Some of Creed’s friends from Phoenix are coming up to Portland for a week. He invited us to go, but I don’t dare take the time off of work, not while I am as ahead as I’ve been on the bills in a while. As much as I’d love to get the hell out of Seafare for a few days, there’s no way the Kid would allow it, and it would be kind of a drag to bring him along. Creed had waved that off, saying Ty could use some debauchery. I had gotten this horrifying image in my head of taking him to a strip club and immediately said no. Besides, he was still in school for another couple of weeks.
I looked down at my watch. “I thought you would have been gone by now.”
He shrugs. “I had some time to kill, and I wanted to swing by real quick before I left. We haven’t had much of a chance to talk since the party.”
The Kid’s birthday had been a week and a half ago and during that time, I had not been back over to the house. I had begged off, saying I was working, that I was tired. However true, I didn’t want to go back because of him. I couldn’t get the image out of my head of him walking away from me, the unanswered question still hanging in the air, refusing to die. The dream, that black-blue ocean. I felt the best thing to do would be to put as much distance between Otter and myself as possible until he returned to San Diego. He made it perfectly clear that he doesn’t need me, so I’ve decided to give him what he wants. Things get weird when I’m around him
I tap the wooden bench with my knuckles. “I told you,” I say. “I’ve been busy.”
“You’re a bad liar, Bear,” Creed says with a grin on his face. “You always have been. I guess I shouldn’t have forced you to talk to Otter, huh?”
“Is he still shut up in his room?” I ask, trying to sound bored.
“Yep. I think I see less of him now than I did before the party. Maybe it was a bad idea t
o send the Bear to maul him.”
“Keep that in mind next time, will you?” I say. “I’ve already got one quasi-depressed person to look after. I don’t need another one.”
He leans back on the bench. “I don’t think we’ll have to think about it much longer. I’ve got a feeling he’s going to be going back soon, anyways.”
My heart skips a beat, and I try not to notice. “What makes you say that?”
He glances at his watch. “Just a feeling, I guess. Call it ‘brotherly intuition’. He’s not going to stick around much longer. He can go be depressed anywhere; why stick around here and do it in the rain?”
Good, I think savagely. Good. Go home, Otter. Go home and let me get back to whatever it was I had before you came. At least I was able to recognize myself then. At least I was able to feel right then. At least—
At least what, Bear? it whispers, clearly amused. At least you were able to go an hour without him occupying your every thought? At least you’d be able to forget that damning hurt you felt as he walked away from you? It’s so much easier to hate them when they leave, isn’t it? Isn’t it?
“Bear, for God’s sake, pay attention to me!” Creed says, punching me in the arm. “I swear you’re worse than Otter sometimes.”
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“I gotta get going,” he says, standing. “Portland pussy is going to wait for no man.”
I grin. “I can’t wait for the day when you tell me you’ve got the clap.”
He cocks his head to the side. “That’s what you can’t wait for? Out of everything in the world, that’s what you can’t wait for? Bear, that’s just sad. And very, very mean of you. Just for that, if I do get the clap, I am going to pee in your mouth while you are sleeping, and then you can have the clap with me.” He starts grabbing his crotch and moaning, and I laugh and try to get away, but he presses me up against the wall. An old couple walks out of the store and stares at us. He waves at them and says, “It’s okay. We’re gay. This is my life partner, Greg.”
I wince and push him off of me. “Creed, you asshole,” I hiss as the old people walk away, shooting dirty looks at us over their shoulders. “Don’t say that kind of shit at my work!”
He sticks his tongue out at me. “It’s not like I used your real name, honey.”
“Jerk,” I grumble.
“Yeah, you love me. Anyways, I’m outs. I’ll call you when I get there to rub it in how much fun I’m having without you.” He pats me companionably on the back and starts walking away from me. I turn to head inside when he says, “Do me a favor, though?”
I nod.
“Check in on Otter for me at least once? I don’t want to have to come home and find out he went all emo and cut himself.” I start to protest, and he drops to his knees and starts screaming in a high-pitched voice, “Pleeeeeeeeeeease, Greg? Pleeeeeeeaase?” I look around, panicky, and tell him fine, to just go away.
“Later, Papa Bear,” he says, and when I turn around again, he’s gone.
LATER, Anna and I are spread out on the couch, matching looks of horror on our face while Ty sighs raptly at the TV. Apparently, as part of his birthday present to the Kid, Creed had gotten him the documentary on PETA that Ty had been dying to see. How he’d gotten it past me when I was bringing all his loot home was beyond me, until he told me that Uncle Creed made him promise to hide it until he could sit down and watch it with me. I’m going to kill Creed when he comes home. The movie isn’t about just the normal PETA people, no. It’s about hardcore PETA people. This is some pretty disturbing shit.
“Look at him,” Anna whispers against my chest. “He’s going to be such a hippie when he grows up.”
“Not if I can help it,” I rumble back. “I swear to God, the first time the Kid ends up in jail for freeing a monkey, Creed is going to be the one bailing him out.”