by Amy Lane
THE NEXT morning Reg got a text from Bobby saying he was on his way over while Trey was still in the shower.
Reg stood, frozen, staring at his phone, wondering if he’d done anything wrong.
His eyes were still gritty and his chest still achy from the crying jag the night before, and he was still pondering, in a restless, distracted way, where those tears had come from.
He summoned a smile, though—Bobby was coming.
They were companions. That was good, right?
Still, when Reg opened the door for him, Bobby all fresh and scrubbed clean, his curly hair wet-combed back from his forehead, his long, sweet face lit up to see Reg, he couldn’t stop the storm cloud feeling in his stomach that something was heinously wrong.
“Hey!” Bobby said brightly. “Was that Trey’s car in front? Is this where he came last night?”
“Yeah,” Reg said, trying not to fidget. “He came over and we hung out.”
Bobby stepped fully into the house, his eyes tracking everything—V sitting on the couch with her breakfast, the small table full of mail that Reg had been sorting when he’d texted, and the empty six-pack sitting next to the fridge, waiting for recycling.
Trey, coming out of the shower in just his jeans, grinning like a man who’d had sex the night before.
“Hung out,” Bobby said dully, and Reg wasn’t imagining it. All the bright and shiny faded in his voice, leaving the air around them acrid with things unsaid.
“Yeah.” Reg tried to smile and failed. “Like, you know, you and Ethan the night before.”
“We shot a scene yesterday,” Bobby said, voice pitchy and on edge. “Wasn’t too much we could do the night before the scene.”
Trey frowned, his heart-shaped, pretty face wrinkling in confusion. “Am I missing something? Bobby, are you mad at me? All the beds were taken, and Reg said I could come stay here—”
“No,” Bobby said, but his voice made Reg shiver. Was that just because Reg had heard it warm and in the dark? “No—this is like… I guess this is just Johnnies, right? You forget. I mean, I fucked Ethan yesterday. No reason Reg shouldn’t be with you last night. You’re right. I just….”
“Sh!” Reg said desperately, looking behind his shoulder to see if V had heard. She hadn’t, still immersed in the morning commentary of bigots, frauds, and thieves.
“Sorry,” Bobby said automatically, but his face looked like it was made of stone and wood. “So sorry. I’ll go get my stuff and finish the bathroom. You won’t have to worry about me in the way anymore.”
“You were never in the way!” Reg said desperately, not sure how to make this right, or if there was anything to make right. “I love having you. You don’t have to talk about leaving like you’re going somewhere.”
“I am,” Bobby said, his voice faraway. “I haven’t visited home in a while. I need to go see my mom.”
“And your girlfriend,” Reg said bitterly, surprised at the bloody well of rancor he discovered in his chest. “Don’t forget to visit her.”
Bobby’s eyes widened, shocked maybe, because that was almost written policy—you didn’t mention girlfriends, spouses, boyfriends, people who wouldn’t approve of what they did.
People who’d get mad.
“I won’t,” he said with a faint lifting at the corner of his mouth. “Thanks for reminding me, Reg. I really need to start looking for a place for her too.” He turned around, all the promise that had been in his stride petrified to sullen stone.
“Wait!” Reg said, almost desperate. “Bobby… we, uh, Trey and me, we were going to get donuts. Uh, want some?”
Bobby’s chin threatened to crumple, and Trey looked at Reg meaningfully. “Reg, how ’bout you go get donuts for all of us—me and Bobby will—”
“No!” Bobby said almost desperately. “No. I mean, sure. I’ll have donuts. How ’bout you two go get them. I’ll watch V and haul lumber and you don’t have to mind me. I’m hired help. But free. Don’t worry about it. Not a problem. You’ll be in the way while I’m hauling lumber anyway.” He practically ran out of the house then, slamming the door behind him.
Trey turned to Reg with deep regret written on his pretty face. “Oh, Reg. You should have told me—”
“What?” Reg asked, that surprising bitterness not spitting out of his mouth fast enough. “That he comes over at night and holds my hand? That’s all he wants from me. Just… a companion. Not… not a… a… whatever—”
“Boyfriend?” Trey asked sharply.
“Don’t you have to be gay to have a boyfriend?” Reg asked, legitimately confused.
Trey wrinkled his entire face. “Oh, baby. I hate to break this to you but—”
“Gay people are nasty,” V said, emerging from the living room with precision timing. “They’re sneaky. Want everybody to be gay. Want to make us make it illegal to not be gay.”
Reg gaped at her, his entire brain feeling like a mouse in a washing machine set on spin. “V, gay people are nice. You gotta not listen to those assholes on TV.”
“That’s not true,” Veronica snapped, before glaring at Trey. “I don’t like this one—he smirks. Where’s Bobby?”
Trey blew out a breath. “Bobby is outside, waiting for me to go get donuts. Reg, I’ll be back in an hour.”
Sure he would. After he and Bobby talked like grown-ups and left Reg here in the kitchen to sulk and worry like a child.
Reg’s chest hurt, and his breath wouldn’t come all the way, stopped up like it did when you were in the pool too long and your lungs were slogging through half a gallon of chlorine.
“Maybe me and V can come with you?” Reg asked desperately. God, he wanted to talk to Bobby alone—that was all. Just explain to him, how Trey was his friend, a quick lay, just a thing, but Bobby was… more. Bobby meant more. Bobby was a companion, and Reg didn’t want that to end.
Trey sighed. “You and V stay here,” he said. “I’ll take Bobby to go get donuts. Reg, you and me, or you and Dex or Ethan or someone need to talk. I think you’ve got this whole…” Trey glared at Veronica, clearly out of patience. “Thing,” he spat, “wired in your head wrong. But I can’t explain it now, and you and Bobby need to set things right between you in your own way.”
Reg’s throat ached. “It feels so wrong,” he said, and his voice came out thick and broken. “It felt wrong last night—”
“You should have said something,” Trey murmured. “Why didn’t you?”
“I didn’t have the words.” Reg sank into the kitchen chair and stared at his hands as they dangled between his thighs. “And I still don’t.”
From the front yard, they heard a clatter of boards and pipes hitting the ground.
“Well, Bobby’s got some,” Trey muttered, pulling his hand through his hair. “And judging from that racket, they’re all bad. Here—I’m gonna go put a shirt on.” He grimaced, the grooves piling up on the sides of his cheeks. “Veronica, what kind of donuts do you like?”
“Chocolate ones,” she said, her voice mellowing. “That would be real nice. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sweetheart.” Trey turned toward the bedroom, and probably to the shirt he’d brought with his shaving kit the night before. “Reg, you sit there and think of some words, okay? I’ll try to calm Bobby down.”
Trey disappeared, and Reg stared at the door disconsolately. His entire life he’d acknowledged that he wasn’t bright. Whatever a brain needed to be good with words or numbers, to be quick with ideas or creative, Reg’s brain didn’t have it.
But in his entire life, he’d never felt so piss-stupid as he did at this moment here.
Breaks and Fixes
BOBBY COULDN’T look Trey in the face—and the guy was his roommate, and Bobby even liked him.
“Bobby, man—look, I didn’t realize it was like that with the two of you, I swear!”
“There was nothing to know,” he said numbly. God. There wasn’t, was there? Nothing to know. They touched. They held hands. Bobby stroked
his hair, his face, held him close. Wasn’t sex. Wasn’t a relationship. Bobby had a girlfriend.
The thought made his eyes burn more, and he pulled the last of the lumber out of the truck. “Yeah, right,” Trey snapped. “That’s why you look like I killed your dog.”
Bobby tried to pull himself out. “I don’t have a dog.”
“Oh dear God. Bobby. What’s it going to hurt to admit you got attached to the guy! I mean, Reg is supposed to be the dumb one—”
“He’s not dumb!” Bobby snarled, dropping his tool chest and swinging around to confront Trey. A red mist passed in front of his eyes, and suddenly he could see himself waling on this perfectly innocent, perfectly nice person who had never wronged him, not really, and certainly not on purpose.
“Okay, absolutely,” Trey said, holding his hands up and looking alarmed. “I can see that. Not dumb. He’s not. You are.”
Bobby gaped like a fish and became aware of the violence in his muscles. Oh God. Just like his old man. A mean, bitter fucker who swung first and asked questions later.
“I’m sorry,” he said, trying to find his footing. “I… I don’t know why—”
“Because you care for the guy,” Trey said softly. “Look—man, our job, it can fuck you up about stuff like this, but I’ve seen you with him. The day he was sick, you were almost frantic. You’ve been… been trying to be a part of his life.”
“He doesn’t want that.” Bobby ached in every joint in his body. Was this what his mother felt like? Disappointed every day of her life? Was this what made you old? “This?” He gestured to the work behind him. “This was just… to him this is just what friends do. So… I’ll be….” A hookup? God. He couldn’t go in and hook up with Reg. He didn’t want to hook up with anyone right now. Wouldn’t that be using, the same way Keith used him? “I’ll fix his bathroom,” Bobby said miserably. “And then I’ll go home and see my girlfriend and work Johnnies down here until I can move her down.”
Trey grunted and pulled a hand through the longish part of his hair on top of his head. “Bobby…. Man, is that going to make you happy? Is never seeing him again going to make you happy?”
“I coulda hit you,” Bobby said, still appalled. “I… I’m not ever gonna be that fuckin’ guy.”
Trey closed his eyes. “I don’t think that’s why it was going that way,” he said with what sounded to be exaggerated patience. He opened his eyes. “If you feel strong enough about someone to—”
Bobby closed his eyes and shuddered. “See this?” he snarled, showing the bumps on his clavicle. “Broken three times, and not ’cause I loved skateboarding. I’ve seen what an asshole with a fist can do. I’m never gonna be that fuckin’ guy.”
“Jesus,” Trey muttered. “I think you’re wrong,” he said, voice growing stronger. “I think you’re wrong, and I think you’re doing this wrong, and I think you’re throwing something away that could really be special. We all love Reg, but none of us ever just lay next to him and talk to him. And yes, Bobby, that came up in bed last night. It was like hearing your boyfriend talk about his ex during orgasm, thank you very much, and now I know why.”
Bobby felt all the blood leave his face. His breath came up short, and spots flickered behind his eyes. “That… that makes it worse,” he whispered, not sure why.
“Because what me and Reg were doing—that was sex. It was athletic, like stretching a muscle or bungee jumping. What you and Reg were doing?” Trey’s voice broke, when Bobby had been keeping his steady. “That was real,” he said. “Jesus, Bobby—don’t give up something real because Reg got confused. This shit confuses people not in porn. It confuses the hell out of me, or I’d be with a guy right now.”
Bobby’s laugh had blood and glass in it. “Neither of us are gay?” And yes. It came out like a question. Because… because his chest felt ripped open. Because the thought of Reg’s compact, sleek body naked in bed with this sweet guy stopped his fucking breath.
“Oh Jesus,” Trey snarled, suddenly as angry as Bobby had been. “You fucking deserve to be miserable. How long is it going to take you to put their house back together?”
“Three or four hours,” Bobby said, lost and a little scared. “If I haul ass.”
“I’ll give you five. Fucking haul ass. I’m going to take that poor kid and his freaky-assed sister out to breakfast and then clothes shopping, because everything she owns looks handed down by clowns. Be gone by the time they get back. If you can’t get past ‘I’m not gay,’ you’re not ready to take care of yourself, much less Reg.”
Bobby gaped at him. They were roommates—they kidded, they shared the remote control, they raced each other for the couch. This level of depth—it boggled him.
“I—”
Trey shook his head abruptly. “You’ll just fucking hurt him,” he said. “Take your truck around the corner—go get your own goddamned donuts. Be back in twenty minutes, and then don’t come back here at all.” He turned back toward the house and paused, shoulders slumped. “You probably think I hate you,” he said, voice softer, pained. “I don’t. I like you, Bobby. You’re a good roommate, a good guy. But too many of us have been dicked around by guys who won’t cop to liking guys. I just… not with Reg. I just can’t.”
“Yeah,” Bobby said gruffly, remembering that last time with Keith, his body draping over Bobby’s, the bills wadded in Bobby’s back pocket. “Yeah.” He had to turn away then because the memory did it for him, and his eyes were swimming with tears. He made it around the corner and to McDonald’s for coffee, and was back at Reg’s half an hour later.
He finished his work in record time, because the house was empty. There was nobody there to talk to, nobody to “help” him clean up, nobody to help him with his tools, nobody to offer him a break and a beer and a moment to stop and take a breath.
Nobody to hold hands with.
Nobody to whisper secrets in the dark.
Nobody to look at him like he was special, and Bobby and only Bobby could make him happy.
Three and a half hours, and the bathroom looked brand-new. White tile on the floor, new plumbing under it. Bobby left a quart of paint at the closet, with a brush and instructions for how to paint the inside, if Reg wanted to keep his towels splinter-free.
He swept up, loaded the trash in his truck, and drove away.
By the time he got to the Kohl’s parking lot about a block away from his apartment, he was sobbing so hard he couldn’t breathe. Lance found him there an hour later, still shaking. He made Bobby unlock the cab so he could get in and sit in the passenger seat.
“Trey called me,” he said quietly.
“I… I’m not sure how I fucked up,” Bobby said, feeling hollowed out. “I’m not sure why this hurts so bad.”
“Yeah.” Lance grabbed the keys dangling from the ignition. “C’mon. Let’s go inside.”
Bobby was never sure what happened next. How things went from ice cream to vodka to Lance, moving gently inside him…
Kissing his tears as Bobby whispered Reg’s name.
HIS MOM was working overtime that weekend. He told her he’d come up the next weekend for sure, which got them damned close to Thanksgiving territory. He picked up four extra shifts at Hazy Daze and one extra scene at Johnnies without the stills shoot. On the plus side, his “own apartment” fund was growing fatter, and Dex had told him that his video downloads were through the roof, so once he started getting a percentage from those, he’d be able to move out.
Which was good, because life in the flophouse was becoming… tangled.
After his night with Lance, he managed to pretend it was all okay—nothing to see here, just a boy experimenting with his sexuality. He moved through the rest of his days in sort of a void. He would think Hey, I should see how Reg is doing—And then his heart would swell and ache, and he’d ask himself Why? What do I offer him, if I go to his house? And he’d be headachy and out of it for the next few hours. He waited tables on automatic, did the dishes on automatic, texted Jes
sica back on automatic.
His heart felt like an aging cardboard box in the rain. Only the memory of what he was supposed to be held him up.
A week and a half after he finished the bathroom—the only way he could think of that day—he woke up to an urgent voice in his ear. “Bobby, grab this.”
And he grabbed it. On automatic.
“Mmm… wait—no—keep squeezing.”
“Skylar?” Bobby mumbled, facedown on the air mattress. His hand draped over the side, and round and firm in his palm was… well…. “Is that your cock?”
“Yeah. Keep stroking… c’mon….”
Automatic. It was just… so easy. Like having sex with Lance or showing up to work and waiting tables or servicing humans. He stroked smooth and even, letting Skylar’s uninhibited moans drive him on.
“Yes… oh my God… Bobby, your hands are great!” Skylar propped himself up on his elbows, and Bobby could see him now, surfer-blond hair tousled, tanned, defined body stretched out on the floor.
“Why aren’t you in bed with Rick?” Bobby asked dumbly, but Skylar had just spurted a little bit of precome, and Bobby knew his cue now. He squeezed at the base, then stroked up to the head and teased that.
“’Cause Rick’s watching,” Rick said from Bobby’s other side. He was watching—with his dick out, hand stroking happily.
“Oh my God, you two,” Bobby mumbled. “Why don’t you just stop with the sex games already and admit—”
“Yes! Yes! Oh man! Bobby! Please! Faster!” Bobby complied, too numb and too sad to even ask himself if this qualified as sex, perversion, or just helping out a buddy in need.
“Admit what?” Rick asked, eyes opening and cock deflating at the same time.
“Admit you’re in love!” Bobby snapped, just when Skylar moaned “Yes!” and jizzed all over his hand.
The silence was almost as painful as Bobby’s thickening hard-on squashed against the air mattress.
“We’re in what?” Skylar asked, voice in the postorgasmic loopiness phase Bobby was starting to recognize.