T.J. Klune - Bear, Otter, and the Kid 1 - Bear, Otter, and the Kid (45 page)

Creed and hunker down before him. He still wont look at me, but it doesnt matter. He hears me. “Whatever it takes, man. Ill be here waiting for you. Whatever it takes.” He gasps in a deep breath, and I see his body shake. I stand and have turned to walk back toward Otter when he reaches up and grabs my wrist. I wait.

“Do… do you think… you think you can just not be mad anymore?” he asks quietly. “That this can all just be over? I didnt mean to hurt you.” “I know.”

He jumps up and wraps himself around me, and I grab him back. That was fast. I expected it to last at least six more hours before we started blubbering at each other. His voice is harsh in my ear: “You know, we didnt used to be so fucking emotional about shit. I blame this on you.” I laugh quietly. “Whose idea was it to be blood brothers?”

He pulls back, a look of wonder on his face. “You were thinking about that, too, werent you? The day you told us about you and Otter.”

I nod. “Its strong, Creed. You and me, we go way back. Thats strong. What I have with Otter, its strong too. You going to be okay with that?”
“I dont have a choice, do I?”
I shrug. “Theres always a choice.”
He chuckles. “Not with us. We go way back, remember?”
I do.
“That was so special,” Mrs. Paquinn says, sniffing.
“Thats one word for it,” Otter grumbles.
“Oh, is someone feeling left out?” Creed laughs shakily, stepping away. I notice how his eyes flicker at his words. I hope one day hell be okay with it.
“Speaking of,” Anna says, looking pointedly at me and Otter, “I think weve said what needs to be said. For now. Dont you two have somewhere else youd like to be?”
I nod shyly and look to my brother. “Kid, youll be okay for a while?” I ask, needing permission from him, needing him to tell me again that it will all be okay.
He dismisses us with a wave of his hand. “Go finish this. I expect everything back to normal by the time you get back.”
Theres that word again. Normal.
Otter stands and holds out his hand. “Bear, you ready?”
I take whats offered.

15. Bear and Otter

H
E DRIVES
, which is probably safer as I cant take my eyes off of him. He smirks gently, and I know he can feel my gaze on his face. He does his best to ignore me, but thats okay. I just want to look at him. He looks older, somehow. Maybe its the bags around his eyes. Maybe its the lines around his mouth. I dont know. I dont care. He looks as good to me as he ever has. I want to reach out and touch him, to rub my hands through his thick, light hair, but I dont. I still dont know if this is real.

“What are you looking at?” he says in a low voice.

 

You, always you
, I want to say. But as we all know by now, my mouth doesnt work that way. “Did I break Jonahs nose?”

 

He laughs and shakes his head. “What kind of an answer do you want me to give you?”

 

I think for a moment. “The right one.”

We pull up to a red light, and he slows to a stop before turning to me. “You didnt break his nose. Although I thought you had with how far you cocked your fist back.” He grins slightly. “Did it make you feel better?”

I look away and shrug. “He shouldnt have been so damn smug,” I grumble.

 

“Are you sure you werent just projecting?”

 

I snap back and glare at him. “Thats not funny,” I say through his giggling fit.

“Oh, Bear, one day it will be very funny.” He picks up my bruised hand and kisses it. “One day, well joke about how you punched some guy out of jealousy for me.”

I scowl. “So Ive been told. And I wasnt jealous. What the fuck was he doing there, anyways?” My eyes narrow. “Did
you
call him?” The light changes to green, and we move forward. Otter looks away. Dammit, I wanted to see his face when he answers me.

“No, Bear, I didnt,” he says quietly.
“Then what the fuck was he doing there?”
“Why do you think he was there?”

My hands tap nervously on my knee. “He wanted you to go back with him. Why did he say he was your boyfriend? Were you trying to get back together with him?” This last question comes out before I can stop myself, and I shrink in my seat, hating how my voice has taken on a whining tinge. Its not a question I wanted to ask, but its been there, haunting me since I had seen Jonah in his room. He shouldnt have been there. I scowl again.

Otter glances over at me. “Of course I wasnt,” he scoffs at me. “Why the hell would you even think that?”

 

I dont know. “We were… whatever,” I say as I wave my hand. “You didnt know if I was coming back.”

“Well, yeah,” he admits. “That doesnt mean Id run right back to him. I told you, Bear, whatever was between me and him was done the moment I left to come back home.”

“Yeah, he seemed to understand that real well,” I mumble, picking at the hole in my hoodie sleeve. I dont know how it got there. Its still kind of wet, as are my jeans, and I can feel sand in my ass crack. It starts to itch as soon as I think of Mrs. Paquinn and her sand crabs. Lying on the beach all night in the surf was a bad idea in a long string of bad ideas. This better turn out okay, because I obviously need Otter to think for me. I have too many stupid ideas all on my own. Like not changing clothes before leaving the apartment.

“Jonahs like that,” Otter says, bringing me out of my thoughts. “When he wants something, he makes sure he gets it.”

“Wow, what a classy guy,” I say, feeling mean. “He seems like the type that beats his boyfriends. Did he hit you? Did he let you leave the house on your own?”

“Hey,” he says sternly. “If I recall, the only one hitting
anyone
was you.”

 

“Yeah, well, dont be smug in my direction. Especially when youre fucking with whats mine,” I growl.

 

“Yours, huh?” He glances at me again, his expression blank.

I suddenly feel embarrassed. I blush and look back out the window. I dont want to come off sounding so possessive, so
needy
. A lot of shit has been said between us, mostly by me, and here I am, mouthing off without a goddamn filter. And yet, I feel even worse things rising in my throat like bile, and I choke them back down. Fuck the filter: I need a muzzle.

“Where are we going?” I ask, changing the subject gracefully. “Youll see.”
“Oh.”
Silence, just for a few moments. Then, “Bear?”
“Yeah?”

“He went back to San Diego. He came here to try to get me to go back with him.”

“Oh.”
“Bear?”
“Yeah?”
“I said no.”

A
FEW
minutes later, we pull into a neighborhood I dont recognize. The houses are older, lower middle class. Some have toys strewn across the lawn. One has pink lawn flamingos in the front yard. Another has their Christmas lights still up. Or up already. I dont know which. Tis the season and blah blah blah.

He pulls up in front of a house toward the end of the street. Its small and painted a weird shade of green. Theres a waist-high chain-link fence that circles what I guess would be considered a front yard, if it was big enough to be called a yard. The driveway is cracked. The garage door looks like if it opened, it would fall off. Realtors would advertise it as
cozy
and a
great starter home
. Realtors are such liars.

Otter turns the car off and puts his hands on the steering wheel, tapping them nervously. He looks at the house and takes a deep breath. “Did you want to go back with him?” I blurt out, not meaning to. Now that I think about it, even a muzzle probably wont work.

He exhales explosively and laughs. “No.”
“Then why would he come here?”

He shrugs. “I told you. Thats Jonah. He doesnt like taking no for an answer. Remember when I said that if I didnt pick up the phone when he called, he threatened to come here?”

I nod.

 

“I didnt pick up the phone. He came here. Its that simple. Although I expected it to happen a lot sooner than it did.”

 

Well, yippee for that. “Dont sound so disappointed,” I say to him snidely.

 

He cocks an eyebrow at me. “Youre not going to make this easy, are you?”

 

“No,” I retort. I pause. “Make what easy?”

“Get out of the car,” he orders in that tone of voice he does so well. I get out of the car quickly. My knees crack, and I bend backward to pop my back, feeling sand slide down the back of my legs, tickling my skin, catching on the hairs. He walks around the car and stands next to me looking up at the house. It needs a new roof. It needs new gutters. It needs to be leveled and made into a parking lot for a Walmart that will put all the local shops out of business. Why the hell are we here? I want to go home and take a shower and change my clothes and then take off those clothes and fuck like bunnies. Its funny, really. Even though I was ready to talk to him until I was blue in the face less than an hour ago, Im now so sick of talking about my feelings and his feelings and everyone elses feelings. Shit can wait until tomorrow. I open my mouth to say as much, but Otter speaks first. For once I dont interrupt

“He came back here to try and make me go with him,” he says, still looking at the house. “I dont know if he thought he could persuade me or what, but that didnt stop him from trying. I was shocked when he walked into my room, but I wasnt surprised. I told you that I thought he would show up at some point. I just didnt know that he would happen to pick the worst time in the world.”

I stay silent. My eyes dont leave his profile.

“Im not going to lie to you, Bear. Im human. I considered it, if only for a second. And that was the worst second of my life. Even through everything that had happened over the past few days, that was still the worst moment of it all. That I actually considered leaving with him. I felt like I was betraying you, but worse, that I was betraying myself.”

I find my voice. “Creed called me. Thats why I came over. He said you were going back to California.”

He turns to face me. “I was, and dont you give me that look, either. Creed was right: you two are the same. You never let me finish.” His admonishment is soft, but there nonetheless. “I said I was going back to San Diego, and Creed flipped out and started screaming that I couldnt, that I just couldnt. Then he called me a fucking bastard and ran out of the room.” He pauses. “I think hed had quite a few shots by that point.”
“Then what were you doing?”

“I was going back to get the rest of my stuff,” he says as he takes a step closer to me. “I was going back to pack the rest of my things, and to tell my work that I wouldnt be back after all. You see, even though this guy broke my heart, I wasnt just going to run away again.” Another step closer. I can smell him now, his Otter-ness.

“You werent?” I say, staring up at him, unable to move.

He shakes his head. “I had plans for me and him. And I wasnt going to allow a little thing like him saying I was a mistake and that he never wanted to see me again deter me from what I wanted.” Another step. I could raise my hand and touch him now, if I was so inclined.

“You werent?” I say brilliantly.

“Of course not.” His eyes flash, gold and green. “How was I to know that this guy was trying to protect me as much as he was trying to protect everyone else? How was I to know what was really going on behind those words he said to me? I didnt know, but I knew that this guy,
my
guy, wouldnt have said them without reason, without something that made sense, at least to him.” Another step and his chest bumps mine. Our hands stay at our sides. His breath warms my face.

“I shouldve told you,” I mumble, staring at the freckle on his cheek, a patch of stubble he missed while shaving near his jaw line.

“Yes, yes you should have. You shouldve told me a lot of things. Do you know how much it hurt having to hear this from Creed? To hear this from my little brother and not the man I loved?”

I gulp. “Loved?” As in past tense?

“Loved,” he repeats. “
Love
.” Oh, how my heart beats faster. “Do you know what it felt like? I felt like I couldnt be trusted to help figure this whole stupid mess out, that I wasnt capable of understanding how scared my guy must have been. But then I realized how selfish I was being, how I was just thinking about me, and how it was
I, I, I.
It was never just about you or me. It wasnt even just about the Kid, even though you thought it was. It was about all of us, Papa Bear. All of us.”

“It was?” I sniff.

He raises his strong hands and places them on my waist. The tenuous connection has been made. Electricity flashes through my body. I tremble. “It was. It is. And thats the way it always should be. Thats the way it always
will
be. You should have told me what had happened, Bear. You shouldve told me so that you had someone to lean on, someone to make it seem like the world wasnt such a scary place. I understand why you did what you did, but you shouldve trusted me enough to take care of it, to take care of us.”

For some reason, this makes me angry. I step out of his grasp, and his arms fall to his side. “I shouldve trusted you to take
care of it
?” I snarl. “What the hell would you have done? She was threatening to take the Kid away from me! She made me choose between the two of you and, God help me, I hate her for it. But I did what I had to do. Dont you say that you would have taken care of it, because theres nothing you could have done!”

“Youre right,” he agrees, and this causes me to deflate slightly. “You took care of it all on your own, didnt you? But thats not what Im saying, Bear. Im saying that while you
can
do it, you shouldnt have to.”

I throw my hands up in the air and start to pace in front of him. “Were quite fine on our own, Otter. Weve been fine for three fucking years. So the last three months have been great, so its been over the fucking moon. We dont need you to take care of us!” Who is this person talking? Who is this person who only moments ago was wanting him to tell me what to do? Why cant I shut up for once in my life? These same old arguments keep rearing their heads, and its always me bringing them up. “Hes the only thing Ive got!” I say, my voice breaking.

“Youre wrong.”
I spin around. “What?”

He steps to me again and wraps his arms around me. Hes so big, and Im just a little guy, and I cant move. I try to fight it, try to pull away, but then his hands are rubbing over my back, and his lips are near my ear, and his hot breath slides over my cheek. “Youre wrong,” he says harshly. “Youve got me.”