Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
L ance wiped his hand on his jeans, the other one clutching Abby’s harness. God, this was crazy. He could hear the music and laughter coming from the bar as they got out of the truck, and walking in felt as if he were running the gauntlet. He had no idea what the hell he was getting himself into.
It didn’t sound like a redneck place. Not like Southern Junction or anything. Sloan had said it was in a strip mall, the kind of place that did trivia on Wednesdays and comedy night and open mic. The band was local, but popular, and they did a mix of covers and original songs in acoustic sets.
So it was a great way to start.
“We have about half an hour before the band comes on, honey,” Sloan told him, letting him slip a hand into the crook of one strong arm, Sloan on the opposite side from Abby. “Just enough time to grab a beer and maybe some mozza sticks or something.”
“Okay. I can do this.”
“You so can.” Sloan’s encouraging smile was evident in his voice. He was getting good at reading Sloan from his voice and from whatever tension was, or wasn’t, in his muscles.
Sloan was relaxed. Happy. Strolling along like he didn’t have a care in the world. So Lance let that inform his mood.
The door opened, refrigerated air pouring out, and he chuckled as Abby paused. Yeah, he had a feeling she was a little put off by the crowd.
“You’re all right, Abby.” He encouraged her forward, and they followed Sloan into the bar.
He could hear a slight dip in the conversation as they walked in, but Sloan never tensed, never slowed. “I’m getting us a booth. That way Abby can scoot under the table and be with you. Does that work?”
“She’ll like that.” It seemed like the walk across the bar was endless, and Lance swore he could feel the weight of all the eyes on him. He kept his head up, his expression controlled. He wasn’t going to let this seem like it was wigging him out. Even if it was.
They got to a booth and settled in, Abby under the table, warm against his leg. The seat of the booth was wood and was just about unforgiving on his butt.
“What’s funny?” Sloan asked.
He felt his cheeks getting hot, and he leaned over the table, hoping that Sloan leaned in as well. “I was just kind of glad that there was nothing more than snuggling last night. Man, these booths are hard. On the butt, I mean.”
“I get what you mean.” Sloan’s chuckle was dark, rich, happy. “However, tomorrow I can guarantee you that you don’t have to do anything more challenging than the sofa.”
“Listen to you.” Lance laughed because it felt so good to tease, to play.
It felt even better because this morning he’d woken up with a piss hard-on, and he didn’t remember that happening but a couple of times since his accident. It had made it an even better good morning to him.
Lance guessed there were some things about the healing process that did not suck.
Sloan leaned back. “The waitress is on her way over. You want beer or you want a margarita or something?”
“Shit, I just want a beer, and then if they’ve got bar food—mozzarella sticks, fried chunks of something that we can dip that would be perfect.” He liked fried chunks of things.
“Right on. Fried Pickles, fried cheese, onion rings, and ranch.”
Sloan knew what he liked.
“Hey, y’all welcome in. I brought over menus, but?—”
“Cool. Good deal.” Lance nodded his thanks. “It’s all right; Sloan can look at it.”
“Okay well, I could read it to you. We don’t have a Braille one anymore. We had one, but somebody stole it, and we haven’t been able to find anybody to make us another one. What kind of an asshole does that? Steals the Braille menu? I’m Brittany, by the way.”
He was tickled shitless, because this woman was totally willing to talk to him, acknowledge his blindness, and just get on with it. “Hey, Brittany, Lance, and thanks, but I don’t read Braille yet. It’s like a whole new language, and my fingers aren’t that smart.”
“Right, I tried rubbing my fingers across it, and didn’t feel like much. Nothing. I don’t see how people do it.”
“Me either,” Lance admitted.
“Needs must, right?” Sloan muttered.
There was a pause, then Brittany said, “Pardon?”
“You know, needs must when the devil drives.”
There was a long pause, and then a chuckle. “Okay, do y’all know what you want to drink? ”
Sloan was aging himself a little bit. Or maybe outing himself as a nerd.
“Two Shiners please. And then we need onion rings, fried pickles, fried cheese sticks, and a big thing of ranch.”
“You got it.”
She wandered off, and Sloan groaned. “God.”
“You’re aging yourself, man.”
“It’s Shakespeare. It’s timeless.”
“I don’t think they teach Shakespeare anymore.”
“How do you not teach Shakespeare? It’s like the law. Romeo and Juliet , Macbeth , Julius Caesar , Hamlet . It’s what you learn.”
Lance cracked up. “Spoken like an English teacher’s son.”
“English professor, thank you. And so?” Sloan chuckled, warm and good. He liked that the music and conversation at this place was a buzz, but low enough to hear Sloan.
“They say the classics are too hard now.”
“Bullshit.” Sloan sighed. “People need to do hard things. Learn hard things. Read hard books. Put themselves out there.”
He nodded. He got that. Sloan had always been… not radical that way, but firm. He believed educated people were way more willing to defend themselves than people who went with the idea that if it was on the internet, it was true. And he’d gotten in trouble with officers on occasion because of it.
Lance had thought he’d go, if not to medical school, maybe nursing school. That was one of the hardest parts of all this—not knowing what he was going to do with himself.
He had his disability, so the money part wasn’t the issue. The issue was he couldn’t just sit for the rest of his life in a house and do nothing.
It didn’t even matter which house. He needed a job.
“You okay?” Sloan asked.
He nodded, realizing he’d stopped paying attention to anything but the voices inside his head. “Yeah, yeah. I was just trying to figure out what I’m going to be when I grow up. Which is a dumb thing to think about in a bar.”
Sloan snorted. “Why is that weird? What do you think all of these other people are doing? They’re thinking about how to get laid.
What are they going to be when they grow up?
How are they going to pay for that next beer?
Bars are good for thinking.” Sloan slid the toes of their boots together.
“So what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“I was going to be a nurse or a doctor or something in the medical field, but I can’t do that now.”
“Have you thought about being a therapist?”
“No.” The denial flew out of his mouth before he even thought, and he had to take a breath and explain.
“I mean, yes, I’ve thought about it, but I have enough of my own shit.
I have to admit, I don’t know that I can deal with everybody else’s.
A couple of people, sure. People that I love, yeah.
But no, I don’t… I don’t think I could handle it. ”
“It’s cool that you know that about yourself.”
Brittany brought their beers, and he took his, lifting it to clink with Sloan’s.
Damn, that tasted good as all get out. Cool and crisp and hoppy.
“Okay, there’s stuff that’s not like psych therapy. Massage therapy, for instance.”
“Yeah.” Lance blinked. “Do you think I could do that? I mean not like practically give a massage, but like get my license? I’d have to take a test.”
“Don’t they have to have reasonable accommodations? I would think that’s a thing. I mean, let’s be honest.” Sloan made this odd little huffing noise. “The only thing I’ve ever read about blind people doing is writing books and being professors. Now, you could totally be a professor.”
“I’m not going to be a professor. ”
“I really didn’t think you were going to be a professor. Also, I’m not even sure…are you literate, Lance?”
“Do not make me kick your ass? I could totally write a book about what a dick you are.”
Sloan laughed, and then the sound of the band warming up came to them. Abby huffed a sigh, leaning on his feet.
“Seriously, though, there’s all sorts of things you can do. Podcasts. That massage therapy. Help with the dog trainers as a practice blind guy.”
Lance hooted at that. “I can actually kind of imagine that. Here, let your dog walk me into the wall to save you the trauma.”
“Among other things.” Sloan tapped his hand, which he was learning was Sloan’s way of winking at him. “Have you talked to the rehab guys about getting with a job counselor? There has to be one?”
“No. No, I haven’t hit that part of the progression yet.”
“Well, you have time. Or you don’t have to do anything, if you don’t want to.”
“Oh, that was what I was just thinking. I need to— Oh, holy hell, is that smell for us?”
“Yep. Hot and crispy fried things with ranch.”
Brittany giggled. “Here you go, y’all. All the good stuff.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Okay, where’s what?” Lance asked. He needed this food like he needed air.
“Pickles are at your twelve. Mozz at three. Onion rings at nine. Ranch in the middle in a four-inch-across bowl.”
“Nice.” He touched the edge of the tray, testing the heat of the food. “Whoo. Smoking hot.”
“Yeah. Watch the pickles. I bet since they’re the wettest thing, they’ll burn your lip.”
“You know it.” Onion rings were always the best to start with, because they cooled the fastest. “Are the mozzarella things sticks, or are they like Chili’s? Wedges.”
“Sticks. So I’ll break one open for both of us.”
“Thanks, babe.” He grinned, grabbing and dipping. He leaned over the plate Brittany had given him, just in case he dripped. He figured Sloan would let him know if he needed to wipe himself down. He’d worn a vest for that reason.
“Oh, God. Yum.” Sloan sounded almost like he was having sex. Almost. Lance knew exactly how amazing the man was during the real deal.
And this was a pale echo of that sound.
Still, when Lance tried the onion ring, he got it. No bad oil here. This was fresh and hot and had a hint of hot sauce in the batter. “Damn. We need to eat here every week.”
“Deal.” Sloan crunched into something, and he thought it had to be a pickle. The dill smell was suddenly intense. “Good thing we’re both eating these. Garlic dills.”
“Ah. Yeah, close quarters later would be bad if only one of us indulged.”
“You get it.” Sloan hummed. “Band is about to start. You need anything else before it gets loud?”
“Napkins?”
“By your right hand and little up.”
“Thanks, babe.” He felt… good. Not perfect. There were a few noises that made him tense, a few moments where he was afraid he looked like some kind of prehistory man, shoveling food into his mouth.
But when the band fired up and he could jam and eat and everyone’s focus was so not on him? Lance felt himself relax.
He kind of wanted to call Brick and tell him. “Look, I’m out in a bar, eating onion rings, listening to a cover of ‘Blue Clear Sky’ with Sloan, and I spent the night there last night, and I’m doing great. Everything is going right. ”
He didn’t though, because he didn’t want to miss any of this.
How often did this happen? Where things were the way they were supposed to be?
Not very fucking, that was for sure.
“They’re pretty good.”
“Who?” He thought they were amazing, both him and Sloan.
“The band, silly. They don’t suck.”
“No, they don’t suck.” He dipped a fried pickle into the ranch and crunched down on it. This did not suck at all.