Page 91 of Bobby Green
“It’s the people like each other,” Reg said thoughtfully. “You were right—it’s the perfect working situation. Your job is to like who you’re with and make that person happy. I’m a fan.”
Dex grinned then. “Glad to hear it.” He shook Reg’s hand, like theyweregrown-ups and not just talking about being grown-ups, and Reg walked into the back to take his blood test for his window. And then he went up front to collect the guy nobody knew he was sleeping with and everybody thought was a girl.
They went to the big hardware store afterward—they’d brought the truck, and Bobby was going to fix the leak under Reg’s kitchen sink, of all things. Reg hadn’t even known there’d been one, but Bobby said he could smell it. He bought wood and stuff too, because Bobby said there was rot down there. On the way back, Bobby asked how his talk with Dex went.
Reg grunted—a habit he was getting from Bobby.
“He wasn’t too mad. Said he’d set it up with Lance to put off the shoot for a day—I got my blood test before I got you.”
“You told me that,” Bobby said mildly. “I’m glad he’s not too mad. So, Lance?”
“He’s a friend,” Reg said with dignity. “You’re not going to tell me I can’t have sex at work with friends, are you?”
Bobby snickered.
“That didn’t sound good, did it? I just mean—”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bobby said gently. Because they were in the truck, maybe, he reached over and patted Reg’s knee. “You get along with all the people you work with. And that’s just how we’ll deal, okay? It’s work. That’s what we’ll call it to my mom, that’s what we’ll call it to ourselves. Someday we’ll find another job, that’s all.”
Reg could breathe again. Bobby managed to not freak out like Reg had—which on the one hand was totally unfair, but on the other hand, Bobby had donehisfreak-out way earlier, so maybe it was kind of even. Either way—they had a way to look at work and talk about work that wasn’t going to break them.
That’s all Reg wanted.
Well, Dex’s kindness helped.
“So,” Bobby asked, “do you want me to stay tonight? Or would it be better if I left?”
Reg took a deep breath. He knew what he wanted, but that meant he was going to have to be a grown-up.
“Stay,” he said. “Please.”
Bobby squeezed his knee before putting both hands on the wheel.
“Course.”
THEY WENTto bed around ten o’clock, Bobby wrapping those long arms around him and kissing the back of his neck softly. His hands stroked the bare skin of Reg’s hard stomach absently, and Reg held his breath, waiting to see if it would get sexual.
It didn’t, and Reg had just settled down, thinking he could sleep like this, protected, cared for, when his phone rang.
It was Ethan. Kelsey’s ex-boyfriend—and Dex’s too—had trashed Kelsey’s place, and could Reg please come help with the cleanup?
Bobby was half-dressed with boots and his jacket and work gloves before Reg even got off the phone.
Yeah. He got it now. The guys at work were their friends. Reg and Bobby would go to their rescue in the dark of a cold winter night—but the bed they got called out of to do that was theirs, and theirs alone.
Cautionary Tales
THE ONEthing Bobby learned from cleaning up Kelsey’s place was that relationships could get ugly—but then, he already knew that.
He and Reg got back to Reg’s place at the small hours of the night after putting the plywood up in the windows. Bobby remembered the name of a glazier—one of the guys he’d worked with back in Dogpatch who lived in Sacramento now. He gave the guy’s name to Ethan so Dex could make the arrangements to fix Kelsey’s house—
But Bobby didn’t think she’d be back.
He looked around the place, after they’d picked up the broken glass from the windows her ex had smashed in, and wondered if she’d had any investment in living there. The warm, funny girl who’d spent the entire day trying to catch Bobby up to the twenty-first century seemed to be missing.
After the police had gone, and Dex had bolted out of there in a panic for yet another emergency, Ethan took Kelsey home, and Bobby showed Reg how to tack the plywood in place so it wouldn’t rip out a chunk of drywall when the window guy got there.
“This is a nice house,” Reg said wistfully, and Bobby thought maybe any place that wasn’t falling apart was nice for Reg.
