Bear, Otter, and the Kid (The Seafare Chronicles 1)

the Eye of the Storm

SO I said it.

I said it and it came out easier than I had hoped, easier than it should have been. There was a moment that night, when he entered me for the first time, that I felt as full as I’d ever been. I’m not trying to be graphic or anything, because I don’t necessarily mean that in a sexual way at all. Okay, yes, I guess I kind of do mean it that way, as there was a pinch and then pain, but then I rose above it, and it was like I was floating above myself, detached and high. I only had a dim sense of what was happening to me, but then a shock wave rose through me, and I was slammed back into my body and rode it out in a blur of gasps and claws. As I came (without even touching myself; how does that even happen?), something inside me exploded as I shot onto my chest and my pleasure-drunk brain could only think of God creating the universe. First was nothing and then there was everything. Otter held me as my body rocked and shook, and for the first time, I realized there was such a thing as good earthquakes, that as long as you have someone to tether you to them, the shifting of the world can be a wondrous thing. It still scared me shitless, but I wasn’t about to allow that to take him away from me. Not anymore.

So quickly, inevitably, the days passed.

Otter kept his promise to me and didn’t try to push me about anything. I think it’s because Ty was right, that Otter just needed to hear how I truly felt about him. Any tension that had remained evaporated, and we were able to discover what we had meant when we’d vocalized our feelings for each other. A day never went by, regardless if we had fought or not, when I didn’t know how he felt about me. I tried to make sure he felt the same.

I often contemplated on how different it was for me and him than it was for me and Anna. I still remember the first time I’d told Anna that I loved her. We were fifteen, and it was sweet and I’d meant it, as much as a fifteen-year-old male could mean it. She had given me such a smi

le, then proceeded to punch me in the arm and say that she knew. I felt like the top of the world then. With Otter, though, I passed the top a long time ago. I didn’t know that a person could feel so much for another and not burst.

As I said, Otter kept his promise to me, and as much as I knew it probably strained him at points, I couldn’t help but admire his patience. If I were him, I would’ve probably kicked me to the curb time and time again. Don’t get me wrong: he still got exasperated at times, times when I went through my panic modes where I was just sure that everyone knew about us and that they were all talking about us behind our backs. But I never saw that shadow cross his face after that night on the beach. I had been the one causing it, and I was the only one who could have taken it away.

During the next two months, things changed in my life, changed in ways I had never thought possible.

Ty came back from his camping trip the Sunday following the best date disaster that I have ever been on. I talked to him multiple times on his trip, and no matter how many times he asked, I refused to tell him what happened. He would howl at me over the phone and demand to speak to Otter. I would say good-bye and hang up. A few seconds later, Otter’s phone rang, and Ty complained some more when I answered that one as well. Otter and I drove over to the Hererra house that Sunday and were both amused to see Ty sitting on the curb, his bags next to him, scowling and tapping his knee impatiently.

“Well?” he said, opening the front passenger door to Otter’s Jeep and climbing inside onto my lap.

I hugged him. “Hey, Kid,” I said happily. “How was your trip?”

He ignored me and looked at Otter. “Well?” he said again.

Otter grinned. “Did you have a good time camping?”

Ty’s glared back and forth between me and Otter. I could hear Otter struggling to keep a steady composure. I was trying to think of sad things and gross things to keep my mirth at bay. I had started to replay where Bambi’s mom had gotten shot over and over in my head when the Kid grinned at me evilly and turned to Otter and said, “Bear likes to be spanked during sex.”

There was a beat of silence in the car, and then Otter couldn’t hold it in any longer and lost it, which in turn caused me to start laughing. The Kid sat, growling through his teeth as he stared back and forth between us like we were fucking nuts. When at last we were able to calm down (but not before Otter shot me a lust-filled look that told me we’d be talking about that later) I leaned forward and wrapped my arms around the Kid and told him how amazingly horrible it had gone. I got to the part where I told him I recited his poem, and his face broke out with such a glow that I started laughing again.

“Did you get the extra meaning from what I wrote?” he asked Otter when I finished.

Otter grinned and mussed his hair. “I sure did, Kid. That’s why we’re taking you to a steak house right now for dinner. Welcome home.”

The Kid laughed and laughed and laughed.

ANNA and I started talking again, maybe three weeks after the Kid came home. It came out of nowhere as we both still carried an unintentional intention to steer clear of one another. Every week I’d go to work and hold my breath as I pulled up the schedule for the following week, praying that we were on different shifts. For the most part, it worked out that way. If she worked days, I worked nights, and vice versa. Oh sure, our paths crossed every now and then, but only for a few moments, and nothing was ever exchanged between the two of us. I knew that she had been the one to do this, to go to the scheduling manager and request that we’d work opposite of each other. I was relieved and sad all at the same time. Those brief moments that I did see her, we were both so busy ignoring each other that we never took the time to test the waters, to see if either one of us would be receptive to any kind of contact. To be honest, however unfair it sounds, I had begun to let her slip quietly away from me. There were still times when I would pore over the schedule and there were still times when I would breathe those sighs of relief, but that was all it was. I never really believed in out of sight, out of mind, as the two people in the world that’d ever been in that position (Otter and my mom) had always been there, picking and prying at my thoughts. One of them had come home to me, the other was never coming back.

So imagine my surprise when I showed up for work one night to work the last half of a closing shift as a favor to a friend and found Anna working the late shift as well. Not only would she be working the late shift, but she would be the last one there from nine until eleven, on a Tuesday night, when we’d be the slowest. I cursed silently when I saw her as I arrived and swore loudly when Mary, the other cashier (she of Juicy-Fruit fame), poked her head into the office and said she was going home.

“Fine,” I muttered, accidentally snapping the pencil I had been using to fill purchase orders.

“You know, this might be a good time for you,” she said from the doorway, sounding amused.

“A good time for what?” I asked, not bothering to look up.

“To go and talk to Anna, Bear,” she told me. “You guys haven’t really talked since….” She stopped.

That’s when I did look up, suspiciously. “Since when?”

She had the common decency to blush. “You know,” she said, fidgeting. “Since you guys broke up and all.”

“I didn’t know that was anyone’s business but ours,” I said coldly.

Mary shrugged. “She didn’t give me any specifics, Bear, if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m just saying, you’ve been together since before you even knew what that meant. Don’t you think she deserves something?”

“Like what?” I ask, doing nothing to keep the anger from my voice. “She broke up with me!”