Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
L ance hummed as he hung the swim trunks up on the little line outside the cabin. It sat on the back deck, which was a six-by-six concrete slab resting on about three-foot stilts. The whole cabin sat that far up, a ramp leading from the parking area to the cabin door.
The swim area was a bit of a drive, but he and Abby liked it so much that Sloan had seemed happy to take them twice a day, so he wasn’t going to bitch about rinsing out the laundry and hanging it to dry.
He didn’t want to go back tomorrow, but Sloan had to head into work.
Sloan stuck his head out the back door. “I’m gonna go light the grill in the parking area. You good?”
“Yeah. We finally gonna eat those hot dogs?”
“We are. Come on out when you’re done. You can bring me a beer.”
“Ooh, a challenge.” The ramp had both the incline and a half turn, so he and Abby had practiced it quite a bit until he felt solid and not as if he had to hold on to Sloan. “We’ll be out. ”
“Cool. It’s sunny with a chance of mosquitos, so reapply the goo.”
“Got it.” He shook out the last wet bit of cloth, then hung it up as Sloan ducked inside.
“Okay, Abby girl. We’re going to navigate that ramp in flip-flops and holding two beers, okay?”
She gave a soft woof, helping steer him to the door to the cabin even without his hand on her harness. She was so smart.
He adored her.
And he adored Sloan. Oh, Sloan made plenty of missteps. He’d left the towels on the bathroom floor after their shower, in fact, which meant Lance had damn near killed himself when he went in to piss later.
But Sloan tried hard, he apologized when he did something not so helpful, and he talked to Lance about shit instead of clamming up and getting mad or martyr-y.
That was about as perfect as anyone could be in this situation. Lance truly believed it. He didn’t need a paragon, but he did need a partner.
He managed to finagle along the ramp without killing Abby or himself or dropping a beer, which he figured was a success.
“Good job, man. I got you in a chair. I figure that’s safest while the fire’s going.”
“Is that your way of saying you don’t want me to barbecue right now?
” Lance cackled, about as tickled as a pig in shit.
He had thought a year ago when he got to the ranch that he would never manage to live anywhere that wasn’t in some sort of a facility.
Then he’d moved to the halfway house and figured that out. Now he was going camping.
“I’d like to point out you weren’t trustworthy with the fucking grill when you could see and stand up on both legs without gimping around.”
His lips twisted as he fought to keep his laughter in. “I don’t think you’re allowed to say that anymore, you know. It’s mean.”
“No? Noted. Besides, compared to when I came here, you’re moving ten thousand times better.”
“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.”
“And the rest can go home with us. We got the fridge.” Sloan sounded damn satisfied with that.
Little things made his man happy.
The smell of tube meat sizzling came along soon enough, and Lance sipped his beer, just relaxing. “I think we have a pool available to us in town so you wouldn’t have to drive out to the ranch,” he said suddenly. “I would like to keep swimming.”
“I can drive you out to the ranch, anytime I’m off shift. Shit, honey. If I have to, I’ll find a new place to rent that has one.”
“I think we can get into one for therapy.” It would be good, to find a different place, to try to figure it out on his own.
“I hope so.” Sloan turned the dogs, the whoosh of the grease flaring up sounding wild. “I like how it’s done wonders for you.”
“Well, then you’ll just have to keep taking me swimming.”
“You know I will.” Sloan came to rub his shoulders for a moment, and he guessed he didn’t have to worry about looking around to see if anyone was watching.
He wouldn’t see them anyway. But he had a feeling they were pretty alone.
The cabin was at the far end of the lot, the parking area was well-deserted back there.
It had been the perfect spot for them.
“I don’t want to go back, man.” He grinned up, he hoped, at Sloan.
“We can come back out, huh? The cabins are super easy to rent.” Sloan sounded as if he really liked that idea. “I mean, it would actually be easier for me to get time off during the week, and then it would be way less crowded, even.”
“I’d like that, babe. If you’re willing.”
“To come out here and have fun with you and be away from everything else? We’ll get us a mattress topper, though.”
“Oh my God, yes.” He hooted, because that mattress?
Even a blind man could see it was shot.