by T. J. Klune
I wondered if Miz Erica Sharp of Weiss, Goldstein, and Eddington had a gun in her desk that she would have been willing to let me borrow it so I could put myself out of my misery.
“Threatened?” Erica asked, the smile in her voice gone.
“Uh, yeah. You could say that.”
She leaned forward again and frowned. “Bear, she either did or she didn’t. What did she threaten you with?”
I was silent. I didn’t know what I was going to say to this person who, till roughly twenty minutes before, had been a complete stranger. It took me months to tell the closest people in my life, and I had to just spill it out to this woman who was looking at me like I was some new species of bug? I was silent. Silent, that is, until the Kid got up from his seat and walked around my chair, pushing my arms out of my lap, and crawled up onto me and leaned in to whisper, “Papa Bear. I need you to do this. Otter needs you to do this.”
I dare you to try and fight those sweet, sweet words.
I looked over the Kid’s shoulder at Erica as I wrapped my arms around him. Her eyes softened, and she watched us closely. “She threatened to take the Kid away if I didn’t break up with my boyfriend.”
“And what did you do?” Erica asked, her voice flat.
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I broke up with my boyfriend.”
“I see. And how did your boyfriend react to all of this?”
“I, uh. I didn’t tell him it was because of her.”
She snorted. “I take it that it didn’t go well?”
“That’s an understatement,” Creed muttered.
“You’ll have to forgive Creed,” Mrs. Paquinn said. “Bear’s boyfriend is his brother.”
Erica stared at us. “I see.”
“And Anna is Bear’s ex-girlfriend,” Creed said.
“And Creed is Bear’s best friend,” Anna explained.
“And I’m Mrs. Paquinn,” Mrs. Paquinn exclaimed triumphantly.
“This is for Otter as much as it is for me,” the Kid said.
“Otter?” Erica asked.
“Bear’s boyfriend, Creed’s brother,” Mrs. Paquinn said patiently.
“Bear and Otter?” Erica asked. To her credit, she didn’t look confused at all.
“Bear and Otter,” everyone agreed.
“And why is this for him as much as for Tyson?”
“Because Bear’s got it in his head that he can’t get Otter back until the Kid is safe,” Creed said.
“And Bear, ever the idiot, shouldn’t have even broken up with him in the first place. At least not without explaining what was really going on,” Anna said. Then she added, “I should know. We broke up because he couldn’t tell me he was in love with Otter.”
“We did not,” I growled. “We broke up because I lied to you.”
“About being in love with Otter,” Anna, Creed, Mrs. Paquinn, and the Kid all said.
“This situation’s not as complicated as it sounds,” I said to Erica, who was still staring.
The Kid laughed. “No, it’s a lot worse. Bear and Otter are meant to be together, but Bear won’t do anything about it until he makes sure that our mom won’t take me away.”
“Which is why we’re here now,” Mrs. Paquinn finished.
We all looked expectantly at Miz Sharp.
“So let me get this straight,” she said, to which of course Creed and the Kid started snickering. I glared at both of them and saw that Mrs. Paquinn was giggling too. “Not only are you trying to get custody of your little brother, but this whole thing will decide whether or not you get back together with someone you obviously love, but who you lied to when you broke up with him, and you have the complete support of his brother, your ex-girlfriend, and your little brother, whom you are trying to gain legal custody of?”
“And Mrs. Paquinn,” said Mrs. Paquinn, to which we all agreed.
“That sounds about right,” I said to Erica.
“And were you dating Otter before your mother left?”
I shook my head. “This is kind of a recent thing.”
The peanut gallery chuckled, but no one spoke.
Erica frowned and rubbed her hands together. “So you’re saying you recently started dating Otter, and your mother all of a sudden comes out of nowhere and tells you to break up with him? How did she know about your relationship?”
Tell him to go back to San Diego, she’d said to me. I remembered feeling a chill go down my spine at her words. But with everything that had happened after, I’d forgotten. How had she known all of this? “I don’t know,” I told Erica, hearing a high-pitched whine buzzing in my ears.
“And she said all she wanted was for you to break up with Otter, and then she left?”
I nodded, realizing only then how stupid that sounded.
Erica sighed, seemingly realizing that as well. “Well, it sounds like she’s up to something, but I don’t want to speculate. For all we know, she could have come back to do exactly what she did, to break you and your boyfriend up, maybe trying to assert that she still had some control of your life. Maybe she hired a private investigator to check into you and Otter. Have you seen anyone around lately that you haven’t seen before?”
I shook my head, and she looked beyond me to the audience. I turned, and they were all shaking their heads as well. I tried not to show anything on my face, but Erica’s words bothered me greatly. Why had Mom come back? What did she want? Was there someone following us around? That creeped me out more than the unknown plans of my mother. She might not have necessarily known when she came that Otter and I were together, but his presence at our house and his protection over the Kid and me could have spelled it out for her, even if the Kid hadn’t said anything.
Erica shrugged. “I’m sure this will all come out in the open shortly. There already seems to be a few questions I’d like to ask your mother if I get the opportunity.”
Her and me both.
She looked me in the eye. “If this works, and if you get custody of Tyson, are you going to stick by them? Tyson and Otter?”
“I have to,” I said quietly. “They’re all I have.”
She surprised us all by laughing. She stood and reached out to take my hand, jostling the Kid around in my arms. “Well, Derrick and Tyson, I will be happy to represent you. I’ll warn you now: this is going to be a tough road to travel, and there are going to be some hard decisions to be made. Your lives will be scrutinized like never before and will be for a long time to come. Your mother may have motives that we don’t yet know about. And Bear, your sexuality will most likely be brought up as well, but I believe that we have a fighting chance with this. And what’s better is that you believe it. Now, I need you to fill out a whole shitload of paperwork, and I will explain what it means to be considered a guardian ad litem and when we can expect to get into court.” She stopped for a moment, and looked down at us. “Are you ready to do this?”
The Kid smiled up at me. I felt the strong support at my back.
How in God’s name could I say no?
“WHAT do you mean you’re not coming?” Creed yelled over the phone. “This party’s going to be huge!”
It was three days after our meeting with the lawyer, and I had been dreading this very phone call ever since I decided I wouldn’t be going to Creed’s party. I didn’t want the first time I saw Otter again to be in the middle of a hundred drunken college kids. I told Creed as much.
He sighed. “You could come over early and talk to him. I still don’t know why you’re prolonging this any further.” He paused, then said, “You’re not thinking about backing out, are you?”
“No!” I snapped. “How the fuck could you even ask me that? Have you not been paying attention for the last four days?”
“I have been,” he retorted. “All I seem to remember is Otter this, and Otter that. ‘I love Otter so much that I say things and make all my friends cry.’”
“It’s not my fault you’re emotionally sensitive,” I grumbled at him.
; “Ass,” he said fondly. “Well, then, when? You’re not going to wait the entire time it takes for this custody thing to go through, are you?”
“I considered it,” I admitted. “But Erica said it can take months, and I can’t wait that long. It’s not fair to him.”
“So, then just come over now and tell him before the damn party!”
I could, I thought. It would be so easy for me to hop in my car and drive over to the house and let this whole stupid thing be put behind us, and then we can fuck and laugh and cry, and he can tell me he loves me, and then we will go downstairs and get drunk and then go back upstairs again, and I will show him just how sorry I really am.
It was a seductive thought, really. But I never would have gotten to be where I was (both good and bad) if I hadn’t been as stubborn as I’ve proven myself to be. I wanted to be honest with Creed and tell him that the real reason was that I was petrified of seeing Otter. The thought of facing him after the things I said made my stomach turn, so it had been easier just to say that I would worry about it tomorrow. He never left my head, however, so it made this self-imposed banishment that much harder. But I couldn’t get the words to come out.
“When, Bear?” Creed insisted.
Fuck it. “Tomorrow, then,” I relented. I pulled the phone away from my ear, Creed joyfully shouting through the receiver.
“And then everything can be back to normal,” he said happily.
I snorted. “Back to normal? You had no idea what was going on, so how could it be back to normal?”
“Don’t be difficult just because you can be,” Creed growled. “It’s really unattractive. Maybe I’ll just go tell Otter myself right now so he knows what he can expect tomorrow.”
I panicked. “You wouldn’t dare.”
He laughed wickedly. “I so would.”
“I told you I would do it tomorrow!”
He laughed. “Should I make plans, then? So you guys can… reconnect?” he asked, his last word coming out low and husky and breathy.
I rolled my eyes. “Well, I would say yes, you shouldn’t be there, but past experience dictates that Anna, Mrs. Paquinn, the Kid, and you will all be there to show your support, so it really doesn’t matter what I say.”
“God, you have a great family,” he said smugly.
“Yeah, yeah. I know.”
“Sure I can’t convince you?”
I sighed. “Not tonight. I’ll take it easy with the Kid tonight and come over in the morning. I’ll call you before I head out.”
“Okay, and uh.”
“What?”
He hesitated. Then, “When you’re done talking or whatever to Otter, there’s something I need to talk to you about too.”
I groaned. “You’re not going to tell me you have a boyfriend too, are you?”
He laughed, but I noticed it sounded uneasy. “No, Jesus. Just because the two main dudes in my life went dark side doesn’t mean I have to. Stop with your gay-conversion agenda.”
“We’re your main dudes? What are you, fifteen?”
“Shut it, Papa Bear.”
I was curious. “Is everything okay? Nothing bad happened or anything?”
“No, everything’s fine,” he replied quickly.
“Then why don’t you just tell me now?”
“Are you going to come over and talk to Otter now?”
“Har, har. I don’t need to know that badly, not if it’s not life-threatening.”
“It’s not.”
“So, tomorrow, then?”
“Tomorrow,” he agreed. “And, Bear?”
“Yeah?”
“You know that everything is going to be okay, right?”
I thought for a moment. “I think I do,” I said slowly. “It may take a while, but it looks like it’s going that way, huh?”
“Whatever it takes, man. You know?”
“I do. Creed, I don’t think I’ve said thank you for having your parents pay for the law—”
“You don’t have to,” he interrupted, his voice gruff. I wished I could have seen his face. “You just ask, and you know I’ll do whatever I can for you.”
“I know,” I said quietly.
“Later, Papa Bear.”
The next time I spoke to him, he was panicking.
THE Kid didn’t like that I was staying home but grudgingly agreed with my reasons to do so. He forgot his frustrations when I told him I would be going over to see Otter tomorrow to try and get everything back. He jumped into my lap and babbled happily into my ear.
I decided to make him whatever he wanted for dinner, and he went online and found a gross-looking vegetarian thing that appeared to have been scraped from the underside of a wet log. I told him we didn’t have any of the ingredients for that. He told me that’s why God invented grocery stores. I told him God didn’t invent grocery stores. He told me that I had no proof of this, and wouldn’t I feel stupid when I died and went to heaven and saw God’s Food Mart? I told him that was a dumb name for a grocery store. He told me that I couldn’t do any better. I told him God’s grocery store was named God’s Amazing Food Emporium and that they had weekly specials on the Body Of Christ Sourdough bread loaves. He told me I was sacrilegious. I told him we weren’t any kind of religious.
We had just left the apartment to head to the store when Mrs. Paquinn stuck her head out. “I’ll watch the Kid tomorrow when you go over to Otter’s. Should we say around nine?”
I stared at her. “How did you—goddammit, did Creed call you already?”
“Don’t be difficult, Bear. It’s unattractive.”
My eyes narrowed. “You did talk to Creed.”
She smiled. “Tomorrow? Around nine.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, that should be fine. Do you want to come over for dinner?”
“No, thank you. I need to get to bed early so I can make sure I am up and prepared to watch Tyson. At nine.”
“I got it, Mrs. Paquinn. I got it.”
WE GOT to my work, and I let the Kid go with a list while I went to the office to check the schedule for the coming week. I was off tomorrow and didn’t have to be in till the afternoon of the day after. That was good. It either left me with enough time to grovel on my knees for forgiveness from Otter, which would hopefully lead to me needing to be on my knees for other reasons, or it would give me enough time to find the nearest bridge to jump off of when he rejected me.
It has to work, I thought.
“So I’ll be over about eight forty-five tomorrow morning,” Anna said, startling me. I hadn’t heard her approach. I watched her swipe her time sheet as she clocked out.
“Tomorrow?” I asked, confused.
“Well, Mrs. Paquinn said that she’s watching the Kid, and Creed says you’re going over in the morning, so I figured I can drop you off and pick up Creed.”
Jesus Christ. “I just had these conversations. How the hell did you find out already?” I groaned.
She smiled and shrugged. “Creed called me, and then I called Mrs. Paquinn. It’s really not that hard of a concept, Bear.”
“Well, I’m so glad you all are taking such an active interest in this,” I groused.
She flipped her hair. “Well, it does kind of affect all of us, you know,” she pointed out.
I didn’t know. “How do you figure?” I asked, the sarcasm evident in my voice.
Her eyes flashed. “Don’t be difficult, Bear. It’s really—”
“Unattractive. I know, I know.”
She smiled thinly. “Be ready to go when I get there, no excuses, no delays. Got it?” Her face scrunched up. “Maybe you should get a haircut before you go, so Otter doesn’t think he’s agreeing to love a homeless person.”
I fought back everything I really wanted to stay. That was a battle almost lost. I nodded instead.
“Good, now I have to run and help Creed finish setting up. What time tomorrow, Bear?”
“Eight forty-five.”
She smiled and walked away.
Nosy, nosy people.
THE Kid enjoyed dinner, saying that it turned out great. I said it tasted like sawdust, so I put ketchup and bacon bits on mine. The Kid told me that he thought gay people were supposed to be classy, but then he looked me up and down and said that even nice stereotypes can be a detriment to society because I obviously wasn’t classy. I threatened to put bacon bits in everything I cooked him from now on. The Kid said he wanted to move back with his mom. I told him that wasn’t funny. He grinned and said, “One day, it will be.”
I should have realized that something was going to happen. There always seems to be one final thing that occurs before the Hero of a story gets his happy ending. I thought that final thing had already happened, what with my misinformed decision to end things and the fact that I’d learned A Very Valuable Lesson. That’s how stories go, isn’t it? Our Hero makes a big mistake, and in doing so, learns something important that changes the way he views the world. And with that Very Valuable Lesson learned, he gets to go back and right all of his wrongs, and then he and the man of his dreams will get to fuck like monkeys as the sun sets. That’s how these things always work. Regardless of how scared I was, regardless of how I thought the conversation would go, I didn’t doubt that Otter would at least try to hear me out. He’s so much better than me in that regard. I knew that even if the outcome wasn’t what I wanted, even if I didn’t get my happy ending, it wouldn’t be because he wouldn’t listen.
The night was normal. We had dinner. We watched TV. We talked, laughed, bickered affectionately. As always, the Kid’s eyes drooped, and his head starting nodding to the side, and even though he said he wasn’t tired, I still picked him up. We brushed our teeth. I got him into his PJs. He got into bed, the covers up to his chin. We talked some more, things that I think will stay just between us, between brothers. He played with my fingers while he spoke, his eyes on mine. Finally, his eyes closed and a little snore erupted from his slack mouth. I bent over and kissed his forehead and closed the door.
I did laundry. I cleaned up the kitchen. I cleaned the bathroom. I watched some more TV. I tried not to think too much about the next day, realizing that I could plan every single word I was going to say, but my mouth would open and run on its own so there really was no point. As long as I could tell him that I loved him, that I would always love him, I think I would have been fine with everything else.