Page 60 of Doing Life

“I think so too.” He had to admit the swimming was doing wonders for his leg. At least it felt like it was. He should probably do more aqua therapy at the ranch, but he didn’t seem to have time. All he did during the week was go from one therapy to another as it was. Still, this had been fun.

“What are you thinking about so deep?” Sloan asked, plopping down beside him.

“Swimming. I’m liking it a lot.” Even if he could imagine it would be terrifying if he was alone. How would he know how to get back to shore? The thought of that made him want to barf a little, which was stupid.

Why the hell did his brain always want to ruin shit that was good? He needed to quit it.

“Me too. I’ve decided that when I get home, I’m going to put in one of those infinity pools, one that can double as a hot tub. There’s room for it at my place.”

Lance wasn’t sure he was ready to talk about that kind of stuff.

Not yet.

It was one thing to go camping for a weekend, knowing that the house was still waiting for him, that his therapy was still waiting for him, that the ranch was still waiting for him. It was a whole other can of worms to think about going to another state, to a place he didn’t know, that Abby didn’t know. Where he didn’t have any friends or anybody like him.

He wasn’t sure he could fathom moving on yet.

Still, it was a good thing to remember that Sloan was here. Like a loan. They’d checked Sloan out of a library. It was maybe not a short-term thing, but it sure wasn’t permanent.

“Hey, babe, what’s wrong? You got all pinched-looking there for a second.”

“Thinking about going to New Mexico scares me.” Lance went for honest because Sloan deserved that. “Not New Mexico per se, just going away somewhere new. Trying to learn everything that I have to learn. I don’t think I’m ready for that yet. I still need the security of everything here at the ranch, and that makes me feel bad because I know you miss it. But I also know I’m selfish, and I don’t want you to go. So, it causes me stress trying to figure out what to do.”

Sloan didn’t answer right away, but he knew that was Sloan giving his answer the consideration it deserved. Then Sloan pulled in a deep breath. “I’m here for the long haul, honey. You tell me you need a year? Two? Whatever? I’m here.”

“How is that fair?”

“Shit, Lance, it’s more than fair. I get to have you. That’s worth ten infinity pools. Do I want to take you home? Hell, yes. But I want you to be ready to go with me, or it will all collapse. And that does no one any good.”

“Do you ever think about where we would have ended up if none of this would have happened?” he asked.

“You mean the bomb? I think it altered a lot. Maybe we’d still be working, maybe we would be retired. Would we have just gotten out, gone on the economy? Hell, would we have been married by now?”

Lance tilted his head. “Married?”

“Sure, why not?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’ve never thought about it. It seems like such a…straight thing for us to have done.” He hadn’t—he wasn’t opposed to being married. He just never considered it, especially not since the accident, but even before.

Of course, he wasn’t sure that what they were now was what they had been back then.

“No, it’s probably weird, really. It is a reasonable idea though, even if the reason is solely practical. Not that it would be practical for me. It would be a love thing.” Sloan chuckled, the sound so soft. “I guess in some things I am kind of traditional.”

“You think?” Lance had to laugh, because Sloan was the All-American hero. “I would say that you are pretty damn traditional. That doesn’t suck. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m not sure what we would have done. I wanna say that we would have just left the service and gone and done something else and everything would have been okay, but who knows? We may have just stayed with the status quo.”

They hadn’t had to worry about what they were going to do next. They hadn’t had to think about being anything more than soldiers except for when they were on leave.

Now there was a whole lot more life left.

“Well, we have a lot more to think about now, huh?” Sloan echoed. “But we don’t have to think about it all right now. We can take it one day at a time. One hot dog.”

“Oh, I like it. Can Abby have a doggie dog?”

Abby whined at his words. She knew what a hot dog was, and she loved them. Desperately.

“Of course. We have an eight-pack. I’ll have two.”

“I’ll have two. We’ll feed Abby two.”

---