Page 23 of Doing Life

“Thanks, man.” Lance waved a hand. “It didn’t go with guac, I don’t think.”

“You ready for my guac, honey?” he teased. Lance had always loved his chunky avocado New Mexico-style guacamole.

“I am. Lay it on me.” Lance felt around the couch, then the coffee table, checking out the surfaces, the splash factor, he thought. That was cool. Hell, he’d lay down a towel if Lance wanted him to.

“You mind if I put something on your coffee table?” Lance asked. “I know this is a rental.”

“I’ll get one of my old bath towels. I brought a bunch down because I wasn’t sure what the house would have.”

“So it came furnished, right?” Lance waited, face turned up to him.

“Yeah. I mean, I changed out the chair. The recliner. The one that was here is in the garage, wrapped all in old blankets and a tarp.” He went to grab a towel, but he kept talking. “Anyway, I also got some cooking stuff from Walmart. The things that came with the house are all pretty worn.”

“Wow. So you’ll put that all back in the cabinets when you leave?”

Sloan stiffened. He didn’t want to think about leaving without Lance, but he wasn’t going to go there right now. Sohe forced himself to chuckle. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess so. Let me get that guac.”

Abby’s nails clicked on the floor as she followed him to the kitchen. She was totally a dog when she was off duty, looking for a handout. And curious as hell.

He came back with a bowl of chips and one of guac.

“That smells so good,” Lance sipped his beer. “I love that onion and jalapeno thing.”

“I do too.” He thought guacamole smelled green. But maybe that was because it looked that way too. Who knew what Lance thought of it.

“So tell me where everything is?”

“The guac is at noon. Like right in the middle of the table. And the chips are off to your three.”

“Thanks. Is it okay to direct dip, or do you want me to do a plate?”

He didn’t care. “What’s easiest for you?”

“I don’t suppose you have some sort of a wide bowl or plate with a big lip situation that I could kind of hold and dip at the same time? It’d be easier than having to find the bowl each and every time.”

Look at Lance telling him what he needed. He liked that.

“No problem, I can do that.” And he could. Weirdly, Sloan felt as if he had handled this situation. He’d done this. Lance had asked him for what he needed, Sloan provided it. There was no drama. It was easy-ish. Cool.

Lance started eating, so he did too, trying hard not to watch.

“So how do you like it here?” Lance asked him, in between bites.

“It’s humid. Uh…the flowers are pretty.” He needed to try harder. “Actually, all the green is very pretty. And the people are amazing for the most part. It’s a lot less dangerous here to work as a cop than it is in Santa Fe. This is much more, you know, low-key.”

The actual answer was he missed home. He missed the sky being so blue and being able to see the mountains. He missed the colors at home, the browns and the reds and the tans and the blues so different from here. He missed green chile and less stress and arroyos and acequias. He missed adobes. And feeling like he was home.

He’d missed Lance worse.

“How about you? Do you like it here?”

Lance shrugged. “It’s a place. So the people are good, and I like the ranch. I like the guys that I’m in the house with. I’m still kind of in that space where sometimes I just hate everything, but that is not as much as it used to be. So I’ll take it, you know?”

He didn’t, but he wanted to. He wanted to know everything. “So tell me about the guys that you live with.”

Lance turned toward him, seeming to stare somewhere over his right shoulder. “Well, Dan’s sort of like the house mother, I guess. He’s a great guy, I think you’d like him a lot. You’ve met him. He was here, just now. You two have a lot in common. There’s Chris. You met him at the grocery store. And Brick—I think he’s going to be leaving soon. He seems like he’s just kind of hanging around, but I don’t think he’s going to be here long. He’s really got his shit together. Stanley is newer than me even. He just got to the house from the ranch. He was pretty severely burned, and he’s trying to figure shit out.”

Damn it. That was a lot of pain in one place.

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