Page 55 of Roll With The Punches

Chapter Fifteen

Monday morning, Brandon was working on a migraine as he drove to work. He knew Ed would be calling him today at some point to go over the paperwork. Already, Brandon wanted to call Tracey and bitch her out over this, for playing him that day on the phone when he’d actually feltsorryfor her.

Then he remembered the look on her face Saturday.

She was not a willing participant in what happened.

Still, it didn’t exonerate her. She was responsible for what happened in her household the way he was responsible for what happened in his, and Tracey was failing their daughter.

I need to let Ed handle it.

He could tell Jeff and Stuart wanted to unload on Tracey as well, and he didn’t blame them. All day Sunday, they’d been extra attentive to Emma, doing stuff with her, helping her with dinner in the kitchen, trying to cheer her up and make her laugh.

This wasn’t just impacting him and his daughter—it was impacting his husbands’ lives, too. He could roll with the punches just fine, but when it came to protecting the people he loved, he wouldn’t hesitate to flatten someone else in the process.

By the time he got home that night, he was fighting what was starting to feel like a full-blown migraine and felt ready to collapse. Stuart, Emma, and Grace were in the kitchen getting dinner ready when he arrived.

“Wow, Sir, you don’t look good,” Stuart said when Brandon walked into the kitchen to take some ibuprofen.

“Headache. I think I’m going to go lie down for a little while before dinner.”

“Jeff’s in there now. He’s not feeling good.”

“Sick?”

“He thinks he’s coming down with something.”

“Terrific.”

He walked down the hall, a little surprised to find the room completely dark and quiet when he opened the door. Jeff usually liked to nap with a TV on.

Quietly closing the door behind him, Brandon headed for the bathroom to grab a shower when one of the bedside lamps switched on. “Master?”

He turned, his own headache momentarily forgotten when he got a look at Jeff. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Everything hurts. I think I picked up something from the trip.”

“That was two weeks ago, buddy.”

It was nearly ninety out, and yes, they had the AC running, but Jeff was bundled under a blanket. Brandon leaned in and touched Jeff’s forehead with the back of his hand, but he didn’t feel feverish.

“One of the guys at work, his kids are sick. He had to miss today because they couldn’t go to day camp and his wife had to work. Maybe I caught it from him.”

“Did you take your temperature?”

“No, but I took some ibuprofen when I got home.”

Brandon found the digital thermometer he used for Emma and took his temp. It was 99.8, so not necessarily a fever, unless the ibuprofen he’d taken earlier had already helped lower it.

“We’ll keep checking that.”

“Do you want me to sleep in the other bedroom tonight so I don’t get you sick?”

“No, buddy. If you’ve got it, we’ve likely already got it.”

Brandon took a shower, starting it on cool at first and holding his head under the spray, hoping to help pop his headache. If Jeff was down, he wanted to be able to help care for him. He got these tension headaches sometimes, usually after a massive blow up with Tracey.

No shocker there, then.