Page 66 of Defending Casey

The staff at the Post Office. It couldn’t be his landlord at the apartment building. He was keeping his room there waiting for Casey to come to her senses.

Brian switched from the camera at the front of the store to one of the cameras over the center display. He wondered what they might be shopping for.

With a sneer he twisted the camera around to follow them.

If he was lucky, Hale would trip over his big feet and crack his head open on the concrete floor.

A soft chimereached his ears from the sensor near the door.

Clicking the reset button at the corner of the control panel, he straightened up in his chair and made a good show of looking at the whole bank of screens as the door behind him opened.

“Hey, man.”

Brian finished his perusal of the entire bank of screens before he turned around with a smile on his face. “Hey, boss.”

Terrance, his drinking buddy turned boss, gave him a wink, and lifted his chin toward the display. “Everything okay?”

“Of course!” He leaned his arm on the desk and shrugged. “I’ve got everything handled.”

Clapping his hands together, Terrance smiled at him. “I knew you were wasted at that old job. Lifting big bags of feed. Bales of Hay? Now you have this whole room basically to yourself.” His thoughts trailed off before he jumped on his next idea. “Oh! And air conditioning! That’s awesome right?”

Brian managed a little bit of a lift of his shoulders and a, “Right.”

Terrance took a step to the side and looked at the bank of screens. “Anything interesting today?”

Sitting back in his chair, doing his best to look like he didn’t have a care in the world, Brian shook his head. “Just keeping an eye on things.”

Nodding like he was listening to some kind of wisdom from a hermit on a hill, Terrance sighed. “Good, good. I was just going downstairs to see a couple who came in from Fool’s Gold. You’re from there, right?”

Brian felt an angry flash of heat along the sides of his throat. “Yeah, I grew up there.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Anyway, it’s a guy and his girlfriend. Looks like they need a whole bunch of furniture for his house. I can see this being huge for me. We haven’t had a lot of major sales recently and if what he said on the phone is true, he’s looking to buy enough furniture for several rooms.” He rubbed his hands together. “I’ve asked Tammy to help them, but I was wondering if you wanted to go say hello and help her make a connection to them as customers.”

The last thing he wanted to do was see Casey with his asshole cousin. He knew she’d come to her senses… but it was starting to look like it might take longer than he’d hoped.

“You know, I’m not all that good at schmoozing customers.”

“Yeah, yeah. I can see that.” Terrance agreed all too fast for Brian’s liking. “I mean, you spent what… ten years hauling around bags of fertilizer?” He shuddered and took a step back.

“It was animal feed not crap, Terrance.”

The way Terrance shrugged really got under Brian’s skin. It was like he couldn’t be bothered to care about the difference.

“Sure… sure. I get it. So, you’re not going to go down and say hello?”

Putting a plastic smile on his face, Brian gestured at the bank of screens. “I should get back to my work.”

Terrance snapped his fingers and pointed them at Brian like they were guns. “Gotcha! Talk to you later, man.”

Brian kept his smile on his face until the door closed behind Terrance. “Dumb ass.” He swung around in his chair and searched the screens for some sign of Casey. “Have his dad hand him a fortune and all he does is walk around making stupid comments and- There.”

He switched through several cameras until he got one where he could see them clearly.

Hale still had his arm around Casey and she, damn her, looked like she was all too happy to have him hanging on her.

Tammy always looked like she walked right out of Barbie’s dollhouse. She had those permanent arches in her feet like she’d worn heels from the time she was a baby. It was crazy really. Even when she was in sandals, she looked like she was tiptoeing all over the place.

He saw her making these grand gestures toward a living room set, but Casey shook her head almost immediately. Hale? He just took his cues from Casey.

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