Page 83 of Bobby Green

But Reg felt none of the protectiveness over this one—Kip—as he felt for Bobby.

When Kip was done and collapsed on the bed, laughing softly at his own audacity, Reg shyly handed him a towel and then offered him a robe. The kid took it, but of course all his attention afterward was taken up by Dex and whether or not he’d passed the audition.

Well, duh.

But Reg looked at Dex and got a brief thank-you salute before he went up front and found Bobby chatting over the counter with Kelsey.

“Reg!” she said as he walked around the front. “Hey, buddy—I cut your check today. Do you want it?”

Oh yeah—payday was always good, especially when you’d been working extra days as the light guy.

“Sure. Why’d you cut it early?”

She grinned at him cheekily, pregnancy rounding out her face, but in a pleasant way. She’d been all sharp points and angles before, but Reg liked soft women—round and substantial. Maybe because he’d done enough guys to be worried about breaking the super-skinny girls.

“You’re one of the first ten guys on my list,” she said with a shrug. “So I print out a batch of ten, and hey, hello….”

“I get paid.” He kept a grin on his face because it was a nice thing she was doing, but inside he died a little.

“So mine doesn’t come out until tomorrow,” Bobby said, but not like he was asking for a special favor.

“Sorry, Bobby.”

He winked and waved his hand. “No worries. I got tips to tide me over. But I send most of this check to my mom, so I can tell her when the money’s going to come.”

Kelsey held her hand to her mouth. “You don’t send her money, do you? Like cash?”

Bobby shrugged. “I send her an insured money order. Why?”

She frowned and started writing information on a business card. “Okay—so this is the information I need you to bring me for your mom. Don’t worry, I won’t look at it, you will. But once we have this from her and this from you, you can—” She frowned again. “You’ve got a smartphone, right?”

Bobby grimaced and pulled out averydated version of the phone Kane had talked Reg into buying that fall. “Not so much.”

Kelsey scowled at him. “Okay—look. I’m going to cut your check right now.” She sorted through some numbers on her computer and hit some keys. A specialized printer by her knees started spitting out a familiar piece of paper. “I’ve seen the numbers—you’re getting residuals with this one, and it’s way big.” She ripped the check off the printer and handed it to Bobby, nodding so he could look at the numbers.

“Damn,” he whispered, and Reg watched his face carefully. Not greed. Not “Whoopie, gonna have fun tonight!” Relief. It was a look of sheer relief. Reg got it then, the responsibility for his mom that had been weighing Bobby down the same way Reg’s deal with his sister seemed to weigh on him. Maybe that was why Bobby was so good with V.

But Kelsey didn’t know any of this. “You need to go out and buy a smartphone—something current. And then I’m gonna show you how to transfer your funds to your mom’s account so you don’t have to mail shit. AndthenI’m gonna show you how to fuckin’ live, kid, ’cause by this time in their careers, most of these bozos have a new phone, a new car, and a new fuckin’ leather jacket to show off their new porn bodies. I’m sayin’—you’re doing all of the work and getting none of the bennies.”

Bobby laughed, taking the rant with easy humor. “Fair enough—and you’re right. When I was looking for a job, the phone could have saved me a whole lot of running the truck up to my mom’s to fill out applications.”

Kelsey nodded firmly. “Well, now you’ve got a couple of jobs, you can use it for other things. Reg, help him get a phone and a data plan and all that other shit we need here in the twenty-first century, okay?”

“Sure thing, Kelse.”

“And then bring him back here tomorrow so I can show him how to use some of that shit.”

“Sure thing, Kelse.” Bobby echoed.

She rolled her eyes at him. “Are you two a thing?” she asked suspiciously.

Bobby’s cheeks went a flattering pink, and Reg found it suddenly hard to meet her eyes. “Uh—”

“I help him fix his house,” Bobby mumbled.

Kelsey rolled her eyes again. “Sure. You have a cell phone from the dark ages, and you use your money to help him fix his house. Men. You all suck.”

Reg’s inner twelve-year-old surfaced. “Well, not all of us. Just, you know, gay guys and bi guys and porn guys—weall suck. But straight guys aren’t supposed to do that sort of thing.”