Page 62 of Doing Life

Hitting the shower. Shit day, but nothing dangerous. Talk to you soon

He got a

KK

back, and he stepped into the shower stall, turning on the water at just lukewarm, which was always kind of shockingly cold to begin with.

He shivered, but he held out, and then he gradually got it warmer as he cooled off so he could get some lather in the shampoo and get the stink off him.

By the time he got bathed and dressed in a pair of PT shorts and had a beer, he felt way better.

Possibly even human, although that might be a stretch.

He grabbed his phone and called Lina back, tickled to note that it was right at twenty-nine minutes, since she had called. Perfect.

“Hey, man! How you doing?” It was good to hear her voice, to hear that fascinating sing-song New Mexico lilt that was so different from the Texas drawl.

“It’s going. It’s hot. It’s humid. I kind of hate it.”

She chuckled. “Of course you do. No one likes humidity, do they?”

Sloan rolled his eyes. “Well, obviously somebody does. They all live here.”

“Which is good because if they didn’t live there, they would live here, and we don’t want them, remember?” Lina had a point.

“Exactly. I hear you. Everything’s cool there?”Do you guys miss me?

“Yeah, I was just checking in. I saw your sister today. We had coffee. She’s doing good, taking care of all your critters.”

“Okay. Wait,allmy critters?” He frowned. He didn’t have critters. He had three goats. He’d been very firm about not having multiple critters because he was coming here to get Lance. “Did Grace happen to mention which critters she was taking care of?”

Lena paused. “Oh. Oh…”

“Yeah,oh. Spill woman. What critters?”

“Apparently now you have goats, fancy goats,andalpacas. For yarn.”

“I’m going to kick her ass. I mean, at least it wasn’t horses.” Or cattle. Grace couldn’t make yarn out of cattle.

“Well, don’t tell her I told you, please.”

He was very careful not to point out he was sure that the reason his sister had told Lina was because, if she knew, it would get back to him. Lina was amazing, a great investigator, one hell of a cop, but she could not keep a secret for love nor money.

“So seriously, what else is going on?”

“Same shit, different day man. It’s good though. It’s been quiet, you know, normal stuff. Couple of B&Es, mostly just easy like, so-and-so stole my bikes. Somebody broke into my shed. Somebody had a dog bite. I kind of love that.”

“Yeah.” Yeah, when someone lived in a place that was as desperately poor as New Mexico could be, crime happened. But they were working at their jobs, and they were trying to make the most beautiful place on earth the greatest place to live.

“I miss my mountains, man. I miss them bad.” Sloan wanted to come home, have a green chile cheeseburger from Blake’s, sit on his back porch, and watch the moon come out over the mountains.

“They miss you.” Lina got it. She was a native New Mexican like him. “So, spill. What about the guy? Is he, like, real? Is he still into you?”

“He is, and he is. He’s been spending the night with me most every night, even.” And Sloan loved it. It was enough to make him shiver.

Maybe that was the refrigerated air.

“Oh wow. That’s cool. How bad is it?”

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