Page 103 of Bobby Green

“Vern said you two wouldn’t mind sharing his bed,” Mom said as she walked through the door. “So I’ll let him show you around. I made stromboli for lunch—I hope that’s okay.”

Reg looked at him in confusion, and Bobby said, “It’s like an all-meat pizza baked in a croissant bun.” He looked ruefully at his mom. “It’s apparently designed to make us fat.”

“Well, look at you—you’re both built like racehorses. A stromboli isn’t gonna kill you.”

“I hope not,” Bobby said, feeling gratitude in his bones. “Because seriously, anything we don’t have to cook is the best.”

He ventured into his room—which had a few more big plastic boxes of needlepoint supplies than he remembered. He used one to put his duffel on and had Reg put his on another one. They were like coffee tables in the front room—moveable furniture.

His mom watched them from the doorway, a half smile on her face. “Do you guys cook together a lot?” she asked, but not judgy-like.

“Reg has a big kitchen,” Bobby said, keeping it casual. “My apartment has a minifridge and a hotplate.”

“Bobby brings groceries over,” Reg said guilelessly. “He’ll cook for me and, uh….” His face fell. “My sister. She’s not at home now—but he cooks for us a lot.”

“That’s nice of him,” his mom said, a quizzical smile on her face. “I didn’t know you liked to cook.”

Bobby gave her a half smile. “Well, you know. You do such a good job of it, why would I need to do it here?”

She nodded, but thoughtfully. “Speaking of, let me go put lunch on the table.”

She left, and Reg looked at him in agony. “I forgot to give her the books!”

“Later,” Bobby told him. “After lunch.”

Reg nodded and pulled out the bag—Bobby had bought one of those pretty recyclable grocery bags so it would be more like a gift. “Okay. It’s going good, right?”

“Great, Reg. Why wouldn’t it?”

Suddenly Reg was standing close—perfect distance, from Bobby’s POV, but Bobby understood.

“’Cause we don’t want her to… you know,” Reg whispered.

Bobby stared at his open door. “Maybe,” he said quietly. “Maybe not. Like I said—see how the weekend goes, okay?”

Reg nodded unhappily. “Yeah, sure. But this is a real nice place, Bobby. You may want to think twice about getting kicked out.”

Bobby resisted the urge to look around the crumbling little mother-in-law cabin Frank Gilmore rented out for the price of a mansion. Itwasn’ta “real nice place.” It was, in fact, just as cramped and out of repair as Reg’s place.

The one difference—and one difference only, that Bobby could see—was that his mom lived there, and she’d greeted them both with a hug and pizza in a bread crust.

Well, who’d want to risk that, right?

“SO, REG,”his mom said as they sat down to steaming platefuls of pizza pastry and salad, “Bobby didn’t say what you do for a living.”

They’d talked about this too. “I work for John Carey Industries,” Reg said dutifully. It was the company name that appeared on the check to help give the employees privacy. “It’s, uh, sort of a small media business. I hold lights and help them set up scenes and stuff.”

“What sort of scenes?”

And this was the one thing that was an out-and-out lie. “College students making commercial products.” But not much of one.

Isabelle looked at Reg quizzically. “What sorts of products?” she asked, eyes narrowed.

Bobby took over. “Anything they want—the company pretty much just provides the equipment.”

His mom fixed her eyes—clearly set on “bullshit detecting”—squarely on Bobby. “Do you work there?” she asked.

Bobby shrugged. “Couple times a month. It’s where me and Reg met.”