Chapter 20
James
“Okay, what about violet?” I asked, not actually believing the suggestion so much as looking forward to his reaction. He didn’t disappoint. The look he gave me could have stripped metal.
“Violets are for modesty. Really, JD. Is modesty really what you think of when you look at me?” His exaggerated harrumph and accompanying crossed arms were all show.
“Not even a little, baby boy,” I said, tweaking his nose as I walked past him to mount another of the metal critters we’d found during our shopping expedition.
This one was a cute frog mid-jump. I still held that it should be lower to the ground, but he was having none of it.
“Not with the shit that comes out of your mouth.”
He snickered, sliding his hand along my waist as he moved to grab another decoration from the box. I loved that he felt more confident touching me, even if most of the time it left me aching for more. “You say that as if you don’t like the things that come out of my mouth.”
“Quite the contrary,” I said, snagging his face and smacking him with a kiss.
The radiant smile he flashed me before stepping away, metal lizard in hand, made me want to crow, beat my chest, shout my joy from the top of the roof.
I was so far gone for Marc Weathers I didn’t know what to do with myself.
Thankfully, his back was to me and he couldn’t see the truly asinine lovestruck grin I was undoubtedly giving him.
“Do you think it’s too much to have more than one lizard together? I was going for a kind of nest effect.”
I walked closer to get a better idea of what he was talking about.
The current arrangement of metal lizards could be seen as an orgy or a slaughter.
Either way, it wasn’t even close to resembling a nest. Did lizards even have nests?
“I guess it depends. Do you want to scare the daylights out of your clients?”
He tilted his head one way, then the other. “Okay, yeah, I see the problem.” He removed one small lizard and took it to another part of the store. Shaking my head, I helpfully relocated several others while he wasn’t looking. “Hey, JD?”
“Sup?” I asked, bracing to defend my interference. To my surprise, Marc wasn’t holding a relocated-lizard, but my phone, and wearing a quizzical expression.
“Who’s Andy and why are they blowing up your phone?” If it had been anyone else, I might have been more concerned about the hint of insecurity in Marc’s posture. As it was, the joy already flooding me compounded, and I basically bounded over to him like a damn golden retriever.
“No shit?! He never calls me. Or texts for that matter.” Marc’s eyes narrowed as he passed me my phone, and I automatically started pulling up my voicemails.
It wasn’t until I could feel his gaze boring a hole into my skull that I realized I’d neglected to answer his very reasonable question in my excitement.
“Sorry.” I gave him a sheepish look. “Andy’s my little brother.
We’re kinda polar opposites. Besides that, he never reaches out to me anyway.
I was pretty sure he was still pissed about me fucking with him when I came home for Christmas a couple of years back. ”
Marc raised an eyebrow. “What did you do?”
My face heated. Oh damn, I was going to have to admit this shit out loud. I cleared my throat and mumbled my confession as quickly as I could.
Marc’s other eyebrow shot up. “I’m sorry, you did what?”
“I may have hit on his boyfriend and outed some of the kinky shit they're into. In my defense, the second part wasn’t on purpose.” Marc continued to stare at me.
“It wasn’t! What did he expect would happen getting freaky in our parents’ house?
It’s not exactly soundproof,” I added with a harrumph.
Marc still didn’t relent, and I wilted. “Fine. Fine. His boyfriend is also super hot, and I was testing the waters.”
A smirk teased Marc’s lips, and I narrowed my eyes, brandishing the metal bird I was still holding at him.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because I know the real reason you hit on your brother’s boyfriend, and it has nothing to do with him being hot, though I’m sure that didn’t hurt.”
I straightened, lowering my arm and the metal bird. “You do?”
He shrugged. “Of course. I’m total shit at flirting, but Alex and I have done the same for each other plenty of times.”
“And what’s that?”
He walked closer, casually sliding his arms around my waist, and looked up at me. “You wanted to make sure he was good enough for your brother. That he’d be true.”
I think my heart actually stopped as I looked into Marc’s hazel eyes with their starburst of green at the center.
The words “I love you” were right there on the tip of my tongue, and I’d never wanted to say them more in my life.
So many people—my siblings included—assumed the worst of me.
JD the flirt. JD the clown. JD the dunce.
I was good for a laugh or a roll in the sack, nothing more.
But he didn’t look at me like that. Not Marc. Never Marc.
Thankfully, my phone vibrated with an incoming call before I could do anything as disastrous as give voice to the words growing bigger in my chest by the second. I cleared my throat and held up the phone. “I should probably get that.”
“Yeah, you probably should.” He squeezed my sides and stepped back.
I shot him a smile of appreciation, then darted out the back of the shop to take the call. “Hey, little man, since when am I your favorite person?” I answered with a laugh, spinning around to lean against the sun-warmed bricks.
“While I’m well aware that you’re taller than me, Sergeant Gallagher, it seems rather rude to point it out in such a way. As for being my favorite person, since you’re dodging my emails, I felt a call was in order.”
My heart dropped through my stomach, and I scurried to straighten to attention even though my CO couldn’t see me. “Sorry about that, Captain. I thought you were my younger brother. I didn’t—”
“At ease, Gallagher. I assumed as much. Sounds like leave is doing you some good.”
I rubbed the back of my neck and risked a glance inside the shop before slowly closing the door until only a sliver remained open. “Um, yeah. You could say that.”
“I did say that. What I’d like to know is why I still haven’t received your reenlistment paperwork. When we spoke before your leave, you’d mentioned being uncertain. I’d hoped sometime away would provide the clarity you were looking for. How’s that going?”
I struggled to swallow, my throat suddenly unbearably dry despite the instant sweat I’d broken into upon stepping outside.
The heavy sigh that came through the line raised the hair on the back of my neck. “I suppose that’s as much of an answer as anything. What is it, Gallagher? You’ve never been wishy-washy before.”
“I’m just… weighing my options, sir. Trying to figure out my future.”
“I’ve heard that before. So, what is it–some pretty mare got you all wrangled up? Stud?
I choked. “Sir–”
“Look, Gallagher, I don’t give a damn who you do or don’t spend your free time with.
What I do care about is that one of my finest sergeants doesn’t seem to know his value.
” He huffed in obvious frustration. “That came out harsher than I intended. I just want to make sure that if you’re struggling with the decision, there are resources available to you that could help. ”
“Yes, sir. I know.”
“JD?” Marc called for me from inside, stealing my attention. There was a weird tension in his voice I hadn’t heard before.
“Uh, I need to go… sir,” I tacked on belatedly, already angling for the door.
“I understand, but before you do, I just wanna say it’s easy to feel like a team when life means depending on the soldier by your side. It’s harder to remember when the stakes aren’t that high. But the team is always there. Enjoy your leave, Gallagher.”
“Yes, sir, you too.” I hung up and tucked the phone away, already pushing open the receiving door.
I’d almost made it to the front when Marc called more urgently, “JD.”
Officially worried, I picked up the pace, borderline sprinting the rest of the way, only to skid to a halt when I spotted the last person I would have expected to see in Fairhope, Alabama. “Anderson?”
At barely five-foot-seven, and that was being generous, my little brother was exactly that—little.
I hadn’t been joking when I told Marc we were complete opposites.
Where I was tall, he was short. I had bulkier muscles, and he was a whip-cord.
To cap it all off, he was a bona-fide genius with a short fuse and a loud fucking bang.
“Who the fuck else would it be? Maybe if you bothered to check your phone once in a while, or, I don’t know, told your family what you’re up to half the time, I wouldn’t have to resort to measures like this.” He moved toward me and it was like a choreographed dance.
He stepped forward. I reflexively stepped back.
Marc sidestepped to stand between us, and Mitch, whom I’d completely missed, stepped up behind Andy.
Some soldier I was. Missing a whole extra person just because I was slightly terrified of my little brother and his flashing Disney-villain green eyes.
Mitch leaned down to whisper something to Andy, though it did fuck all to diminish his fierce glower.
“Why is it my fault?” Andy snapped irritably.
Mitch placed a hand where Andy’s shoulder and neck met and squeezed.
I watched in amazement as Andy’s eyes glazed over, and though his fire didn’t completely go out, it was undeniably banked.
“We talked about this, kitten.” Mitch released his shoulder and placed a kiss against my brother’s temple.
Marc shot me a confused look, and I shrugged, not any more enlightened about what the hell was going on.
“Let’s try this again,” Mitch said louder, with a beaming smile, to which Andy characteristically rolled his eyes, followed by a death glare when Mitch unceremoniously shoved him forward.