Page 27 of Doing Life

“See? You’re worried again now, just about different shit.”

“Yeah. I’m…I’m nowhere near as hot as I used to be, you know?”

Brick paused, then he chuckled. “To who? I mean, you have to see you from Sloan’s point of view, not yours. Like, I mean, look at Chris. He thinks he’s lost any sex appeal he had because of the chair, but I think he’s hot as fire.”

He blinked hard at that. “Is that why you’re still hanging around the house? You seem pretty ready to graduate from rehab.”

Brick sighed, drumming his fingers on the table. “I dunno. I like him? But he’s as bad as you are. Pushing back.” Brick paused. “You want a cookie, man? They just put out a big plate of them. I’ll go get us one to go with our coffee.”

“Sure.” Now Brick was the one running away. But he got it. Hard questions were hard questions no matter who was fielding them. And maybe he thought Brick had his shit more together than he did.

The fact was, they were all fucked up in their own ways. It sucked, being broken at their cores.

Even Sloan. Poor baby.

“They had oatmeal Scotchies and chocolate chunk pecan. One or the other trip your trigger more?” Brick asked when he came back.

“How about we split both?”

“That sounds great, man.” Brick made this little noise Lance was starting to associate with a grin. “You can stop on your way out and get one for Sloan. We can drop into his office and leave it.”

“Yeah, no. If I get him a cookie, I will deliver it after work hours.” There was no way he was going to have the police department spreading his business all over. Though, according to Luke, they were way more honest than they used to be. The old chief had been a rotten SOB by all accounts. He was damn glad Sloan hadn’t ended up here then. Of course that was onereason Sloan had gotten hired, wasn’t it? The old guy had embezzled rather than hiring new deputies.

“Yeah, yeah. Well, if he ever wants to come over and do pizza with us at the house, the guys have all said they would be cool with it.”

“Y’all rock. Thanks.” It might be awkward as hell, but that would get Sloan in a space to meet all the guys, and they could all spend some time together. He could let himself be with Sloan outside that little apartment condo thing. “Maybe I’ll call him.”

“Go for it. I can call the guys and tell them.” He must have seemed worried because Brick touched his hand. “Hello, bro? It’s Friday, right? You got the weekend off. Does your man work weekends?”

He shook his head. “They’re on call every fourth one. He worked last weekend. They take turns.”

“You know the man’s schedule. Impressive. Call about pizza.” Brick never let up.

Lance rolled his eyes and grabbed his phone, telling it to call Sloan. He didn’t figure it would do anything but go to voicemail, but he would sure try.

Of course Sloan picked up. “Hey, man, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing’s wrong. I didn’t mean to bother you. I just, um, I was. Do you have a second?” He felt like an idiot, like a teenager asking a guy out for a date.

“Of course, I do. Everything all right? I’m just finishing up a little bit of paperwork, then I’m off.”

“Oh cool. The guys and I were wondering if you’d like to come over to the house and have pizza tonight.”

There was a pause, one that made him feel nervous as fuck, and then he heard kind of a happy little laugh. “Sure I would. Sounds great, what time?”

He chewed on his bottom lip. “Uh, seven? Does seven work, Brick?”

“Sounds great, man.” Butter wouldn’t melt in Brick’s mouth.

“So let’s do seven.”

“Perfect. You out and about with Brick?”

“Well, yeah, I’m having coffee. Practicing. It went way better than the first time when I almost fell. This time, so far, it’s been smooth sailing. Brick and I drank coffee. We haven’t spilled it yet. We had a cookie.”

“That you haven’t eaten,” Brick added.

“You’re not helping. We got one for you too. A cookie.” Jesus, he was a dork, but this was hard with Brick sitting here listening.

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