Cleats in Clay (26 page)

B
OBBY
didn’t see Gertie or anyone when he returned to the ER, so he went to the curtained area where they had taken Odis. He found Gertie next to his bedside.

“Hey, stud,” Odis said with a smile.
“What the hell, Odie?” Bobby asked.
“You were right,” Odis admitted. “Doc chewed me up one side and

down the other for goin’ cold turkey on the pills.”
Gertie just shook her head. “Always been a stubborn fool.” Bobby stepped up and took the hand that didn’t have the IV in it.

“And you’re okay now?”
“It was just low blood sugar. Right as rain now.”
“And he’s putting you back on the pills?”

Odis wobbled his head. “Different ones. He said, with the kind of arthritis I got, I need to be on somethin’ or my body’s just gonna destroy itself and eat up my joints. So we’ll try some different ones until we find somethin’ that doesn’t make me all foggy.”

Gertie nodded. “Can I leave you boys to yerselves now? Or will another disaster strike?”
“Go on,” Odis told her. “We should be fine now.”
“Let’s hope so,” Gertie replied before turning to Bobby. “Oh, by the way, that dumb dog of yours is waitin’ for ya. Been parked in front of the vestibule door ever since you left.”
“Shit,” Odis hissed out. “Forgot to feed her. We shoulda grabbed some food when we’s at the house yesterday.”
“I suppose I can scratch up some kind of food for her,” Gertie replied with a sigh. “Keep me posted, but let’s try for
good
news from now on.”
Bobby sighed. “I’ll certainly try.”

“Later, sis.”
Gertie nodded and then stepped beyond the curtain.
“I’m sorry,” Odis said. “Last thing I remember, I was on the stairs.

Nurses said you carried me in here.”
“I used a wheelchair, but yeah.”

“I wasn’t feelin’ good yesterday, either. But I thought it was just from all the shit goin’ on.”
“Well, before all this, I was gonna suggest you go visit the doctor Monday, just to make sure about quitting the pills. Don’t suppose you need to now.”
Odis shrugged. “Oh, he wants me in his office tomorrow. Prob’ly to chew me out again when I’m more alert.”
Glancing around, Bobby asked, “What happened to Fenton?”

Tuck’s back in surgery?”
“Klyve said something about the nerves in his pinky not responding,
so the doctor went in to fix it.”
Odis scowled. “Damn shit. I thought we caught enough of it
yesterday.”
“That’s my opinion too,” Bobby agreed with a nod. “Let’s hope
nothing else goes wrong.”
With Bobby sitting on the edge of the bed and holding Odis’s hand,
they shared some quiet moments before a male voice could be heard
outside. Fenton stepped around the curtain.
Odis sat up a bit to greet him. “Hey, Billy.”
“Hey,” he threw back before turning to Bobby. “What’s up with
Tuck?”
“Just a quick surgery to fix the pins in his hand. Should be out
soon.”
Fenton shifted his weight from one foot to the other, trying to ignore
the clasped hands of the two men. He nervously ran his index finger and
thumb down along the curves of his horseshoe mustache. “I’ll wait
upstairs, then,” he finally said before exiting quickly.
Bobby looked over at Odis. “What’s up with that?”
“Who knows.”
They shared more silence until Bobby’s phone rang. “Hello?” Bobby
nodded. “Okay, call me when he’s done?” he asked before hanging up.
“Tuck’s out of surgery. Fenton’s in with him now.”
“Why’s Billy here, anyway?”
“Oh, Tuck found out about Travis—”
“Travie,” Odis corrected. “Carl Travie.”
“Right. Anyway, he wasn’t supposed to be inside the house, and the
whole scene just wasn’t adding up. Tuck asked me to call Fenton so they
could compare notes.”
“Humph,” Odis grunted.
Before he had time to reply further, Evie came in. “We’re takin’ the
IV out.” She turned to Bobby. “Waiting room,” she told him firmly. Bobby patted Odis’s hand, then got up and went to the plastic chairs.
He was more than ready for all this hospital shit to be over. After sitting
down, he found his mind turning to Nathan again, pondering over his
abilities. Bobby had no idea how those powers had worked.
Had
Nate
even been able to see this? Or did he see it and
choose
not to give a
warning? The rambling thoughts left Bobby feeling more pissed at Nathan
for abandoning him in the dark without any answers. Tuck’s words from
the airport ride soon trickled up.
There must be a reason Nathan didn’t say
anything.
Evie stepped up and interrupted his musings. “We’re keeping Odis a
little while longer,” she told Bobby. “Go get some food or something.” “I’m fine. Can I go back in?”
“Suit yourself,” she said with a shrug before going back to the ER
station.
Bobby’s phone rang as he stood. “Hello?”
“Hey,” Klyve’s voice said. “He just left.”
“I’ll be up in a minute. See ya,” Bobby replied before hanging up.
He walked across to the patient area and peeked his head behind Odis’s
curtain. “I’m going upstairs. I’ll come back if you don’t show up soon.” Odis nodded. “Okay. Later, then.”
Odis settled back into the covers, marveling over Bobby. It was hard
to believe he’d only been around eight days. The guy had turned his world
upside-down and inside out in such a short amount of time. He’d never
had a girlfriend or wife be so loyal and caring, even after years of being
together. Odis smiled to himself. Bobby was such a pleasant surprise.

B
OBBY
entered ICU room two and noticed right away the fancy-looking air-inflated plastic cast covering Tuck’s lower right arm. “Hey, Tuck,” he tried to say cheerfully.

Tuck gazed back with a silly grin. “Hey, stud. I hadda new surgery,” he declared a bit loudly, holding up his right arm as if it were a trophy.
“I heard,” Bobby said as he approached. “Did they give you drugs?”
Tuck grinned and grabbed Bobby’s hip with his left hand and pulled him close. “I think maybe one or two, and a whole lotta buncha shots.”
Bobby leaned down for a kiss, but Tuck’s mouth tasted like some kind of sour chemical factory, so he pulled back quickly.
“Ya not happy to see me?” Tuck asked with an exaggerated frown.
Bobby kissed his forehead. “Very happy, but your breath is kinda rank.”
“Ya taste that too? Thought it was just me.” Tuck looked around. “Aww, and I didn’t bring a toothbrush. Not that I have me a bathroom anyway.”
Backing up, Bobby retrieved the water cup from the tray table and handed it to Tuck. “Drink some of this. Swish it around inside your mouth and it should help. I’m going to run out for a second,” Bobby said as he went to the door.
“Okeee.” Tuck grinned before he slurped up some water through the straw and swished it loudly between his teeth, his cheeks inflating and deflating like a puffer fish.
Bobby stepped out and looked around for Klyve. He spotted the nurse leaving room four and met him at the ICU station. “So how was his surgery? He doesn’t seem coherent enough to give a good answer yet.”
Klyve nodded. “They gave him nitrous. It should wear off pretty quick.”
“What about the surgery?”
“Oh.” Klyve pulled up some info on his computer screens and read over it. “Went well. They removed one of the pins and sensations returned. So doesn’t seem like there was any nerve damage from the injury. Can’t really tell for sure ’til his bones heal enough we can have him try moving the fingers around. But it all seems in order so far.”
“Good.” Bobby nodded. “Oh, he was complaining about a bad taste in his mouth. Do you have a toothbrush or mouthwash or something?”
“Sure, let me get a kit,” Klyve said as he bent down to one of the cabinets and got out a plastic zippered bag with basic toiletries in it. “Should have what ya need in there.” He handed the kit to Bobby.
“Thanks.”
After returning with the bag, Bobby opened it to find some kind of minty cotton swabs. “Smile wide,” he told Tuck, and then he ran the swabs over Tuck’s teeth, which seemed to clean his mouth without the foaming of normal toothpaste.
Bobby had Tuck sparkly fresh in no time. Afterward, they enjoyed a much more pleasant kiss.
“Thank ya, stud,” Tuck said when he pulled back, his voice sounding more like his normal tone. “Where’s Odie?”
“He’s still downstairs,” Bobby told him. “He kinda fainted when we went down earlier, and they wanted to check him out.” He didn’t want to worry Tuck unnecessarily at the moment.
“Fainted?” Tuck shook his head. “Odie doesn’t just run around faintin’. What happened? The truth this time.”
Bobby took a breath. “He went cold turkey off his meds Monday, and his blood sugar is just a little screwy now. They’ll get it straightened out.”
Tuck studied him closely. “Ya better not be blowin’ smoke.”
“I’m not.” Bobby shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Tuck. He’ll be up here in no time, I’m sure. It’s really nothing to worry about.”
“Okay, I’m trustin’ ya on that.”
Bobby sat on the edge of the bed. “What did Fenton say?”
“Not much.” Tuck frowned. “Just wanted to hear my side of things. Making sure Travie didn’t slip in past us. He was pretty close-lipped on everything else.”
“Did you know that Travie guy very well?”
“Not really. He’d just started. I’d never worked with him or hung out with him. He was so young, I kinda didn’t know how to relate to him.”
Bobby nodded. “I know what you mean. It’s like these younger kids grew up on a different planet or something.”
“Well, they kinda did. Computers and microwaves in the house from the day they were babies, thousands of channels on the TV, cell phones and texting practically from the minute they could read. Grew up with whole different ideas of how the world works.”
“Never thought of it that way,” Bobby admitted.
“Instant grat is the worst of it, though. Had ya gotten around to dating again?”
“No, I
barely
got around to leaving the house before I came to Texas. And what do you mean by instant grat?”
“The whole instant gratification thing. Hafta have whatever I want, right now. It’s completely changed dating. Or should I say, it’s killed dating.”
“
What?
”
“Well, the whole idea of getting to know someone has gotten passé, I guess. Ya meet online or through friends or whatever. First they google ya to decide if they wanna meet up for coffee. Once ya
do
meet, if there’s not an instant click in, like, the first five minutes, it’s ‘so long to ya’. No time allotted for actually talking, getting to know each other.”
“That sounds harsh,” Bobby said with a frown.
“Sure is, but the
worst
part is, if there
is
a click, it’s expected ya’ll have sex within the next five minutes, or at least within thirty minutes. Then,
if
the sex is satisfying enough, you might go out to dinner after.”
“How long has it been like that?”
Tuck shrugged. “The new rules have been slowly creepin’ in over the last ten years or so, but it’s really noticeable now.” Tuck clasped his hand. “Yer lucky ya don’t hafta go through it.”
“Who says I won’t?” Bobby said flippantly, but he regretted the tease when he saw the hurt look flash on Tuck’s face.
“I hope ya don’t mean that.”
“It was a joke, Tuck,” Bobby tried to reassure him with a hand squeeze.
“I still mean what I said in the car. If this three-way thing don’t work out, ya better at least stick with Odie, or I’ll kick your ass.”
Bobby leaned in and kissed him, sharing their sparks until Tuck nudged him away. With a smile, Bobby said, “I don’t think we have to worry about that.”
Tuck smirked at him. “And no more kisses like that. I’ve still got the damn catheter.”
The door opened and Klyve poked his head in. “Can ya help me real quick?”
“Sure,” Bobby said, guessing he wanted to move the TV inside. Bobby held the door open and helped Klyve navigate the cart into the room. After lining it up against the wall, Klyve set to work connecting all the cords.
“Cool, my TV,” Tuck cheered.
Klyve finished the connections and turned it on. “Yep. They wanna keep you one more night because of the anesthesia.” Klyve smiled over at Tuck. “They wanted to move ya to another room downstairs, but I told ’em no point in shufflin’ ya around. So ya get to stay.”
Tuck shrugged. “Might be nice to have a bathroom.”
Walking over and handing the remote control to Tuck, Klyve said, “But I know who’s on duty tonight. Trust me, yer better off here. Besides, they’ll prob’ly kick ya out tomorrow anyway.”
“Okay, then,” Tuck said with a grin.
“Not too loud,” Klyve warned on his way out the door.
Bobby grinned back at Tuck. “Kicked out tomorrow.”
“
Maybe
, the man said,” Tuck emphasized.
The door opened again and Odis strolled in. He rushed up and ruffled Tuck’s hair.
Tuck smirked at him. “Have a nice nap, bonehead?”
“I dunno if I like having all these boyfriends. Ya guys gossip as bad as the church ladies. I’ll never be able ta keep anything secret.”
“
Us?
” Bobby asked, trying to sound wounded. He turned to Tuck. “He called us old church ladies.”
“I am
so
offended,” Tuck whined.
“I never said ‘old’, ya drama queens.”
Bobby stepped behind Odis and put his arm around his neck. “Straight boy’s just
full
of insults today. I don’t think we should even tell him, since we’re such bad gossips and all.”
“Tell me what?”
“Nah, don’t wanna be accused of gossip,” Tuck agreed with a headshake.
“Tell me
what
?” Odis repeated.
Lowering his arm, Bobby gave an affectionate squeeze to Odis’s chest. “Klyve said Tuck will prob’ly go home tomorrow.”
“Woo-hoo!” Odis called out, then dropped his head for being too loud. “Guess we’ll hafta celebrate tomorrow night,” he said with a mischievous grin.
Tuck smiled at Odis’s enthusiasm. “So what about the house? What all needs done?”
“Just two windows need replaced, but those are a bitch of a special order so may take a few days. Still need to check the roof for cracks, but didn’t see anything obvious.”
Nodding, Tuck asked, “And what about the studio?”
“Oh shit.” Odis’s eyes flew wide. “I fuckin’ forgot to check. Shit,” he spit out.
“It’s probably okay,” Bobby said as he hugged Odis. “I didn’t see any damage on the east side of the house.”
“I’m sure he’s right,” Tuck agreed. “So I guess we’ll all hafta hang out at my apartment tomorrow. If I do get out.”
Odis glanced between the two men. “Whose turn is it tomorrow night?”
“I don’t remember,” Bobby admitted. “And I don’t think we should worry about it. We’ll drive ourselves crazy trying to hold up to some kind of schedule. Let’s just play it out by ear for now and worry about a schedule if it seems like we need one.” Bobby held out his right hand, and Odis and Tuck reached out and made a three-way clasp.
“Agreed,” Odis and Tuck chimed in.
“Jackpot,” Tuck said, and they all shook on it. “Now, get back over to Gertie’s and let a man watch his TV in peace.” He flipped the TV channels around until he found the NASCAR race.
“You heard him, Odie. Think we can talk Gertie into making some lunch?”
Odis laughed. “I’m sure she’s done finished lunch and started on dinner by now. We’ll see you later, Tuck,” he said as he leaned in for a kiss.
Tuck smiled. “Morning. See me in the morning,” he said with a look to Bobby.
“He’s right,” Bobby agreed as he pulled Odis away. “Let’s let the bonehead rest for one night, or he won’t be worth a damn tomorrow.”
Tuck smiled at Bobby as they left. With a quick nod, Bobby silently promised to look after Odis.
“Oh wait,” Tuck called out. Bobby froze in the doorway. “Check with Klyve and see if ya can track down my keys and hit my apartment. Odie knows where it is. Bring me some clothes ta wear outta here tomorrow.”
“Can do,” Bobby said with a smile before he turned and left.
Once the guys were gone, Tuck nudged down the volume then flipped through the channels until he found Paula Deen. Not only did that lady crack him up, she also made some great recipes. Tuck hadn’t tried any
real
cooking in a while—it always seemed depressing to make a bunch of great food and be the only one sitting at the table to eat. But maybe now
…
. Yes, he decided. It wouldn’t hurt to spend some time in the kitchen again.
Bumping the volume up one notch, Tuck settled back into the bed to watch Paula at work.