Page 32 of Doing Life

“Lance—”

“What? It’s true.” Lance let go when Dan came into the kitchen.

“Whoops. Am I interrupting? I just wanted to get the ice cream going before Stanley pooped out.”

“Sure. Should I make sundaes?” Sloan asked. “I brought everything but nuts.”

“Oh, good man. No one needs to have an EpiPen for supper.”

“Exactly. I’ll scoop if you want to dollop.”

“I got bowls,” Lance put in.

“Sounds great. Thanks, guys.” Dan chattered, but it wasn’t awkward. It was friendly. He wasn’t here to try to make out with Lance.

Sloan was here to meet his friends.

He could check that off. And if he got supreme pizza and an ice cream sundae out of it?

That was just a bonus.

Chapter Ten

“You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Huh?” Lance turned his head, trying to see, which was stupid, because it didn’t help. But he always did it anyway, just on instinct. But the source of the voice came from off to one side of him in the aisle at the Walmart.

“You and that other man who came in with you.”

“What the actual fuck?” Lance let one eyebrow arch as he heard what this idiot was going on about. His first instinct, always, was to assume someone was queer-bashing, but Stanley was as straight as a new ruler. “Excuse me?”

“They used to have put people like you in homes so that you didn’t scare children, you and that monster you’re walking around with.” Little Miss Karen was building up a head of steam. “But instead, we’re expected to just allow our children to have nightmares because you’re walking around among decent people. I just do not understand why you feel the need to?—”

“Shop? For food? I mean, honestly, trolls usually hideunder bridges and eat children, but the rivers are all filled with chemicals these days.”

“What? Don’t you speak to me like?—”

Lance hadn’t had a really good screaming fight in at least half an hour or so, maybe forty-five minutes. “Like what? Like decent people? I wonder, lady, because Stanley and me? We both have our medals of honor. Why? Because we both got hurt defending this country and your goddamn right to be a bitch. So maybe—just maybe—next time, before you decide to open your fucking mouth, you should get down on your knees and thank God that you’ve got soldiers like us willing to protect assholes like you.”

Oh, that felt so good.

“Well, I never.”

“That’s patently obvious. Maybe you ought to three or four times before you open your goddamn mouth again.” He didn’t have the time or the energy to be nice to this twat.

“Why don’t you shove?—”

Footsteps sounded next to him. Cowboy boots. Could be anyone. “What’s going on here?”

“Officer, officer, this—this man, he, he attacked me. He’s just started yelling at me out of nowhere. I think I think possibly he’s high or homeless or something.”

Lance’s eyes rolled so hard it hurt. He probably strained something, and if he wasn’t already blind, it probably would have hurt his eyesight too.

“Are you homeless, Lance?”

Okay. He knew this voice. This was Ben. Sloan worked with him. They’d met at the coffee shop, and Ben had a golden retriever named Puddles. “No, sir.”

“Are you high, Lance?”

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