Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
“ W hat?” Brick sounded utterly shocked, his voice ringing through the coffee shop. “You want me to do what?”
“Shut up! Jesus, your voice carries. I want you to tell me how to hook Dan and Sloan up.” Lance didn’t think this was really difficult. Why did Brick?
“Listen to me. I’ll use little words so you can understand. Why do you want to hook your lover up with our house mother? I thought you liked him. I liked you liked both of them.”
“I do. That’s part of the point, isn’t it?”
“Dude. This is creepy. I don’t understand.” Brick’s voice was pure shock.
Lance sighed, because he got that. “I don’t know that I do either, I mean, Sloan is…”
He didn’t know how to explain it. He’d been seeing Sloan three times a week, just like clockwork. For three weeks.
They had food. They talked. They reminisced.
It was sort of like therapy, but with more beer.
He held Sloan’s arm as they walked somewhere.
Sloan told him about his day. He told Sloan about his.
They both loved on Abby. They listened to a couple of TV shows and a couple of movies. It wasn’t as if they could play cards.
Lance hadn’t figured Braille out yet. He wasn’t sure he was smart enough to do that. In fact, he was pretty sure he wasn’t smart enough to do that.
But he wasn’t sure there was any chemistry anymore.
Mostly, he didn’t think he had anything to create chemistry with.
There was nothing wrong with his dick in theory; he just hadn’t done anything with it. Like at all, and when the therapist asked him, he said he was fine because no way was he telling a girl that he couldn’t…Well, he didn’t… didn’t want to. Except he wanted to want to.
But that didn’t matter.
Sloan was healthy. Sloan could get it up. So the son of a bitch needed someone who could get it up too. Dan was healthy; Sloan was healthy. They both drank beer. They were both queer. They could be happy together.
Then they could all be friends.
Even if that thought made him want to kick himself in his own balls, which he was totally incapable of doing, especially with that one leg.
“You are a psychopath. I just think you should know I’m not helping you hook anybody up with anybody else, especially not the guy that you’re in love with and the house mother.
So just don’t ask again. You’re just…what is wrong with you?
” Brick stopped short. “I mean, you know, barring the obvious.”
“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with me is…” He dropped his voice, praying no one was listening. “I don’t have any…desire anymore, and it it’s fucked up because I want to.”
There was a long silence, then a “Dude.” Brick sounded as if he’d had a damn epiphany.
“It takes a minute. That’s it. It took me a couple of years.
For sure. You wanna talk about having issues?
I got one hand. It’s not…It’s the hand I lost; it’s the hand I used to jack off.
This is not a situation that you just change. You wanna talk about frustrated?”
“Oh my God. Oh shit.” Lance shook his head and thought about that. That had to suck. Like one hundred percent.
“Right?” Brick snorted. “It damn near killed me, the first time I wanted to jack off, reached down for my cock and nothing happened.”
He shook his head. “That is fucked up.”
“No shit. It is, but things work themselves out. They do.”
Lance nodded. Okay, he got it. He needed to get his head out of his goddamn ass.
“Maybe… Do you ever think it’s because you’ve called him off-limits?” Brick said it slowly, like he was mulling it over. “I mean, you’ve decided you’re not good enough for him anymore. I can tell. So, since you’ve convinced yourself you can’t, combined with your trauma, it’s cock-blocking you.”
“Brick, you just said cock-blocking.” He had to laugh at that, even if it heated his cheeks and made him hope no one else was listening. He looked around instinctively, even if he couldn’t see anything.
“Dude, it’s okay. No one is paying us any attention.” Brick sipped his coffee, the sound oddly specific. “But think about that hard, huh? You might find that as you let go of that idea your junk takes an interest again.”
“Do you think so?” God, he wanted that to be true.
“I do. Don’t toss Sloan away because you need time. He seems like a patient guy.”
He barked out a laugh. “Oh, fuck, yes. He followed me around for year, making passes. I was oblivious at first, then worried, then into it as hell.”
“See? You’re worried again now, just about different shit. ”
“Yeah. I’m…I’m nowhere near as hot as I used to be, you know?”
Brick paused, then he chuckled. “To who? I mean, you have to see you from Sloan’s point of view, not yours. Like, I mean, look at Chris. He thinks he’s lost any sex appeal he had because of the chair, but I think he’s hot as fire.”
He blinked hard at that. “Is that why you’re still hanging around the house? You seem pretty ready to graduate from rehab.”
Brick sighed, drumming his fingers on the table. “I dunno. I like him? But he’s as bad as you are. Pushing back.” Brick paused. “You want a cookie, man? They just put out a big plate of them. I’ll go get us one to go with our coffee.”
“Sure.” Now Brick was the one running away. But he got it. Hard questions were hard questions no matter who was fielding them. And maybe he thought Brick had his shit more together than he did.
The fact was, they were all fucked up in their own ways. It sucked, being broken at their cores.
Even Sloan. Poor baby.
“They had oatmeal Scotchies and chocolate chunk pecan. One or the other trip your trigger more?” Brick asked when he came back.
“How about we split both?”
“That sounds great, man.” Brick made this little noise Lance was starting to associate with a grin. “You can stop on your way out and get one for Sloan. We can drop into his office and leave it.”
“Yeah, no. If I get him a cookie, I will deliver it after work hours.” There was no way he was going to have the police department spreading his business all over.
Though, according to Luke, they were way more honest than they used to be.
The old chief had been a rotten SOB by all accounts.
He was damn glad Sloan hadn’t ended up here then.
Of course that was one reason Sloan had gotten hired, wasn’t it?
The old guy had embezzled rather than hiring new deputies.
“Yeah, yeah. Well, if he ever wants to come over and do pizza with us at the house, the guys have all said they would be cool with it.”
“Y’all rock. Thanks.” It might be awkward as hell, but that would get Sloan in a space to meet all the guys, and they could all spend some time together. He could let himself be with Sloan outside that little apartment condo thing. “Maybe I’ll call him.”
“Go for it. I can call the guys and tell them.” He must have seemed worried because Brick touched his hand. “Hello, bro? It’s Friday, right? You got the weekend off. Does your man work weekends?”
He shook his head. “They’re on call every fourth one. He worked last weekend. They take turns.”
“You know the man’s schedule. Impressive. Call about pizza.” Brick never let up.
Lance rolled his eyes and grabbed his phone, telling it to call Sloan. He didn’t figure it would do anything but go to voicemail, but he would sure try.
Of course Sloan picked up. “Hey, man, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, nothing’s wrong. I didn’t mean to bother you. I just, um, I was. Do you have a second?” He felt like an idiot, like a teenager asking a guy out for a date.
“Of course, I do. Everything all right? I’m just finishing up a little bit of paperwork, then I’m off.”
“Oh cool. The guys and I were wondering if you’d like to come over to the house and have pizza tonight.”
There was a pause, one that made him feel nervous as fuck, and then he heard kind of a happy little laugh. “Sure I would. Sounds great, what time?”
He chewed on his bottom lip. “Uh, seven? Does seven work, Brick? ”
“Sounds great, man.” Butter wouldn’t melt in Brick’s mouth.
“So let’s do seven.”
“Perfect. You out and about with Brick?”
“Well, yeah, I’m having coffee. Practicing. It went way better than the first time when I almost fell. This time, so far, it’s been smooth sailing. Brick and I drank coffee. We haven’t spilled it yet. We had a cookie.”
“That you haven’t eaten,” Brick added.
“You’re not helping. We got one for you too. A cookie.” Jesus, he was a dork, but this was hard with Brick sitting here listening.
“Well, aren’t you sweet?”
“Oh, shut up, you fucker.” There were lots of things he didn’t mind being, but sweet wasn’t one of them. He didn’t want the guy who once thought he was the hottest thing going to think he was sweet. “I’ll see you tonight.”
“What do I bring?”
That was easy. “Beer and ice cream.”
Beer and ice cream were always, always welcome.
“Beer and ice cream; you got it. See you tonight, Lance.”
He hung up the phone and closed his eyes. “I did it.”
“You did it. You so did it.”
He had, and, to be honest, it felt damn good. It felt like something he could possibly even do again.
Lance blew out a hard little breath. It was difficult learning to be normal.
“Oh. Text him that we can’t have anything peanut butter in the ice cream department. You know. Chris gets all itchy and his throat…”
“Right.” He told his phone to text, and it worked, and he got a
You got i t
back from Sloan.
Look at him go.
“I texted the guys,” Brick said. “That way there’s no surprises.”
“Cool. Thanks.” Wow. Sloan was coming to hang with his housemates.
Okay. Cool.
Totally cool.