Page 78 of Doing Life

Hard.

Brick sighed. “Like I said, we’ll see how it goes.”

“Yeah. Of course.” Lance let it go. He didn’t want to bring them down anymore. He almost suggested turning on the TV, but that was a cheap distraction too. So he pondered his next brilliant social move.

Stan chuckled. “We’re such a happy-go-lucky bunch.”

“Shut up,” Brick said, and the sound of a lightthunkmeant Brick had slugged Stan gently.

“So, what can we do?” Chris asked.

“We could play partner Monopoly.”

Lance tried to squint at Stan, which never did any good, really. It never made his remaining low vision any better. “‘Partner Monopoly’?”

“Yeah. I mean, you might not be able to see the board, but you have the instincts of a shark. I’d be your partner.”

“Huh. Or we could play trivia.” He couldn’t read cards, but Lance was pretty damn good at pop culture and history.

“Hey, we can do that,” Chris said. “Does Sloan have cards?”

“Yeah. He has all these decks of trivia cards in the buffet over there.”

“Cool.” There was a rustle, and Brick came back a few seconds later. “Here we go. 1990s and 2000s trivia.”

“Cool.” He grinned. This he could do…

By the time Sloan started delivering“hot plate”warnings and food, Lance had accumulated the most cards, which was how they were keeping track of the winner.

“Nice, honey,” Sloan told him.

“Thanks, babe.” He sniffed hard, the smell ofchile making his mouth water as it always did. Something about capsaicin made his tongue sweat.

“God, that looks good,” Chris said.

“Smells good too,” Lance agreed.

“There two eggs on top center of the plate, Lance. Over easy. And the garden is at nine.”

“Got it.” And Sloan didn’t have to tell him that the plate was hot. He knew it had been in the oven to melt the cheese and bring everything together.

This was his crew. They were used to watching him eat, and Brick had his issues, too. So did Stan, come to that, his scars and such making it hard to open his mouth as wide as he was able to once upon a time.

They all ate hearty, and he felt just as tickled as Sloan had when everyone loved the food. He was damn proud of Sloan and his enchiladas.

And he was proud as hell to be moving in with the man he still loved more than anything else in the world. He guessed if Sloan was this determined to keep him, well, who was he to argue?

Chapter Twenty-Two

Sloan woke up wrapped around Lance after a long evening of lazy lovemaking, shared orgasms, the moonlight coming in the window damn near as bright as day.

Lance was the perfect little spoon, which was funny as hell, because he wasn’t a small guy at all. Still, Sloan loved to sleep just like this, his hips to Lance’s ass, his arm slung over Lance’s chest.

Abby whined, and he realized that was what had woken him up. She needed to go out, he would bet. He and Lance had been in a bit of a hurry to go to bed, and she hadn’t gotten her long romp out in the backyard.

He got up to let her out, sliding as silently as he could out of the bed. Lance needed some good sleep, because he was still recovering from the move. That had taken it out of Lance and the guys. Sloan felt guilty as hell, because he’d had to work, and he was still making up for that.

Not that Lance was asking him to. No, his lover seemed pretty damn happy with things. And he was getting used to where his clothes and toothbrush and electric razor were…

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