors and you will be out in—”

  “No you won’t, but if you’re that stupid, go ahead and try. But first, let me run down the scenarios for you. If it goes the way you’re hoping, I will be shamed out of school, and Professor Black will most likely stop teaching, or stop teaching our class. But he will still be a great lawyer. You, on the other hand, will lose your big chance to better yourself because we all know that he’s the best way to move up and learn. Option two, and this is because you’ve pissed me off, the Levi Black and the daughter of Margaret Cunning vs. a stripper. We will destroy you. If you want to come after me, that’s fine. If you want to hate me, go right ahead. But you will not obliterate everything that man has built for himself. I won’t let you.”

  I felt bad for having to do that to her. She was right to be angry with me, but it was my turn to save Levi, even in this tiny way.

  Maybe I was just like my mother… willing to do whatever it took to further my own goals and happiness, even if it meant hurting other people.

  The thought made me sick.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  THEA

  “So… Is anyone going to clue me in as to what the hell is going on?” Atticus asked, looking between Vivian and I who now worked on opposite sides of the office. It had been a week since that night, and we still hadn’t spoken a word to each other. We did our work, pretended the other wasn’t there, and then went home.

  She didn’t answer him, and neither did I.

  “Okay then.” He leaned back.

  Levi had only brought it up to me once and that was the night of the ball.

  Are you running?

  That was all he wanted to know. It frustrated me how relaxed he was about all of it. However, I wasn’t running. I couldn’t find the strength to run from him anymore, and I was tired of running.

  Now that we were basically living at his office, filing reports, doing coffee runs, or just stapling papers, I once again realized how important he was.

  “What’s going on?” Atticus asked again, but this time he wasn’t talking about us.

  Instead, he was looking out the office and at the stream of reporters that were following Betty. I wasn’t sure, but I suspected that she either knew, or assumed, that something was going on between Levi and I. Every time I walked past her in the hallway, she would pause, look me over, and smile to herself like she’d heard something funny.

  “Didn’t you hear? Professor Black won Lawyer of the Year,” Raymond said as he leaned against the door.

  He looked as sharp as ever in his navy blue suit.

  I had read up on Raymond; he was one of Levi’s first associates, and the only person who was not of Harvard breeding. Instead, he went to Boston College and had attended one of Levi’s seminars. To get an internship, he stood outside every day for three weeks, and handed Levi his morning cup of coffee… in the winter. In his personal reports, it said he only took four days off per year to visit his mother in Jamaica.

  “He has an interview going on, so if anyone asks you anything about anything, smile and lie.”

  “So, if they ask how it feels to spend our evenings filing briefings from three years ago, we should say it’s great?” Atticus asked sarcastically, as he pulled out the files he needed to work on next.

  “Some people would kill to be where you are. I remember being at the bottom of the food chain. Believe me, it’s worth it when you get to sit at the grown-up table.” He looked to me, “Now, one of you, get me some coffee.”

  “Black?” I asked getting up.

  “Cream and four sugars… you really should stop volunteering yourself, or you’ll be remembered as the coffee girl,” he said to me, leaving as he heard his named called by none other than Tristan.

  “He’s right you know,” Atticus replied, and Vivian walked right in front of my face, as if I wasn’t even there, grabbed my papers and then moved back to her desk.

  “Anyway,” Atticus shook his head, “coffee girl can—”

  “I hear office gossip when I’m walking around. Plus being seen working is good—”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be getting me coffee?” Raymond asked me.

  “Really? Good, Levi was just asking for it. Hurry up,” Tristan said, leading Raymond away.

  “You’ll get to hear some of the interview,” Atticus pointed out.

  “Of course,” Vivian muttered.

  I turned on my heels and left. She wanted to be a child about it, then fine, I could handle her little digs. Entering the break room, I ran straight into Betty, sending her tray of cookies and pretzels everywhere.

  “Betty, I’m so sorry,” I said as I dropped down and began picking up the mess I had made.

  “It’s okay, never mind the mess, I’m just going to have to order something for them—”

  “I can run out and get it.”

  “You're a lawyer, not a delivery girl. I got it,” she laughed when I stood back up, handing her the tray of broken treats.

  She was being nice… no one in this office was nice to any of the “twelve”. We all believed that Levi had told them to give us the hardest time possible over the smallest of things. For example, last week Atticus had misplaced someone’s cup, and all of sudden it was being treated like a missing person’s case.

  “I’m not treating you differently,” she said.

  “I wasn’t thinking that,” I lied.

  “You know that thing that Levi does where he looks into your pretty brown eyes, and all of sudden knows all your thoughts? Yeah, well, I taught him that.” She winked, walking around me.

  “Why do you always smile when I walk by?”

  She paused. Tilting her head to the side, her eyes crinkled as she smiled.

  “Do I? I honestly didn’t notice. Seeing the way you and he dance around each other reminds me of the time when I was my husband’s secretary. It’s like a déjà vu for me. You should forget the coffee and run back now… Raymond always messes with one of you...” she added the last bit, and took her leave.

  What?

  Dashing out of the room, and back to the conference room I found that both Atticus and Vivian were gone.

  What the hell?

  “I only count eleven?” someone said from inside Levi’s office, and I couldn’t see because of the wall the camera crew made spilling out into the hall.

  Shit. Think Thea.

  I couldn’t go in there late without anything, he was going to chew me out in front of everyone.

  “You’re in trouble,” Tristan grinned stepping up right next to me.

  “It’s your fault. I thought we had a deal. I’m never getting coffee ever again.”

  “The deal was to help you help Levi win the Nash case.”

  I hate lawyers.

  “I still have the guyliner card.”

  “It’s your word against mine, and you better hurry up before you miss out big. I doubt they will start over because of you.” He lifted up a folder. “Then again, this could save your ass.”

  He was enjoying this.

  “What do you want?”

  “Babysitting, this Friday.”

  “Done.”

  “And Saturday.”

  Goddamn him.

  I snatched the file from him and I read it over quickly to see what was in it.

  “Fine,” I said, before I took off running full speed towards the office.

  “I’m sorry, I’m here,” I said, moving through the crowd to where Levi stood at his window with the rest of the students behind him for a photo.

  He looked at me and I could just feel the lecture coming.

  “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t aware we had time for photos, Professor Black. I spotted this and thought you might need it.” I handed it to him.

  He took it, reading it over. “We will discuss this later.”

  “I’m so sorry to keep you waiti
ng,” I said to the reporters in the room.

  “It’s fine, we were just testing the lighting anyway. We know the work comes first.”

  Smiling, I nodded and moved towards the rest of them. Vivian shook her head, sucked her teeth at me, and looked out the window.

  “Now, can we get the two females in the middle?” the photographer asked us.

  Sure, if you want to capture a murder on camera.

  I moved towards the center, as did she.

  “Was there even anything in that folder?” she hissed at me under her breath.

  “If you have to ask that, you aren’t paying attention,” I whispered back and smiled as the flash went off.

  “Thank you, that’s all we need for now.”

  We all broke apart, leaving the room to give them space. Before I could make it back to my desk, Atticus came up behind me and grabbed my arm, along with Vivian’s, and pulled us away from everyone and towards the stairwell.

  “What are you doing?” I pulled my arm away from him.

  “Whatever this big bad secret is, I want to know now before both of you fuck this up for us,” he demanded, looking at the both of us.

  Vivian freed her arm and moved as far away from me as she could within the cramped space.

  “Fine, I’ll start with my secret then; I’m a white, southern, gay, democrat whose father happens to be a Republican Governor,” he confessed looking between us.

  I didn’t say a word, crossing my arms as she did.

  “I can wait,” he said and leaned back against the door, “but do you really want to be stuck in here much longer?”

  “I’m republican, and a stripper, can I go now?” Vivian snapped at him.

  His eyes went wide for a moment before he tried to hide it.

  “Okay… I didn’t see that coming,” he replied slowly.

  Vivian looked to me, waiting as if to tell me I didn’t have the balls to admit my secret… and I didn’t.

  “And she’s sleeping with our professor,” she spat out in disgust.

  “That I kind of saw coming. No offence,” he looked to me and said.

  “I worked just as hard for my spot here,” I said to her once again.

  “Sure you did,” she snorted. “If you’ve done nothing wrong, then why can’t you admit it.?”

  She pushed Atticus out of the way, taking her exit.

  All I could do was sit on the stairs. “If it makes any difference, I was seeing him before I knew he was our professor. I just thought he was a lawyer, I had no idea who he really was until the first day in class...”

  “You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” he said as he took a seat beside me.

  “Really? If anything I figured you would be just as pissed off as she is. It feels like you and I are always neck and neck.”

  “Yeah, but you aren’t beating me because you’re with him. It would make sense if you put in just the normal amount of effort. But you’re always going the extra mile, and if someone else tries to catch to you, you push yourself harder. If you could have just gotten by sleeping with him, then you wouldn’t have bothered to dig up any dirt on us.”

  “Maybe I’m just a horrible person,” I huffed looking the other way.

  “You’re not,” he said, and I looked to him. “You knew I was gay, didn’t you?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I figured as much, but you never brought it up, that day, or ever. You were never going to use it against me? I’m not my political affiliation. Who I vote for does not define me… my sexuality… who I chose to love. That is me, and you didn’t trash that. You’re not a bad person Thea. I am the last person to judge who should and who shouldn’t be together because society says so.”

  I sighed, “Damn it, now I have to call you my friend.”

  We both laughed.

  “Don’t worry about Vivian, she’ll get over it.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked, because I really didn’t see that happening.

  He shrugged, “Well you women are hard on your own sex for some reason.”

  Before I could reply, the stairwell opened. Levi looked between us for a moment, with his eyes hard, and his lips pressed into a fine line. Atticus stood quickly, but I froze under his glare.

  “You, my office now,” he said as he pointed to me. Then he walked out without another word.

  Shit.

  “This would be a good time to use your magic to not get me fired,” Atticus almost begged as I headed out.

  Levi walked swiftly with his fists balled at his side, and his whole back was tensed.

  “Levi, you have a call—”

  “Hold it,” he snapped, cutting off Betty and stepping in his office. She looked to me wide eyed.

  This right here was the problem with being romantically involved with your boss.

  “You wanted to speak to me, sir?” I asked, with my back straight.

  “Are you sure you’re not busy?” he snapped throwing the file I had given him earlier onto the desk before grabbing his guitar in the corner and taking a seat. “If I knew the workload was so light around here, I would have only picked six students.”

  “And Atticus and I would still be one of them,” I shot back.

  I hadn’t done a damn thing wrong, and I was not going to let him make feel like I had.

  “Professor Black, I’m sure you’re only interested because we were stupidly discussing something private during your time, and for that, I am truly sorry. However, I would like to make it clear, once again, that I am serious about my position here and my intention to learn from the best. There is nothing, not even a little bit, going on between Mr. Logan and myself. I’m not that stupid, nor that cruel, to be doing anything in your stairwell with you twenty feet away.”

  He strummed the strings, not saying anything as his fingers worked over the neck of the guitar.

  “Is there anything else, Sir?”

  “That file, where did you get it? Honestly,” he asked, calmer now.

  “I traded babysitting Bellamy for Tristan on Friday and Saturday for it. It’s just a mistake on your brief for the bar association tomorrow, right? Nothing big.”

  “Even little mistakes look bad. I’ll be sure to thank Tristan then. That will be all,” he said as he resumed playing.

  Nodding, I turned to leave when I heard him whisper.

  “There’s nothing there? Not even a little bit?”

  I turned to face him, my expression softening as my heart broke at his tone. “It’s not even possible. I’m head over heels for someone and Atticus… well, I’m not his type.”

  I didn’t think I could be with anyone else now anyway.

  He didn’t reply, and he didn’t need to.

  LEVI

  When I got back to my place, she was curled up on my couch, watching the news and eating a bowl of cereal. She looked up at me briefly, but didn’t say anything. Her cat, Shadow, sat at the door, her brown tail swaying back and forth as she looked up at me as if to ask me what I had done.

  Petting her head a little, I dropped my stuff at the door and went into the kitchen. Grabbing a bowl of kettle corn, and a beer from the fridge, I took off my shoes and sat down next to her. The thing I both loved and hated about Thea, was the fact that she couldn’t help but speak her mind. With each bite I took, I could tell in the corner of my eye that she was getting more and more ticked off with me.

  “Can you pass me the remote?” I asked her.

  “No. You are an ass,” she snapped. “An ass who does not trust me.”

  I sighed. “Look I’m sorry. Yes, I’ll admit that I was jealous, but can you blame me? Why were you two alone in a stairwell… laughing together?”

  “God forbid.”

  I sighed, “You both just seem very close. Since day one, you both click. He’s not bad looking, and he’s closer to your age—”

  She laughed. “Says the guy who was dancing all up on a pretty brunette?”

  “What?”

  “On
New Year’s, at your parents’ masquerade ball, you and that woman in red, you danced with her. And she was the only woman you danced with all night, I might add, but you don’t see me yelling at you.”

  It took me a moment to follow.

  “Are you sure you weren’t just saving it for this moment? She’s a family friend and she dragged me out to dance. I spent the whole time trying to think of how to get closer to you.”

  “It was because of Vivian. I was with Atticus because he wanted to know why we weren’t speaking to each other, so he dragged us both into the stairwell. Then she left, because she can’t stand to be around me for more than ten seconds without trying to bite my head off. And before you ask, yes he knows. Will he talk about it or tell anyone? No he won’t. We all have things on each other now, so it’s fine. Here’s your damned remote,” she finished, as she chucked the remote at me.

  I placed it, and the kettle corn, on the table alongside my beer. Moving over to her, I kissed her neck.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again with each kiss until she laid back. Once I was on top of her, I kissed her lips. “I was jealous. I’m a jealous man, I can’t help it. I don’t ever want to lose you to another man…”

  Not ever again.

  “I’m not her,” she whispered as she ran her hands over my cheek. “I’ve gotten used to reading your face too. I’m not your ex-wife, no one can take me away from you.”

  Her hands ran down to my chest, slowly pulling off my tie.

  “How many times do I have to prove it you?”

  She never looked away from my eyes as she up unbuttoned my shirt.

  Her beauty, her passion, her intelligence, the look in her eyes, the way she challenged me.

  Everything she was, affected me.

  “I’m unconditionally in love with you.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  LEVI

  I’m an idiot.

  My Thea, God bless her, was a runner by nature. The moment she got spooked, she had a tendency of throwing up walls, and last night I must have scared the hell out of her. I hadn’t meant to tell her that I loved her out loud. I couldn’t help but think it, and before I could stop myself, it was spilling out of my mouth… we made love, but she never once said it back, and she didn’t bring it up again.