Page 6 of Doing Life

“Yeah. I mean, it’s easier now, you know. I don’t have to mourn anymore.”

“No? It stops?” He didn’t believe that a bit.

“It eases. Normal life takes over and gets…normal.” Brick snorted softly. “I mean, I’m not going to learn how to knit or anything, but the wild aching? Yeah. It’s better.”

“I hope you’re right. Sometimes it feels like I’ll never be right again.”

“Change your definition of ‘right’.”

“Fuck off.” He found a French fry. “Save the psychobabble for someone that gives a shit.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Laughing, Brick munched his sandwich. The lettuce crunched a lot. “There’s a toothpick holding the sandwich together, and it’s cut in half.”

“Thanks. It’s good to know. I don’t need impaling.”

“No one needs that, man. But it does have that fuzzy plastic on the end.”

“What color is it?”

“Red.”

“Okay.” He remembered red. Blood was red. Roses.Muscle cars. Apples. He had to remind himself every chance he got, because eventually that sense memory would fade.

He gritted his teeth against the surge of headache accompanying that thought. Breathe. In. Out. It was nothing but stress, tightening his scalp.

“Try your coffee, hmm? The sugar and caffeine should help.”

“I hope so. Just don’t let me spill it.” He’d lost so much—his sight, a career, a lover, a life—he didn’t intend to lose another fucking thing.

“If you start to tip, I am here with my good hand.”

That got him chuckling, and that calmed him as much as anything could.

He’d lost a lot, but he had Abby at his side, and he had a damn good friend. Maybe more than one, if the other guys in the house bore out the way they seemed they would.

It wasn’t everything, but it was going to have to be enough. If he missed stuff from his former life… well. So be it.

Though today he’d heard a blast from the past for a moment, a voice that had sounded so much like—like his. It had squeezed up his insides.

It hadn’t been. It couldn’t have been Sloan.

But it was a delicious fantasy.

“You okay?”

“Huh?” He tried to peer at Brick, and of course he couldn’t.

“You’ve got your coffee halfway to your mouth.”

“Do I? I was thinking.”

“Ew! No fun!” Brick’s laugh was loud and happy. God, he couldn’t remember when he’d been that carefree.

It had happened. He knew it had, and Brick insisted it was going to return, but he didn’t know.

Okay, he was getting maudlin, and his belly was rumbling. He just needed to eat. He could do it.

And if he couldn’t, then he had a dog to steal what he dropped.

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