Page 54 of Bobby Green

“Tits,” Rachel said dryly. “They’re called tits, Dex, and it would be great if someone knew what to do with them, because this guy’s trying to adjust the sound and nothing’s coming.Nothingis coming.”

Lance grimaced and grabbed his phone out of his pants, not even bothering to put on a towel. “Deal,” he said. “Sorry, Rachel.”

She gave him a sympathetic smile and pulled on a robe. “I know, hon. Not really your thing. We just… you know….”

“We got along so well,” Lance sighed. “Yeah, that’s my whole history with women.” His phone vibrated. “He can be here in an hour.” Lance frowned. “Half an hour if he doesn’t need to douche.”

Dex nodded. “We’ll let him do oral on everybody, no penetration. Still testing but, you know—”

“Window,” Lance and Rachel said in tandem. “Deal.”

“Great. Now Reg, talk to me. What in the fuck?”

Reg grimaced. “Sorry, Dex. Just, you know….” He rubbed his chest, because he didn’t want to talk about Bobby and the very weird, veryrealsort of conundrum he was facing.

“Stress?” Dex asked kindly. “What are you doing for Christmas?”

“Well, everyone’s going places, you know? So just me and V. Bobby and I already picked out stuff for her.”

Bobby had left Reg a present too—a couple of them. Reg told him that he didn’t want to open them unless Bobby was there, and Bobby said he needed to wait until Bobby got back from Truckee, then.

That was okay.

Even though they’d picked out a small tree together, and put up paper ornaments like Reg had done since he was a kid, it wasn’t going to feel like Christmas if he was alone.

But now Dex sighed. “Look—Skylar and Rick can’t go back home.”

“Yeah—the coming out thing….”

“Not so much, no. I’m pretty sure there’s a couple of other guys who don’t have much to do. I’ll be out of town, but don’t worry. Guys’ll start calling you up, okay?”

Reg smiled, grateful to his toes. “We can have, like, a Christmas slumber party,” he said. “If guys bring donuts, V’s down for it.”

She was being surprisingly docile right now. Bobby had bought a few more paperbacks to the house, and V dove right in with Reg. She liked pretty much everything Regdidn’t, but that was okay. What wasn’t okay—not really—was how little she had to say about the books. Reg thought it must be because she kept going off her meds, but she used to talk more about books. He was a little disappointed, really. He finally had something to say, like Jack Reacher was an asshole, and she couldn’t give him any reason to like that book besides just “I liked it.” He seemed to remember that when she’d been younger, she had good reasons for stuff. She used to talk about her English classes all the time. Of course, reading still gave her brain something to do besides obsess at the news she read on the computer, which was always a good thing.

Dex frowned, though. “There’s something else—we’ve done this before, and you haven’t been this jumpy.”

Oh. This was embarrassing. “I haven’t had sex in almost two months,” Reg told him apologetically. “I mean, you know, besides sex on set.”

Dex’s eyes widened. “Holy Mother of God.”

“Iknow! I am hornyallthe fuckin’ time!” Oh Lord, was it good to talk to somebody about this.

“But Reg!Why?” Dex looked genuinely concerned, and Reg didn’t blame him. His reputation was well founded.

But Reg didn’t have an answer for him either. He just rubbed his chest and shrugged. “Shit,” he said thoughtfully, “is changing.”

This was true. Chance and Tango weren’t working anymore. Dex wasn’t starring in the videos anymore. Reg hadn’t seen John in a month, and there seemed to be girlseverywhere.

Reg remembered when hehungeredfor girls to be on the set, and this seemed to be the bitterest of jokes, because now he just wanted to go home in case amanshowed up, one who didn’t even want sex.

Dex blew out a breath and started scanning images of Lance and Rachel’s shoot. Most of them sucked, but Dex kept them anyway. You never erased people fucking—sometimes you just couldn’t be that picky. “You are telling me. Okay, buddy—for whatever reason you’re cutting back on the sex. Don’t worry. We still got your back. No Christmas alone for you.”

“Thanks, Dex. When Bobby gets back, you know—it’ll be better.”

Dex paused, his thumb on the Forward key. “Bobby? You and Bobby hanging out now?”

“Well, he took real good care of me when I was sick. And, you know. He likes to come hang out.”