Page 9 of Doing Life

“So, I’ll text you, Sloan.”

“Thanks.” Thanks? Ugh. Suave.

“Abby, walk.” Lance and Abby moved off, Chris rolling behind them. Sloan sighed, grabbing some kind of pizza before heading to the beer section. His phone beeped seconds later, and he grabbed it, but it wasn’t Lance.

It was his sister, making a goofy face in a selfie.

He sent back a pic of thepizza box.

Can I call?

He sighed again, sending back a yes.

He answered on the first ring, then stood there, not wanting to juggle phone, pizza, and Shiner.

“Hey, bro. You should get the brick oven one from Rao’s.”

“I am not paying that much for a frozen pizza.”

“No. Well, what are you gonna pay for?” She cracked up. “So. Hey, I miss you. The kids miss you. When are you coming home?”

He was going back to Santa Fe when he could convince Lance to come with him. No question. “You know, I can’t come back until I get done with what I’m doing. I have a job. I’ve rented a little house. It’s okay.”

“Have you found out if he’s there yet, even?”

“I just talked to him. He was in the grocery store.”

“Jesus, really? How did he look? Was he nice to you? Was he glad to see you? I mean, shit, Sloan. You just ran into him? Just like that? Was he by himself? Does that mean he can see?”

“Those are a lot of questions in a row.” He chuckled and shook his head. “He can’t see. He wasn’t by himself. He was with someone who’s in the house he’s rehabbing in.”

And he looked good. Not perfect, not the beautiful, damn near ethereal guy he’d hooked up with years ago. Not even the sort of idealistic soldier he’d fallen in love with. They’d moved from hopeful to battle-hardened and weary.

And then somewhere after a mission gone fucking terrible, they’d both shifted to ashamed.

Sloan was man enough to admit that when he’d seen all the damage, Lance lying there in the gurney with more red than white showing, he’d been horrified. Lance had been covered in bandages everywhere, blood everywhere, stitches, and…just this horrific damage. A body was not meant to stand up to flames and shrapnel.

He hadn’t walked away, but he had mourned for the beautiful man who was gone. He was a little worried Lance had known that somehow, and that was why his lover had refused to see him more than once after he’d regained consciousness.

Maybe somewhere Lance had heard him cry over those scars and everything.

“Was he nice to you?”

He realized all of a sudden he was still standing in the grocery store, phone to his ear, a million miles away. Lord, maybe he needed ice cream too. That really sounded good. Maybe butter pecan?

“He…he was. He was polite, shocked, but he agreed to see me on Sunday and let me explain.”

“And how’s that going to go? Dear dude, I’m madly in love with you, and I can’t get over you even though you didn’t want to see me. So I moved from New Mexico to Bum Fuck Texas, so that I could become a cop so I could watch you. That’s not creepy at all.”

“I think I’m gonna go for I knew that there were a bunch of rehabbing vets in the area and it made me want to come and be a cop here, okay?” Jesus.

“Now that’s better than the stalker cop part, because that’s weird.”

“I didn’t know for sure he was going to be here. That’s not stalker, that’s hopeful.”

“Dude, your house here in New Mexico is empty. You knew he had to be there.”

“I hoped. I hoped a lot.” And he’d been confident that if Lance hadn’t been here, he would be coming through. This was the sort of thing that Lance would be into—relatively small town, dudes who were helping other dudes get by. And this was the only situation with a reputation of being somewhat gay-friendly. It hadn’t been a long shot, but it had just been a shot.

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