Bobby Green

by Amy Lane

  Bobby found himself smiling, even as Dex turned around and did his belt, then took off into the visible heat rising from the pavement.

  Okay, so he needed to figure something out, or Dex would fix his life.

  Deal, then.

  Some sleep, a trip to court, some loose ends, and Bobby could get to work.

  Full Circle

  HE TOLD Bobby to fuck off.

  Not just once, but twice. The second time, Bobby had tried to come into his hospital room, looking like hell—and damned contrite—and Reg had lost his shit, screaming and carrying on even after Bobby left.

  The nurse had needed to sedate him, and when he woke up, John—John, fresh from rehab John—was there to scold him for being an asshole.

  “Can’t you see that kid is breaking his heart over you? I got no idea why, but he seems to think you’re special.”

  “So special he said I was retarded and I couldn’t take care of my own shit!”

  And John—his friend, who had always been so exquisitely gentle with him—had growled. “Everybody needs help, Reg. And you know what? You can’t save someone just because you want to. Trust me. I spent ten years doing blow, trying to wipe out the memory of the one guy I couldn’t save. You know what he did to pay me back for all that useless wanting?”

  “I got no idea,” Reg said, stunned. As far as he’d been concerned, John was like a teacher—he didn’t have a personal life. Even rehab had been like one of those seminar things teachers were always talking about but Reg could never picture.

  “Jumped off a fucking bridge and killed himself,” John said succinctly.

  Reg stared in horror. “That’s fucking awful!” The sedative was still wearing off, and he had a confused picture in his head of V jumping off the bridge over the Sacramento River and trying to fly.

  “Tell me about it. And he left me to clean up his mess.” John’s hair was clean these days, and he was filling out. He really looked like an all-American boy now. No more drugs.

  “Poor John,” Reg said, feeling genuine sorry. “You’re a good guy. Didn’t deserve that.”

  “No,” John said softly, settling down a little more comfortably into the wretched hospital chair. All the guys had whined about this model—apparently it was like sitting in a plastic cage. “I didn’t. And you didn’t deserve your sister.”

  Reg bit his lip, eyes smarting. “She was so good to me when we were little,” he said, willing someone, anyone, to understand.

  “So was Tory,” John said back, and Reg saw pain in his eyes. Honest, grown-up pain.

  Reg’s pain was just that flavor.

  “What happened? I mean, with V it was schizophrenia, but—”

  “People can’t always hold their own burdens,” John said softly. “And they can either ask for help and accept it, or they can throw their burdens on someone else’s back and watch them drown too. Tory did that second thing—so much pain and so many drugs, right?”

  “V wouldn’t… wouldn’t take her drugs,” he said, remembering a talk he and Bobby had once about irony. He’d never understood that until now.

  “Either way,” John said softly. “It’s taking responsibility for living in the real world. You can try all you want, Reg, but you can’t do that for someone else.”

  “He thinks I’m stupid,” Reg whispered.

  “He attacked the cop who called you stupid,” John told him.

  Reg closed his eyes, his head hurting more. “Nobody told me that.”

  “Well, you should know. He was coming in to tell you he’s doing fifteen days in jail—it was almost three years, but I know good lawyers.”

  “He’s going to jail?” Reg tried to sit up, but God, his head—it was gonna pop the fuck off his shoulders.

  “Two weeks, Reg. So two weeks in jail. You got three more days in the hospital. You may want to use that time to think about what’s important here. From what the social worker told me, all he was worried about was you not going home with your sister alone.”

  “Jail,” Reg moaned, eyes closed. “I told him to fuck off. I screamed at him—oh God.”

  John smoothed his hair back from his head, like Bobby did sometimes, like his sister used to. “He’ll understand, Reg. He will.”

  “But I’m still so mad!” What kind of person did that make him, that he heard Bobby saying “No, he’s not capable” in his head over and over again. And every time it echoed, he saw Bobby being kind, fixing his kitchen, bringing him books, possessing his body, and he thought He doesn’t see me as a person. I’m like the house. I’m a project. How can he love me when he wants to fix me?

  And all the good parts of the last year became a lie.

  “He thinks I’m… I’m substandard! I’m not… I’m not enough!” And that was the thing he was maddest at. The lie, the terrible, hope-bringing lie, that Reg could be enough to keep his household in order. Enough to love.

  “Oh, baby,” John said, his green eyes narrowed with frustration. “Don’t you see his biggest fear is that he’s failed you?”

  “It wasn’t his fault she got the shovel from his truck,” Reg said, because they’d both slept through it. God—they hadn’t even heard the door opening.

  “Well, your sister’s pretty smart, Reg.”

  “No, she’s not.” Reg’s eyes burned at this too. “She used to be smart about people. Used to care what they thought, what hurt their feelings. She doesn’t know how to do that no more.”

  John let out a breath. “Then she’s not as smart as you. What do you think Bobby thought when he saw you bleeding? How do you think he felt when he realized they might send you home with your sister and not him?”

  “That she’d kill me,” Reg said dully. She would have. She hadn’t even seen her brother at that point. He’d been as much a stranger to her as she was to him.

  “Maybe he’d rather you hate him than have that happen.”

  “Yeah.”

  Reg had fallen asleep then, and when he’d awakened, Ethan and Jonah had been there instead of John. They’d played Uno with him that night, and after they left, something in his chest and back felt like it unclenched. It wasn’t letting go—he couldn’t yet—but maybe, when his hands didn’t hurt so much from holding on too tight, it was a possibility.

  Lance brought him home after his three days in the hospital, and he walked past his Camaro in the driveway and into his house expecting the worst. But the guys had cleaned up—the lamp that V had shattered, the bloody sheets, the prints of cop boots—all of it was gone.

  Looked like his house again—the new bathroom, baseboards, window treatment, hall floor, all glaring brightly against the old, crumbling parts, but his.

  That’s okay—Bobby’ll fix the—

  He put a hand to his aching head and moaned softly.

  “What’s wrong?” Lance asked, going to the cupboard for a glass. “You need a pain pill?”

  “I told Bobby to fuck off,” Reg said. “And now he’s in jail.”

  “Yeah.” Lance brought him the pill. “Sort of a low-rent move, Reg.”

  Yes. Yes, it had been.

  And he wasn’t sure if it was one somebody could forgive.

  He wiped his eyes with his palms, and again, and again. Lance stood, pulled his face gently to his middle, and let him cry.

  But Reg knew, a dull certainty in his stomach, that this was all they would do. There’d be no sex, no fucking. Because they used to do that for comfort, but now it would hurt more than help.

  As he wept on his friend’s stomach, he thought bitterly that putting off being an adult for most of his life had saved him a shit-ton of pain.

  HIS HEAD got better, and he went back to work.

  Booking gigs got easier, and he started doing things like putting out a sign-up sheet for the guys and coordinating it with guys who had scenes coming out. In short order he had a calendar full of events for the next two months.

  Some of them needed his presence. About two weeks after he got back to work, he an
d John drove to San Francisco to escape the bone-crushing heat, and they and four other guys did a signing at a huge, busy nightclub. Reg was glad John was there—he shook hands and danced and laughed a lot—but Reg mostly made sure everybody had what they needed and were taken care of. The guys were new—they stayed at the club that night to do blow and get laid, John supposed—but John and Reg drove back together. John dropped Reg off at two in the morning and shook his hand.

  “Nice job, Reggie. You did Johnnies proud.”

  Reg nodded and looked behind him at his completely empty house. No worries about V tonight. No asking someone to sit with her. No checking for meds.

  But no Bobby waiting either.

  “Thanks,” he said, trying to smile. “I’m glad I could do a good job for you.”

  John pursed his lips and sighed. “He gets out tomorrow.”

  Reg swallowed hard. He’d had updates from various sources—Dex, Lance, Skylar—who all told him about Bobby in jail. Apparently a whole batch of guys went to visit him on visiting day, which had made Bobby laugh because, two weeks? What was two weeks? But nobody had invited Reg to that party. Reg wasn’t sure he would have gone.

  “What am I supposed to say to him?”

  “Maybe let him talk, Reg. He knows what you think of him. You’re the one who isn’t listening.”

  Reg nodded, backing away from the car to slam the door shut. He made his way across his creaking porch, sweat still running down his spine. He wondered if he bought the materials, could he get some of the guys to come help him fix his house?

  But it wasn’t the thought of how hard it would be that stopped him.

  It was the sudden grief that it would be anybody else’s job.

  KELSEY HAD her baby the next day. Reg went on visiting crew, not just to see her and the baby but on the hopes that Bobby would be there.

  He wasn’t, and nobody there had talked to him.

  Reg congratulated Kelsey, gave her a baby gift he’d bought on the way, and went home, feeling like a coward.

  That night Bobby sent him a text.

  How are you?

  Should ask the same. I’m sorry about jail.

  Jail was my bad. I’m sorry about everything.

  Reg just stared at the phone. What was everything? How exactly did one define “everything”? Was “everything” what Bobby said? Was it how he felt? Was he sorry about Reg’s sister? About leaving when Reg needed him most?

  Reg didn’t answer, and Bobby didn’t press. Reg couldn’t text about it. He couldn’t talk about it. He was slow—he always had been. For once in his life, he was going to have to sit in his house and listen to the silence and let his heart and his brain whirr slowly, telling him things in their own time.

  It would be easier for them to move if he wasn’t afraid they were muffled by the hurt, like a car engine in shaving cream, but he didn’t have a cure for that.

  Done and Raw

  BOBBY MANNED the grill at the company picnic, grateful that the heat had broken. Behind him his mom set potato salad, watermelon, buns, and condiments on the picnic table, pulling them out of a giant ice chest she’d rented for the occasion.

  It had been Dex’s idea to pay Bobby’s mom to help cater—he’d given her a budget and a week to gather supplies. Bobby had helped, telling her that a lot of the models were health conscious and there should be lots of fruit-and-veggie trays and soy dogs and whole-grain buns. He’d helped with the shopping, the prep, the transportation—hell, pretty much the whole thing, since Hazy Daze had written him off with the misdemeanor assault conviction.

  He’d like to say he was doing it all for his mom, because she’d been fucking awesome in the last month. She’d put up his bail and even given Dex’s lawyer a small fee, all they could afford. She’d visited and called, and when he got out, she’d been there to pick him up.

  The first thing he’d done was go get tested at Johnnies—not because he’d had prison sex, he was quick to assure Dex, but because he wanted to prove he hadn’t.

  He had a fading bruise under his eye and a broken nose to prove he’d defended himself a couple of times—and walked away when the defending was done.

  Jail had been awful. Not the small concrete cell of the movies—or even his detention tank—but a big open area, divided into smaller quads. You found your bed, you minded your business, you didn’t talk to anybody, you threw a punch back when someone threw at you.

  But Bobby walked away knowing one thing.

  He controlled his temper. His temper didn’t control him. Never fucking again.

  If he could walk away from someone who wanted to bend him over in the laundry room, after doing no more than laying the fucker out flat, he could walk away from a cop, from an enemy, from a friend out of line.

  That red haze in front of his eyes never had to scare him again, because he had it by the balls.

  It was a hard lesson—but then, it was one he’d needed, apparently, and not one he was ever going to need again.

  And his mom never asked about the incident. She never reprimanded him. Never told him she was disappointed.

  She didn’t even object to Johnnies anymore. Apparently the prospect of three years in jail versus the two weeks he’d served had converted her quick.

  So Bobby should have been doing the work for the picnic for her—but he wasn’t.

  He was doing it for a glimpse, a spare word, a chance to talk to Reg.

  Most of the guys were on his side—not that he thought of it as a side. Most of the guys told him that Reg just needed space. He asked what Reg was doing with his time, and they’d told him that he went home. The end.

  Bobby wondered if he was just listening to the silence, wondering what his life could be without his sister there.

  It was why he hadn’t pressed.

  Because Reg’s sister had been his world. His entire life had been twined up in keeping Veronica fed, clothed, and on her regimen. Having that taken away? Must have been bewildering, and while Bobby never thought Reg was stupid, he also knew Reg wasn’t quick. It was going to take a while.

  Patience.

  Their courtship had been slow. They’d danced around each other for months. They’d figured things out, one fumbling step at a time.

  If Bobby wanted Reg back, he was going to have to give him room—just enough—so Reg knew Bobby trusted him to make a decision, make a good one, without pressure.

  This was important. Bobby didn’t want to fuck it up.

  But God, he was hungry to see Reg.

  “Reggie!” Bobby jerked his head around at the sound of his mom’s voice. She’d thrown her arms around Reg with no hesitation, and Bobby swallowed at his tentative return of the hug. “It’s so good to see you,” Isabelle said, holding his hands and smiling at him. “I’ve been so worried.” Bobby watched as she touched the still-healing bruised part of his temple with gentle fingers. “Bobby couldn’t think of anything else but you.”

  Reg gave her a brief smile and turned away. “It sort of sucked,” he said gruffly.

  God, he’d lost weight. Bobby knew he’d been working out. Trey or Lance met him every morning, both of them a little less thin but a little happier as time went on. But neither of them had been feeding Reg, and it showed. His hair had grown out, curly and a little vulnerable to the side of his widow’s peak. The circles under his eyes were practically blue in the bright sunshine, and that kind, irrepressible smile was dim, on auxiliary power now.

  He must have sensed Bobby’s scrutiny, because he glanced up. For a terrible, wonderful moment, they stared at each other, soul to soul, and Bobby could see the sun for the first time in weeks. Reg’s fingers went up to his own cheek to mirror the healing cut under Bobby’s eye—a reminder of his worst fight—and then fluttered down. A look of profound sorrow crossed his face, so deep, so painful that Bobby had to fight for breath.

  Then he turned away and spoke into the silence that seemed to have encompassed the entire picnic.

  “Uh, anyone se
en, uh, Dex?”

  “They’re at the zoo,” Isabelle said. “All the babies and daddies and uncles—John took them.” Bobby knew she was counting the minutes until the babies came back. He was glad she had them in her life—but just as glad he wasn’t the baby provider too. Right now, her attention on Reg, she looked around at the rest of the guys—and some of their boy- and girlfriends—and smiled. “But that’s okay. There’s plenty of folks here.”

  The flophouse roommates were all sort of gathered in a group around Kelsey. Kelsey’s baby was with Ethan and Jonah at the zoo, which Bobby thought was pretty damned funny, but Kelsey was taking the moment to kick back in a soccer chair and enjoy the shade. Skylar and Rick were playing off each other as always and making her and the others laugh. Reg gravitated to them, and Lance looked up over his head at Bobby in question.

  Bobby nodded. He didn’t want anybody to be mean to Reg, to make him feel unwelcome because of Bobby. This wasn’t that kind of fight. This wasn’t a take-sides thing. This wasn’t Bobby against Reg.

  This was Bobby fighting to keep Reg.

  Lance nodded back and turned to Reg and smiled, and Bobby went back to grilling soy dogs. Which smelled nasty. He was going to eat one of the big whole-beef ones his mother had brought, with no apologies either.

  He managed to lose himself in the grilling, compartmentalizing all his grief, all his hope for something better, when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

  He turned around and met a handsome man about John’s age, with dark hair, a trimmed goatee, and blue eyes. He had a few scars around his mouth, his cheek, but it did nothing to detract from his cool good looks, and the snappy linen suit in the California heat added to the appeal.