Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
S loan 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 …
Sloan grinned, watching Abby run around the backyard and sniff. He could see her dark, furry body clear as day in the bright moonlight. His stomach growled, and his grin widened.
He thought there was leftover pizza in the fridge. He’d grab a piece on the way back inside and munch before he went back to bed.
“Babe?” Lance came shuffling to the kitchen, his cane in hand. He was getting better at using that when Abby was off duty, which made Sloan proud as hell. Every skill Lance learned added to his independence.
“Right here. Abby woke me up.”
“I see how she is. Waking up the one who won’t make her work.”
“Pretty much, yeah.” She was canny.
“So what else are you doing? I thought I heard your stomach growl.”
“You heard that from the bedroom?”
“I was already heading out of the bedroom, but yeah. Yes, that whole thing about, you know, other senses making up for the one you lost is…at least a little bit real.” Lance headed into the kitchen, moving his cane carefully, so as not to hit him, Sloan guessed. “You want a midnight snack?”
“There’s leftover pizza.” Which was still the best midnight snack.
“Perfect. What do you want to drink? Coke?”
“Works for me.” He thought he wanted to hang out, and he had to admit that this was the most average thing ever and he was loving it so bad.
They managed pretty well together—Lance got the pizza out of the fridge, he grabbed a Coke for them to split, and Abby came in. They sat down. It was very normal.
The weird part was that nobody turned on any lights. He was going to have to get used to that, he thought. Not that he didn’t know how to turn the lights on himself. Of course he did. It was more that Lance was totally cool with being in the dark. Just didn’t seem to care.
“I’m glad to have you here.” Okay, that was weird and formal.
And Sloan knew it had come out that way too, when Lance rolled his eyes. “Yes, and I also am glad to be here.”
He whapped Lance on the knee. “Stop it. You know what I mean. It’s just weird. We’re doing things in this strange way. You’re moving into my house, but it’s not my house, it’s not my furniture, and you don’t have any furniture, really. Or stuff. Where is all of your stuff?”
“Dude, what stuff? I was eighteen when I joined the military. When I went to college, I was in the military. I got blown up in the military. I didn’t need stuff.
I mean, I have this amazing stereo system and the huge TV.
But I bought that one, you know, for the barracks when I was here.
Not here. Here I’ve bought a lot of weird things blind people use and a ton of fuzzy blankets.
You know what I mean? I don’t even own a chair. ”
“Well, I’ll buy you a chair.” Yeah, so he had an entire house full of shit, between him and his folks.
“I have enough money to buy my own chair, but do we want to buy a chair for here, or do I want to buy a chair for there?”
Sloan did love to listen to Lance think about there, assuming that word meant Santa Fe and not somewhere else. “Well, if we got a chair for here, we could move it there. I mean, I purchased things here that I’m going to have to get back home.”
“Yeah, like what?”
“Well, the TV is mine. And the other TV is yours, so there’s two TVs, There’s dog bowls.
Uh, I had to buy new plates because those plates were gross, and there had to be a pan to make lasagna in, you know?
I needed a blender for margaritas and red chile enchilada sauce and salsa.
That’s mostly everything…oh, and sheets.
I bought good sheets. And a new shower curtain.
In fact, everything in the bathroom pretty much is new because I’m never, ever going to be in a position where I have to stand on somebody else’s bath mat again. ”
“Anybody ever tell you you’re kind of queer?” Lance muttered, and man, those eyes were just twinkling.
He could even see it in the dark because he had to be honest, how dark was dark? Even this far out of town it wasn’t that dark.
“I am. I am a little bit queer. I like fancy sheets, and I don’t like using someone else’s toothpick holder.”
Lance tilted his head. “Did you seriously buy a new toothpick holder?”
“I did off of eBay—it’s an antique.”
Lance leaned back in his chair, piece of pizza kind of dangling from his fingers. “Wait, wait, just a second. You don’t like to use somebody’s old toothpick holder? So…you bought an antique toothpick holder. Babe, I love you, but that’s kinda weird.”
“Shut up.” His cheeks were burning.
“Absolutely classy response.”
“No seriously, I mean I bought a nice used toothpick holder. That one was a funky plastic nasty ninety-nine cents from the Walmart that-had-dirt-in-it toothpick holder.”
“So, what you’re saying is you’re not opposed to old, just nasty?”
He pondered that a second. “Yes.”
“Okay, then. See, was that so hard?”
“Yeah, you little fucker. It was that hard. ”
They stared at each other for a second, or at least he stared at Lance. Lance was looking sort of, kind of, mostly at him.
And then they started to laugh.
Not just ha-ha high in the chest, polite laughs, but full, deep belly laughs. The kind of laughter that hurt when they were done and sounded to someone on the outside like perhaps they were dying.
Even Abby was dancing by the time they were finished, and they both had tears streaming down their cheeks. He was pretty sure Abby had actually stolen Lance’s piece of pizza, and Lance didn’t even know it.
“That was the best.” Lance took a deep breath, then another one. “I mean seriously, that was the absolute best ever.”
It had been fucking amazing, and it was what he wanted, like full-time, forever.
“I think I want a dog.” The words just seemed to come out from nowhere, like he hadn’t even known his brain was going to push them out of his mouth.
“I think that that’s a fucking amazing idea.
I talked to Luke about it. He says the paperwork’s done— we just have to find one.
He can help. You can even get a retiring police dog if you want.
Or one that washed out of police training.
You can do anything you want about the dog.
Hell, you can just get a dog that’s, like, your dog from the shelter. So that we can have our dogs.”
“Do you mean it, right?” Sloan asked. “I mean, not the dog thing, but the ‘our’ thing.”
Sloan had always needed Lance to mean it, but he couldn’t bear the thought of it being offered to him and him losing it again.
“I mean it. I’m coming home with you to Santa Fe.
I’m not just holding out. I have things that I have to finish with here.
All the people who are stopping in to teach me all the things, for instance.
But I’m coming home with you as soon as I can figure it out.
” Lance shrugged and looked a little small.
“I didn’t…I didn’t fucking mean… I didn’t know it was going to be this hard.
I’m glad I didn’t say yes and just go to Santa Fe, because I feel like they have things in place to teach me how to do this here and now.
But it’s gonna be different. This is my—what is it that Brick called it?
—my quarter house, my quarter-way house?
I want to be able to be all right being me in Santa Fe with you. ”
“You will be, I know.”
Lance took another deep breath. “Me too.”
“Good man.” He reached over to touch Lance’s non-pizza-y hand. “I think Abby ate your snack. Want another piece?”
Hooting, Lance nodded. “I can get it. You are so in trouble, Abby.”
She woofed gently at Lance as if to say, “Well, you weren’t eating it.”
Sloan watched Lance get up and go to the fridge to grab another leftover from the pizza box. “Getting low.”
“Oh, that will never do. I’ll make one tomorrow.” He’d gotten some cheap pizza crust mixes that made up in half an hour, and they were great for keeping the pizza costs down. They could both live on the stuff.
“Yum. I mean, I love this delivery stuff, but you make a great homemade pizza.”
“Thanks, honey.”
Lance sat back down, munching away. “It’s true. You have the sauce-to-crust ratio right, and I love that you use green olives.”
“I know right? Just the best salty goodness.” He loved green olive pizza.
“Everything is better when you make it. Though I will miss Tex-Mex. New Mexican isn’t the same.”
“No shit. Don’t tell anyone I agree with you.” Though Lance wouldn’t miss Texas barbecue or Whataburger. They had both of those in New Mexico, and they had Blake’s Lotaburger, which was amazing.
“My lips are sealed. No Abby. You had enough.” Lance held up his pizza. Sloan knew he only fed Abby the tiniest bit of people food. She had to maintain a certain weight for the Seeing Eye program.
“What kind of dog do you think I should get, honey?” he asked, just curious to see what Lance would say.
“Well, you worked really well with police dogs, so I can see you getting that kind of breed, but by the time they retire, they’re six to eight years old…
” Lance propped his elbows on the table.
“So maybe a dog who washed out of training for some reason. They’re usually six months to a year old.
We can look into all sorts of the programs around Dallas. ”
“I like that idea.” He could see that. Not every Malinois or German Shepherd was suited to police work, and he could really dig into that, training a dog for all sorts of stuff.
“Yeah. So we’ll see what we see. Your K-9 guys might know of someone who has dogs to adopt out.”
“I’ll ask.” He’d kind of avoided the K-9 guys because he wasn’t sure he was ready for that, but he would introduce himself and ask. Why the hell not?
Lance squeezed his hand. “Look at us both turning into real boys.”
“Lord.” He had to laugh at that. “I should get you back to bed. You have therapy from hell tomorrow.”
Groaning, Lance nodded. “Yoga. And you have some kind of training, right?”
“Yeah.” Ugh. He hated sitting at a little desk all day taking notes.
“Come on, honey. Eat up.” He sucked down his drink and his pizza, then stood and hauled Lance up.
Lance munched his pizza as they all trooped back to the bed, and they washed up in the bathroom before snuggling in and putting on an audiobook to lull them to sleep.
So normal.
And Sloan had never been more in love.