by T. J. Klune
Claws out, bitches, it whispers.
Indeed.
I reach over and take Otter’s hand in my own, feeling that big paw of his, rough against my palm and fingers. His hand is warm, familiar. “Whatever we do,” I say quietly, “we do together, right?”
He grins. Fuck, is it ever beautiful. “Together,” he says, getting all gooey on me again. For some reason, those moments make him the happiest, and I’ll be damned if my heart doesn’t start jackrabbiting in my chest. He leans over and brushes a kiss across my lips.
“Do you guys need a moment?” the Kid asks wickedly. “I won’t say anything when I go inside, but if Mrs. Paquinn is here already, then I’m sure she’ll know right away what you two are doing and will accidentally tell everyone on purpose.” He’s right, it’s now or never.
Famous last words.
OTTER doesn’t bother knocking on the door, just grabbing the handle and swinging it wide open. I can hear a burst of laughter come from the kitchen, loud and bright, and it causes a stirring in the pit of my stomach. Creed.
To be honest, I don’t know where we left things. From the moment he found out about me and Otter, he seemed to have my back, pushing me to get back with his brother after the disaster that was me making my own decisions. But then something changed that day in my apartment, when Anna had told me about her and him. Something had gotten off its track, and I didn’t know how to fix it. It probably doesn’t help that I’m the king of putting things off, only responding to a text or two of his over the past few weeks, after he’d gone back to Arizona. I don’t know what his problem is. Or, rather, I wonder if his problem is me. It didn’t help that apparently he hadn’t called and told me he was coming back into town. I was the one who always picked him up from the airport. No matter what else, it was always him and me, those sixty miles between Seafare and Portland our chance to have it be like it used to be. Anna probably picked him up this time.
That hurts more than I like to think about.
I’m walking slower than I should be, and Otter and the Kid know this, taking tiny steps while I shuffle my feet, walking past the pictures on the wall, in this hallway, in this house where everything had changed for me last summer, where things had changed for all of us. I sometimes wonder if houses can have memories, the sounds of life around and in it leaching into the wood and plaster, the brick and tile. What would this house say? It’s such a trivial thought, so obviously outside the lines of reality, but I can’t help but think what these walls could tell us, what they could show me.
I don’t know. I’m thinking stupid things. Who philosophizes about houses?
Ugh.
I’m stalling and I know it.
We round the corner into the kitchen, and for a moment things get brighter and louder, the people before us animated and smiling. Alice Thompson is rolling her green eyes at her husband, the look that says You’re full of shit but I still love you. Her blonde air is pulled back into a ponytail, her jawline angular and gorgeous. Jerry Thompson grins down at her from his towering height, and he looks so much like Otter that it chills me to the bone. His smile is crooked, the same lines forming around his eyes, although more pronounced. He reaches down and pecks his wife on the lips and mumbles something that causes her to laugh. She smacks him on the arm with the dish towel she holds in her hands. They both have always been affectionate, never worrying about showing how they felt about each other, for as long as I can remember. This was a house that felt like a home when mine felt like a prison. And while Creed and Otter both helped to make it so, their parents were the ones that allowed it, encouraged it. They were the ones I showed my report cards to, the ones who took me out and bought me clothes so I would have something to wear for my first day of junior high. They were the ones who fed me, took me on family trips, made sure my birthday was celebrated when my mother was locked in her room with a carton of Marlboro Reds and a plastic bottle of cheap whiskey.
Fuck.
Anna Grant is standing next to Creed, looking down into a cookbook, pointing something out with a slender finger. They aren’t touching, but they are so close that their shoulders brush every now and then. Creed says something to her quietly, and I can see her flush slightly, running her left hand through her hair, something she only does when she’s pleased but doesn’t want to show it. I want to know what Creed has said to her to make her look like that, and I curse myself softly. It’s none of my business. Not anymore. And I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t.
Right?
But it’s the last person in the room who sees us first, and she rises from her chair with an unladylike grunt, her knees popping as she grimaces. “It’s about time you guys got here,” Mrs. Paquinn says cheerfully. “I was beginning to wonder if maybe you guys had been kidnapped by Bigfoot. Apparently, he’s been sighted twenty miles north of here.”
Oh, Mrs. Paquinn.
Tyson runs over to her and wraps his arms around her waist, and she smiles down at him as she strokes his hair with a slightly gnarled hand. “There’s no such thing as Bigfoot,” he says to her. “Right?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t speculate one way or another,” she says amicably. “I would tell you that my Joseph, God love him, saw him at least six or seven times out there in the woods when he was logging, but it may have just been a forest gorilla. It’s very easy to get the two confused, I would think, especially if the boys had had their afternoon beer as they were prone to do.”
“There’s no gorillas in the forest, Mrs. Paquinn,” he says, rolling his eyes.
“Have you ever seen one?”
“No. Duh.”
“Well, then, you can’t say they are not there,” she says definitively. “I should think there are probably whole bands of them somewhere out there, but I can’t say for sure, because I am not an expert on the matter.”
“You’ve been watching the animal channel again, haven’t you?”
“Three hours every day,” she agrees. “Next week, they are doing shows on giraffes, and I am quite certain there are some living with the gorillas. But again, they all might just be Bigfoot, so I guess we’ll never know for sure.”
I want to continue listening to them go on and on (and on and on) because I am pretty sure Mrs. Paquinn thinks that Oregon is in Africa, but I’m distracted when Jerry and Alice walk over to me and Otter, who, for some reason, has positioned himself slightly in front of me, as if he’s trying to block me. Or protect me. Most might not see in him what I do, but I can see his shoulders are slightly tensed, the way his arms are stiff at his sides. I don’t know what the big guy thinks his parents are going to do to me, but I can’t help being touched by his misguided attempt at guarding me from the Big Bad Jerry and Alice. Jesus, I am getting soft.
His mother reaches him first and reaches up, wrapping her arms around his neck. He bends stiffly down, his arms staying at his sides. What the hell is he doing? God, can he make it any more obvious? Alice notices something is off and glances at me over his shoulder, her eyes missing the gold but still familiar. She looks puzzled and asks me a question without speaking, but I school my face and don’t say anything.
“When did you get home?” she asks as she lets him go. His father reaches out to shake his hand. I think for a moment Otter will make it more awkward, but he reaches up and grabs his father’s hand, shaking it twice before dropping it back to his side. “Are you back in Seafare for good?”
“Creed didn’t say anything to you?” he asks her warily. Where the fuck did confident Otter go? I think back over the past couple of days, wanting to see if I’d missed something, maybe something he’d said, something he’d done to show me that he was as worried about tonight as I am. I realize a little too late how selfish I’d been, yet again. He hadn’t said a damn thing. He didn’t want to put any more stress on me. I don’t know how I know this, I just do. I really need to start working better at this whole relationship-with-a-guy thing.
His dad shakes his head. “He said we’d need to wait and hear thing
s from you.” Jerry turns to me and grins. “And how are you, Bear?” he asks, reaching out his hand. I shake it, like Otter had done.
“I’m fine,” I say, making my voice sound stronger than I feel. Otter needs to know I’m okay so I can make him okay. “It’s good to see you both.” I laugh quietly when Alice wraps her arms around me, like I knew she’d do. “How was… wherever you guys were?”
Alice pulls away from me, eyes shining. “Oh, Bear, it was absolutely magnificent! We have so many pictures to show you later. But that’s not important right now. Jerry and I simply need to hear about you and the Kid. What’s going on with the custody hearings? Is there anything we can do to help?”
I blush slightly at this, feeling that old rush of pride that does me no good. After the mess I’d made in August, I decided I needed to work out something to make sure nothing like my mother coming back and threatening to take Tyson could ever happen again. Mrs. Paquinn had offered to get us in touch with a lawyer who practiced family law, but it was Creed who’d e-mailed his parents to front the money. I’d written them an e-mail to let them know how much it meant to me (probably sounding like a blubbering moron and only realizing later that I’d typed everything in all caps, like I was shrieking my gratitude), but I hadn’t actually gotten to thank them personally.
“You both know what you did for me and Ty,” I tell them quietly. “I don’t think anyone could have done more. Because of you guys, chances are good that Ty will belong to me.”
Alice hugs me again, tears in her eyes. Ah, dammit. This had so better not be one of those nights when everyone starts crying around me and we all have to talk about our feelings. I totally put an embargo on all of that for the rest of the year. I hope they got the memo.
“Anything you need,” she whispers fiercely. “We’ll do anything you need us to. I’m just surprised that this came up all of a sudden. What made you decide to get custody of Ty?”
God, she doesn’t know anything. I look over her shoulder at Otter helplessly, and he reaches up to gently extract his mother’s arms from around my neck. “That’s a long story,” he tells her. “One that I don’t think we need to rehash right this second.” He gives a pointed glance at Ty, who’s still chattering away with Mrs. Paquinn, and his mother’s eyes widen for a moment, and she nods.
“Well, we’ll have plenty of time to catch up,” she tells us. The timer goes off on the oven, and she turns back into the kitchen. “Kid,” she says as she reaches for an oven mitt, “you’re going to just love what I’ve made for you.” Ah, crap. I should have realized before coming here that Alice Thompson is a firm believer that one should have to eat whatever everyone else is eating, and if the Kid’s along, that means it’s going to be something vegetarian. And probably gross. None of us have the heart to tell her that her cooking is not one of her best skills.
“I’ve got pizza on speed dial,” Jerry mumbles to me and Otter.
“What is it?” the Kid asks, running over to stand beside her as she pulls something large and brown and evil out of the oven.
“Well, you know how I made tofurky that one year?” Ugh, don’t remind me. I had the shits for a week. And don’t look at me like that. You would have too. “Well,” she says, flourishing her hands over the pan of lumpy weirdness. “I found a recipe for tofu meatloaf. I call it tofeatloaf.”
Shoot me now, please.
The Kid does his best to look suitably impressed, but I can tell he’s mulling the name of the new confection over in his mind, just like I am. I love Alice Thompson to death, don’t get me wrong. I’ve told you that she was a mother to me when my own didn’t know how to be. But there is no way on God’s green earth that I am going to eat something that has the word “feat” in the middle (work with me here: “feat” turns into “feet,” and now all I can picture is cutting down into the middle of the brown blob and seeing toes sticking out. Don’t tell me you didn’t think the same thing.). The Kid tells Alice that it looks amazing, but he also sounds amazingly facetious (ha!). Alice, of course, notices none of this and smiles down at the Kid like he’d just told her that Martha Stewart committed suicide because there was no way she could compete with toe-loaf.
“You have to take the first bite,” Otter whispers to me, his breath ghosting over my ear. I try not to shiver at it. I almost succeed.
“Not hardly,” I whisper back. “It’s your mom. If you don’t, I’ll tell her that we moved into a house together and that we have sex even though we’re not even married.” Those words come out before I can stop them, and I try to ignore the startled look on Otter’s face that suddenly morphs into the biggest shit-eating grin I’ve ever seen on him. I’ve got to stop speaking before I think.
“Promise?” he growls, dropping his voice an octave or two, knowing exactly what kind of effect it has on me.
I shiver again. He notices, and his hand, hidden behind me, brushes slightly against my ass. I don’t even jump or scowl at him. Odd.
“The tofeatloaf will need a moment to settle,” Alice announces with a frown, poking it with a finger. I almost expect it to reach out and poke her back. Or bite her arm off. “Dear, will you help me set the table?”
Jerry moves away from me and Otter and obliges his wife without another word. Before I can turn and say anything to Otter (Mexico!), Anna and Creed stand before us, looking terrifyingly united in their matching expressions of resolve. I stare back at them, waiting for one of them to make the first move. There seems to be such a rift between the four of us, and I don’t know what to do to fix it. I think about opening my mouth just for shits and giggles to see what comes out, but Creed beats me to it. Damn him.
“We’ll be right back, Mom,” he calls out over his shoulder. “We’ve got to talk to Bear and Otter for a moment.” She waves her hand in an easy dismissal.
Neat.
Creed grabs me by the arm and pulls me none too gently out of the kitchen, leaving Anna and Otter to follow. I catch the Kid’s eyes, who’s looking at me like he’s about to go on the attack, but I shake my head just once, and he settles, his gaze following me out of the room.
I’M GOING to be upfront with you, probably a little more than I’ve been since we started talking again. It’s not like I’m trying to hide things, but I can’t see how this conversation is going to go without you figuring out just how fucking miserable I am about this whole situation with Creed. I’ve had a problem with honesty for quite a while, but obviously not because I enjoy it. I couldn’t (and still kind of don’t) stand the thought of those around me thinking less of me, that I’d disappointed them somehow with the choices I’ve made. It’s not fair, I know, that I keep talking bullshit when it could be so easy to have everything out in the open, consequences be damned.
But fuck that. I think about the consequences incessantly. I worry over them to a point that it’s almost paralyzing, and the only thing I can do is freak out about what the hell is going to happen next. You don’t need to tell me this because I already know it. Consider it one of my defining traits, no matter how ridiculous it is. I don’t know if we could have lived through the fallout if I hadn’t second-guessed everything I thought to be true. It’s not easy when your view of the world has so completely shifted that it’s barely recognizable.
And now that it seems to be shifting to some normalcy (there’s that word again, normal) there are still things tugging at it, pulling it out of whack. And while it can’t all rest on him, the biggest part of it is Creed.
Otter had tried to talk to me about him, although not on Creed’s behalf. We’d both agreed that Creed wasn’t a homophobe, but that was as far as we could get. As much as I love him, Otter just can’t understand what it is I have with his brother. Sure, they are actually brothers, but it’s not the same, at least in my eyes. Otter and Anna had been there almost as long as Creed had been, and even though I’d started out loving one and then the other, Creed was there no matter what, and through all the shit, he remained my constant in this world. I’m an ass, I know,
for thinking that not having Anna around is easier for me than not having Creed around. I can only say this because it’s true. I love her, and I think part of me always will, but I need him. I need him in my corner. I need to know I can pick up the phone and call him and talk about whatever just because we can.
I know, I know: I, I, I. Same old shit, right?
But I don’t know how to fix it because I don’t know what the fuck is wrong. Is it because I lied to him about Otter and me? Is it really about the fact that there is an Otter and me? Or is it something as simple as a combination of all the shit I’ve put him through for the last three years? I leaned on him so much. Probably too much. Just because I had to deal with her leaving doesn’t mean he had to.
But he did. And that’s why I’ve got to fix this. I can’t have this go on anymore. I have to get my best friend back.
WHICH is what I want to say. But when I open my mouth, what comes out when we reach the back patio and they turn to face me is, “Are you guys still messing around? Or whatever?”
My brain is broken and I missed the recall order.
There’s a beat of silence where everyone feels embarrassed for me, but they are used to me by now not thinking before I speak, so I’m almost relieved when they let my rudeness slide.
“We’re taking it as it goes,” Anna tells me softly. They stand close to each other again, and Otter stands in my space, and I almost wonder if it’s us versus them, and I can’t stop myself from thinking about the last time I’d actually felt like that, when Creed had—
does anna know why otter left to begin with
—felt the need to cut me out, where he’d retaliated in the only way he knew how. I know I’d backed him into a corner—
that’s the real reason otter left
—and it was no fault but my own, but I can’t stop the bitterness from welling in me, that he’d seem to give up on me so easily because—
