by T. J. Klune
Everyone is still staring at me.
“Bear,” he says quietly, and for some reason, this causes my harpy-like screeching to silence almost immediately. He pushes me back away from him, and I almost whimper at the distance between us, but then he cups my face in his hands, and all the others in the room disappear, fading out until there’s nothing but him, and since he’s all I can see, he looks so big, like he’s everything in the world, and how the hell did I manage to get this? Why in the hell did he choose me? I’ve been nothing but trouble since this whole thing began, caused nothing but heartache and anger, and any countless other negative emotions that I can think of, yet he still stands by me? He still can look at me like he’s doing right now?
Seriously, it whispers. What in God’s name did you do to deserve such blind devotion? Do you feel his hands on your face? That look in his eyes? It isn’t that he’s “like” everything in your world, Bear. He is everything in your world. What have you ever done to deserve that?
It’s right, of course. It always is. Oh, Christ, Otter’s so mistaken, he’s so wro—
“Bear,” he says again, his voice a little stronger, a little louder, knowing he’s got to cut right through the crazy in my mind. “Stop it. Whatever’s going on in that head of yours, you stop it.” His thumb brushes over my lips as my chin trembles in his grasp. “I can see it there, behind your eyes. Just stop.” He leans forward, and in front of his parents, in front of my ex-girlfriend’s parents, in front of my friends and family, in front of God and his forty of Mickey’s, he kisses me softly, chastely, even though the intent behind it is obvious, and it causes me to shudder in his hands.
And wonder of all wonders, I do stop. I do listen. I can’t say no to him. I’ve never been able to, not really. Even when I thought my actions were right, that I was doing the only thing I could, it still came back to him. It always comes back to Otter.
He leans back and practically pulls me into his lap, his arm again around my shoulders. But if feels different than just the moment before. His touch is almost defiant, his posture protective (possessive?). He rests me against his chest and squeezes tighter, and as I look up at him, he looks down at me and grins crookedly. He kisses me on the forehead and looks back up at his parents, at Anna’s parents, and his eyes grow hard, almost a glare, really. And I know now what he’s doing. He’s expecting someone in this room, either set of parents to say something against us, to explode with anger, accusations, and wrath. He thinks he’s protecting me from this, like he’s prepared to fight for me because—
the fight for you is all i’ve ever known
—he thinks it’s his job, his misguided duty. I can’t let him do this alone. I just can’t, but it’s so fucking hard to move from my place against him, because it’s familiar, the feel of him under my hands, the smell that I’ve always associated with him (sandalwood on a quiet beach in the fall with a light drizzle coming down—yes, I’ve overthought that by a mile), and the room is taking on such a bright and spinning hue, and my mouth is just itching to open and spill out more drunken idiocy. It’s because as much as he thinks he needs to protect me, I know I have to do the same for him. If his parents are going to start shit, I need to make sure he knows I’ve got his back and will lash out against any person who attempts to say anything against him. Nobody fucks with Otter, not on my watch.
“So,” the Kid says. “This is way awkward.” He makes an airplane noise as he flies his hand to the table where he mimics an explosion.
“I told you I should have recorded this,” Creed says to Anna. “GayTube’s totally going to be lacking now.”
“Isn’t that a gay-porn site?” Mrs. Paquinn asks. “I should think they wouldn’t take familial coming-out dramas on the site unless it was done in the nude followed by coitus, but I haven’t seen pornography in weeks, so I don’t know what all the rage is these days.”
I almost want to ask how she knows about GayTube, but I can’t seem to bring myself to open my mouth for fear of what kind of answer I’d get. Knowing Mrs. Paquinn, she’d tell us she was studying gay sex so she could provide tips to Otter and me to “bring out the fullness” of our “passion.”
Blech.
“Well, the night is still young,” Anna muses. “Who’s to say there won’t be coitus later on?” I almost want to point out that she’s talking about Otter boning me while sitting next to her mom, but I don’t think that would be in good taste.
“I’m not filming that,” Creed says quickly. “There are things in this world not meant for my eyes. Like ever. Ah, sick, I can’t stop thinking about it!” He rubs his hands over his eyes like he’s trying to scratch his brain.
“What’s coitus?” the Kid demands. “You can’t use words that I don’t know and then not explain them to me. I explain all of the big words I use.”
“What’s the point of using big words if you have to explain them all the time?” Creed asks him. “You would think you would just get tired of having to re-explain everything.”
The Kid rolls his eyes. “It’s not my fault you can’t understand the words I use. Pick up a book every once and while, huh?”
“Like what, the dictionary? A thesaurus?”
“It couldn’t hurt, Creed,” the Kid says. “You would think that after dating Bear, Anna would want someone a little more… verbose. You gotta step up your game.”
“Oooooh,” Mrs. Paquinn and Anna say.
“Oh, snap,” Creed says, sulking. “That burned, Kid.”
“I’m verbose,” I say, scowling at the Kid. Wait. “Verbosal?” I look up at Otter. “Is verbosal even a word?”
Otter shrugs and pats me on the head. “I don’t love you just for your verbosity,” he tells me. Show-off.
“Creed and I are… dating,” Anna tells her parents almost apologetically, who stare at her like she’s grown a second head and it’s singing show tunes.
“It just kinda… happened,” Creed tells his parents, who are looking at him like he’s just told them he’s pregnant with a litter of otter-bears.
“The summer of amore,” Mrs. Paquinn sighs. “Now only if that male nurse will fall in love with me and I can get some coitus of my own. What a dry spell it’s been! But I love my Joseph, God love him. No one could take care of a lady like that man. My goodness! It felt like it could go on for days.”
“What’s coitus!” the Kid snaps.
“It means sex,” Anna says patiently.
The Kid looks dumbfounded. “There’s another word for sex? How many are there? That’s ridiculous!”
“Well, there’s coitus,” Anna says, starting to count off on her fingers.
“And boning,” Creed says. “That’s two.”
“I think verbosal should be a word, if it’s not,” I tell Otter as he kisses my hair. “Doesn’t it sound like it’s a real word? Oh, man, I shouldn’t have drunken all that wine so fast because I can’t stop thinking about it. Drunken? Dranken? Is dranken a word? Like I drank something, why could I have not dranken it down? You can both drunk and have drunken something.”
“Fornicating,” Mrs. Paquinn says. “That’s three.”
“You can make up whatever words you want,” Otter tells me. “Lovemaking,” he says while looking me in the eye.
“Oh, gag,” Creed says. “We’ll count it, even if it’s so incredibly gay that it should come with its own packet of fairy dust that you could sprinkle in the air when you say it. And the fact that my brother is making goo-goo eyes at my best friend, who has snot on his face.” Oh thank God, he still thinks of me as his best friend. I use Otter’s sleeve to wipe my nose. He growls at me.
“Doing the baby-making floor tango,” Mrs. Paquinn says.
“That’s not a real one,” the Kid grumbles. “That just sounds stupid. What about fuc—”
“Not at the table,” Anna admonishes sternly. “Or ever.”
“Yeah, don’t say fucking at the dinner table, Kid,” Creed says. “That’s fucking rude. Fuck.”
An
na kicks him in the shins, and he yelps.
“English is such a weird language,” I say to Otter as he rubs my back. “Sometimes, I don’t know how I learned it.”
“You didn’t,” Mrs. Paquinn, Anna, Creed, and the Kid all say, like they’re on some kind of Vulcan mind-meld.
“Good times sexy party,” Mrs. Paquinn says. “Going downtown and shopping at the meat market. Catching the ol’ kielbasa in the bun. Playing hide the wiener. Raiding the taco shop.”
“I don’t want to play this game anymore,” Creed says, staring at Mrs. Paquinn.
“Coitus,” the Kid practices, rolling the word around on his tongue. “After dinner, why don’t we have some coitus, baby?” He turns to me. “That just doesn’t sound right.”
“On so many levels,” I tell him. “You’ll figure it out. You’re very verbosal.” I reached for the wineglass, but Otter stops me and I pout.
“You’ve dranken enough,” he tells me. “Huh. I don’t know why that’s not a word. It sounds correct.” He kisses me again. “You’re right. English is hard.”
I grin at him.
“You’re dating Creed?” Anna’s dad asks her, his eyes wide.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Creed’s dad scowls. “Creed’s a great guy!”
Creed looks at his dad like he walks on water.
“That’s… that’s not what I meant!” Mr. Grant sputters. “I just don’t understand how Anna made Bear gay!”
Whoops. Wrong thing to say.
“I didn’t make him gay!” Anna shouts.
“Bear was a fruitcake long before Anna!” Creed snarls.
“Anna didn’t do it, I did!” Otter yells.
“Fruitcake!” I bellow.
“Don’t any of you know how biology works!” the Kid shrieks.
“I never studied biology!” Mrs. Paquinn screams.
“Holy God, will all of you shut up!” Alice hollers.
We all look at her.
“Let me get this straight,” she says, and for some reason, that’s funny to most everyone in the room. Apparently that joke won’t die the death it deserves. I try to reach for more wine but Otter slaps my hand. Bastard. “We’re gone for seven months,” Alice continues, “and we come back, and my son has moved back to Seafare, Bear and Anna broke up, Bear and Otter are having… coitus”—dear God, please send meteors to destroy the earth and save me from this conversation—“and now they live together with the Kid, who Bear is trying to adopt, and Anna and my other son are dating?”
“No one ever remembers Mrs. Paquinn,” Mrs. Paquinn grumbles.
Alice stares at her. “And you, what, want to have relations with your male nurse?”
“His name is Jorge,” she sighs, rolling the r for almost ten seconds. “How exotic is that? He’s from Cleveland.”
She looks at her oldest son. “And you’re in love? With Bear?”
Otter nods. “So much so I can’t even explain it.”
Jesus, he’s really looking to get laid tonight.
Mrs. Paquinn sniffs as she dabs her eyes. “That was so precious.”
Alice reaches her conclusion. “This is all your fault,” she says as she glares at her husband.
“My fault?” Jerry snaps. “How the hell is this my fault!”
“I don’t know! But you did something!”
“Why didn’t you tell us you’d broken up?” Mrs. Grant asks Anna.
“Because you would’ve asked why, and Bear wasn’t ready for people to know,” she says, glancing over at me. “I wasn’t going to out him just because I was angry.”
Otter’s staring raptly at Anna, so he doesn’t see me sneak more wine. I need to be way dranker (see? It sounds right!) than I already am. It still doesn’t stop my heart from stuttering in my chest at her words. I don’t know what I’ve ever done to deserve Anna, but I must have done something right.
“And what about you?” Alice asks Creed. “Why are you mad at Bear?”
I drop the wineglass on the table but nobody notices. That’s okay, though. I’ve spilled wine on the undoubtedly expensive white tablecloth. I cough ever so subtly and hide the growing spot with my napkin. No one sees my elaborate cover-up. I’m in the clear.
Creed rolls his eyes. “I’m not mad at Bear,” he grumbles, so obviously lying.
“Bullshit,” Otter barks at him. “You’ve been a dick ever since you found out about us.”
“Oh, all of two weeks ago?” he snaps back.
“It was three weeks ago,” I mumble.
“Fine. Whatever.”
It’s now or never, it whispers. Screw it. You’re drunk, he’s pissed, everyone is listening, why the hell not? They all know everything else, so why not this? Ah, family therapy. Is there any better kind?
“No, not whatever,” I snap back, losing my cool. “What the fuck is your deal? Is it because I kept it from you? Is it because of the way you found out? I know I messed up. I know I fucking lied about so much, but, Jesus, Creed, you just bailed at the end. I know you’re not a homophobe, so what the hell is your problem?”
“Leave it alone, Bear,” Creed hisses at me. “You don’t want to do this now.”
“Then when! You’ve haven’t said a damn thing to me since you left!”
He glares at me. “Oh, and you’ve been so forthcoming? When did you pick up the goddamn phone and call me?”
He’s pissed, probably more pissed than I’ve ever seen him. The anger deflates out of me, and I know I won’t win this fight by yelling. “I just thought you needed time,” I say weakly. “I thought it was just strange for you or something. I figured you would call me when you were ready.”
“That’s what you always do,” he says. “You wait and you wait and you wait, all the while protected in this little bubble you’ve created for yourself and the Kid. You never fucking face things when they need to be dealt with. You tell half truths. You conceal full truths. You let things get so much worse before you realize that maybe you were wrong, that maybe you can admit you made a mistake. Christ, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re the most selfish fucking person on the planet!”
“That’s enough,” Otter snarls at him. “You think it’s been easy for him and the Kid? You’ve had everything you’ve ever wanted handed to you on a silver platter and you have the nerve to sit here and bitch and moan that Bear’s done what he could to protect the things he loves the most? Don’t talk to him about selfish, you prick. If anyone here is selfish, it’s you.”
I can’t let him do this. I can’t let Otter fight this out for me, no matter how much he wants to, no matter how much he thinks he needs to protect me. It sucks. It really sucks, because regardless of what Otter says, regardless of how he tries to spin it, I can’t shake the undeniable truth that Creed is right. I think I’ve told you before that I realized a while ago how many goddamn mistakes I’ve made, how wrong I’ve been in the handling of all this. I thought my reasons were justified (and maybe, on some level, I still think they are—not you, not Creed, not even Otter could convince me I wasn’t acting in the best way I thought possible for the Kid), but there needed to come a point where I just stopped my bullshit. It took everything crumbling around me and that damn ocean, that vast ocean, to be lapping at my feet, that cold breeze blowing through my hair, the only illumination from the lightning flashing overhead. But that ocean is gone (oh, please let it be gone) but there are still earthquakes, times when I think the ground will open me up and swallow me whole. I don’t know if I’ll ever be rid of them.
“Otter,” I say as quietly as I can, but even then knowing our family can hear every word I’m saying. He turns to look at me, and the anger on his face loosens, the gold-green starts peeking in again around the black, and I know he can see me, I know he can hear me. “I love you,” I tell him, ignoring the quiet gasp I hear from his mother. “But you’ve got to let me handle this.” He starts to interrupt, but I shake my head and he closes his mouth. “If I let you fight every battle for me,
it won’t be any better than where I was. You’ve got to let me do this.”
He looks at me like I’ve just said the stupidest thing he’s ever heard, but something in him dissipates, and he sighs, latching himself around me again, his arm around my neck, my back against his chest. “Sometimes,” he whispers in my ear, his voice a growl, “I just want to bend you over my knee and spank the shit out of you.”
Oh, Jesus. So not cool. The big bastard would have to say something like that, knowing I can’t do a damn thing about it. He chuckles darkly as he feels me squirm in his arms, as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking about.
Focus, McKenna. Focus.
Would I be bare-assed when he did it, or would I still have pants on? Maybe just my underwear? He’s got big hands. Really big hands. I bet that would hurt. Like, a lot. Why am I so turned on by that?
Damn it, focus!
“What is it, then?” I ask Creed.
“I just told you,” he snaps at me.
“I heard what you said, but that wasn’t the whole truth. Do you remember what you said to me a few weeks ago? You sat right across from me and said ‘regardless of who you’re related to in this room, regardless of who you’ve fucked or who you’re fucking, I’m the most like you.’ Do you remember? I do.” He winces at my words, and his parents look horrified that their baby could ever even say such a thing. I can’t help but think that this is one of those dinners that everyone will remember but no one will ever want to admit they were at, like the time your Uncle Frank got drunk and started hitting on your cousins. Don’t give me that look. You know what I’m talking about. And at least you didn’t have cold tofeatloaf congealing right in front of you like a sad brown muskrat.
Well, at least now you don’t have to pretend to choke it down, it muses. All you have to do next time is to just remember to get drunk and start having an emotional meltdown in front of everyone! Think of all the parties you’ll get invited to!
Shut up.
“That was different and you know it,” he tells me coldly. “You can’t compare that to now. Life doesn’t always bend and twist the way you want it to, Bear.”