by Amy Lane
“Yeah,” Bobby confirmed, moving his hand and looking only at Reg. “There. Just be careful. Move slowly. They’re big animals—and they can be like really big dogs, but they can also be like those hippos in the documentary.” One of the things they’d watched since V had gone to the hospital.
“Yeah,” Reg said seriously. “Gotcha.” He took the carrots and smiled.
“I’ll be right out there. If you see anyone, tell ’em you’re my friend, okay? But remember—Vern Roberts, right?”
Reg grimaced. “Yeah. I don’t think I’ll ever get that right. You’ll always be Bobby to me.”
He turned around then and waved briefly at Bobby’s mom before setting out across the icy meadow that separated the Robertses’ yard from the more developed parts of Frank Gilmore’s land. Once or twice a year, Frank would mow this big meadow and sell the hay, so he did keep it seeded nicely—not too many thistles. Bobby had always yearned for a dog, but by the time his dad had moved away, making that possible, his mom had been desperate for money. He’d started helping Frank Gilmore at fourteen for money under the table.
“He going to be okay?” his mom asked as she packaged up the leftover stromboli and put it in the fridge.
“Yeah,” Bobby said, watching as Reg turned his face up to the sky and the mountains around him in wonder. “He just needs a direct explanation sometimes, you know?”
Reg kept walking, and Bobby turned toward the table. “I’ll go out with him when we’re done here.”
“Funny how he knows about your scars,” she said mildly. “I don’t even know about that one on your hand.”
Bobby held up his hand, where the puncture wound was scabbed over and healing. “Fell through Reg’s fence,” he muttered. “Spent the last week and a half putting it back together.” He didn’t like thinking about that night—or the pain in his hand as he’d worked. He hated getting hurt.
“That’s fascinating. And now I know. But so does Reg.”
“Well, we work out a lot together,” Bobby returned, but inside, he hated himself. He could do this, he realized. He could dance with words and keep quiet about what was really happening in his life for as long as she lived. He could see himself, getting an apartment for the two of them and staying some nights at Reg’s house and making up a mystery girl and basically living his life in one big frightening shadow.
But he remembered that moment, stomping down on the tenderness he’d felt for Keith Gilmore, and how hard it had been to see himself as someone who could love again, with Reg.
He didn’t want to be that person.
“And we sleep together too,” he added, looking at her and hoping she’d get it.
Her eyes widened, but her mouth quirked sideways. “I wasn’t going to ask…,” she said, inviting conversation in the time-honored mom way.
“I… I never should have dated Jessica,” he said, feeling that wrongness in his bones. “It wasn’t… honest.”
His mom swallowed and shrugged. “It’s not like we live somewhere easy for that,” she said roughly. “Not sure how you could have been open about that and lived through high school.”
Bobby’s throat ached and his chest felt swollen. “Probably couldn’t,” he said with an almost hysterical laugh. “How did you… did you guess?”
His mom shrugged again and turned toward the sink. Her eyes were red, and he could see the glaze of tears trembling at her chin, but the two of them weren’t big on demonstration. He started clearing the table, stacking the dishes on the counter next to her.
“Just a hunch,” she said, answering him without the electric wire of pain between them. “Your voice when you talked about Reg on the phone. Your pain about his sister. You never sounded that way about Jessica.” She gave a half laugh. “You didn’t even sound that way about Keith.”
Oh God. “Mom, about him—”
“He still says he’s marrying Carla,” she said gently, looking over her shoulder.
“I wouldn’t have him if he stripped naked, painted his dick rainbow, and joined the Pride parade in San Francisco,” Bobby snapped. “I… I tried to break it off between us, and he got ugly. It’s one of the reasons….” He let out a sigh and set down Reg’s milk glass with an unhappy thump.
“Why you moved away,” she said, like she was putting things together.
“Yeah. I’m sorry he’s been scary here with you. I just—I couldn’t see him anymore.” He gazed out over the meadow toward the fence, smiling a little as Reg held his arm way out in front of him, carrot on his palm. “I guess I know what it’s like to be honest with someone now, mostly. And… after that, you can’t go back, you know?”
“I know what you mean about not going back,” she said, starting on the plates. He grabbed a spare washcloth and went to wipe the empty table. “My boss has hit on me plenty of times in the last five years. I never took him up on it because he’s just like your father. I have to work for the asshole—I’m not going to take that bullshit home.”
“Good,” Bobby said forcefully, turning back toward her. “You need to get out of here. There’s more than just your bullshit boss and people like Dad out in the world.”
His mom nodded and stared out the kitchen window. “Keith Gilmore.”
“Why would you date Keith—” Bobby shut up as he looked back out the window. “Oh fuck. Oh fuck—fuck no fuck no fuck no—”
He was still screaming “Fuck no!” as he turned and hauled ass out of the house.
Needing More, Needing Better
“SO YOU’RE Vern’s friend?”
Reg looked up to where that smooth country-boy voice came from and took a step back from the peaceful brown horse with the white splotch between his eyes. Reg didn’t know the horses’ names, but this one had trotted up to Reg like it was used to good things from this side of the fence, so Reg believed they could be friends. “Yes, sir, I am. Just up visiting.”
“He used to come here and feed the horses all the time.” The stranger was pretty—stringy muscles, hazel eyes, a big white smile with brackets around the mouth, and a square jaw.
“He hasn’t mentioned it,” Reg told him truthfully. But then, Bobby didn’t talk much about home. “He did like the horses, though.”
“Bobby and I used to pet these guys all the time, after we baled hay for my daddy.” The guy—dressed like Bobby dressed, in a denim jacket over a hooded sweatshirt, with work gloves and a baseball hat—reached out and casually patted the animal Reg had been feeding.
His motions with the horse were so gentle, for a moment Reg didn’t put two and two together.
“Wait,” Reg said, unable to keep the information to himself. “That would make you Keith Gilmore, right?”
Keith stopped patting the horse. “What has he told you about me?”
Reg swallowed and glared at him. “He told me everything,” he said angrily. “He won’t do that for you no more.”
Keith took a step back; then his handsome, full-lipped face contorted, and he reversed that. “And who’s gonna stop him? You? You think you’re enough to keep him from doing that? I gotta tell you, your boy craves cock, right? He’ll ditch you in a fast minute to take me down his throat—he just forgot how good it was—”
Reg laughed. It wasn’t a good laugh—it sounded like V’s laugh when she was angry and off her medication. “That wasn’t good. You think what he gave you was good? I can tell you right now, if he didn’t want to, it was the worst blowjob in history. You’re just too dumb to know it.”
“I’m dumb?” Keith gaped at Reg like nobody had ever said this to him before. Well, lucky Keith Gilmore—Reg was going to hear it for the rest of his life.
“You can’t make someone love you,” Reg cried out. “You certainly can’t do it by shoving your dick down their thro—”
He ducked the first punch because his body was a well-oiled machine. He dodged the curious horse and walked right into the next punch because he wasn’t used to horses and had never been in a fistfight in his life.
The third punch hit him square in the face, and his knees buckled. He went down onto the frosty ground, pulling his legs up to his chest and wrapping his arms over his head and hoping it would be over soon.
Keith got a kick in to his ribs, and one to his back, and that was when Reg heard Bobby roar.
“Get your damned hands off of him!”
The flurry of kicks stopped, and Reg pushed up to his hands and his knees in time to see Bobby level a haymaker at Keith Gilmore that had him crumpling to the ground—or would have, if Bobby had let him. He grabbed Keith by the lapels with both hands, threw him back against the fence post, and slugged him hard and fast, in the jaw, in the stomach, in the side of the face. Keith tried to block, but Reg had been watching over the past months as Bobby went from stringy country kid to well-built human powerhouse, and that was the Bobby who was working his friend over.
Reg had to stop him.
“Bobby!” he screamed, grabbing hold of his left hand and hoping he weighed enough to slow Bobby down. “Bobby—stop it! Stop it! You’re gonna fucking kill him!”
“He touched you!” Bobby screamed, face contorted with rage. “He fucking touched you! It’s bad enough, what he done to me, but he touched you!”
“I’m fine!” Reg shouted back. He hurt. His face hurt, his stomach, and his back where he’d been kicked, but Bobby hurt inside, and this wasn’t going to make it any better. “I’m fine! He’ll leave us the fuck alone now!”
“He touched you,” Bobby half sobbed. He reached out to touch Reg’s cheek, and his thumb came back with Reg’s blood, mingling with Keith Gilmore’s. “He hurt you.”
“You fucking faggots!” Keith mumbled, sagging against the fence. “I’m gonna tell my dad you’re a faggot, Bobby, and he’s gonna evict your mama, and you’re gonna be fucked.”
Bobby turned to him, such cold fury on his face that Reg was afraid for a minute. But Bobby didn’t hit him again—didn’t touch him, not even when he stumbled to the ground.
“My mom knows who I am,” Bobby said through his teeth. “I’m not afraid of what you can tell her. She knows. She knows about me, she knows about you—and the only way she says something to another living soul is if you raise a finger to anyone I fucking love. You think about that, Keith. You tell your daddy to evict her, and it’s out. You, me, the goddamned barn, your filthy uncle and his rancid cock cheese—I’m telling everybody, including Carla. You want to live in this town, fine. But unless you leave my mother the hell alone, you’re going to wish you were dead here, just like I did.”
Keith spat blood onto the ground next to him and let out a sound suspiciously like a sob. “You… you’re just gonna… gonna go? I didn’t mean anything to you at all?”
Bobby shook his head and wiped his eyes with his bloody fist. “Yeah. Sure. When we first started, I thought you were great. But you took away my choice, man. And all that great turned to horseshit, and you didn’t see it.”
Keith let out a broken sob. “You think I got any choice?” he asked. “You think my daddy wouldn’t fuckin’ kill me if he knew what we did?”
Bobby shook his head, and Reg wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “C’mon, Bobby,” he said gently. He hurt. Bobby’s knuckles were bleeding. They needed Bobby’s mom. They just did. In ways Reg couldn’t even fathom, they needed that nice woman who served them weird pizza.
“Get out of here, Keith,” Bobby called over his shoulder. “This place turned what we had to shit. It’ll keep eating another piece of you, and more, and more, until there’s nothing left.”
Reg urged him a couple more steps then. And a couple more. And some more. And by the time they were halfway across the meadow, Reg looked back and saw Keith had pulled himself up. He was standing, arms around that sweet brown-and-white horse’s neck, sobbing.
“He gonna be okay?” Reg asked between sobs, forgetting for a minute that this was the guy who had just kicked at him as he huddled on the ground.
“No,” Bobby said bluntly. “He hasn’t been okay for maybe his whole life.” He looked back and then shook his head, wrapping his arm tighter around Reg’s shoulders until Reg winced. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked.
Reg wrapped his free arm around his own stomach. “I might have to… I’m sorry….” Pain, put off from the panic maybe, roiled up under his ribs, and just that quickly, he was down on his knees, throwing up on the icy stubble of the meadow.
BOBBY GOT him back to the house and made him take a warm shower. He put on boxer shorts and lay down on the bed while Bobby and his mom took stock of his bruises and put ice packs on them.
“There was no blood?” his mom asked Bobby for the fiftieth time.
“Not when he got sick, Mom. I think he just got gutshot.”
“I’ll be okay,” Reg mumbled. He grimaced up at Bobby. “Can I not be in my underwear around your mom?”
“Deal with it,” Isabelle Roberts said bluntly. “You’ve got bruises all over your body, sweetheart. Let me make sure they get iced, okay?” With that, she turned toward the kitchen, presumably to get another ice pack.
“Sorry I’m not a good fighter,” Reg mumbled, feeling stupid. “You were a real good fighter out there. I was surprised.”
Bobby had taken his own shower, and he crouched down by the bed and smoothed Reg’s hair from his eyes with bandaged knuckles. “You didn’t live through grade school if you didn’t learn to beat the hell out of people,” he said with a shrug. “Didn’t hurt that I bulked up, but I know how to throw a punch.”
Reg half laughed. “V always protected me,” he said softly, remembering. “Until I started at Johnnies, I was just always so small.”
Bobby grunted. “It’s easy for me to forget,” he admitted after a moment.
“Forget what?”
“How much she gave you,” Bobby said, leaning over to kiss Reg’s temple.
Which reminded him. “You really told your mom?” Reg asked, heart full of wonder.
“Yeah.”
“She was okay with it?”
Bobby shrugged. “Didn’t kick us out. Still seems to like you okay. We’ll call it good.”
Reg smiled and closed his eyes. It was only three in the afternoon, but they’d given him some pain relievers, and he felt like a little nap. “That’s amazing,” he mumbled. “Make sure she knows I love you too.”
He heard Bobby’s breath catch, but his eyes were closed. He could only feel the kiss on his temple and the rasp of the bandage as Bobby dragged his knuckles gently across Reg’s cheek.
HE WOKE up about two hours later and made his way creakily to the bathroom, being careful to hit the water. No blood—he checked.
Bobby’s mom showed up in the doorway as he was making his way back to bed.
“You okay?” she asked, and he grimaced.
“I need my sweats.” He was still in his boxers, and it wasn’t right. Besides, it was cold up here.
“That’s fine. You can get them out of the bag, you can wear them.”
Reg made his way to his duffel bag and started sorting through his clothes. He had to balance against the wall to get one leg in his sweats, and she made a sound of impatience and came around the bed to help him. Embarrassed, he gave them to her to hold while he put one foot, then the other, into the fleece. Then she pulled out a clean T-shirt and a sweatshirt for him to wear.
“Where’s Bobby?” he asked, feeling a little lost.
“Fell asleep in front of the TV,” she said with a half smile. “Afternoon nap, I guess, just like he was a kid.”
Reg frowned. “I don’t remember if I ever took them or not.”
“Your mom could tell you,” Isabelle said, holding the sweatshirt by the hem. Reg put his hands in, and she pulled it over his head. He was so grateful too, because his chest, his back, his core—everything ached.
“No, she couldn’t. She took off a while ago.”
“That’s too bad.” Isabelle tugged the sweatshirt down and straightened the shoulders. “M
y parents died when Bobby was young. I felt so alone. It’s hard, you know? Taking care of someone else with no help?”
Reg nodded emphatically. “Yeah. I was lucky. The guys from work—”
“John Carey Industries,” she said suspiciously.
“Uh, yeah. They help.”
She just looked at him, and his face heated as he looked away. “Look, I know you’re trying to get me to say something, but it’s a real place, and I don’t know what you want me to tell you.” He scratched behind his ear, which was his tell for lying, but she didn’t know that. It’s why he didn’t lie that often—he was really obvious about it.
Her mouth twisted, and one of her eyebrows shot up. “Mm.”
He closed his eyes. “You’re really going to have to ask Bobby… uh, Vern,” he said weakly.
She rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s obviously not theft, fraud, or gambling,” she told him dryly.
“Oh yeah. I’d suck at all those things.”
To his surprise, she laughed. “Okay, then. Whatever you guys are hiding, at least it’s honest work. And you’re both too healthy for it to be drugs, and you are obviously too sweet to be mob muscle. I’ll wait for Vern to tell me.”
“He thinks the world of you,” Reg said, throat aching because now he knew why. “He just… you know. Wants you to be proud.” Reg looked around at the house, thought of all the things Bobby would want to do to it to make it nice. “Wants to get you someplace better.”
She looked around too and shrugged. “His dad and I lived in some really awful goddamned places before we ended up here.” Sigh. “This was supposed to be the place he turned it all around. Stopped being mad at the world. Stopped yelling, stopped hitting. So many promises. In the end, best thing he could do for us was leave.”
Reg thought of Bobby, ready to throw that last punch—and not. “Bobby’s better’n that,” he said soberly. “He tries real hard. Even when he screws up, it’s ’cause he’s learning.” Heartbeat. Thought. Memory. “We’re both learning.”