Page 46 of Bobby Green

Which was good, because life in the flophouse was becoming… tangled.

After his night with Lance, he managed to pretend it was all okay—nothing to see here, just a boy experimenting with his sexuality. He moved through the rest of his days in sort of a void. He would thinkHey, I should see how Reg is doing—And then his heart would swell and ache, and he’d ask himselfWhy? What do I offer him, if I go to his house?And he’d be headachy and out of it for the next few hours. He waited tables on automatic, did the dishes on automatic, texted Jessica back on automatic.

His heart felt like an aging cardboard box in the rain. Only the memory of what he was supposed to be held him up.

A week and a half after he finished the bathroom—the only way he could think of that day—he woke up to an urgent voice in his ear. “Bobby, grab this.”

And he grabbed it. On automatic.

“Mmm… wait—no—keep squeezing.”

“Skylar?” Bobby mumbled, facedown on the air mattress. His hand draped over the side, and round and firm in his palm was… well…. “Is that your cock?”

“Yeah. Keep stroking… c’mon….”

Automatic. It was just… so easy. Like having sex with Lance or showing up to work and waiting tables or servicing humans. He stroked smooth and even, letting Skylar’s uninhibited moans drive him on.

“Yes… oh my God… Bobby, your hands are great!” Skylar propped himself up on his elbows, and Bobby could see him now, surfer-blond hair tousled, tanned, defined body stretched out on the floor.

“Why aren’t you in bed with Rick?” Bobby asked dumbly, but Skylar had just spurted a little bit of precome, and Bobby knew his cue now. He squeezed at the base, then stroked up to the head and teased that.

“’Cause Rick’s watching,” Rick said from Bobby’s other side. Hewaswatching—with his dick out, hand stroking happily.

“Oh my God, you two,” Bobby mumbled. “Why don’t you just stop with the sex games already and admit—”

“Yes! Yes! Oh man! Bobby! Please! Faster!” Bobby complied, too numb and too sad to even ask himself if this qualified as sex, perversion, or just helping out a buddy in need.

“Admit what?” Rick asked, eyes opening and cock deflating at the same time.

“Admit you’re in love!” Bobby snapped, just when Skylar moaned “Yes!” and jizzed all over his hand.

The silence was almost as painful as Bobby’s thickening hard-on squashed against the air mattress.

“We’re in what?” Skylar asked, voice in the postorgasmic loopiness phase Bobby was starting to recognize.

“Love,” Bobby said irritably. “Jesus, who’s got the tissues?”

Skylar took a handful from the box by the TV and passed it to Bobby, who started to wipe off his hand. “What makes you say that?” he asked, and to his credit, he sounded genuinely puzzled.

But Bobby got a good look at the devastation on Rick’s face. “Never mind,” he said, feeling like ass.

Rick shrugged and turned away, and finally Skylar looked at him. “Rick?”

“I don’t know why he said it,” Rick lied.

“Wait—wait, Bobby—why would you say a thing like that?”

Bobby saw the confusion, the cluelessness, and his irritation wiped away like the come on his hand. “You guys do everything together. You work at the gym, you see movies, you eat. You talk and screw around, and Jesus—did you or did you not try to get me to go walking in the fucking park with you two days ago?”

“But,” Skylar said, looking hurt, “it’s Capitol Park. It’s nice this time of year—and, you know, it’s free.”

Bobby nodded. “Yeah, Skylar, but when I couldn’t go ’cause I had work, you went together anyway. And you may not have held hands, but I’d putmoneyon the fact that at some point in the walk, each one of you wanted to, and you just pulled back. ’Cause I know how that feels. And it’s bullshit. It got me where I am now, eating my fucking heart out and going up to visit my girlfriend because I can hold hands with her and not have to change my entire goddamned idea of who I am. But you guys don’t give a shit about any of that. You just… just screw everybody in your apartment in the hopes that nobody figures out that who you really want to screw iseach other. Every day, all the time, only fucking you!”

“Rick?” Skylar asked, voice lost. “Rick—is that…?”

But Rick’s back was toward him, his shoulders drooping, his entire body screaming defeat, and Bobby was suddenly a third wheel instead of a valuable cog in a threesome.

Well, he was slowly learning, wasn’t he? The difference between sex and love.