When Jack had said it had carpeting, Ennis remembered that he hadn't specified what kind of carpeting. The multicolored brown shag underfoot hearkened back to an earlier era. "Newer appliances," he'd said. Newer than what, the Reagan administration? And even then, only just barely. Still, Ennis couldn't say any better for his own apartment.
Besides, Jack looked like a kid in a candy store. Ennis supposed it was him that'd done that, though, not the house. They'd shown up in one car in front of The Year of the Rabbit, where they'd picked up Ennis's truck, abandoned in haste the night before, and caravaned to 'The House', as it was coming to be called. Bobby got to drive the truck, while Ennis sat in the passenger seat. He didn't have his learner's permit yet, so Jack put up a little fuss, but Ennis mostly ignored him. Neither Jack nor Ennis had learned to drive on learner's permits, after all.
They got the The House around seven at night and met the real estate agent, a broad-shouldered man who claimed to have played minor-league baseball. His card proudly proclaimed that he "would go to bat for you," and Ennis was immediately put off by the cheesy sales tactic, but Jack and this man, Dale, seemed to get along alright.
"So, this is your friend?" Dale ask, jutting out a tanned hand towards Ennis.
"Roommate," Jack hesitantly supplied, though his grin said Ennis was much more.
Ennis mumbled a hello and shook Dale's hand, but made a mental note that he and Jack should discuss things like this, what they should call each other to other people. He was alright with the roommate deal right now, but with Bobby around, he didn't think it would hold up for half an hour.
Just like at school. He hadn't told Jack that whole story, but somehow he felt that Jack knew there was more to it. That's why Ennis had had to lie to Bobby, after all. Ennis had been working with some of the other custodial staff when Bobby had come over, wearin' his bad-boy attitude like it was a shirt, which he tended to do around school, and announced, "Ms. Barns wants to have a parent-teacher conference next week."
Ennis had stopped his work. The other guys had followed suit, wondering why this brash kid was talking to them, probably.
"Do you think you could do it? I mean, is that allowed?"
"Dunno," Ennis mumbled, trying to signal Bobby to disappear with his mind and the glare of his eye.
But either his message was not getting through, or else, just as likely, it was encouraging Bobby, because Bobby drilled on. "Well shit, it should be allowed. And if it's not, I'm going to get it allowed or whatever."
"Think they'd want to talk to your dad." Ennis shook his head and went back to working on the duct they were fixing, trying not to notice the eyes of the two men he was working with boring into him.
"Whatever. You're already here and I'm living with you." Ennis just ignored Bobby, but that encouraged him further, as he acquired a mischievous grin. "Unless you just wanted me to lure Dad down to your work."
The look Ennis shot at Bobby then was probably dangerous, but Bobby seemed to get the message.
"Alright, alright. Relax, man. Just sayin'. See you later, pimp." And then he was gone. Bobby was so good at pushing every button Ennis had, but now he'd done it in public and in front of people Ennis worked with and respected.
Ennis had tried to go about his day like usual, pretending like nothing had happened, but he'd seen the custodians whispering amongst each other, heard them quiet down when he would walk their way. By the next day it had seemed like everyone in the school was whispering about him. Every time someone had looked his way, he'd had to repress the urge to shout, "what the fuck are you looking at?" Finally, when Heriberto had asked him over lunch, in a hushed and playful and maybe even mocking tone, "Ennis, are you, you know...," and dangled a wrist, from Ennis's point of view the man had been asking for what he'd got.
And maybe Ennis had been asking for what he'd got in return as well. At the very least, he was determined not to take it out on Bobby. After all, it was Ennis who'd lost his cool, not Bobby. He'd gone down the road of taking out his fears on Bobby once before, at that Denny's so long ago. So he'd told Bobby they'd laid him off, and told Jack about the fight, and at night he tried to tell himself he'd do differently if he had it to do again. He couldn't just fire off shots at people. It'd landed him in a tight spot financially and in terms of his pride- having to depend on other people, and that was worse than having a wrist dangled at you here and there.
Back in the here and now, Ennis was carefully surveying the water heater, while Jack had his head stuck deep in the fridge as if he might find something there. Bobby'd ran upstairs first thing, and he came back down, calling, "I know which bedroom's mine," with a cat-like grin. Dale watched it all with amusement.
"Oh no you don't. The one with the bathroom is ours," Jack answered, smiling.
Shit, Ennis thought. This time it was Jack. The house had three bedrooms, right?
Dale's grin slipped.
"Aww, how come you get all the good stuff? And I gotta sleep on couches and in normal bedrooms and crap?"
"Because you're not paying the mortgage. Here, go back upstairs. Come on, Ennis, you gotta see the upstairs."
Ennis nodded and mumbled, following Jack and Bobby, with Dale bringing up the rear wearing a hesitant, polite smile.
At the top of the stairs, Bobby was the one who led the way into the master bedroom and straight into the master bath. It wasn't anything to write home about, but Ennis stood in the doorway and nodded with approval. Jack looked out the window at the view down on the main street below.
"Roommates, huh?," Dale laughed.
Jack looked up and smiled a little at Dale, answering only, "I didn't say what we did in our room."
Dale laughed again, his salesman smile back in place, and it was plain to Ennis that what'd caught him off guard was being lied to, not selling the house to a couple of gay men. That was a new thought to Ennis. Maybe some people put stock in the truth. He wasn't sure what to do with that information, though, so he tucked it away and went off to see what Bobby found so interesting in the bathroom. Not much, it turned out. Just a bathroom. Jack pointed out the nice size of the closet, but by now Bobby had actually decided which of the other two rooms he wanted, and he was making it known. He wanted to be treated like an adult, or at least he played the bad ass teenager at school, but sometimes he wasn't more than a little kid.
Jack and Ennis followed down the little hallway to where Bobby was standing in a bedroom explaining how it had to be his because of something to do with the sunlight and the ceiling fan and who knows what. No one was really listening to him. Jack went to the window again, seeing who could see in his teenage son's room, while Ennis opened the closet and peered out into the hallway to know what views it gave of the other bedrooms- his and Jack's, and the one Jack had suggested his girls could stay in if they ever came for a visit. The odds of that seemed slim to none to Ennis right now, but even so, neither was a room he wanted Bobby in. They'd just have to shut the doors, though, because the upstairs was small.
Ennis thought for a moment about sound as well, but what could they do about that? When he and Alma had been married, Alma always used to ask him if the girls were asleep before they got up to any sex.. He guessed that was something all parents had to worry about. The thought made Ennis squirm with discomfort, but if this was going to be his home, he guessed he'd have to figure something out. After all, he was probably more put off by the idea than was Bobby, and hadn't him and Jack gone at it like a couple of wild animals in Ennis's apartment last night, with Bobby just down the hall? Somehow that was different, even though those rooms shared a wall as well, and Ennis didn't know just why.
There was one more bedroom to check out. After that, they went back downstairs. It was completely dark outside and the inside lights were warm and homey. Dale was running around turning more lights on. None of them had fully explored the downstairs yet. The kitchen was ran most of the length of the back of the house, and had a laundry room off one side, near the door to the garage. The water heater and circuit breaker was in a corner of the laundry room. The kitchen cabinets were medium-wood, and the floors white linoleum with some inset beige pattern. The eat-in part of the kitchen had a sliding glass door that went right out onto the patio. Facing that was the hallway that went to the front door.
On the garage side of the house was a little sitting room or whatever those formal-type rooms were supposed to be called, whereas the other side had a dining room and a living room. All three of those rooms had that same dark brown shag. The stairs went up right next to the door, on its right side.
Standing in the kitchen, Ennis could feel it. The place was small, and it wasn't new, and it wasn't like Jack's shiny townhouse or as big as that fancy place Bobby's mother had, but it was a place that wanted to be a home, and he could see himself having just this kind of home. He hadn't never imagined having a home with a man, and he didn't know that they had enough furniture between them to cover all the rooms, but standing in the front hallway to see Jack peering out the sliding glass doors, and now Bobby looking into the fridge (Ennis stopping to wonder what the hell it was with these Twist men and their strange need to make sure there wasn't no food hiding nowhere), Ennis could finally see this happening.
"You wanna see outside?" Jack asked.
Ennis nodded a little.
"Bobby?"
"No thanks, I'll...," he looked around awkwardly.
"Ok," Jack said, not waiting to see what excuse he came up with.
Dale smiled a little, probably smelling money in the air, as Ennis and Jack stepped out onto the patio on the unseasonably warm winter night.
"Well?" Jack asked.
Ennis walked around a bit, noticing that the patio was large and smooth. The yard was surrounded by a high-quality six-foot privacy fence that suited him fine. The shed was a large yellow structure off in one corner. The other corner was home to a large willow tree, bare in this late season, but probably soft and private when it had leaves. The neighboring yard to the back had a row of hardwood trees growing along the fence line. Ennis approved of that as well. The neighborhood was quiet from here, lit only by the glow from their sliding glass door.
Their sliding glass door. Ennis felt his heart catch in his throat, then beat faster. His groin throbbed and came to some half-attention, and he made like he was inspecting the fence behind the garage.
"The previous owners had an in-ground pool they buried," Jack added, slowly making his way over to Ennis. "And thank God, too. I bet they are a bitch to take care of."
Ennis nodded, but found he was starved for words, scared and dizzy and excited by this moment.
"Do you like it?," Jack asked, more direct this time.
Ennis checked once more to make sure they were in the shaft of shadow that projected into this corner of the small yard, invisible from the sliding glass door, and then reached out and pulled Jack into a hug, He hoped it sufficed as his answer. He tucked his man's cheek against his own and floundered for words, finding only, "Jack, I..." before giving up.
Jack's own warm embrace was Ennis's reward for the attempt, though. They held each other close and staved off the cold until Jack shook him slightly, whispering only, "I knew you would. Didn't I tell you? I knew you would."
Ennis laughed a little, blowing puffs of warm air against Jack's skin. Jack answered the laughter with a giddy, childish giggle of his own, and before either man knew exactly when laughter had turned into more, Jack had pinned Ennis up against the privacy fence and was stealing Ennis laughter with his own lips. Jack's arms roamed frantically under Ennis's open jacket, looking for a place to hold firm, and Ennis let Jack hold onto him however Jack thought best. They were starting something new for both of them.
"Oh, gross, come on!"
Ennis pushed Jack off with a gentle push, nothing with real force or meaning, and Jack chuckled against Ennis's cheek. Ennis peered over Jack's shoulder to see Bobby standing out in the yard, not looking really disgusted so much as annoyed.
Jack, his chest heaving, spouts of steam escaping his mouth into the air, asked like Bobby hadn't just caught them necking like teenagers, "What do you think of the house?"
And Bobby, answering like catching your dad making out in the back yard with a man was nothing new, said, "Yeah, it's cool. I like it."
"Alright then. Where's Dale? I think we've got an an offer to make."
