"You're kidding, dad, right? I need the money, I told you. Why can't you just tell her she's not gonna live there? No. No, no, no, no, no. No, just no. This is unfair. So what if I'm a little kid, I don't care, I just need to fix up the place and rent it out, it's mine, right? It's my part of the inheritance. No, I'm not gonna argue with her about it, I'm hardly there, so can't you tell her? Then let her mother tell her, for fuck's sake. She's always had a lot of say in everything, but when her daughter's being a cunt, she keeps quiet. No, I won't let her, because she's being a cunt. She knows I need the money, and now she's making some sibling claim to an apartment that belongs to me and not her, but of course she feels entitled to everything. Fucking spoiled little bitch, really. Who do you think? I don't think so, do I? You and her mother, who else?”

He tapped the screen with his finger a few times, thinking how nice it would be to have one of those old phones now, to be able to slam the receiver and hear that clanking sound the old phones made. How satisfying it must have been.

"What's wrong?" A tall girl came up behind him and put her arm around his shoulders. She rested her head on one of them and looked at him almost piteously.

"My sister's pissing me off."

"You have a sister?" She asked jovially. She walked around him and sat down on the couch.

"Yeah, I do. Have I never mentioned her?" The girl shook her head and took a bite of the apples she had cut up in her bowl. "Really? Weird. Yeah, I have a sister, she's younger and she's a horrible spoiled bitch."

"What did she do that was so bad?" She asked, pointing him to a spot on the couch next to her where he should go sit.

He waved his hand and nervously began to pace the room. "A year or so ago, both of my grandparents on my dad's side died, and my dad inherited the house from them. He doesn't want it because he has his own and decided to split it between me and my sister. It's more or less two units, it's going to take some work to separate it properly, but it won't cost much. Well, of course, my sister had a big objection, so she came up with the idea that she wanted the bigger unit, which is more work, right? I said I'd take the smaller one, I had no problem with that. It's more or less finished and livable when the final subdivision is done, and I was hoping to get it done quickly, get it done with my buddies in a weekend, and then rent it out and have some extra cash. Only she, errr," he clenched his fists and mouthed an unintelligible curse between his teeth, "she's now made up her mind to take out a mortgage to remodel the other flat, but because it would be too expensive for her to live in the flat she's living in now with her fancy boyfriend, she's moving into mine. Which wouldn't have been a problem, so her dad let her, they didn't say anything to me until now, because not only do they not want to pay rent, but they decided they can't even afford to pay for the utilities they use. So now not only will I not have any money from the rent, I'll still be paying for electricity and water and heat so she can fuck her effeminate boyfriend. I'm telling you, he's a latent gay anyway. He's always looking at me like he's got a twitch in his stick. What the fuck?" He looked at the vibrating phone. His father's number appeared on the display. "What's up, Dad? What? No, why the fuck would you do that? She’s been paying for her own life up until now, hasn’t she? Or that walking ad for men's cosmetics of hers. No, I don't want it from you, I want it from her. She's a spoiled little cunt, and you know it. Fine, let her mother send it to me, she's the same. No, I'm not taking it from you, let her pay for her own life, she's been doing it, I don't see why she shouldn't have the money to pay off her loan when she's living rent free. I wonder how the fuck she's gonna do it when she moves in? Will she want you to pay the utilities for her because she has to pay back a couple grand a month? Now she's living in an apartment as big as a downtown, I bet she's only paying rent there for at least fifteen thousand, which the loan certainly won't be, so she'll be just as well off, if not better off."

He threw the phone on the couch. It bounced and fell to the floor. He quickly bent down to pick it up to see if the screen had shattered. Not that he could afford a new one right now. But the glass seemed fine.

"And you didn't think to maybe call your sister directly and talk it over with her? Or maybe your mom?"

"We have different mothers," he replied curtly, tapping something eagerly on the display. "And you can't talk to her. Ever since she found that nagelated cunt, she's even more insufferable than she was when we were growing up. I don't even want to talk to her."

The phone vibrated in his hand. “Fuck you, really, you stupid bitch." He flung it at the couch again, but not too hard to keep it from falling over again.

"That wasn't on me, was it?"

"No, it wasn't."

He slumped his head between his shoulders and sat down next to the girl. He lay in her lap, his hand fumbling in the bowl she'd placed beside his head. He took one of the apples and took a bite. "Dude, I would kill for a smoke."

"Screw it, maybe she'll come to her senses, right? How old is she?"

"Twenty-four."

"Well, she should have her wits about her by now, right? Girls grow up earlier, I hear." She laughed to herself.

"She should have her wits about her? Look at that." He put the phone in front of her face with the latest message displayed.

"Cool little sister. Her balls and confidence I'd like to have. You just don't see that."

"No, you wouldn't. You wouldn't be sitting here right now." She leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead.

"You're telling me I'm sitting here because I have zero confidence and I'm quiet and don't express myself?"

"Sort of," David nodded with a smile, stood up, and kissed her neck.

"Stop it, will you? I've got to get dressed and get out of here, and most importantly, I'm really not here for you to take your relationship with your sister out on me. That's pretty freaky." She raised both eyebrows, as if telling him he should think more deeply about his relationship with his family. She took the last piece of apple from the bowl, got up from the couch, leaned over and kissed him softly on the forehead once more, and left the room. David listened to her rummaging through her things in the bathroom and brushing her teeth. He lifted his phone to his face, typed a reply to the message and closed his eyes. Within ten seconds, the phone trembled in his hand again. Without looking to see who was calling, he tapped the bottom of the screen out of memory and put the receiver to his ear.

"What do you want?"

…to be continued