Nick Stokes moved in next door.
Bobby couldn’t believe it, at first, when he saw the familiar blue Tahoe pull up into the Nelsons’ driveway – it’d always be the Nelsons’ driveway, as far as he was concerned – and Nick slid out wearing paint-stained jeans and some faded college t-shirt. He watched as the other man stretched out his limbs and then froze, recognizing his new neighbor.
His eyebrows arched above his sunglasses.
“Hey, Bobby,” he greeted, smiling in his big-toothed way. He crossed the driveway and trod across the grass to the fence that divided the two yards. “I didn’t know you lived here.”
“Same here.” Bobby made no effort to move from the mailbox, but he did manage to smile back. “Moving in?”
“Yeah, yeah.” He glanced over his shoulder at the modest one-story with its gray-blue paint and sloping cobalt roof. There was something in his expression that gave Bobby a bittersweet impression, his lips curved slightly at the corner and his manner so plain, so earnest. Nick Stokes was, he reminded himself, an earnest man.
He moved to reply – tell him what good condition the Nelsons had left the house in or something neighborly like that – when the front door to his own house banged open and Laurie burst out into the front yard in her normal weekend morning get-up of ratty pajamas and security blanket around her shoulders like a cape. “Daddy! The pot was bubbling over!”
The commotion caused Bobby’s head to jerk toward the girl, but not before he noticed Nick’s doing the same. “Did you turn off the heat?” he questioned immediately, not really considering the audience.
She sent him an indignant look the likes of which a third-grader and only a third-grader can muster. “I’m not allowed,” she stressed, and then skidded to a slipper-clad stop halfway through the grass. “Are you the new neighbor?”
He sighed. “Laurie – ”
“‘Cause Sandy was cool and you don’t look cool like her.”
“Laurie! Mind your manners.”
Nick chuckled before Laurie – who was sending another stubborn glance in his direction – could add to her previous statement. “I remember the Nelsons saying they had a little girl about your age,” he informed her, leaning on the fence. “You’re in, what? Fourth grade?”
“Third.” She sounded completely suspicious, even as she brushed a strand of knotted hair out of her eye. “Are you cool?”
“I work with your dad. Does that make me cool?”
“Do you have guns, too?”
Bobby sighed. “Laurie, what have we said about – ”
“A couple.”
“Then, yeah.”
Nick chuckled again, and Laurie grinned widely. “Just this once,” Bobby said, “you can touch the stove. Go turn off the water.”
“But – ”
“Get, Laurie Anne.”
Laurie cast one last, long look at Nick before she did as she was told, her blanket fitting its cape-like stature as she dashed back into the house and slammed the front door behind her.
Bobby tried to smile, but he was left with the distinct impression of gritting his teeth, instead. “Sorry ‘bout that.”
“No problem,” Nick replied, still leaning comfortably on the dark wood. “Didn’t know you had a daughter.”
“I only see her on the weekends,” he responded, the almost-automatic rigmarole rolling off his tongue before he fully realized who he was talking to. Nick’s eyebrow cocked, and he shrugged his shoulders. “She lives with my ex. Better hours for bein’ a full-time parent.”
“Yeah, guess so.” The nod was a distracted one, and Bobby glanced over his shoulder to see a massive moving truck ambling down the narrow street. “Listen, I gotta…”
“Hey, no problem. You gotta move in.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, not sure what else to do with them, and smiled as much as he could. “Not like I won’t see you around. Neighbor.”
Nick grinned at the affectionate tag-on. “Yeah, neighbor,” he replied, and Bobby watched him until he disappeared behind the Tahoe, undoubtedly on his way into his new house.
==
Bobby idly watched the moving-in process for the rest of the weekend, estimating the bits and pieces of Nick’s life he could see from the boxes and bins being lugged into the house. Included in the mix was a huge rug in University of Texas colors (not surprising), some stylish furniture, a decent-sized television, and the normal home-gym equipment. He studiously pretended he wasn’t studying his new neighbor’s belongings, focusing instead on Laurie riding her bike up and down the street or the very interesting hardware store flyer in his mailbox, but it was hard to ignore the innermost workings of Mr. Nick Stokes.
So he watched, in that casual way that neighbors observe one another, watched Nick getting his mail just before shift and signing for his cable installation. He watched him brush his big, shaggy golden retriever – such a Nick Stokes dog, if ever there was one – in the back yard early in the morning and caught him pulling up a handful of weeds before climbing into his truck to go to work.
At work, everything was the same casual pat-on-the-shoulder, nudge-of-the-arm quasi-friendship it’d been since day one, which was both refreshing and slightly disconcerting. True, they hadn’t exactly had a long, neighborly conversation over beers and burgers, but Bobby almost felt as though there should be a change, if only because they each lived on the separate side of a driveway and patch of grass.
Jacqui’s “literati” quote of the week (as her new boyfriend happened to be an UNLV poetry professor who thought she’d been an English major in college) came from Robert Frost, and glared at him from its posting place on one of the cabinets every time he entered the break room:
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Finally losing his temper, Bobby took down the quote one evening and taped it to Jacqui’s computer monitor, later smirking when she slammed into the DNA lab and loudly accused Greg of messing with her “literary knowledge.”
The quote came back to haunt him, though, on Nick’s third weekend in the Nelsons’ house, when he leaned up on the fence and called out, “Howdy, neighbor.”
Bobby glanced up from his task of grilling dinner for himself and Laurie – burgers to match the fries in the oven inside – and smiled warmly. “Hey, Nick. How’s it going?”
“Not too bad.” Near his feet, Nick’s dog sniffed at the grass, her dark nose peeking out between the wooden slats. “I wanted to know if you wanna have dinner, but looks like I’m too late.”
Frowning down at the burgers, he nodded. “Yeah. Plus, Laurie’s here.”
“Oh, Laurie. Right.” Nick smiled, and Bobby idly wondered if his cheeks were a bit red from the evening sun, or from embarrassment. “Kinda forgot about her.”
“I kept her away from Maverick today,” he replied, indicating the dog with his spatula. “She wanted to come over and play ball with her again.”
Nick chuckled. “She’s always welcome to. Mav doesn’t get enough attention, with my hours.” He reached down to pat the dog on the side. “I’ll catch you later. Enjoy your time with Laurie.”
“Yeah,” Bobby agreed, watching as he crossed his lawn and patio and disappeared into the house. Even as the door slowly started to close behind him, Bobby found himself tempted to invite Nick to dinner. But then again, he could hear Laurie blasting her Kidz Bop CD in the stereo, so perhaps it was good the door closed, after all.
When he got to work Sunday evening, there was a note taped to his locker that read,
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence,
complete with the hand-written Jacqui Franco addendum of, “I take offence, Dawson!”
He balled it up and threw it on the floor.
==
The next weekend, Bobby was trying to put together Laurie’s new bike – so much for pre-assembly being for wusses – when Laurie herself climbed the fence and was greeted by a tail-wagging, panting Maverick.
“Laurie!” Bobby scolded futilely, and suddenly there was a head popping out from around a bush; Nick had apparently been kicking back on his own patio and reading (or some such; Bobby hadn’t noticed and couldn’t tell). His neighbor waved and Bobby waved back with his wrench before pulling himself to his feet. Nick was already most of his way across the yard, watching as Maverick ran in circles away from Laurie, ball in mouth.
“Sorry,” Bobby apologized when he made it to the fence, watching as the dog nearly plowed his daughter over. “We’re working on the ‘polite to neighbors’ skill, but she doesn’t even know her other neighbors.”
Nick smiled and nodded, hands in his back pockets. “Yeah, I remember. I’m not cool, right?”
“Right. Though I think Maverick bumped you up to ‘kinda cool.’”
“Good ol’ Mav. Shoulda known she’d come in handy.”
They shared a smile and watched in companionable silence as girl chased dog and dog chased girl. Finally, Laurie, too, came to the fence, panting and grinning up at both of them. “I want a dog,” she declared, draping her arms beside Bobby’s.
Nick grinned. “I think I hear a Christmas present calling,” he teased.
Bobby rolled his eyes. “Not in this house. I’m not home enough for a dog.” He sent Laurie a significant glance. “She knows this.”
“Yeah,” she replied, making a pouty face at him. “You said no dog. Papa said no dog. So I have to play with Nick’s dog.” She untangled herself from the fence and plopped down onto the grass, allowing the golden retriever to wander over to her and like her ear. “Mav-er-ick.”
Bobby rolled his eyes before looking back at Nick, surprised to see both eyebrows raised in his direction. “‘Papa’?” Nick repeated, his tone catching slightly.
All the casual banter and familiarity suddenly disappeared as Bobby took the half-step back in the conversation and shut his eyes. He could practically feel the color draining from his face as he recognized exactly what Laurie had said.
Before he could respond, Laurie glanced up at Nick from her spot in the grass. “Papa lives in Henderson,” she explained. “He’s gay. So’s Daddy.”
“Laurie, we’re going inside.” The words came out of his mouth before he realized he’d said them, and he opened his eyes only long enough to send her a sharp look. Laurie frowned up at him. “Now.”
“Daddy, I just – ”
“Now, and don’t you dare make me repeat myself.”
Within seconds, Laurie was on her feet and back over the fence. As soon as her feet hit the grass, she took off across the yard and in through the back door, slamming it loudly behind her.
Try as he may, Bobby couldn’t bring himself to meet Nick’s eyes. “Sorry, Nick, but – ”
“Bobby – “
“No. I gotta go.” He turned his back and walked as calmly back into the house as he could. Miraculously, he resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder and see Nick’s reaction, and by the time he’d calmed himself enough to go to the window, both his neighbor and the dog had sought refuge back in the Nelsons’ old one-story.
==
Avoiding Nick at work the next few days wasn’t hard, given that Nick was also, apparently, trying to avoid him. Other people came in for every ballistics report – Catherine, Warrick, Sara, even Grissom himself – and every time he walked down the hallway, he found Nick thoroughly enveloped in an activity that didn’t involve meeting his eyes or even looking in his direction.
Jacqui’s literati quote of the week changed away from Frost and moved on to Blake – and mark in every face I meet / marks of weakness, marks of woe – but that didn’t keep him from frowning at it and tearing it down on principle. At home, he kept playing and deleting message from his ex, demanding to know what he said to Laurie to upset her. Other messages started coming, too, from David and Archie, wondering exactly what had “crawled into his pants and died a slow death” (to quote David). He deleted those, too, and watched Nick’s yard through the kitchen sink as he did the dishes.
There was no sign of Nick.
Saturday morning, when he got off shift, he found another note taped to his locker, reading:
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down!
It lacked Jacqui’s semi-clever quip, but he balled it up and tossed it in the garbage all the same.
He arrived home tired and impatient, and a brief check of messages revealed that his ex had decided to take Laurie to an amusement park – “she’s still upset, Bob; the hell’d you do?” – and wouldn’t be dropping her off until later that evening. He sighed at the message and played it three times before deleting it.
The back yard was quiet and balmy, warm with the late-spring dry heat that would eventually spike and make living in Las Vegas nearly unbearable. He wandered through the grass, scanning the blades idly for weeds, and it was only when he bent down near the fence and something wet touched his fingers that he realized Maverick was sticking her nose through the fence slots.
He glanced up to see Nick standing nearby, arms on the fence. “Hey,” he greeted quietly.
“Oh. Hey.” Bobby rose to his feet and forced himself to meet Nick’s eyes. He tried desperately to ignore the deep-rooted sympathy there, but found it was difficult; Nick’s eyes surveyed his face slowly, and his frown was soft, almost concerned. “How’s it going?”
“No Laurie?” Nick asked at the same time, and pulled back a chuckle as he smiled slightly at the ground. “It’s going.”
“Laurie’s with…” His words trailed off, and he forced his mouth into a tight smile. “With Kevin. He took her to an amusement park. Riding the teacups, and stuff.”
Nick snorted. “Teacups always made me sick, man.”
“Me too.”
A heavy silence washed over them both, broken only by the tingling of Maverick’s dog tags as she nosed around the yard. Finally, Bobby sighed. “Listen, Nick, I’m sorry about how I reacted. It’s just – ”
“No, I get it,” Nick cut him off, leaning further across the fence, his dark eyes still on Bobby’s face. “You didn’t want me to know. I’m cool with that.”
“It’s not personal.”
“Never thought it was.” He suddenly pulled his gaze away, focusing it instead on the blue Nevada sky. “Ya know, Bobby, I’m okay with it.”
He scoffed. “It’s okay if you’re not.”
Nick’s lips curved into a slight, shy smile. “I hate bein’ a hypocrite, so trust me. I’m okay with it.”
Bobby blinked involuntarily at the comment, frowning slightly even as Nick glanced back down and met his eyes. Even on either sides of the fence, Bobby suddenly felt both three miles closer and three miles further away from the other man, and he found his own hands touching the rough wood and grounding him. “You’re…”
“I don’t broadcast it.” Nick’s lips split and he smiled warmly, shrugging. “Texas, you know.”
“Georgia,” Bobby replied, and watched Nick’s smile grow. It grew and grew even more until his smile was against Bobby’s, lips rough on rough, and Bobby released the fence to grip Nick tightly and pull him up against the damn wall between their yards, bringing them as close as they could and closer.
When they broke apart, he refused to completely release Nick, loosening his grip just long enough meet his eyes.
“What about dinner tonight?” he asked quietly.
“Sounds great,” Nick smiled, and kissed him again.
==
Sunday evening, after dropping off a very happy, thoroughly spoiled Laurie off in Henderson, Bobby found another note taped to his locker.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall.
And in a handwriting unfamiliar, but somehow familiar all the same, there was an addition that read, “Good to have you, neighbor.”
