Now I’m completely lost. “Say what?”
Vince gives me a long, skeptical look. “You mean … that’s not true? Are you saying my sister’s lying to me?”
“I have no idea what I’m saying,” I reply, “but I am sure not seeing any guy in Fairview. Hell, I haven’t been out that way since the high school days when we had a soccer match out there.”
Vince chews on that for a second, then shrugs it off. “Alright. I’ll tell my sis she’s got her head messed up, or you mixed up with some other Bobby Parker.”
“Yeah. Mixed up with someone else, definitely.” I give it three dry chuckles, then turn away, baffled.
Minutes later, we’re out of auditoriums to clean until all the last showings end in another couple of hours. Vince and I (along with some sixteen-year-old usher named George who the others call G-man for some reason) stroll around the lobby sweeping up stray kernels of popcorn. It isn’t long before there’s nothing left to sweep, and eleven o’clock rolls around when the last tickets are sold and the box office is closed down. G-man is sent home, and I’m left with Vince to perform closing duties.
But the noise of someone banging on the locked front glass doors of the lobby stop me near the concession stand. I turn at the sound, squinting across the lobby.
My eyes flash when I see Jimmy—in a pair of skinny jeans, a form-hugging red shirt, and that ratty-ass hat on top of his head—waving at me through the glass.
“Your not-boyfriend’s here,” teases Vince dryly.
I shoot him a look. “Think you can give me five?”
“Closing duties aren’t going anywhere, don’t worry. We got all night to do them. Just don’t let Mr. Lemon catch you letting him in after closing hours. He gets weird about that, ever since that one security issue two years back when a dumb pair of teens—”
“Don’t worry, I’m not inviting him in,” I assure Vince before heading across the narrow lobby to the doors.
That’s when I notice the crutches.
I pop the door open and stare at his crutches, confused. “What the hell happened, Jimmy?”
“Told ya already,” he fires back. “Destroyed my pretty ankle.”
“I thought—” I thought he was kidding, considering the way he just dropped that bit of information on me. “Jimmy, if I’d known you had really hurt your ankle …”
“Isn’t a big deal,” he says dismissively, leaning against the edge of the door and glancing off. “Went to the clinic and the doc gave me painkillers, crutches, and said to keep off of it for a week.”
I narrow my eyes. “And this is you ‘keepin’ off of it’?”
“Yeah, well, when have I been known to follow the rules?” He hops his way into the theater, pushing past me. “How do you like your job, my man? You own the place yet? Spliced frames of porn into the Disney movies? C’mon, show me something cool.”
“Jimmy, I’m in the middle of …”
I try to protest, but my eyes drop down to his ass in those tight jeans. With his arms over those crutches, his already-too-small shirt is pulled up, revealing a wink of his back muscles, those Venus dimples of his, and those pert, tight, jeaned, perfect buns.
My throat closes up at once, like I’m allergic to the sight.
I come around to the front of him, determined not to be (as usual) hypnotized by his butt. “Jimmy, what’re you doing here? I got work to do.”
“No, he don’t,” calls Vince from behind the concession stand.
I throw Vince a look. “And what was this business about not lettin’ Mr. Lemon catch me letting in a friend afterhours?”
“It was me joshin’ you,” he calls back. “He don’t give a lick.”
Jimmy starts swinging across the lobby on his crutches, half-hopping, half walking. “C’mon, Bobby! Show me cool stuff!”
Ignoring the amused look Vince is giving us, I hurry after Jimmy, coming up to his side and lowering my voice. “Dude, what about the doctor’s orders? You shouldn’t be runnin’ around like this. You gotta take care of—Wait, how’d you even get here?”
“Borrowed my mama’s car. It’s a bitch, not drivin’ my truck, but since it’s standard and requires two feet, well …” He gives a nod at one of the auditorium doors. “Show me the big projector room. I wanna see the projectors.”
I sigh. “First off, I can’t take you up there. Second off, you don’t get there through the auditoriums. You get there by going up the stairs toward the office where my boss is, and I can’t risk—”
“Well, then, let’s go!” Jimmy hobbles his way to the other side of the concession stand. “Where is it? Where’s the stairs? I’ll hop.”
“Jimmy, I got work to do. Can’t you just wait down here until I’m finished or something?”
He stops and looks at me. “Why can’t I come with?”