Who We Are

by T. J. Klune

He starts to pull away, freeing my arms. I reach up around his neck and pull him back down on top of me, chest to chest, his heart beating rapidly against mine. “Bear, you don’t know—”

  “Oh, I do know, you can trust me on that. No one in their right mind could ever put up with my bullshit like you can. I still don’t know why you do it, but you do. You’re one of the only people in the world who gets me, that allows me to speak even though you know I shouldn’t. Christ, Otter, let’s just say for the sake of argument that I’m… bisexual”—( For the sake of argument? it snickers. Oh please. )—“and that I can find other… guys…

  attractive. I would never do that. I can’t do that. I won’t.”

  “If I can’t worry about the future,” he says quietly, “then you can’t be worried about the past.”

  Damn him and his logical logic. “I’ll still worry,” I mutter. “It’s not my fault that you have hot exes and everybody in the natural world wants to jump your bones.”

  He snorts against my neck and it’s gross, but I love it anyways. “Oh, please,” he scoffs. “What about all the people that check you out? You don’t hear me bitching and moaning about that even though I want to knock them all into next week. You don’t know how hard it is to have that kind of restraint. Just because you haven’t seen me act jealous doesn’t mean I don’t get that way.”

  I laugh, a small sound that escapes before I can stop it. “What the hell are you talking about? No one looks at me.”

  He raises his head to look into my eyes, apparently trying to find out if I’m being serious or not. And I am. No one looks at me twice, except for maybe Otter, and I’m okay with that. I don’t have time for anything else, not that anyone would be looking. “You’re being serious,” he says, as if not believing it.

  “You’re being dumb,” I tell him.

  “How can you not know? Jesus, Bear. How can you not see it? You…

  you’re so goddamn beautiful. Like, as in you walk into a room and take my breath away kind of beautiful. There’s times when I feel like I’ve been knocked flat just by seeing your face. How the hell can you not know that?

  That other people would think the same thing?”

  I roll my eyes, even as I begin to blush. “Even though you’re biased, you’re still laying it on kind of thick, don’t you think?”

  He looks at me like I’m the one spouting crap. “You’re hot, Papa Bear,”

  he says, as if trying to convince me. “Trust me when I say that. If you’d look around once in a while, you’ll see that plenty of people think so too.”

  Oh, gag, it whispers. This Ego Strokefest Palooza is so lame. And yes, Bear, he’s saying that just to make you feel better. You only have to ask yourself if you have an alibi.

  Alibi?

  U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no—

  You’re an idiot. Maybe when I go to therapy with the Kid, the doc can make you go away.

  Doubtful. He’ll take one look inside your head, and you’ll go straight to a padded room. Do not pass go. Do not collect two—

  You’re annoying, for a conscience.

  I love you too.

  “All the time,” Otter insists. “It pisses me off.”

  “Why pissed off? You know I would never….”

  His eyes grow shuttered for a moment, the gold-green muted and dark.

  But then it passes. “It’s not you I don’t trust,” he says quietly. “It’s everyone else.”

  “I don’t care about anyone else,” I tell him. “I’m a big boy. I know how to say no.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re still fucking hot,” he says, and I can feel his half-hard length against my hip.

  “Well, even if that’s true—which I highly doubt—all it takes is me opening my mouth and that whole illusion just dies right there. Literally, it’s like a black hole, even light can’t help but getting sucked down.” I stop for a moment and think about what I just said as Otter starts to grin. It looks evil and full of teeth. “You took that dirty, didn’t you?”

  “Way dirty,” he assures me as he begins to grind his body into mine.

  “Sex doesn’t solve problems,” I manage to get out as he rubs up and down my body with his, his mouth latching onto my neck.

  “But it certainly makes things more fun,” he says as he licks his way up to my earlobe, breathing heavily into my ear as his teeth scrape along the shell. “Besides, the problems will still be there tomorrow. And so will I. I’m not going anywhere, Papa Bear. I told you that and I meant it. What do I need to do to prove that to you?” He reaches down between us and grabs my cock and gives it a rough pull. “You can’t possibly think you’re going to get away from me.” He reaches down my shorts and grips my dick, that big paw of his so familiar, so hot. He thumbs over my slit in the way that he knows drives me nuts. I squirm under him. “You even try, and I’ll hunt you down myself.” His voice is still rough, but not with sleep. He lifts up my shirt, his tongue swirling over one nipple and then the other. He allows my arms to go free and my hands go to his hair, holding him, pushing him further. I can’t speak yet, I have no words. I need to hear his voice.

  “It doesn’t matter what goes on in that head of yours,” he breathes, trailing his tongue down my stomach, his hand starting to jerk me off, “or what you could possibly be thinking. Just as long as you know this is mine.”

  He shakes my dick before swirling his tongue over the crown. “And this is mine,” he says as he rises up to kiss my chest, where my heart beats underneath. “And this is mine,” he says before kissing me deeply. I groan into his mouth, trying to go further, suddenly confused when he pulls away, putting his forehead against mine, breathing heavily. His breath is ragged in my face, and I breathe deeply, trying to take him in. The gold-green is flashing in the dark, but it’s almost angry. He’s no longer smiling. “Do you get me?” he asks, that warning tone of his in full force.

  I nod, turning my head to the side, trying to avoid that gaze, those knowing eyes.

  He grabs me by the chin and forces me to look back at him. Before our eyes can collide, I close mine. I get him. I do. I really do. But it’s times like these, times that his voice is sharp with control and hungry with desire, that I almost can’t take it. It’s too much. It’s too strong. And I know it’s exactly what I need. No one gets me like he does, not even the Kid. I don’t know how Otter got so smart or how he’s able to pierce me so, but he can and he does. I don’t know why he chose me, for the life of me, for all the trouble I’ve caused. How can he think this is worth it? I tell him I love him, I tell him how much he means to me, but does he know how much I need him?

  That without him I would be nothing? I don’t know if he does, or at least not to the full extent in which I think it. And I don’t know if I can tell him that.

  I’ve always been told you should never speak your wish aloud for it won’t come true, that it’ll go away.

  Otter can’t go away. I won’t allow it.

  “Bear,” he says from somewhere above me. “Look at me.”

  I do. I do because he’s everything.

  He watches me for a moment, letting go of my chin and reaching up to cup my face. “Do you get me?” he says harshly.

  Ah God, I do. I do. I do. And he must see something there because that Otter grin pulls slowly at his lips, and I finally say, “Yes,” and my voice breaks, and he falls on top of me then, his hunger spilling over. His hands are everywhere, and my shirt is torn up over my head, and his mouth is on me in ways that only he knows how, in ways that only he can do. I arch my back as he again finds my dick and the wet heat that envelopes it is so hot so fast that I almost shoot right then. I gasp his name (“Otter,” I say, “Oh, my Otter”) as he swallows me whole, and I marvel at him, this man who seemed to give up everything, his life and job in a place so far away, just to be with me. I need to show him what he means to me, what he does to me. He has to know.

  I pull him off my dick and roll him over, st
raddling his chest, my legs under his arms as his hands stroke my thighs. I reach behind me and shove his shorts down past his knees, feeling his dick spring up and slap against my hand. I stroke it gently while I reach over with my left hand and grab the lube from the nightstand. As I pull my hand back, he captures it in his and kisses each finger gently. Even I notice when he hesitates over the ring finger. But the kiss there lasts the longest. I don’t know what that means.

  You sure?

  He takes the lube from my hand (“I like getting you ready,” he told me once, a low blush on his face. “You look hot with my fingers in you”) and he sits up, holding me in his lap, his lips on my neck as he pours the lube onto his fingers and begins to stretch me. I rock my head back as I wrap my arms around his neck, my hands at the back of his head, cradling him against me as he works me open. There’s a brief moment when he leaves my body that I whimper at the loss, but then he enters me again in a swift thrust of his hips, and I cry out softly, his body rolling underneath me, like I’m sitting on top of an incoming tide.

  There’s a moment, somewhere deeper into the night, when he’s above me, rocking into me with slow movements, that he sighs, “Bear,” and my name on his lips is like the greatest thing I’ve heard. It’s a single syllable stretched, drawn out like it’s air and he’s breathing it out. His shoulders begin to shudder, and I feel a burst of heat rush through me, and I hear his voice in my head, telling me that he has fought for me, that the fight was all he knew, and I shake beneath him, the earthquake around my heart exploding as I come between us, my hands like claws on his back, my eyes rolling back into my head.

  I can’t lose this, I think wildly. I can’t lose him. I won’t survive. I’ll be nothing.

  As he collapses on top of me, that weight so comforting, I know that problems have not been solved. I know that there are still issues there, and that they are mostly my own. But there is a moment that none of that matters, that all I care about is his heart against mine, his breath against my neck, his mouth leaving trails of slow kisses around my throat. All that matters is the look in his eyes when he props himself up on his elbow to look down at me, that grin flashing as the weak dawn light starts to glow through the window. He tells me he’s not leaving ever again. He tells me I’m all he’s ever wanted. He tells me he loves me. But I can see something behind his eyes that’s almost like fear, that knowing look that he’s not so successful in covering up, that he believes every single thing he’s said, that while he does not doubt me, he might just doubt himself. Like he thinks he might not be good enough for me.

  And that terrifies me.

  I stroke his hair, and I tell myself to believe him, if just to ease his mind.

  It almost works.

  ANNA is waiting for me in the quad of Oceanside Community College, a small smile on her face as she watches me drag my feet toward her like I’m on some kind of death march. Which is really what it feels like, having to go back to school after three years. I have a backpack, for Christ’s sake, filled with notebooks and pencils and textbooks that cost way more than they should have (seriously, you should have seen the look on my face when four books rang up at over four hundred dollars. Otter told me later that you would have thought they were asking me to set a baby seal on fire with a flamethrower. Try to get that image out of your head. I dare you. Ty sure couldn’t, let me tell you). The Kid wanted me to buy a backpack with Anderson Cooper’s face on it. I told him they didn’t make backpacks like that, but I could get one with Transformers on it, a little Optimus Prime action going on. He asked me to remind him again of my age. I advised him that I was twenty-one. He asked if I thought one day I would act like it. I responded that everyone likes Transformers. He told me that Anderson Cooper was more of an American institution than Transformers were. I told him nobody cared about Anderson Cooper except his mother and his secret pseudo boyfriend. The Kid told me God would strike me down for my blasphemy.

  We then went online to see if they did make Anderson Cooper backpacks, because the Kid didn’t believe me, stating that a man revered like Anderson Cooper had to have his face on a backpack. Unsurprisingly, such a thing did not exist, at least that we were able to find, and that was by the time we had clicked on the two hundredth Google search page (that was three hours I’m never getting back). The Kid lamented on such an untapped market and immediately set out to write up a business plan for a line of Anderson Cooper products (coasters, coffee mugs, golf balls, ride-on lawn mowers—trust me, it only got weirder from there. Does anyone actually need an Anderson Cooper Crock-Pot?). I told him that was slightly stalkerish and that he should dial it back a little. He told me it was only stalkerish if he went over to his house and went through his sock drawer.

  And besides, he said, he didn’t even know where the Coopers lived. It probably would be too hard to find, so there was no point in looking. Maybe we could find it on Google?

  Turns out his address is unlisted. Darn.

  So we bought a Transformers backpack instead. The Kid told me I was going to get made fun of. I told him I was going to be the coolest guy in college. He said that apparently the definition of “cool” had changed in the years since I’d last been in school. I told him that rhymed. Otter told us both to knock it off because he was getting a headache. The Kid said, “That’s what she said,” which of course led us on the tangent to verify if he knew what that meant. It turns out he did not, and we were forced to explain what it meant. He had laughed his little head off when he understood and that put the fear of God in me, wondering if we should have kept our mouths shut.

  Way too many scenarios ran through my head of what I had just armed the Kid with. For example (as read from an inevitable court transcript): Judge Waldorf: “And you have all the petition paperwork in line?”

  Attorney Erica Sharp: “Yes, Judge. Everything should be there as you requested.”

  Judge Waldorf: “It appears it is. Well, let’s not make this harder than it already is.”

  Tyson McKenna: “That’s what she said, Judge.”

  Judge Waldorf: “What? Custody denied! Send Derrick McKenna to the gas chamber!”

  Derrick McKenna: “No! I don’t want to die! I have so much to live for!”

  Tyson McKenna: “He wouldn’t even get me an Anderson Cooper backpack!”

  Judge Waldorf: “The travesty! And what were his reasons?”

  Derrick McKenna: “They don’t exist! I can’t buy things that don’t exist!”

  Tyson McKenna: “It wouldn’t have been that hard to make one! Now I have to do it by myself with my own two hands!”

  Judge Waldorf: “That’s what she said.”

  Attorney Erica Sharp: “Zing!”

  Don’t give me that look. You know it could happen. I’m sure people have been sentenced to die for less.

  But now I am walking out toward Anna, realizing I am twenty-one years old and wearing a Transformers backpack on my first day of community college. I don’t think it’s that cool anymore, especially when Anna chuckles at me as I sit down next to her.

  “Hey,” she says.

  “Hey, yourself,” I say back.

  “So. Really?” she asks. “Do you take this with you when you go on sleepovers too?”

  “Har, har. Don’t be jealous.”

  “I don’t think jealous is the right word for what I’m feeling right now.”

  “Bloated?”

  She slaps me across the arm as she scowls. “Just because you like boys now doesn’t give you the right to be mean to girls.”

  “According to you, I’ve always liked boys. This isn’t something new.”

  Wow. That’s out before I can stop it.

  Who knew you would make things awkward with your ex-girlfriend? it whispers. I’m soooooo surprised! But just think! This could be the first step toward your new relationship with her in which you’ll be BFFs, and you can call her when you want a girls’ night out! You’ll sit around drinking wine coolers and talking about the men in your lives. O…
M… G!

  Her eyes widen subtly, and the barest smile forms on her face, and it almost reaches her eyes. She did not expect my boldness, no matter how accidental it was. This would not have happened a month ago. I was so wrapped up in my own deceit that busting down that closet door would have been impossible. I remember that sunny afternoon, lying in Otter’s bed before the shit hit the fan, telling him I wanted to tell his brother about us, about me. Anna would have followed that, I’m sure. And knowing now what I know about the two of them, it would not have been a secret for much longer. But there is a difference between pushing and pulling, and even when everything was out in the open, I was still petrified about what they would think. It’s gotten better, but there’s still a ways to go.

  “Not boys,” she says quietly. “Otter. There’s a difference. You probably have never even looked at another man.”

  David Trent, but let’s so not go there. “Is it always going to be weird between us?” I ask her. “Is there always going to be this little strangeness about the two of us?”

  She cocks her head at me. “The fact that you left me for a guy or that I’m now sleeping with his brother, your best friend?”

  I wince. “I really could do without that thought.”

  “Really? How do you think I feel? What was it you whispered to Creed that day you told us about you two? You said that it was you that… you know.” She flushes, and this causes my own face to burn.

  “Not all the time,” I say, trying to cover it up, distracted by my embarrassment. “Usually, he does me.”

  Ah, shit.

  She coughs, but chokes on the air rushing out of her mouth and starts hacking up a lung. I slap her on the back a few times as she bends over and puts her head between her knees, looking around to make sure nobody’s watching my dying ex-girlfriend, or myself, an apparent bottom bitch with a Transformers backpack. No one seems to notice us, which is great because I think Anna might actually hork up a lung, something I really don’t want to see. Either she’s overreacting or I just overshared. It’s not really hard to think about which one is right.