by Amy Lane
Bobby appreciated the advice from the guys—and the easy welcome. Skylar and Rick were working at the gym as personal trainers or aerobics instructors along with their jobs at Johnnies. Lance, the doctor in training, was maybe Bobby’s favorite, but that was mostly because he was quiet. Billy and Trey were muddling their way through junior college, trying to find a calling. All of them were as natural about Johnnies as Bobby had been about baling hay—and about a thousand times more honest and upfront than Keith had been when they’d been baling it.
In spite of all the sex—and God, there was a lot—happening around him on a nightly basis, Bobby got the feeling that if any of these guys said, “That’s it, I’m monogamous and in love,” it would stick—whether they were talking to a boy or a girl.
Maybe it was that thought that made him just a little more tender than he should have been when he was shooting the scene with Dex.
He couldn’t help it. Their bodies were touching, and yeah, a lot of it was lust, because Dex was an expert at touching this spot or that spot or tugging on Bobby’s ear or his balls or his hair just when it would really turn his key.
But some of it was seeing the guy’s worry the week before, or the way Dex seemed to watch out for all the people at Johnnies. Need something? Have a problem? Ask Dex. If Dex couldn’t fix it, he knew a guy who could.
And the “bottoming” thing.
Bobby knew guys who lived in fear of anything up their ass. Keith would have snarled “fag” at him in a hot second if he’d known what Bobby had let Dex do to him.
But… but it had felt good—just as good as being with a girl, if not better. And like being with Trish, he hadn’t felt… dirty. Or bad. Or soiled.
He’d felt beautiful. He felt like what he was doing held beauty in it.
He felt even more so after he shivered all over, stroked his own cock, and came.
So in the end, he knew he was looking at Dex with a little bit of his heart in his eyes for their final kiss, the one they had when the camera went dark. Dex kissed him gently and then pulled away. He smiled—sort of a brotherly smile, in spite of the naked bodies and the sex and the room that smelled like jizz.
“Good job, kid,” he said and kissed Bobby on the forehead.
Oh. For a moment Bobby was embarrassed. Oh God. He’d almost fallen in love with a guy on a porn set! What a sap! What an asshole! Jesus—how stupid could he be?
But as they were dressing and Dex started talking to Reg, who was holding the lights today, about the next shoot they were filming and how he had to run to the pet store after work, he realized something.
Dex had been kind.
He hadn’t been condescending or mean. Hadn’t laughed in Bobby’s face.
Had just told him that sex wasn’t always about love, and done it with a kiss.
Well, if anyone knew that, Bobby should, right? Dex was still a good guy, and Bobby had nothing to be embarrassed about. He’d liked the guy with the dick up his ass. There was no shame in that.
“Reg, seriously—are you okay?” Dex’s voice, sharp with concern, pulled Bobby to the fore while they were wrapping towels around their waists.
“Got infected,” Reg said, and Bobby took a better look at him. His face—usually sort of tan—was red and flushed, and now that the shoot was over, he was shaking, arms crossed in front of him protectively. “A little sick.”
“Dammit, Reg—can you call Lance?”
Reg’s face went blank. “You’re the one with his number, Dex. I didn’t want to trouble you. You been so worried.”
Dex closed his eyes and nodded, and Bobby realized he could help make this better. “I know Lance. I have his contact number. Here—give me yours and I’ll hook you up.”
“Thank you,” Reg said humbly, and as Bobby drew near, he could see the dark circles under Reg’s eyes. Besides being sick, he hadn’t been sleeping well either. “I’ll call after lunch. Dex, I’ll be back in an hour to set up for the next shoot, okay?” He shivered violently, and Dex and Bobby exchanged glances.
“I know you gotta go,” Dex said, “but how ’bout you let Bobby take you home? We can skip the shower scene and find someone—”
Reg’s face twisted in anguish. “Please?” he asked plaintively. “I… I know I’m sick, but I can do the job, Dex. I… it’s my only chance to get out of the house besides the gym. And I’ve got a shoot next week—I’ll be right by then.”
Dex took a deep breath, and Bobby stepped up. “Look, Reg? How about I take you to your place to do whatever you gotta do. Then I can take you to the apartment. You can sleep on the couch, and we’ll wait for Lance to get out of class. How’s that?”
Reg bit his lip. “I gotta pick my car up here and be home by nine,” he said. His voice cracked a little, like he was having trouble not just coming unglued.
“Sure,” Bobby said. He really did have nothing else to do that day besides stuff his face and stare dreamily into space remembering what total submission felt like. “I’ll take you home, we’ll go back to the apartment—”
“We can stop to eat,” Reg said, smiling a little through cracked lips. “You must be starving.”
“Yeah,” Bobby said gently. “Look—just let me shower, okay?” He was wearing a towel again. It was almost funny how much he didn’t seem to mind being naked after only two shoots.
Reg nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”
Dex caught Reg by the arm and pulled him to a rolling stool that Bobby had seen John using during the shoot. “C’mon, man. I’d let you lay down on the bed, but Bobby here shot a ton, and that’s sorta gross. I’ll get Kelsey in here to change sheets, okay?”
“Don’t want to be a bother,” Reg said through chattering teeth. “Thanks, Dex.”
“Not a bother.” Dex ruffled his hair affectionately. “I’ll have her bring some water and some ibuprofen.”
“I like Advil better,” Reg mumbled, and although Dex grimaced, he didn’t correct him. Reg leaned back against the wall, and Dex hit the intercom switch next to the door.
“Kelsey? No, sweetheart, don’t put me on hold. Dammit.” He turned to his clothes, folded loosely on the same shelf Bobby had used, and pulled his phone out of his jeans. As he punched in the receptionist’s number, he grimaced at Bobby. “Go shower first,” he muttered. “The quicker we get him in bed, the better.”
Reg was not too tired to guffaw like a little kid, and Bobby caught Dex letting a smile slip through.
Like a mom.
But not like a lover.
Bobby thought he was starting to get it, but he still had a long way to go.
REG’S HOUSE was a small two-story ramshackle affair off Marconi. The rest of the neighborhood wasn’t bad, and the house next door smelled seriously of cat pee, but this place was an eyesore. Bobby grimaced from the cab of the truck as he watched the porch tremble under Reg’s weight.
“Stay,” Reg said easily. “Eat. You only had one Quarter Pounder—we both know you want the other two.”
Bobby munched doggedly, hoping tomorrow he’d get to go to one of the buffet places Dex had recced, and studied Reg’s habitat more closely. Somebody needed to do some work on this place before it crumbled down around Reg’s ears, but Bobby got the feeling Reg would need a little bit of help with that.
As Reg paused at the doorway, seeming to listen, one hand on the knob, Bobby wondered how many other things Reg would need a little bit of help with. Reg frowned, steadier now that he’d taken some ibuprofen, and opened the door slowly before rushing in. He slammed it behind him, and Bobby, curious, lowered the window and listened.
He heard a woman yelling—and then some thumping and a clatter. He paused, his hand on the door handle, and then everything went quiet. He’d gotten out of the truck and was walking up the drive when Reg stuck his head out the door. He had a blossoming bruise on his eye.
“Give me a minute,” he called. “I’ll be right there.”
Bobby gaped, running to the door, but when he tugged on the handle, it was
locked.
Oh Jesus.
What was going on in there?
He stood stupidly, heart pumping, for interminable minutes. His hands shook, and he regretted the half a sandwich on the seat of his cab. Finally the doorknob twisted and Reg came out, sighing gustily and leaning against the door.
“She’s asleep,” he said, dragging air into his lungs like a swimmer. His face had waxed white, and he had tear streaks under his red-rimmed eyes. “God. She must have spit out her sedative this morning.”
Bobby just stared, mouth opening and closing, not sure of what to say.
“Will she be okay now?” he finally managed. Bobby didn’t even know who she was.
Reg grimaced and held up two bruised fingers. “Yup. Almost ripped ’em off, but I got the pills down.” He closed his eyes tight. “We’re close to the easy part,” he said like he was trying to convince himself. “It gets bad like this before she starts taking them on her own. She just….” He looked at Bobby apologetically. “She hates it that she can’t be… be normal, you know?” Reg shook his head. “No, you don’t know. Because I’m making no damned sense.”
He wobbled, and Bobby reached around behind him, wrapping an arm around his waist. Reg leaned on him trustingly, obviously grateful for the help.
“Sister?” Bobby hazarded. He’d never had a sister—but for all he thought Keith Gilmore was a skeezy bastard, he knew Keith would go to the wall for Jessica in a heartbeat.
“Yeah,” Reg mumbled. God, he was weak. “Sleeping again. She’ll sleep until at least eight. I should maybe get here earlier. Eight. So she doesn’t get mad, you know?”
“C’mon,” Bobby urged. “You got seven hours—let’s get some medicine, and you can sleep six of ’em.”
Reg chuckled roughly. “You’re a good guy, Bobby. Where you goin’ when you leave?”
They approached the truck, and Bobby helped maneuver him into the cab. “When I leave where?”
Reg laid his head sideways on the bench seat and looked at Bobby through sky-blue eyes that were both sad and trusting. “When you leave Johnnies. All the smart guys do. Even Dex—today was his last hurrah in the sack. Smart guys don’t stay in porn forever, you know?”
Bobby swallowed and shrugged. Something about the question was unutterably lonely. “Just started,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll figure something out.”
Reg nodded and closed those soul-magnet eyes. “Smart boys do.”
Bobby shut the door and walked around to the front and got in. “So, what have you figured out?” he asked, unwilling to acknowledge that Reg wasn’t as smart as he was. There was just something so fundamentally decent about Reg. Bobby wanted that to be a real thing, not just the consolation prize for being human.
“I’m not smart,” Reg said, completely without self-consciousness. “I gave up on being smart in the third grade.”
“Yeah? What happened in the third grade?” Bobby started the truck and piloted toward the nest of apartments on Hurley. It wasn’t much, but it wasn’t a rent-by-the-hour hotel room either, and he’d put down money that his roommates at least knew of Reg.
“Took a test to see if I’d be put in the dumb class or the smart class. I wanted to be in the smart class, so I copied off the smartest guy I knew.”
“That’s good strategy,” Bobby conceded. Not exactly honest, but he remembered placement tests. There was a fair amount of pressure there, and third-graders were damned amoral.
Reg laughed shortly. “I picked the wrong kid. I mean, he was smart—damned smart. But he was… what’s that word? The one where you fuck up your letters and words and which order they go in?”
Oh Jesus. “Dyslexic?”
“Yup.” Reg chuckled. “I got put in the ultra-dumb class. But it was okay. I was, like, their star player, you know?”
Bobby’s stomach churned. “But you’re not ultra-dumb.”
“Sure I am. Ask anybody.” Reg yawned and curled up a little tighter on Bobby’s seat. “I just left my sister alone again,” he mumbled. “How stupid is that?”
He was asleep before Bobby could find the words to tell him that it sounded damned smart to him.
REG SLEPT for three hours before Lance got home with the antibiotics. Bobby had been right. Skylar and Rick were off shift, and they set Reg up on one of the regular beds, out of the main traffic room, before Bobby even asked them for a pillow. Bobby sat at the foot of the bed, reading a paperback that had been making the rounds of the roommates. This one was by Melinda Leigh and featured a mystery and a boy and a girl who were going to get together. Bobby was a fan, even though he wondered if they had any of these where the boy got together with another boy.
Every now and then Reg would shiver hard or moan in his sleep, and Bobby would make sure he had ibuprofen or water—or a steady arm when Reg had to take a leak.
Skylar sacrificed some of his beloved fruits and veggies to make Reg a vitamin juice, and Rick pulled out some ice packs that he rested on Reg’s pulse points on top of the covers. Reg thanked them—half-conscious, he thanked them—but it wasn’t until Lance got there that Bobby realized how much pain he was really in.
“You didn’t take off his jacket?” Lance demanded, charging into the quiet bedroom with almost obscene hurry.
“He was cold,” Bobby said, surprised. “Why? What’s under the jacket?”
Lance snarled quietly to himself and helped Reg up. “Reg, I’m sorry,” he muttered, sliding the battered leather bomber jacket off his shoulders. “I fucked up. Chase did his thing, and I just totally forgot.”
Reg grunted. “Not your fault. Everybody’s been sort of off their game,” he said, and Bobby held back a gasp.
Underneath the battered leather bomber jacket, Bobby could see a wound—a massive, pus-runny, untended wound.
“Wait,” he said as Lance pulled at the hem of Reg’s none-too-clean T-shirt. “You just… just left him like that? Why didn’t you take him to the hospital?”
“No hospitals,” Reg whimpered, grabbing Lance by the shirt. “You promised, Lance—you promised me—”
“I know, Digger. I promised,” Lance said soothingly. “But I’m going to need Bobby’s help here, okay? We need to irrigate the wound and take out the stitches and pump you full of antibiotics. I’m sorry I didn’t remember, but man, you can’t go back to that house again, not like this.”
Reg shook his head, in tears. “But I left her sleeping, Lance. I’ve got to go back and make her take her pills again.”
Lance grimaced. “Digger, look at yourself. You’re a mess. Don’t you think it’s time to let someone else take over there?”
Reg just cried harder, and Bobby couldn’t stand it. He sat next to him and wrapped his arm around Reg’s waist for comfort. “It’s okay,” he soothed. “I’ll go over. Me and Lance’ll go take care of her.”
Lance shot him a killing look, and Bobby glared back. Lance had promised to take care of Reg, and even though Bobby knew how hard he’d been working—school, counseling the guys, asking all the questions so Chase’s boyfriend wouldn’t lose his fucking mind—he was still pissed. Chase Summers, whom Bobby hadn’t met, had the whole world hanging on his every breath, but Reg—Digger—who seemed to be the genuinely nicest guy Bobby had met, had needed someone and nobody had showed.
Bobby didn’t want him left alone.
“Will you?” Reg begged him. “Lance, you know her. She’ll listen to you. Please?” Bobby had brought in a roll of toilet paper to serve as tissues, and he ripped off some squares and cleaned up the tears and had Reg blow.
Lance shook his head and sighed. “Yeah. Let me get you fixed up first, Reg. We’ll go over and give her meds.” He grimaced sourly at Bobby. “Junior here can probably work wonders with a three-point restraint.”
“Don’t hurt her,” Reg begged, and Bobby told him he’d try. Inside he was wondering how huge this woman had to be to level a buff guy like Reg, but that was before he saw the festering knife wound under the shirt and realized the st
akes here were pretty damned high.
Reg followed orders like a pro.
At first Bobby was terrified he’d have to hold the man down, but Lance told Reg to hold still and he did. Bobby stayed for moral support, stroking Reg’s sweaty hair back from his face, holding his hand when Lance irrigated the wound and when he gave shots. When they were done, he helped change the sheets and gave Reg one of his own clean T-shirts and pairs of boxer shorts to wear. Reg grinned—a weak, tired grin—and made a crack about Bobby having pretty big shorts to fill.
And then he curled up on the clean sheets and fell asleep.
Bobby stared at him for a moment, his heart as sore as it had been in his entire life.
“He needs someone to look out for him,” he said, half to himself.
“Well, I obviously suck at it,” Lance said bitterly, throwing his supplies into a specially marked bag for hazardous waste. He’d worn gloves and used cleanliness protocols the whole time. Bobby felt a bit of awe for a guy who could do what Lance had just done to Reg’s wound.
“You got distracted,” Bobby said, letting some of his resentment go. What was going on with Reg had obviously been going on for a long time. Situations like that—you never knew when they’d take a spiral to the left. “My friend’s dad, he got injured by a hay baler—had been using it his whole life. Lost concentration for one minute. Life’s like that sometimes.”
Keith’s dad had gotten mean. Was that why Keith hadn’t wanted to be tender or real? Was his dad why Keith had never wanted to acknowledge what they were doing, even to himself?
Suddenly Bobby didn’t care.
The guy whose hand he’d just held didn’t give a shit about gay or straight. He just wanted people to help him when he needed it. He just wanted company in a life he saw as going nowhere.
Bobby’s life wasn’t going much further. Bobby might as well.
But Lance hadn’t followed what was in Bobby’s head. “You shouldn’t have promised him about his sister,” he said unhappily. “You have no idea what you got us in for.”
