Page 105 of Bobby Green

“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. “Idon’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’REVern’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.”