Page 5 of Bobby Green
“Looking for recipes?” he asked, because she sure did like to cook.
“Cross-stitch,” she replied promptly, smiling. She had an entirelibraryof floss now that his dad had split. He looked at her fondly, her lined face and graying hair too old for her actual age. She was, what? In her early forties?
“You should be looking for a cruise,” he said, suddenly wishing bitterly he could send her on one. “A place you can read all your romances by the pool and come back all tan.”
She laughed, obviously pleased. “Oh, Vern—that’s sweet, but we don’t have the money for a cruise.”
He sighed. “Mom, I don’t think we’ll have the money for rent this next year if I can’t get something to do besides baling Frank Gilmore’s hay.”
Soberly she looked up from their aging laptop. “There’s not much you can do here,” she said, but she didn’t look happy about it. “And you know, my job at the insurance agency—you never know how many hours.”
She worked in Truckee, about an hour away.
“I know,” he said softly. “I… I think I need to maybe look somewhere else.”
She swallowed unhappily. “I… baby, you’re not even eighteen.”
Something in his chest loosened. They hadn’t spoken much, him and his mom, not before his dad left and not in the five years since. But he’d always known she loved him.
“I know,” he said, giving her a watery smile. “And maybe it’s time I went down into the big city and maybe found something to do.”
She took a breath and rubbed her palm under her eyes. “After graduation,” she said huskily. “I… you know. Have a present for you.”
He knew. She’d been saving up for a truck—it was one of the reasons she was on the laptop, looking up free cross-stitch patterns. She didn’t want to spend money on the ones she could buy at the store.
“I can’t wait,” he said. From somewhere—somewhere near the bottom of his toes—he pulled a reassuring smile. God. His mom deserved more. More than an empty house. More than empty promises from a drunk with a mean temper. More than to send her only family off into the world with a used truck she’d get cheated on at Frank Gilmore’s brother’s dealership.
More than a cocksucker for a son who was leaving her alone so he didn’t have to give head to a guy he’d trusted with his dick but not much more.
A MONTHlater, after graduation, he managed to find a job at a construction firm that was willing to train him up, provided he had some basic skills. At the end of August, he loaded his clothes, his paperback books, and a new pair of work boots into the cab of the fifth-hand Toyota truck his mom had managed to buy him. He’d complained bitterly to Keith—who was speaking to him like they were friends now that Vern was blowing him without question—about how Keith’s uncle was screwing his mom over on the car payments. Three days later, Desmond Gilmore had shown up during their regular hay-baling “break” with an unpleasant gleam in his eye.
The fucker didn’t wash his cock, and his come tasted like he drank goat piss for breakfast, but at least Vern wasn’t leaving his mom with a shit-ton of debt as he went. He had a construction job lined up, and with any luck, he’d never have to see another dick up close and personal. Or a penis neither.
He’d told Jessica he was looking for a way to make money for them.
God help him, he’d hinted at marriage.
“You think you can get a job down there?” she asked, mouth slightly parted, pale blue eyes alight. “Like, maybe get us an apartment and everything?”
For a moment Vern was caught by her, by her big eyes, by her innocence. No, she wasn’t a virgin, but she believed in happy ever after. Shedidn’tbelieve in boys giving blowjobs behind the barn, and shedidn’tbelieve it wasn’t cheating if it was another boy.
But you were getting something you weren’t getting from her. Something you wanted.
He didn’t know how to answer that voice, so he buried it down where that strange tenderness for Keith had gone to die and smiled.
“Sure, babe—we’ll have to see. I mean, I’ve got a job, but I don’t know if it’s going to be all wine and roses.”
She squealed like he’d just given her a marriage proposal that included a trip to New York as the honeymoon and threw herself into his arms. He held her for a moment and then kissed her, like she wanted him to.
They had sex then, in his bedroom, before his mom got home from her job. He was careful about cleanup after, throwing away the condom and washing the sheets, because he was trying to be respectful of his mom’s feelings.
And because he didn’t want it—the kiss, the sex, the lie—to be any closer to his skin than it had to be.
The day he left, Keith and Carla came to see him off, and Keith laughed and joked with him like he had all the time they’d been bailing hay when theyhadn’tbeen sucking each other’s cocks. Vern waited for something—some sign, some breath, a lowering of eyes,anything—that said he meant more to Keith than just a mouth on his privates.
At the end, when he was hugging everyone, Keith said, “You’d better be ready to suck me double when you visit” into the shell of his ear, and Vern pulled back as though stung. He turned to Jessica and gave her a long, wet lip-lock, the kind of thing she’d probably been dreaming about from him since they’d started kissing but he just could never bring himself to give her—until now.
She melted into his arms, and he pecked her on the cheek and then turned to his mom.