Page 24 of Bobby Green
In spite of the activity of the last four hours, his cock stirred.
Apparently so.
Trying to salvage some dignity, Bobby found a towel and wrapped it around his waist. When he was staring into space, he wasn’t seeing dollar signs—not even though he could make enough to send his mom some while getting an apartment of his own eventually.
Oh—crap. Speaking of….
“I’d love to, but I was going to go visit my mom for a week, and this means I can’t.”
Dex’s eyebrows went up when Bobby could have sworn he was too tired for surprise.
Hell. “I’ve got a girlfriend, and she doesn’t know—and I don’t want to tell her right now—not until, you know, I’m settled. But in the meantime, I’m going to burn through all my money on hotels.”
“D’oh!” Dex grimaced and smacked his forehead with his palm. “Okay, yeah, I hear you. Where were you staying when you were working at the juice place?”
Jesus, this was embarrassing. “My truck.”
Dex closed his eyes and wiped them with his palms. “You guys… this fucking job… eighteen is grown-up. That’s the fucking law. Who said? That’s what I want to know. Who said eighteen was fucking grown. This whole fucking business needs a goddamned mommy!”
“I got a mom,” Bobby said, confused and a little frightened. There was a lot of emotion here that he didn’t know how to deal with. “My dad’s AWOL, but he was a fuckin’ asshole, so no worries.”
Dex shook his head and took a deep breath, like he was getting it together. “There’s a flophouse—everybody pays into the kitty for rent and takes the first available spot. I’m pretty sure there’s only five guys there right now. They’ve got four beds and a couch—loser gets the floor. But it’s better than your truck and not as expensive as a by-the-day hotel, no matter how crappy.”
“I usually visit my mom on the weekends,” Bobby said, feeling some optimism. “I’d be the perfect roommate.”
Dex half laughed, but his voice still sounded thick, like this hurt went way too deep for a little humor. “Then I’ll get you that number. Trisha should be done in about five minutes. Come see me when you’re done with the shower.”
Thank God for Dex. “Dude, I can’t even—thank you—”
Dex shrugged and took another deep breath. “Your problem’s easy,” he said, sounding bitter. “Your problem I can fix. I gotta go. For all I know, Kelsey just put another client on terminal hold. See you up front.”
Bobby shoved the clothes he’d worn into his little duffel bag and shouldered it. Then he wandered through the halls in a towel until he found the showers. Trisha was just getting out, thank God, because he wanted to shower alone.
DEX’S LEADwith the flophouse panned out—an apartment in a big complex, but one that had a pool and a weight room and a coin-op laundry. Parking was a nightmare. He usually had to park a couple of blocks away in front of a strip mall or somebody’s house, and he slept in fear that his truck would be broken into or vandalized.
But so far so good—his truck was intact, his mom and Jessica understood about the “overtime” he said he had to work, and the guys?
Were a lot of fun, actually. Dex had been right—first come, first serve for the couch, but the guy who didn’t get the couch got offered lots of pillows and blankets, and if Bobby slept on the floor by the coffee table, he had his sleeping bag as a sort of mattress. He took some of his first money and bought an actual inflatable air mattress, and offered it to whoever got in last if he got the couch, and was quickly the favorite roommateever.
Someone had a coffee maker, so everybody bought coffee when they were out. Someone had a juicer, so everybody bought veggies and fruit. They kept stuff roughly on spots on the shelf, but if you left a Post-it IOU, people usually forgave pretty quick.
Bobby was so damned grateful to not have to eat out—or sleep in the back of his truck—and to eventually get the shower, that he fell into the crowd pretty easily. The day after he arrived, he signed up for the gym Dex had recommended and was given a Johnnies employee discount, of all things. That was okay. They set him up with a personal trainer, and he spent the next five days getting used to a workout regimen that was, as the trainer told him, almost purely cosmetic. “You’ve got plenty of actual muscles from whatever work you’ve been doing. What we’re going to start is exercises that will make your muscles pop. Some changes to your diet and you’ll be as ripped as the other guys at your work, trust me.”
The trainer was a tiny, fit woman in her fifties, with dyed red-gold hair and a sort of pixieish sense of humor Bobby really appreciated. She reminded him of his mom on the days his mom hadn’t felt beat down by life, and Bobby drank in Trina’s words like they were gold.
The workouts served to tire him out—as did the waiting tables, because he wasn’t giving that job up since he didn’t have to—but he sure did rest better with an apartment to sleep in. Of course, he hadn’t counted on the guys hooking up in the beds, regardless of the full house, but boys or girls, that’s what they did. At first he thought it would make him horny—and embarrass him—but one night he was trying to fall asleep on his mattress and saw Billy on the couch wrestling his hard-on, and he fell asleep chuckling.
They were all human animals here. He was just lucky they had enough room to not step on each other in the morning.
And hearing all the sex—and seeing all the beating off—made him sort of ready for his scene with Dex. In fact, more than ready.
He’d spent the night dreaming about Dex’s blue eyes, his sweet mouth, and the things that were going to happen to Bobby’s body that had never happened before.
He woke up with his hand around his cock, and he had tomakehimself not jerk off. Breakfast was coffee followed by soda water, followed by another cup of coffee, because—as he’d been constantly warned—he was going to bottom, and you wanted your system free and clear when you bottomed, or shit, literally, would get real.
Bobby appreciated the advice from the guys—and the easy welcome. Skylar and Rick were working at the gym as personal trainers or aerobics instructors along with their jobs at Johnnies. Lance, the doctor in training, was maybe Bobby’s favorite, but that was mostly because he was quiet. Billy and Trey were muddling their way through junior college, trying to find a calling. All of them were as natural about Johnnies as Bobby had been about baling hay—and about a thousand times more honest and upfront than Keith had been when they’d been baling it.
In spite of all the sex—and God, there was a lot—happening around him on a nightly basis, Bobby got the feeling that if any of these guys said, “That’s it, I’m monogamous and in love,” it would stick—whether they were talking to a boy or a girl.