Page 108 of Bobby Green

Reg nodded emphatically. “Yeah. I was lucky. The guys from work—”

“John Carey Industries,” she said suspiciously.

“Uh, yeah. They help.”

She just looked at him, and his face heated as he looked away. “Look, I know you’re trying to get me to say something, but it’s a real place, and I don’t know what you want me to tell you.” He scratched behind his ear, which was his tell for lying, but she didn’t know that. It’s why he didn’t lie that often—he was really obvious about it.

Her mouth twisted, and one of her eyebrows shot up. “Mm.”

He closed his eyes. “You’re really going to have to ask Bobby… uh, Vern,” he said weakly.

She rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s obviously not theft, fraud, or gambling,” she told him dryly.

“Oh yeah. I’d suck at all those things.”

To his surprise, she laughed. “Okay, then. Whatever you guys are hiding, at least it’s honest work. And you’re both too healthy for it to be drugs, and you are obviously too sweet to be mob muscle. I’ll wait for Vern to tell me.”

“He thinks the world of you,” Reg said, throat aching because now he knew why. “He just… you know. Wants you to be proud.” Reg looked around at the house, thought of all the things Bobby would want to do to it to make it nice. “Wants to get you someplace better.”

She looked around too and shrugged. “His dad and I lived in some really awful goddamned places before we ended up here.”Sigh.“This was supposed to be the place he turned it all around. Stopped being mad at the world. Stopped yelling, stopped hitting. So many promises. In the end, best thing he could do for us was leave.”

Reg thought of Bobby, ready to throw that last punch—and not. “Bobby’s better’n that,” he said soberly. “He tries real hard. Even when he screws up, it’s ’cause he’s learning.” Heartbeat. Thought. Memory. “We’re both learning.”

She sat down on the bed and patted the space next to her. He sat, because his body was too stiff not to, and she scooted toward the head so they could talk.

“Is this your first relationship with a man?” she asked, head cocked.

He grimaced. “Uh, yes and no?”

Her laugh again. He liked how she laughed—it made the lines at the corners of her eyes seem kind and not old. In fact, it made her whole long face lighten up—it became oval-shaped and smooth. Her son was a really pretty boy, and his mother was a really pretty woman, especially when she smiled. It hit Reg then—hard—she was Veronica’s age. Oh, he was so much older than he should be.

“I fooled around a lot,” he said frankly, feeling stupid. “Bobby was the first person to say ‘Hey, this is a relationship, and we can do this.’” He swallowed, because that kiss in the rain had seemed magical, and so out of reach before it had actually happened. “It was hard, I think. For both of us. To figure out that’s what we were doing.”

“Mm.” She nodded. “Not just fooling around.”

“God—no. There was no fooling around for us until we knew what we were doing. Weirdest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”

She laughed again, leaning back comfortably against the headboard and pulling her knees up in front of her. Her feet were bare, and he stared at her naked toes.

“You should get a pedicure,” he said. “I like those—I don’t get the colors on my toes, but they make my feet all smooth.”

Her eyebrows went up, showing him Bobby’s round hazel eyes. “You get pedicures?”

Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit. He got pedicures before he hadscenes, because sometimes the guys sucked on your toes, and it was just not nice if your feet were all gnarly.

His face heated again, and he gnawed on his lower lip. “Uh, yeah. I like, uh, smooth feet?” He was scratching behind his ear again, and what he was starting to think of as “Bobby’s Mom’s Bullshit Face” was staring back at him.

“Sure you do,” she said, mouth pursed in a droll littleO. “I’m going to let it slide, then, okay?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Reg smiled toothily, and she scrubbed her face with her palms the way Dex did sometimes. Oh good. He got Dex’s moods. This should be easy. “Oh! Hey—I almost forgot. We brought you something.”

Reg got up, restretching all his stiff muscles, and walked around again to his duffel bag. “We brought you books. We’ve been reading them ourselves—first me, then Bobby, and then we thought we’d bring them to you.”

He handed her the bag, which was all dolled up with flowers, and she smiled as she reached for it. “That’s wonderful!” She started going through the bag, her expression growing more and more bemused with every book. “But, uh, Reg—these are all girl-and-boy romances.”

Reg shrugged. “They didn’t have any other kind at the used-book store. Bobby’s got a new phone now—he says we can buy books on it and stuff, and that there’s boy/boy books, but I gotta figure out how to use my phone like that.” He reached into the bag and grabbed one of the paperbacks. “I like books this way,” he admitted. “It feels real like this.”

“Me too,” she said. “Oh! Amanda Quick! I love her books!”