Page 54 of A Case of You
Miranda walked over. Brandon could see every bit of her military training in her posture and manner, even if she hadn’t been in uniform.
“There a problem here?” she asked
Brandon struggled not to burst out laughing.
Jake apparently didn’t know how to process this. It ran totally contrary to his frame of reference and previous experiences in his minuscule view of the world. “Who areyou?”
She smiled as she got right in Jake’s face, making him take a step back. “Major Miranda Martinez, US Army. Sister of the groom. And you are…”
“Major, huh?” Jake huffed. “How’d you managethat?”
The smile never left her face. “Lot of hard work, lot of training, lot of hours spent flying helos.”
“You’re a pilot?”
This was getting better by the minute.
“I specialized on a CH-47. That’s a Chinook, if you didn’t know. I’ve also trained and qualified on the Apache, Black Hawk, and Kiowa.” Her smile widened. “I was a little bored. What do you do for a living, again?”
Of course Brandon knew a setup when he heard one.
Shedamnwell knew.
Jake hemmed and hawed for a moment before finally answering. “I manage a car lot.”
“Usedcar lot,” Carl Powell piped up. “It’s a tiny corner buy here, pay here place with maybe thirty crappy cars at the most.”
Brandon finally let the snort escape him. If he held it in too much longer, his eyes were going to pop out.
“Oh. Well, I guess little towns need car lots, too.” Miranda patted Jake on the shoulder as if consoling him, and then turned to John, who also wore fatigues now, to ask him a question about the decorations.
Jake chewed on his lip for a minute, apparently realizing that picking on the Martinez family wasn’t going to provide him with the sport he’d thought it would. Now that he was being ignored by them, he turned on Stuart and sized him up.
Brandon watched him do it and reached over with his left hand to catch Stuart’s arm and back him up a step behind Brandon.
“Stewie! You ready to give up Florida yet, you rude little shit? What the hell you block me on Facebook for? We’re brothers. Brothers don’t do that shit to each other.”
Brandon smiled down at him. “I think you have that backward.You’rethe rude one.”
“You must be one of his queer buddies.” But Brandon didn’t budge, didn’t flinch.
“I’m his husband. Brandon Ziegler.” He didn’t extend his hand to shake with Jake, refused to participate in that pissing match. And this close, Brandon noticed that the manreallyreeked. Not just cigarette smoke but the aroma of stale alcohol and body odor also washed off him.
“Don’t care whatchoo call it, it’s a sin, and still don’t make it legal.” Jake grinned, thinking he’d scored a point.
“Oh, Stuart’s legally a partner in the house that we own, and all our assets, including our retirement accounts.” Brandon tipped his head to the side. “I hear that’s a quaint little trailer you’ve been renting since high school.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed. “You listen to me, you uppity—”
“Starting in high school,” Brandon continued as if Jake hadn’t spoken, “I worked my way up from stock boy to store manager, to district manager. I now supervise five stores with millions of dollars of inventory.Each. Put myself through college. Raised my daughter. Bought a house. Renovated the house myself.”
Brandon pretended to examine his fingernails before finally returning his gaze to Jake. “What is ityoudo, again?”
Jake jabbed a finger at him. “You don’t know me. You have no right to—”
“I know you’re a bully, and you aren’t welcomed here.” He sensed Miranda, John, and John’s friends closing in behind and around him and Stuart. “Stuart, Jeff, and I are happy. Stuart has a great job working for good people and making excellent money. Frankly, I think you’re jealous over how successful and happy we are. All your siblings have done better than you, quite frankly.”
“I ain’t jealous of no perverts, and that’s all you are! It’s an abomination.”
