Page 36 of Doing Life

His phone rang, and he damn near dropped it.

“Hey.”

“Hey, honey. How’s it going?”

“I’m losing my mind, Sloan.” Lance blew out a gusty sigh. “I need out of here. Want to go for a drive or something?”

Holy shit. Lance was asking him to go out and do things. It was like his thinking about it had conjured the man up.

“Hell, yeah. You want me to come pick you up?” They could get ice cream at the end or something.

“Do you mind? Because I swear to God, man, I could use a little company. I just want out of the house.”

Sloan stood and grabbed his wallet before he went to stomp on his boots. He still had on in his jeans and, well, he was wearing aSesame StreetT-shirt, but that was okay, because it wasn’t like Lance could see him.

“I’m on my way, meet me out front. Do you need me to bring anything for Abby?”

“No. You know she likes to go. She loves you, so…just, yeah, thanks.”

“Anytime.”

He hung up and stood there for just half a second before he grabbed his gimme cap.

Lance had called.

Lance had called him to come on out because he needed out.

It was all he could do not to speed on his way over to the house. The last thing he needed was for Ben or Jackie or someone to give him a ticket.

Couldn’t he see that?

“Oh, come on man, I just wanted to go see my…friend?” They weren’t even friends with benefits; they were ex-lovers. But they were friends.

He’d told himself he’d accept whatever Lance offered, and he didn’t need to make himself a liar.

He pulled up in front of the house and was tickled to see Lance head straight for him. The man was moving better all the time and was more confident with Abby, which he thought made Abby more comfortable, too, because she walked right up to the truck and sat, wagging happily.

“Look at you two. Everything all right?”

There was stress written in Lance’s face, clear as if it were an open book. “Let’s just go. I’ll explain. It’s not me. Everything’s fine with me.”

Oh, that was a blessing.

He got Lance loaded up, got Abby sitting in the back, and then he got them moving toward the golf course. The county golf course was quiet, especially in the evenings, and they could just drive around and talk without anyone fussing.

“Okay, so what’s up?” No one had ever accused him of not being the nosiest man alive. That was one of the reasons that he was a good cop. He got his nose all up in everybody’s business.

“Stan’s having a bad day, and—” Lance blushed and it actually looked uncomfortable, how dark his cheeks went. “You know, I’m just, I’m just not good at this. It’s not even that I don’t empathize with him, because you know I do. I just— I just, I don’t know. I guess I wanna shake him and say stop it, and I know that’s not fair and not right. And you know what? I don’t care. Not right now. I really… Right now I needed him to shut up. And so I called you because I had to get out of there before I said something that would hurt his feelings.” Lance shook his head, shoulders drooping, all hangdog. “Because that’s fucking mean and I’m not that person. I don’t want to be that person. But goddamn it, I wanted him to shut up.”

Sloan nodded, turning out onto the highway. “Dude,that’s fair. That’s totally fair. Just because you got hurt, and you know how he’s feeling doesn’t mean that you are automatically required or able to put up with somebody else’s shit, right? Sometimes, sometimes you just can only put up with your own shit.”

That made perfect sense to him.

And God knew that Stan deserved to rant and rave, but Dan was paid to listen to it, and more importantly, Dan was trained to do it. That was a situation fraught with danger, and the last thing Lance needed was to feel responsible if Stan did something stupid.

“Right on. And sometimes I don’t want to put up with shit at all. I just want to drive around with you and listen to music and talk about nothing for an hour or five.”

“Fair enough. I’m your man.” His gut clenched, and the yearning that broke out at saying those words damn near killed him.

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