There wasn’t much fun about the annual family reunion–at least not to Brandon. Happening one of the last weekends in August, it always heralded the end of another summer vacation and the dreaded return of another school year. It also meant a crowded pavilion full of people that he really didn’t know, but was expected…
Category: Branthony
15. Sown Seed
Snow is a funny thing. It blankets cities and highways, looking beautiful and wreaking havoc. It cancels classes, delays planes, and causes car accidents. It aches backs with the recently shoveling. But after just a bit of warm weather, it recedes as though it was never there, leaving just the memories of its convenience, the…
14. Gay Apparel
Christmas had come and gone. Brandon had not seen Anthony since the day of paint fiasco, and he attempted to throw himself into festivities rather than dwell on the lack of communication. After all, what was their relationship, actually? To Brandon it might be a confusing tangle of friendship, longing, and lust, but it seemed…
13. Snow Boots in July
Not every kid gets a summer of s’mores, kayaks, and rollercoasters. Brandon didn’t. His mom having returned to work in order to help pay mounting bills that came with the new house and his older siblings both working summer jobs, Brandon spent many days fending for himself at home. It wasn’t all bad. Once he…
12. Agreeable Gray
Brandon turned into the gravel drive and pulled up behind Anthony’s Jeep, just as he had dozens of times. But this time felt different. He cut the engine and stared through the windshield at the farmhouse. A pale sun washed over the front of the house, the long shadows of the porch columns slanting across…
11. Monkstraps & Houndstooth
Brandon had just shaken the hands of departing clients when Anthony pushed through the doors of the gallery. It was the week after Thanksgiving and a wan sunlight and damp chill competed with a cheerful frenzy of seasonal preparations. Anthony glanced at Brandon’s coworker, Lydia, as she expertly twined ribbon in a pre-lit tree…
10. Lawrence
When Brandon was seven, his parents bought a plot of wooded land fifteen minutes from their small house with the intention of building on it. Two years of plans, dreams, contractor meetings, and permit filing later, they began to the process of removing trees and breaking ground. Brandon was fairly uninterested in the process itself,…
9. Upcycling
Brandon let the garbage bag of shoes sit in the back of his SUV for three days. He wasn’t sure why he hadn’t pulled it out or looked inside. Perhaps he was still feeling strange about his last encounter with Anthony, about sliding his fingers into his shoe while he was still wearing the damned…
Shoe Horny 