“Because,” I said.
Bobby waited.
“You’re—I mean you—Bobby, everyone knows—” None of those sounded quite right, though, so I stopped.I smiled.I tried to summon the tremendous love I had for Bobby and send it radiating through my expression.And then what came out was “You always tell everyone what to do.”
Bobby stood there.
“No,” I said.“That’s not what I meant—”
He turned on the water.He walked out of the kitchen.
And as he passed me, he swatted me on the bum.
2
“It’s not that I don’t want to help,” I said.
“Really?”Bobby asked as he started moving again.“Because it sounds like you don’t want to help.”
I was currently in Labrador Retriever mode, which meant I was following Bobby around our room.When he stopped at the dresser to get socks, I stopped behind him.When he checked his hair in the mirror, I was right there beside him.When he squatted to retrieve a pair of sneakers, I hunkered down too.
“But that’s exactly it,” I said.“That’s my whole point.That’s what I’m trying to communicate: Idowant to help.I want to help with, uh, this.I love helping.I love volunteering and service and, um, charity.”
“Interesting.Because Keme asked you for help with his scholarship application last night, and your exact words were ‘Help is for the weak,’ and then you tried to do the, quote, ‘skullcrusher’ on him.”
“But he beat me up instead!”I said it with a little too much enthusiasm, and to judge by the look on Bobby’s face, I might have been overselling my point.“And Ididhelp him—”
“Dash, if you don’t want to go, you don’t have to go.”Bobby grabbed his keys from the tray on top of the dresser, and let me tell you: if you’ve never heard someone pick up their keys angrily, it’s a real art.Bobby nailed it, of course.“But I wish you’d told me.”
“No, Idowant to go.It’s just that I’m so busy—”
The words were a mistake.I heard it as soon as they left my mouth.
Bobby swiveled.
There’s this thing his eyes do when he switches into deputy mode.They don’t actually glow, but you can tell he’s doing this supercomputer math about how many parking tickets he can write and if he should arrest you for “annoying boyfriendlihood in the third degree.”
Okay, maybe in the first degree.
“You told me you weren’t busy,” he said.“You said you didn’t have anything to do.You said you finished that short story and you were giving yourself a weekend to relax.”I opened my mouth, but Bobby rolled over me.“And you’re finished with grading, because you threw yourself a cookie party after you scored the last essay.And you don’t have any emergency lesson planning because you’re not making Indira stress bake.”
Listen: most of the time, I’m quick on my feet.Most of the time, the creative part of my brain is awhirl with thoughts and possibilities.
Right then, though?
Total blank.
“Perfect,” Bobby said—a little too grimly for my liking.“Here we go.”
And that was how I ended up inreverseLabrador Retriever mode, with Bobby hounding me down the stairs.
“You’re doing a good thing, Dash,” he said, as though this was somehow supposed to comfort me.“When we finish, you’re going to be happy we did this.”
“Debatable,” I said, but under my breath.
“There’s nothing like the satisfaction of knowing you helped someone.”
“There’s the satisfaction of video games,” I said.“There’s the satisfaction of a good nap.Oh!There’s the satisfaction of—have you ever been wrapped in a blanket and had a beautiful man feed you tacos?”I tried to brake on the landing.“Just to be clear, that’s not a sex thing.”
