Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
“ Y ou should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Huh?” Lance turned his head, trying to see, which was stupid, because it didn’t help. But he always did it anyway, just on instinct. But the source of the voice came from off to one side of him in the aisle at the Walmart.
“You and that other man who came in with you.”
“What the actual fuck?” Lance let one eyebrow arch as he heard what this idiot was going on about. His first instinct, always, was to assume someone was queer-bashing, but Stanley was as straight as a new ruler. “Excuse me?”
“They used to have put people like you in homes so that you didn’t scare children, you and that monster you’re walking around with.
” Little Miss Karen was building up a head of steam.
“But instead, we’re expected to just allow our children to have nightmares because you’re walking around among decent people.
I just do not understand why you feel the need to?—”
“Shop? For food? I mean, honestly, trolls usually hide under bridges and eat children, but the rivers are all filled with chemicals these days.”
“What? Don’t you speak to me like?—”
Lance hadn’t had a really good screaming fight in at least half an hour or so, maybe forty-five minutes.
“Like what? Like decent people? I wonder, lady, because Stanley and me? We both have our medals of honor. Why? Because we both got hurt defending this country and your goddamn right to be a bitch. So maybe—just maybe—next time, before you decide to open your fucking mouth, you should get down on your knees and thank God that you’ve got soldiers like us willing to protect assholes like you. ”
Oh, that felt so good.
“Well, I never.”
“That’s patently obvious. Maybe you ought to three or four times before you open your goddamn mouth again.” He didn’t have the time or the energy to be nice to this twat.
“Why don’t you shove?—”
Footsteps sounded next to him. Cowboy boots. Could be anyone. “What’s going on here?”
“Officer, officer, this—this man, he, he attacked me. He’s just started yelling at me out of nowhere. I think I think possibly he’s high or homeless or something.”
Lance’s eyes rolled so hard it hurt. He probably strained something, and if he wasn’t already blind, it probably would have hurt his eyesight too.
“Are you homeless, Lance?”
Okay. He knew this voice. This was Ben. Sloan worked with him. They’d met at the coffee shop, and Ben had a golden retriever named Puddles. “No, sir.”
“Are you high, Lance?”
“No, sir, not even on life.” Somewhere in the back of his head, he could hear Ray Stevens going, ‘are you nekked?’
“Are you here with Dan or Chris? ”
“No, Stanley.” And it was his first time out. He didn’t need this shit, especially not from some cotton candy-haired won’t-you-think-of-the-children dipshit.
“I heard the whole thing by the way.” That was the voice he didn’t recognize, but he ought to. It was so fucking challenging to keep everybody’s voices separate.
“All right. How’s it going, Mr. Rory?” Ben asked.
Oh. Rory. That was Luke’s husband from the Rocking W. The lawyer.
“Just fine. I came in for ice cream. I had a hankering for Rocky Road.”
“Well, good thing, too. Ma’am, I’m going to need you to move along. Unless you’d like to discuss harassment charges.”
“Oh!” The woman stomped away hard, her cart squeaking.
“Thanks.” Lance encompassed both Ben and Rory in the blanket thank-you.
Rory’s soft chuckle sounded. “I was thinking I should have gone to Braum’s. But I also needed WD-40.”
“Kinky,” Ben murmured.
“Is it safe to come out?” Stanley grated, his voice like rocks rolling around in a bag.
And all of a sudden, Lance felt the urge to laugh. Just wild whoops of laughter, trying to escape so much that he shook with it.
“Dude, you okay?” Ben asked.
“I’m—” He wheezed. “Oh, Jeez.”
“I thought you were gonna lay this smackdown on her. That’s not a joke. You’re a stud.”
He stared in Stanley’s general direction. “I mean, seriously. I was just…”
“Defending yourself and your friend. Good for you.” Rory sounded satisfied, as if he had their backs, like he was just as pissed off. “That was completely out of line. You would think— Well, you would hope that people had more sense, but that’s a lot to ask.”
“You know it, Mr. Rory. It’s a lot to ask for some of these folks to not just be total jackasses.”
“Yeah, I hear that.”
Lance guessed he should be embarrassed or claim that he’d snapped, but he wasn’t.
Because that was bullshit.
Stanley had managed to get his courage up to come out and buy his own fucking groceries. God-for-fucking-bid that a man who had sacrificed himself for his country should come out in public and go the goddamn big box store. The world should end.
“Lance, man, you okay?” Stanley asked. “You’re awful red.”
“No, I am not okay. I am not all right. How dare that witch stand here and accuse me of being a monster and say that I shouldn’t be allowed to go to the goddamn grocery store!”
Abby whimpered a little, nudging his leg hard. That was her cue, her Dad-bring-it-down clue. He hated it, but he was grateful for it all at the same time. Because he knew he was furious, and he also know he had a reason to be pissed.
He also knew he had to take care of himself and breathe, even if he wanted to kick someone.
“I appreciate it. Thank you. You did this for me. I know it has to be hard. Everything is hard.” Stanley sounded small, and that aggravated the hell out of him.
“Everything is going to be hard from now on. Hanging out with you is not hard. Putting up with that bitch? That was hard. Trying to figure out whether or not this is cheddar cheese or Monterey Jack cheese when you’re blind?
Hard. Trying to figure out credit card machines?
Hard. Hanging out with you, Stan? Not hard. ”
“Okay, guys, breathe.” That wasn’t Ben. That was Rory. “I don’t suppose you would like to go to lunch?”
“Pardon?”
“Lunch. It’s the meal between breakfast and supper. And I need it.”
Lance shook his head. “I thought you were getting ice cream.”
“I am.” A soft chuckle sounded. “But I’m also a spoiled beast, and I have this plug-in cooler in my car, so that if I decide that I want ice cream and then decide I want to go have lunch, I could have both. Luke got it for me for my birthday.”
“Damn!” Ben said, and he agreed.
“Fancy.”
“Yeah, well, you got a Seeing Eye, dog,” Rory shot back.
“True, and I didn’t have to pay for her.”
“There you go. I would like to take all three of you out to lunch. I want Mexican. I desperately need guacamole.”
He started to nod, then he stopped. “Stan, it’s up to you. If you don’t want to go, we can just go home.”
Stan sighed softly. “Do you think it’s easier because you don’t have to see them staring at you?”
“Hell, yeah. Although I kind of know because my brain knows what my eyes are seeing. So I kind of know, but yeah, no question.”
“So long as I don’t have to let Lance drive,” Stan said. “I’m in.”
Brave son of a bitch.
It had taken Lance so much longer… But then, he was blind and he had a dog.
“Does Dan need an invite to lunch too?”
“No. No, he dropped us off and Brick is supposed to pick us up. I can text Brick.”
“He’s driving? That’s great!” That was Ben, oddly enough .
“He is, yeah. I mean, he has been a little, but he’s officially a house driver now.”
“That’s awesome,” Rory put in. “Well cool. You off-duty, Ben?”
“Yeah. I was just going to grab something for lunch.”
“In the ice cream aisle?” Lance asked.
“I like mint chocolate chip,” Ben defended.
“Hey, I don’t judge.”
“Yeah, you must work out like five hours a day,” Stanley said.
Huh. Ben must be stacked. He had no idea. Luke rhapsodized about Rory, so he knew the guy was good-looking, but Ben was an unknown.
“I do my share of PT.” Ben chuckled. “Can we all put our ice cream in your cooler, Rory?”
“Yeah. There should be space.”
Lance texted Brick real quick, inviting him to eat with them. They would go to El Mariachi.
Brick sent back
I’ll meet you there for chimichangas
and they were good to go.
Look at him, being social with some people he didn’t live with who weren’t Sloan. Now they just had to get through lunch without another Karen type giving them hell.