Page 74 of Bobby Green

“Come here.” Bobby held out his hand. Reg turned off the light behind him and moved forward, trusting himself in the dark until he felt Bobby’s fingers close around his palm. He tugged a little, and Reg tumbled into bed, eyes searching for Bobby until his vision adjusted, and he found himself lying with his head on Bobby’s shoulder while Bobby regarded him soberly from just inches away.

“Hi,” Reg said, smiling a little and touching Bobby’s face with his fingertips.

“You’re not stupid,” Bobby said. That was sweet—the kid meant it.

“IQ of eighty-three,” Reg said. He’dmadeLance give him that test. He’d heard the word “retarded” whispered about him often enough. He had to know. It was almost like the word “bi”—he had to know the words that defined him so he knew what he had to work with.

“That don’t mean nothing,” Bobby said, his shoulder moving under Reg’s ear as he shrugged. “That means you were afraid through school, so you didn’t pay that much attention. It means your mother was losing her shit, and you didn’t get enough to eat, and that hurts your brain. It means nobody sat down with you and read, the way my mother did with me. It means you were eighteen and making big fucking decisions about your sister, with no one to help you, and you didn’t have time to study all the shit that makes you look smart on paper.”

“It means I can’t think for shit,” Reg said bluntly. “Don’t make me more than I am, Bobby. I… I… if fucking wasn’t a thing you could get paid for, I wouldn’t have no fuckin’ teeth. I broke this one here”—he pinched an incisor in the front of his mouth—“when I tripped on my own damned stairs because I was twenty-two and drunk. John had just gotten dental insurance, right? But I hadn’t signed up for it—because dumb—so John and Dex, theyforged the fuckin’ papersso I could go in and get a crown. Smart people don’t do that shit, Bobby. Just….” His chest ached saying this. “Just don’t think more of me than I am.”

“Reg, there’s a difference between being young and drunk and stupid and not having the smarts to figure that was a bad fucking idea.”

Reg sighed, suddenly exhausted. “Well, when you figure out what the difference is, let me know. I seriously need to have that shit explained.”

“In the morning, maybe,” Bobby said on his own yawn. “But yeah. We’ll work on it.”

“Mm….” Then Reg remembered something important. “Bobby, do you mind that I don’t call you Vern? I know it’s your name and all—I was there, remember?”

“Yeah. Christ no. Please don’t call me Vern. I hate that fuckin’ name.”

“Mm… I’m not so fond of Reg, but I couldn’t even come up with my own damned porn name, so I think I’m stuck with it.”

“Want me to call you Digger?” He said it with a chuckle, so Reg knew he didn’t mean it.

“No. You try to call me that when I’m crossing the street and about to get hit by a truck, and I’ll die. I didn’t remember when guys were fucking me—they’d be like, ‘Digger, harder!’ and I’d be like, ‘Who else is in here?’”

Bobby laughed, low and sweet, and Reg smiled like he’d won something. He’d meant to be funny—that didn’t happen often. He was real pleased.

Bobby’s mouth closed on his in a gentle kiss, and Reg just opened for him, just long enough for them both to close their eyes. The kiss ended, their breathing evened out, and Reg fell asleep.

Nothing earth-shattering—but as he slept, he knew in his bones that this was different.

He needed it to be.

Home Bird

BOBBY CALLEDhis mom a few days after that first night at Reg’s. New Year’s Day meant spending an odd night in his new apartment, mostly because he had a scene on the third, and every time he slept in Reg’s bed, he woke up having some sort of surprising and new sex with Reg.

Sex with Regalwaysfelt new.

It was almost shocking how much sex with a guy Bobby knew and cared for and wanted to spend time with was different than sex on set with a naked guy pulled off a schedule. Bobby could see how straight guys could do that, if they could get it up—the mechanics were just basic physics. Once you got over “Hey, that’s a guy’s hand or mouth doing that, and I’m usually attracted to women,” well, if you could come in front of a crowd, you could come in front of a crowd.

Sex with Reg was nothing like that.

Suddenly Bobby could understand how people stayed marriedandhappy for years and years. He’d never seen it himself, but he’d heard of it happening.

And he knew what an abomination those last few months with Keith Gilmore had been.

God, even porn sex was honest sex. Nobody wasmakinghim do it. He chose that shit because he had the equipment and the by-God fucking inclination.

But what Keith Gilmore had been making him do for the past six months—every time Bobby’d said no and Keith had used Bobby’s reputation or his mother’s comfort in town as a reason to face-fuck Bobby until he gagged—thatwas an abomination.

Bobby couldn’t do that shit anymore.

He wondered if he could explain it to Reg in any way that wouldn’t make him feel like a dumbass. Then he remembered Reg’s painful, honest confession about being “stupid.”

Reg wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t a brain trust—Bobby wasn’t deluded about that—but Reg had been determined that Bobby know what he was getting, as they lay down in his bed to sleep that first night.