Page 31 of Bobby Green
“I guess after I do a few more of each, I’ll find out,” Bobby said with dignity. But he remembered that moment today when he thought Dex held the keys to the world. He remembered that yearning—theburiedyearning—when he’d wanted to touch Keith Gilmore softly, with sweetness under their skin. He remembered the onerous sense of duty that came with knowing he was going to have to spend time alone with Jessica.
He knew.
Lance knew too, apparently, because he kept his handsome, vaguely exotic-eyed face completely bland when he nodded. “Okay, then. So you’ve had a girl, a boy, you’re getting another girl—who’s your next boy?”
Bobby couldn’t let it go. Lance—God, so handsome, so put together. And he was gonna be a fuckin’ doctor. They all knew that. “Are you?” he asked gruffly.
“Am I what?” Lance folded his arms across a chest someone should be writing home about.
“More, uh, comfortable with boys than girls?” Bobby squeaked.
Lance pursed his lips, almost like a maiden aunt. “I’m gay, Bobby. I got no problems with what I do. Do you have a problem with me admitting I’m not just gay when the film rolls?”
Bobby considered that carefully—because so far, Lance was the only one he’d heard admit it. But Bobby still wanted to be Lance when he grew up, so, “No problems,” he said, hoping Lance believed him.
“Good.”
And Bobby heard it, a sort of relief. This comfort he’d felt—the easy sexuality among the guys in the apartment, the way Reg copped to sleeping with pretty much everybody in the company—it wasn’t all easy. He saw it then, that there were pockets of silence in the banter and secret heartbeats in the healthy bodies.
“So,” Lance continued in the beats between Bobby’s understanding, “who’s your next guy?”
Bobby had to smile—shop talk. It was surprisingly neutral. “Ethan,” he said, “but Reg has him first next week.”
“Ethan and Reg have shot together—they’ll be money.” He sobered. “If Reg gets better in time. But that’s our job. Anyway, Ethan’s a good shoot. You’ll like him. He should show you a better time.”
Bobby shrugged and got himself a plate full of pizza. He didn’t have the words to say he’d rather be back in the crowded apartment, watching Reg sleep, than having a “better time.” After their discussion, he wasn’t sure if Lance would believe him anyway.
OF COURSE,he hadn’t shot with Ethan yet either. He might have changed his mind if he had—but maybe not.
The night passed without incident. Reg’s sister went to sleep when she was supposed to and woke up and took her medication without any ruckus. Lance had to go to school then, so he took Bobby’s truck, rolling his eyes at how big it was. Bobby wasn’t sure what to do next—besides play on his decrepit phone—and thank God he had his charger. His options were sit in the living room and watchFox & Friendsor, well, clean the house.
He picked cleaning the house. By the time Skylar came by with Reg’s vintage orange Camaro—Rick riding behind him in Skylar’s Prius—he’d gotten the corners of the kitchen floor clean of the greasy, hairy residue that tended to collect there and measured for new tile, as well as for new cabinets, and even started the calculations for how much lumber and nails would be needed to start on the porch.
After taking a leak in the downstairs bathroom and tiptoeing over the dry rot—and worrying that the toilet would crash through the floor along with all the crappy toiletries, thick with a layer of dust—he addedeverythingfor the bathroom to the list.
God, he could work out in the mornings, do his three-hour shift at the café, and come here and fix shit. He wouldn’t be lying if he told Reg it was more for his own therapy than to help Reg out. Working out, hanging at the apartment, shooting scenes—Bobby was used to working his ass off. He could already see boredom sliding down the pike at warp speed on a three-hundred-pound ass.
A part of him bitched about the cost of lumber and home improvement while he was trying to save money for his mom, but a part of him was thinking that he knew how to get lumber wholesale, and he had his own tools and some of his own supplies.
And he had to dosomethingwith his time, right?
“Whatcha doin’?” Skylar asked, throwing Bobby the keys as he knelt on the porch, doing calculations on an old envelope with the stub of a pencil he’d found in Reg’s drawer.
“Figuring out how much wood I’d need to fix this place up,” he said without thinking.
Skylar stared. “You candothat?” he asked, awe in his voice, and Bobby looked up, smiling into Skylar’s surfer-boy face.
“Yeah, I can do that. I came down to Sacramento to work construction. There’s not much to do in Dogpatch besides help people fix their houses and maybe build a barn or two.”
Rick walked up next to Skylar, both of them wearing black jeans with white stitching and spendy leather jackets in the October chill. Bobby was wearing the same jeans he’d put on after he’d showered when he was done with the shoot—practically transparent 501’s—with a T-shirt that had holes in the neck and a sweatshirt he’d had to buy to be on the varsity boys’ wrestling team.
“Did he just say Dogpatch?” Rick asked. His face was a little leaner than Skylar’s, and he had brown hair with one of those widow’s-peak hairlines that would probably start receding by thirty, but his wide-blue-eyed expression was practically identical to Skylar’s.
“He did,” Skylar muttered, staring at the porch. “Did you just say Dogpatch? Isn’t that a neighborhood in San Francisco?”
Bobby rolled his eyes. “It’s also a town south of Colton in the Tahoe National Forest. Wow, you guys. I’ve seen maps. Sacramento isn’t the only city in the world, you know.”
“Well,” Skylar said drolly, “it’s not Dogpatch.”
