The rest of the evening was fairly smooth sailing.

Joey didn’t expect to see Chris at dinner, but Chris was there, quite calm if not entirely normal; his eyes were very red and he didn’t say much. When Lance doled out his soup, which everyone agreed was top-notch, Joey consumed three big bowls in a row. Joey had almost forgotten what it was like to be that hungry, and Lance made no effort to hide his pleasure at seeing Joey eat that much in one sitting.

During Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Joey watched from the couch with Lance on his left and Justin on his right. Chris and JC camped out on private chairs; while JC leaned straight back with one leg crossed over the other, Chris reclined with both legs dangling over the armrest and his hands folded behind his head. “Will you ever learn to sit in these things properly?” JC asked at one point, but Chris declined to answer.

Lance passed around a giant bowl of fresh popcorn, and Joey accepted a few handfuls. Joey noticed the popcorn tasted a little funny; maybe it was one of those side effects of the chemo, or else Lance hadn’t put in as much butter and salt as usual.

Long before the ending credits rolled, Joey was out cold with his head on Lance’s shoulder. Not wishing to wake him, Lance simply eased him down on the couch, tucking an extra cushion beneath his head, and Justin covered him with a spare blanket.

In the morning, Joey woke with quite a start, the more so when he realized he wasn’t at the hospital anymore. But he got over it soon enough and he still had enough appetite to join the group for breakfast. Lance was cooking eggs and bacon, and Joey insisted on a full plate like everybody else.

“I was starting to think your amorous affair with food had all but fizzled out,” Lance said as he watched Joey slather a generous amount of boysenberry jam onto a slab of toast.

“Might as well enjoy it while I have the stomach for it,” Joey said before sinking his teeth into a crisp ribbon of bacon.

These words proved almost prophetic.

In the days that followed, Joey’s relationship with food was a massive rollercoaster. Sometimes he could hardly swallow two bites; other times, he ate like he had gone without for months. Some days, the food tasted all right, and then there were days when what Joey ate wasn’t anything like what the others ate despite sharing the same dish.

On the plus side, Joey didn’t get as nauseous as he had in the hospital; he only threw up twice in the first week after his release. Whenever his stomach was restless, he kept his body nourished with some high-quality vitamins and protein powders that Lance tracked down at the store.

There were a few good things Joey could almost always keep down, such as chocolate. So they maintained a hefty stock of candy and other chocolate-themed treats. “Wouldn’t it be fabulous if they could replace medicine with chocolate?” Joey remarked one time while he sat at the breakfast bar and helped himself to a heaping bowl of Rocky Road ice cream in a pool of Hershey’s syrup.

“Yeah,” said Justin, who stood close by with a glass of plain white milk. “Then every doctor in the world would be out of a job.”

“And you’d never want to stop with your chemo,” added Chris as he tossed an apple into the air with one hand and caught it neatly in the other.

As for the chemo, Joey still dreaded taking that stuff. If it wasn’t unnerving his stomach, it wiped him out so much he sometimes spent the entire day in bed or on the sofa. As Chris had pointed out, JC was the prominent sleeper, but now Joey was taking more naps than the whole group put together. Much as Joey hated being so tired all the time, at least sleeping was a decent way to pass the time and it often helped to calm his stomach. On good days, he attempted a bit of exercise, but always kept it good and light.

At last, the day came when Joey was allowed a break from chemo. It was only for two weeks, but even one day’s reprieve would have thrilled him. That afternoon, he felt good enough to take a walk. Only Lance hung around, as JC was at a meeting and Chris and Justin had gone to “knock some golf balls around.”

“Mind if I tag along?” Lance asked as he watched Joey lace up his sneakers. “Dinner won’t be ready for another four hours, and they say a watched meal never cooks.”

“Sure, why not?” Joey smiled. “It’s a beautiful day.”

“Where’d you like to go?”

“No particular destination in mind. Just around.”

So the two men set out together, taking their sweet time as they walked, savoring the sun’s warmth and the refreshing breeze.

Some people would have found it odd that Joey wore such a thick black cap for this kind of weather, but Joey had rarely taken that cap off since Sheri gave it to him. On occasion, he’d donned a red or black bandanna, but he stuck with Sheri’s hat ninety percent of the time. It covered his bald head nicely, it felt so good against his skin, and there was the sentimental value behind it, of course. Though none of his mates said a word about it, he knew they weren’t too happy about him wearing that thing so much, especially JC. He didn’t care, either.

As he had so many times since leaving the hospital, Joey wondered where Sheri was and what she was doing. Despite the slimness of the odds of seeing her again, there was still that thread of hope. He had never quite forgotten the way she’d looked and sounded that last time and he hoped she was okay.

His thoughts must have evoked some kind of magic, because as he and Lance were passing through a quiet neighborhood, about seven or eight blocks from their complex, he caught sight of someone lounging on the front porch of a small, modest house on the other side of the street.

He stopped short, and Lance stopped with him.

“What is it, Joe?” Lance asked. “Are you okay?”

Joey stared long and hard, positive that his eyes must be fooling him.

He made a few good blinks, then brushed his hand across his eyes and looked again.

There was no mistake.