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Bobby’s in his room, tuning one of Rose’s old guitars, when Ray corners him, slipping through the door Bobby thought he’d locked with a steaming mug in each hand.
Bobby doesn’t mean to tense up at the sight of him—really, he doesn’t. In fact, his first instinct is to smile and make space on the bed for Ray to join him, his heart giving that weird little tug it does too often now that he’s been trying not to think too hard about. But he doesn’t do any of that. He stiffens, holding the guitar tight to his chest like he needs it to protect him (from what? Ray wouldn’t hurt him if he asked him to), and says too aggressively, “What do you want?”
The look Ray gives him isn’t so much hurt as just worried, which is almost worse. If he were angry at Bobby for being a jerk, that Bobby could deal with. Part of him is kind of itching for a fight, actually, would love for Ray to tell him off, get up in his space, give Bobby an outlet for all the feelings mangled up inside him that he doesn’t understand.
Instead, Ray hovers by the door, leaning up against the dresser and holding one of the mugs out for Bobby to take. “I made you some tea.”
Bobby frowns but puts the guitar aside and wraps his hands around the mug, shivering a little as warmth spreads through his fingers. He breathes in the steam, his eyes watering at all the heady spices Rose puts in her cure-all rebaja-té. He looks up, blinking at Ray, doesn’t thank him, just says, “Why?”
“Because you’re sick,” Ray says simply, and then, at Bobby’s look of confusion, “You are sick, aren’t you? I know you just were, but... I can’t imagine why else you’d be avoiding us.”
Bobby’s stomach twists. He sips at the tea just to have something to do with his mouth that’s not attempting to formulate a response, tries to ignore the way the liquid sits in his stomach like a rock. He doesn’t know what to say. He can’t deny it—he has been avoiding Ray and Rose, for over a week now, as much as he can do when they all live in a tiny two-bedroom townhouse together. He shuts himself in his room more often than not, encourages Ray and Rose to go out so he can have the house to himself. He’s been writing music again—bad music, music he crumples up and throws away and then cries over because Luke would’ve teased him so much for it.
He doesn’t eat. He doesn’t sleep. And yeah, he avoids Ray and Rose, not because he doesn’t like them. But because he does. Too much.
“I’m not sick,” he grumbles into his tea.
Ray’s quiet a long time, sipping casually from his own mug (full of coffee, no doubt, because Ray hasn’t been banned from caffeine like Bobby has, Ray doesn’t need a Puerto Rican remedy for weight loss like Bobby does). If he were Luke, he wouldn’t be able to stand there and take Bobby’s non-answers, he would give up and leave before he let a silence last more than ten seconds.
But Ray’s not Luke. And neither is Rose. And isn’t that the crux of Bobby’s whole problem here?
Bobby drinks tea he has a feeling isn’t gonna stay down, and Ray watches him, and then after what feels like a really long time, Ray places his mug on the dresser and says in the most gentle, loving tone, “Did we do something wrong, lindo? You haven’t looked either one of us in the eye in days. You’re not eating anymore. You’re not sleeping, and don’t think we haven’t heard you tinkering in here at three in the morning. Rose wanted to storm in here, like she had some great enemy to fight, and demand to know what happened to you. I told her it might be best to try a softer approach first. But you’d been doing better, I thought. And now… Bobby, if we did something to upset you… You’ve just got Rose and me a bit worried.”
Bobby can’t take it, Ray’s tender voice and the request for Bobby to open up and acknowledge all the things he’s been trying so hard not to think about, and the guilt gnawing at his insides at the thought of Rose off in the house somewhere worried about him. His hands shake around his mug of tea. He ducks his head, tears pricking at his eyes. His heart beats a little too fast, a little too hard, until it hurts to breathe.
He doesn’t hear Ray move, but suddenly there are hands taking his mug away and then a body sinking onto the bed next to him and arms wrapping around him, pulling him close until Bobby’s sort of crying into Ray’s chest.
Ray whispers a litany of Spanish reassurances Bobby doesn’t understand as he holds him close and rubs his back. He doesn’t ask what’s wrong, doesn’t ask Bobby to explain or apologize, and yet somehow the words come out anyway, Bobby somehow able to say them with his eyes closed and his face hidden in Ray’s shirt, words he hasn’t even been able to think to himself yet, much less say out loud.
“I think I’m in love with both of you.”
Ray’s hands still on Bobby’s back. And then Ray doesn’t laugh at him. But he kind of laughs at him. Bobby pulls back, anger sparking in his chest even as he feels his cheeks burn with shame. Ray puts a hand to his mouth, stifling his frankly insulting giggles.
“I’m sorry,” he snorts, raising his other hand apologetically as Bobby shoots him the most searing glare he can muster. “No, really, Bobby, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—it’s just that—cariño, no you’re not.”
Bobby blinks, too startled by Ray’s sincerity to be newly offended, sputters, “Wh—How—What the hell is that supposed to mean? They’re my feelings, Ray, you don’t just get to tell me I’m not feeling them.”
“No, please, I didn’t—” Ray stops and sits up a little straighter so that he’s not crowding into Bobby’s space so much, holds up both hands in surrender. “I’m sorry. I reacted poorly there, you just surprised me. I wouldn’t ever tell you that your feelings were wrong or invalid, it’s just… Well for one thing, niño, you can’t be in love with Rose because you’re gay.”
Whatever retort Bobby might’ve come back with dies in his throat, leaving him wide-eyed and open-mouthed, staring blankly at Ray as his brain struggles to process his words.
Ray, at least, has the dignity to look sheepish. “Oh, did you—did you not know that? I’m sorry, I thought—Rose said there was something with one of your bandmates?”
“Luke,” Bobby agrees, the name not even evoking the gut-wrenching heartbreak it usually does because he’s still devoting all his brain power to this baffling concept—he’s not gay! He likes guys, sure, there was definitely a thing with Luke, and now Ray—but that doesn’t mean he’s gay! Alex is gay. Was gay. And Bobby is nothing like Alex. “But that—I’m not—I could like girls too!”
Ray looks at him, dubious and a little pitying. “You could,” he allows, “but you don’t.”
“And how the hell do you know?” Bobby snaps, abrasive, his fists clenching at his sides.
Ray sighs, lips pressed together, like he does when he’s considering his words especially carefully. “I’m sorry,” he says again, totally serious now. “I went about this badly. Will you listen for a minute, let me start over?”
Bobby grits his teeth, tries to breathe steadily. His first instinct is to shove down all his vulnerability, demand for Ray to forget he said anything at all, do whatever he can to avoid further humiliation. But Ray is looking at him with those open, kind eyes that keep Bobby awake at night, his hands sitting open and unthreatening in his lap. Bobby swallows down his own insecurities and bites out, “Fine.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you meant first? How do you feel about me? About us?”
Bobby feels his face burn bright red, and he keeps his eyes locked on Ray’s hands so that he won’t have to see his face. “You make me feel safe,” he mutters, half to himself, almost hoping Ray won’t hear him. “Like—Like I can be myself around you without worrying about you being upset or disappointed. But at the same time, like I—I want to be good for you. I want to be better, so that—so that you’ll be proud of me, or want to be around me, or something. When you smile at me, or Rose hugs me, or you hit me with one of those stupid fucking Spanish pet names, I just—it just makes me—feel good and warm or whatever.”
He stops talking before he can say anything even more stupid than what he’s already said, closes his mouth and clenches his jaw so tight it aches. Ray’s quiet a moment, and then says, “Okay. And is that the same as how Luke made you feel?”
Bobby frowns, gaze fluttering up to Ray’s face almost without his permission. The question startles him—it wasn’t how he thought Ray was going to continue the conversation—but now that he thinks about it… “No. Not exactly.”
Luke had… Luke had made him feel volatile and angry, vulnerable and sweet, made him hate himself and love himself in equal measure. Bobby’s feelings for Luke had been terrifying and painful and inflammable and intoxicating and nauseating and fragile and the best and worst thing Bobby had ever felt—
And nothing like what he feels for Ray or Rose. Nothing like what he’s feeling now.
“Okay,” Ray says, nodding like he expected Bobby’s answer. “And when you kissed Luke—you did kiss him, didn’t you?”
Bobby nods, a little dumbstruck.
“When you kissed him, you liked it, right? You wanted to do it again?”
“All the time,” Bobby whispers. “Every time I looked at him.”
“And do you want to do that to Rose?”
Bobby starts to respond, stops, thinks about it. Rose is the most beautiful girl Bobby’s ever met, with her soft curly hair and her warm brown eyes and her light-up-the-world smile. Her lips, even, are always painted prettily, and her hugs are miraculous, and her hands are delicate and dizzying when she runs them through Bobby’s hair or rubs his back. But does he think about kissing her every time he looks at her? No. Does he even want to kiss her?
“No,” he realizes, meeting Ray’s eyes again. He’s starting to feel a little lightheaded, and nauseated from the tea sitting sour in his stomach. He feels like his whole world’s been flipped upside down.
Ray nods, tries for a smile, says, “Right. Because you’re gay.”
Maybe he is gay. Maybe he’s been gay this whole time and is just an idiot who assumed just because he’d never had strong feelings for a girl before didn’t mean he never would. Maybe his internal experience of the world is so warped and fucked up that he couldn’t even figure this out about himself, had to sit here like a stupid little kid and have Ray explain it to him.
“So you see, Bobby?” Ray’s voice is gentle, cautious. He hovers a hand over Bobby’s shoulder, waiting for Bobby’s tiny nod of permission to touch before he lets it land. “You’re not in love with us.”
Anger burns in Bobby’s chest again—anger and shame at himself for being this stupid for this long, wasting precious time making bad choices and avoiding his friends because of some fucked up feelings he didn’t even have the wherewithal to correctly identify—and he snaps, a little too defensive, “Well, shit, Mr. Emotional Maturity, then why the fuck did I think I was?”
Ray’s smile is just on the border between amused and pitying. He lifts his hand off Bobby’s shoulder, uses it to stroke his hair out of his face instead. “Because, muñeco. You love us like you’d love your parents. Good parents,” he amends with a conciliatory tilt of his head.
Bobby’s mind blanks, Ray’s words sending him into a mental spiral of epic proportions. He wants to protest, wants to deny it, wants to search for any other possible explanation for all the new and strange emotions he’s been feeling since leaving home and moving in with these two. But then he thinks back over what he literally just said, what he thought about and admitted to and fully believed was true:
Ray and Rose make him feel safe. He wants to please them, wants to make them proud. They are everything he’s ever wanted his own mom and dad to be, and so much more.
It’s like they’re his mom and dad.
“Fuck.”
Rose is in the kitchen, scrubbing down the stove with enough force to break the glass, when Bobby emerges from his room, hesitant and blushing, Ray close on his heels with the half-empty mugs.
“Hey,” she says, looking up, and something flashes in her expression—something that might be mistaken for anger but that Bobby knows is just Rose’s worry, love, and fierce protectiveness. She looks him up and down, must see the tear tracks still drying on his cheeks, or something in his expression, or something in Ray’s as he circles Bobby to bring the mugs to the sink, because she abandons her sponge and leans against the counter to watch him, says, “Is everything okay?” all casual, like she doesn’t really expect an answer.
God, Bobby loves her. Not like he once loved Luke, not like he’d love anyone he wanted to be with romantically, but like he must have loved his mother before she took his childhood away from him and ruined his life. Rose has only known Bobby a few months now, and yet she knows him, knows exactly what he needs to be vulnerable, to open up, to allow a tiny smile to paint his lips as he comes all the way into the kitchen and says, “It’s fine. Ray and I already talked about it.”
“You did?” Rose says, turning to raise an eyebrow at her boyfriend, and Ray just smiles, raises a fresh cup of coffee to his lips, shoots Bobby a wink that makes him feel a little giddy, like he’s in on some special secret. “And what exactly is it that you two talked about?”
“I know I’ve been acting weird lately,” Bobby says simply, coming up to stand by the stove at Rose’s side. “Distant, and—Well anyway, I was going through some stuff but I’m all good now.”
He meets Rose’s concerned gaze, almost daring her to push, or to ask for an actual apology he’s not quite sure he can give. But she just glances at Ray once more, then offers Bobby a smile and reaches a hand up to cup his cheek. “I’m so glad, corazón. Is there anything I can do to help?”
Bobby lets a smirk tug at his lips. “You could… make your chuletas for dinner.”
Behind her, Ray snorts into his coffee. Rose laughs, the sound musical and glorious, making Bobby grin wider, beaming with pride. “And if I do, are you actually going to eat any?” she asks, patting his cheek and then heading for the fridge.
Bobby hops up onto the counter, his legs swinging like a little kid, says, “If you let me help cook, I will.”
“Oh, good luck with that,” Ray teases. “This one’s a monster in the kitchen, she’ll bite your hand off before she lets you hold a spoon.”
Rose snaps a dish towel at him, and Ray puts his mug aside, grabbing her by the waist, and pulls her in for a kiss, and Bobby sits there on the kitchen counter watching them, two people who love each other and love him in ways his parents never could, and he feels better and happier than he has in days.