Page 31 of Doing Life

God, that broke Sloan’s heart. Also made him a little sick to his stomach.

“Yeah, that’s not how that works.” Dan’s voice and expression were a practiced mixture of determination, stubbornness, and sadness. “My job is to help you all get to a place where you can… Cope isn’t the right word.”

Brick tilted his head, raising his prosthetic hand. “Not have panic attacks on the street?”

Chris’s laughter almost sounded real. “Not scream at the postman because he knocked on the door and startled you, and you fell out of your chair?”

“Be brave enough to go to the barber’s without anyone—them or me screaming?” Stanley added, and that grin was honest.

Lance nodded, reaching down to love on Abby, fingers curling in her ruff. “Don’t forget to not fall down in the middle of the road. All those things.”

“All those things.” Dan inhaled deep, held it a second, then let it go. “Whatever y’all need.”

That was a decent son of a bitch.

Sloan found himself nodding along. And he also needed to think about doing some volunteer work in his downtime. He could see him working with guys like Stanley and Chris. Lance’s case might be too specialized for a civilian like him unless it was Lance himself, but he could do the kinds of things Brick did, if not Dan. Meet the guys for coffee. Or for that haircut. Normalize them out in the world.

It was a worthy cause, and he would make some strides in his own right if he did it, he thought.

Lance’s foot nudged his, and he glanced up, finding Lance seeming to stare through him. It had to be tough as shit to want to see something so badly and not be able to do it.

“Let me know when you want ice cream,” he told Lance.

“Sure. Let’s go get it out to soften, huh?”

He grinned, because Lance kept wanting to be alone with him, which was too cool. This was turning out to be a damn good night.

“Thanks for being cool about the movie,” Lance said, feeling his way to a cabinet to pull out bowls.

“Are you kidding me? I’m subscribing. I love that I could put that channel on all night and not have something weirdwake me up.” He hauled out the ice cream to set it on the counter.

“Yeah. It’s wild, huh? We all laugh about it. We used to watch horror movies and action shit, but now we know what it really looks and sounds like.” Lance sighed. “So it’s all about the feel-good.”

“I can understand that.” He turned, leaning against the counter. “Thanks for this, Lance. It’s been good. And that was some amazing damn pizza.”

“Luigi’s is the best.”

“The veg still had the tiniest bit of crunch. It was awesome.”

“I thought you’d like it.”

Sloan lowered his voice. “You remembered.”

“Of course I did.”

Abby woofed, and Lance reached into a glass jar to get her a cookie.

“You two know each other so well already,” he said.

“I know.” Lance chuckled. “They give you a speech when you take on a Seeing Eye dog, you know? Well… lots of them. But they tell you about how many years you’ll get with them, and that they have to retire.”

“Oh, that’s not depressing.” Damn.

“I know, but it’s good to think about. She’s my best friend, and I won’t lose her when she retires, but I will eventually. And I need to be grateful for her every day.”

That was fucking deep, and Sloan grabbed Lance’s hand when Lance held one out to him. “And you want me to get an emotional support dog? Knowing how I am with animals?”

“Yes.” Lance squeezed his fingers. “It will be good for you.”

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