Page 112 of Bobby Green

“Should you and me—”

“No!” Bobby and Isabelle both snapped, and Reg would have been hurt, but even he could tell they were snapping at each other. Bobby turned toward him and gave a weak smile. “This is a mom thing right now,” he said carefully. “I think, you know, this is what happens when I’m too big to beat with a shoe.”

Reg nodded and gave her a tentative smile. “Good, because this white spaghetti is really amazing. Maybe Bobby can make it for us sometime.”

Isabelle nodded and shoved a giant forkful of chocolate in her mouth, closing her eyes as it went down. “Sounds great,” she said, taking a deep breath, almost like a smoker taking a drag. “I’ll give him the recipe. But not right now.” With that she shoved another forkful of pie in her mouth, and Bobby and Reg finished their white spaghetti in peace.

Moving In, Moving Out, Moving In

“YOU’RE AWFULLYquiet,” Bobby said, piloting the full truck back through the snow.

“Tired,” Reg told him, scratching the back of his ear.

“Yeah—sorry. That bed was really narrow.” There was something else going on—Bobby could feel it.

“Just different.” Reg yawned. “And… and I’m wondering. When you’ll get tired of dealing with my sister and leave me.”

Bobby kept the steering wheel steady and tried to catch his breath. “No,” he said harshly. “No.”

“But… but I want her home. And you’re not going to live with me if she’s home,” Reg said, sounding sad.

“Well, no.” Bobby had to be honest. “But sometimes we just need a place to sleep, Reg. You think of that? We’d need two places so at least one of us can get some honest shut-eye?”

Reg grunted. “Yeah, okay.” But he still sounded unhappy.

“Do youwantme to leave?” Bobby’s whole chest ached.

“No!” Reg reached over and squeezed his knee. “I just don’t know how to make this last, is all. You’re bringing your mom to your apartment. That’s a change.” The back of Bobby’s truck rattled with stuff he was going to unload into his front room.

“Well, yeah. But I’ll be spending more time with you. That’s a good change.”

Reg nodded and leaned over to kiss his shoulder before straightening up. “Okay. Yeah.”

He didn’t mention it again, and Bobby relaxed—mostly. They were both waiting for the other shoe to drop, but neither of them knew who was holding the shoe.

THE NEXTweekend, Ethan and Jonah and Dex and Kane drove up to Dogpatch to help his mom move in the snow.

Dex was honest—the snow was most of the reason they were there. Kane had gone all-out and bought his niece, Frances, a little snow-bunny outfit with tiny mittens and little shiny snow boots. Bobby was actually glad it had snowed a little between visits, because he didn’t want to disappoint the little girl.

Bobby had met Ethan’s boyfriend already—and liked him—the day they’d kicked Frances’s mother off Kane’s property. Jonah was about Reg’s height and thin, like Reg would be if he hadn’t been working out for over ten years, except with curly sand-colored hair and enormous gray eyes. He was also funny, smart, and humble, and Bobby could listen to him and Ethan talk about anime and geeky movies forever. He couldn’t participate—he didn’t know those things—but listening to their banter wash over him was a treat.

He’d never been happier that his clumsy, stupid overture with Ethan had failed. Boy, how many people would that have fucked up?

The two trucks and the SUV caravanned up the hill together, stopping in Truckee to put on chains and following Bobby carefully when he turned off Highway 80 to take the winding path toward Dogpatch.

They passed the town sign, and Reg answered his buzzing phone.

It was Kane. “Oh my God! Bobby, you said that was the name of your hometown, but I swear to God, I thought you were making it up!”

Reg and Bobby laughed all the way out to Bobby’s mom’s house, which sat in the middle of a big meadow of snow now.

“Frances’ll get to see it,” Reg said wistfully. “I bet V would like to see snow.”

Bobby bet V would like to see anything but the inside of the institution she was in now—but by all accounts she was starting to take her meds again, so maybe, in another month or so, he could go back to sleeping with one eye open.

He’d been making up for the uncertainty—and the loss of his apartment—by having as much sex with Reg as possible in as many rooms of the house as they could manage.

The results had been highly satisfactory—if a little destructive. For example, they didn’t need to put his mom’s kitchen table into storage, because Reg and Bobby had been eating on the couch for the past three days. Apparently Reg’s old table hadn’t been up to the “Bend over, I want you right here!” fantasy that occurred in the books they’d been reading, which was too bad.