Page 36 of Bobby Green

God love the guy—he was awesome. But still, it was nice to come back to the house and find Bobby there, elbows-deep in drywall dust and crumbling floorboards.

“Heya,” he said, peering up from where he knelt, a little cushion under his knees. He’d apparently been ripping up the floor around the toilet, big work gloves encasing his hands, the leather worn to a shine. “Good shoot?” The wood near the toilet was brittle, flaking away under his hands, and Reg marveled that it hadn’t disintegrated under his own feet as he’d been taking a piss in the middle of the night.

“Short,” Reg said gratefully. “We went and traded in Ethan’s car afterward—but he wasn’t up for anything else.” He frowned, remembering why. “God, this month sucked. People getting sick, hurting themselves, getting kicked out. It’s like a perfect fucking storm.”

Bobby grunted while ripping out a floorboard. “I’ve never lived through a perfect storm before,” he said. “Pretty much glad I’m just along for the ride.”

“What you are doing there is magic,” he said, full of admiration, mesmerized by Bobby’s capable hands making the floor disappear. “Can I help?”

Bobby wrinkled his nose. “It’s kind of small in here or I’d let you. If you want, you can take the shitty wood out to the truck and pull the good stuff up to the porch. Sort of swap shit out if you can.”

“I can do that!” He had no idea how tofixthe house, but he was all excited about having something to do to help get it done. Right up until he yawned.

“Don’t worry about it,” Bobby said, pushing himself up and stretching. “I forgotyouhad a scene today, and frankly, you’re looking tired. Did you eat?”

Reg grinned. “Yeah—we went out to Chili’s before the car thing. I’m good.”

“Fancy.” Bobby winked, because it wasn’tthatfancy, but it was dressier than Hometown Buffet. “There’s some apples in the kitchen, and I made some of that pasta—the kind with the cheese inside, and the white sauce, in the little bowls? I made that for V for lunch, and there’s plenty leftover. So go eat, and I’ll clean up here so I can start again in the morning after I work out.”

Reg nodded gratefully. “Thanks, Bobby. I can help tomorrow—it’s just so nice of you to come over here and do this.”

Bobby shrugged. “I like the apartment and all, but everybody has stuff to do this week. I like to keep busy.”

Reg looked down and away, registering the construction dust over the cracking white tile of the hallway and remembering the loneliness that had hit him when Ethan had given his regrets for hanging out that night. “You, uh, wanna stay the night? I mean, we don’t have to do anything, just… you know.”

Bobby frowned, like he was doing complicated math in his head. “Uh, yeah. Sure. Like we did at the apartment. No worries.”

Like no sex. Which was fine. Really. Because Reg had just had sex, right? Hours upon hours of sex. Or, well, two hours. But sex. And Ethan was good—Reg always feltbetterwhen he was done doing a scene with Ethan—like all that happy, real touching energized him.

But still. No sex with Bobby. Even though Bobby seemed to like him. Seemed to want to spend time with him. Didn’t even mind sleeping with him. But no sex. Because why?

“You got a girlfriend,” Reg said, squinting and hoping it wasn’t obvious this was a guess as to why they wouldn’t be having sex.

“Yep,” Bobby said, dusting off his hands. Most of the floor was up, so he had to balance on the support beams as he walked to the edge of the bathroom. “I’ll have to replace some of the beams tomorrow. Think you’ll be up to help me?”

Reg nodded, and another damned yawn snuck out, and he realized he was never going to get to the bottom of this mystery if he was nodding off as he stood.

“Go,” Bobby urged. “Go nap. I’ll clean up, and we can have a good night.”

Sure. A good night with no sex. Reg thought that sounded like sort of a trap—like a good day at school, when everybody knew there was no such thing, but he was too tired to argue.

He could get to the bottom of the no-sex thing later.

Heh, heh… bottom!

BUT NOBODYbottomed that night.

First they had dinner—just like Bobby suggested—and then suffered through television with V before Reg made her take her meds. This time, though, she popped them in her mouth, took a swig of water, and kissed his cheek before going to bed. A big part of him relaxed—oh God. He could sleep—at least until she started hiding her pills again.

But after that, he and Bobby brushed their teeth and stripped to their shorts and got in bed.

They just lay there and touched—and talked.

Reg heard about his mom, who sounded nice, and his girlfriend, who sounded, well, like a girlfriend, mostly. Pretty, with soft boobs, and sweet. He heard a little about the girlfriend’s brother, but Bobby kept a pretty tight mouth about that.

Reg kept going back to the girlfriend.

“I like girls,” he said plaintively. “I do. I miss having a girlfriend.”