Shane stood off to the side, nodding. “I heard that,” he said. “And that deserves a drink.” Everybody raised their glasses in a toast to Lance.
He smiled, raised his, and took a sip. It was hot chocolate, warm with a hint of cinnamon, and it was great. They sat down, as he just relaxed. He noticed a couple people he’d never seen before in the background. When he looked again, they were gone, but then he saw them near the door, talking to Dani. He raised an eyebrow at Dani, and she just shrugged. Of course she knew a ton more people than Lance did. Heck, he was still trying to figure out who was a patient and who was staff in this place sometimes.
But he headed off to bed that night with a smile, and his future had never looked brighter. A couple days later he got an email from the blues club in town. He stared at it because he hadn’t realized what the name of the place was, but it was well-renowned, and people flew in from all over the country to spend time there. As he read the email, his jaw dropped. He was being asked to come and do a debut session on the Friday night, two weeks hence. He just shook his head and stared.
What an honor, he thought, but how would they even have known about him? Surely that’s not the bar that Jessica had been to, was it? He racked his brain, wondering if she had mentioned the bar’s name. Because this one was bigger than big. He hadn’t even realized it was here in Dallas, mistakenly thinking it was in Austin. As he did the research on it, he realized that every blues singer that he had ever held in high regard had played there.
Of course he liked to play all kinds of music, but this place offered the blues. And they were specifically asking him to come, not to audition, but to sit in and play for an hour and a half. He sank back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, dumbfounded. When Shane walked in, Lance looked up and said, “Problems?”
“I was going to ask you that,” he said. “It’s Tuesday, and you were due at my session ten minutes ago.”
Lance looked at him in shock. “What time is it?”
“Almost nine-fifteen,” Shane said. “And you’re still in bed. What gives?”
“I have no idea,” he said. “I went to bed exhausted, and I guess I must have slept in,” he said. “I haven’t even had breakfast.”
“Well, you aren’t getting any now,” he said. “I want to make sure those shoulders and arms of yours are loosened up.”
“Right,” he said. “Well, give me two minutes to get dressed, and I’ll get down to the gym.” He twisted the laptop around and pointed to the email and said, “While I’m getting dressed, see what you make of that.” As he went to the washroom and quickly changed, he came out, then went back in. “I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing,” he said, “but I came out without the crutches and had to go back and get them.”
Shane looked at him with a smile on his face. “It’s a hugely good thing,” he said. “You’ll do a lot more walking without them from now on.” He tapped the laptop and said, “What are we talking about crutches for? This is freaking amazing. What an opportunity!”
“I knew that Dallas had blues clubs,” he said, “but I didn’t realize this one was here. Holy cow.”
“Dallas’s well known for its jazz and also the blues,” he said with a smile. “This club is world-renowned for their blues.”
“I know,” he said. “I don’t have a clue how they knew about me, unless it’s the one that Jessica went to a few months ago. She just said, the blues club, and I got a case of cold feet, so we never really talked about it again.”
“That’s because, even though there are others in town, it’s really the blues club,” Shane said.
Just the thought of being invited kept a smile on his face throughout Shane’s hard workout. Then when he discovered he’d lost his wheelchair on a permanent basis, he turned cranky.
“Deal with it,” Shane said. “It’s holding you back at this point. Let the crutches be your crutch instead.”
“But sometimes, when I’m tired,” he said, “the wheelchair makes life so much easier.”
“That’s the thing about a crutch,” he said, “and you just can’t afford that right now.”
“And I need to do things in my own time frame,” he snapped back. When he hit the cafeteria for lunch, he was really hungry and could have been considered “hangry.” Hungry plus angry. He loaded up with protein and veggies and sat down on his own off to the side, digging into his food.
When Dennis arrived with a cup of coffee a little bit later, he said, “Man, you’re hungry today.”
“I missed breakfast,” he mumbled. “And Shane put me to work. Then we had an argument.” He sat back with a heavy sigh and said, “But I do feel better now.”
“Never argue on an empty stomach,” Dennis said. “It’s a well-known fact that hungry people don’t make a whole lot of sense sometimes.”
“Well, I was definitely hungry,” he said. “Now that I’ve eaten so fast, I don’t think I can finish this.”
“Give it a few minutes,” Dennis said. “You’ll probably find out you’ve got room for it after all.”
Laughing at that, he said, “Okay, I’ll give it a shot, and thanks for the coffee.”
“Not a problem,” Dennis said and moved on.
Lance realized that he really had been cranky mostly because of the wheelchair thing. He’d come down with his crutches, and, as he stood to return his dirty dishes, he realized he was walking without the crutches too. He slowly made his way back to the table, grabbed his crutches, and used them to get back to his bedroom. It was also
