Page 95 of Bobby Green

“She can’t go home tonight, anyway,” Reg told him, relaxing with a sigh. “They totally sedated her. Martians could invade and she’d keep snoring.”

“Thank God,” Bobby murmured. “Good. You can come meet my mom. I can replace your goddamned fence. We can repaint her room again. It’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” Reg agreed. Bobby pulled him closer so his face was buried against Bobby’s chest.

“Okay.”

He had no idea if it was going to be okay. He felt like the world’s biggest fraud, because he was so lost on okay at the moment. But he wanted to be back at Reg’s house, tucked in his bed, finally able to sleep.

An hour. An hour of paperwork, of nurses fussing over him, of finding a pair of scrubs since his sweatshirt and T-shirt had been torn to ribbons. An hour of reassuring Reg and double-checking with the doctor who had already proven less than reliable, and finally an hour of signing paperwork so they could get the fuck out of there.

Bobby remembered filling out the papers for health insurance and thinking, “Oh yeah. That might be nice.” He’d never been so grateful for “nice” as he was as he and Reg left Kaiser to get back in the truck. Reg pumped the heater as soon as they got in the cab, because it was mid-January and cold as balls outside.

They were quiet on the way back, until Bobby had Reg stop for food. In-N-Out—very necessary right now.

“Thank you,” Reg muttered in the quiet of the idling engine.

“For what?” Bobby had taken painkillers, but whatever had been in the IV was wearing off. He missed it. That drug had been his friend.

“Not telling the doctor I couldn’t take care of her anymore.”

Bobby sighed and tilted his head back. “This… this might not work. You know that, right?”

“No,” Reg mumbled. Then, louder, “No. I wish I did. I wish I could look in the future like you did. My sister disappeared, and I thought, ‘Find her! She’ll get cold!’ and you thought, ‘Find her! She’ll hurt people!’ And I was, like, ‘No she wouldn’t!’ And then I remembered. She would. She has. She’s hurtme. How dumb—”

“Stop it,” Bobby snarled, done. “You’re not dumb. You’re overwhelmed. And you did fine. You were going to call the mental health people before you spotted her. I was impressed.”

“Thanks.” Reg sighed and let the truck creep up a space. Late-night drive-thru was always damned slow. “But… but you still think this might not work.”

“Yeah, but Reg, that’s not you. It’s not.Ican’t deal with this situation. Hell—the doctor couldn’t deal with this situation, and he’s hadyearsof fucking useless education to tell him how to deal with this situation.”

“I still don’t know why he’d do that,” Reg muttered, flummoxed.

“Yeah, well, maybe he was like us. Maybe he’d been on rotation and was somewhere he had no training to be and no sleep in fucking forever. They’re not gods. They’re just like we are—doing their goddamned best. And if she can outmaneuver everybody’s goddamned best, maybe she… you know. Shouldn’t be in a place where we’re all she’s got. You think?”

Reg shook his head, wiping under his eyes, because he was exhausted too. Finally they were in a place where he could pay, and he handed Bobby a large chocolate shake and took his own, strawberry.

“Mm….” Bobby swallowed and enjoyed. “We’re going to have to work out forever for this, you know that, right?” He took another swallow. “And don’t you have a scene in two days?”

Reg nodded. “Yeah. Me and the enema bottle are gonna be good friends.” He took another drink and swallowed. “But sometimes, you just fucking need a big-ass shake.”

That sounded wise as fuck to Bobby.

REG SLEPTin, but Bobby couldn’t.

He sat in bed for a while, arms wrapped around his knees, making a mental list of things he was supposed to do that day.

He was supposed to wait tables, but looking at the way Reg curled in on himself, the idea of leaving him alone was just too painful.

Heneededsomeone. He just did. Bobby could rattle around his apartment, walk around the city, find a world outside himself. Reg wasn’t as limited as he thought—Bobby firmly believed that. And his limitations weren’t “being smart,” as he said. His biggest limit was that the world he’d built for himself, when he was young and ignorant and unprepared, was really small. Bobby couldn’t hold that against him. He’d just left a town full of people who thought Dogpatch was the center of the world. Reg wasn’t any different.

But if Reg was going to have a bigger world, he needed a Bobby to help him find it.

Today, he needed Bobby to help him see beyond this empty house.

Bobby kissed his cheek and thought yearningly that he’d love to just stay in bed, hold Reg’s naked body, make love in the gray cold of the winter morning. But Reg had a scene tomorrow, and that wasn’t going to work, and Bobby was too practical to mourn over stuff he couldn’t change.

He put his nose in the hollow of Reg’s shoulder and breathed deeply, letting the warmth and maleness wash over him.