“I can’t believe how I never saw it before,” he said. “You guys are perfect for each other. You’ll be able to put up with each other’s bullshit and leave me out of it.”
“Gee, you sure know how to make a guy feel good,” I replied, groaning as soon as the words were out of my mouth.
He grinned wickedly at me. “No, that’s apparently your job now.” His smile faded and his eyes grew thoughtful. “Seriously, though, does it hurt? You know, butt sex? I’ve always wondered—”
I fled the room.
I tried not to ask him too much about Otter, because what he would say was destroying my resolve. He said Otter barely came out of his room, and when he did, he looked like he hadn’t slept at all and would only speak in grunts. Creed didn’t know what Otter did in his room all day, but I could imagine, and that’s why I tried to force the thought of him to the back of my head. He was there, floating in the waves, mixed in with the rest of the white noise. I needed to make things right again. For all of us. But I couldn’t do that if Otter was the only thing to occupy my thoughts. So he went to the back, constant but quiet.
The Kid understood my motives, but he didn’t agree with the way I was going about it. “Why don’t you just tell him?” he said to me more than once. “At least he would know that there was something to look forward to, something worth fighting for.” Trying to deny the logic of the smartest nine-year-old in the world made the separation all that much more difficult. I didn’t know how to put my actions into words, to explain to them that I would rather die than see Otter look at me the way he did the last time I faced him. Cowardly? Maybe. Unfair? Possibly. Selfish? Undoubtedly. But in my head, I knew that I was preparing to give myself to him for as long as he would have me (whether or not this plan would work, and whether or not he’d take me back often mixed in—I’ve learned that I’m probably certifiable with the number of voices I have in my head).
It didn’t help that I dreamt of him every night.
It didn’t help that those dreams were so terrifying, so heartrending. It didn’t help that I usually woke with my dick harder than it’s ever been, forced to take matters into my own hand. I would be hunched over in the bathroom, my body howling at the familiarity of my hand, begging for it to be his strong calloused grip, that pull that was more experienced than I would ever be. Those nights, coming was painful, as if it came from a much deeper place than where humanly possible. I would be spent, staring at my reflection, wondering where those lines around my mouth came from, why my red-rimmed eyes never seemed to fade back to normal. This had to work. It had to.
Mrs. Paquinn lived up to her word and made an appointment for me to meet Erica Sharp, a lawyer with the impressively named firm of Weiss, Goldstein, and Eddington. I told Mrs. Paquinn I had never seen any of their commercials. She told me she was so happy I was on my way to joining the real world. I think she meant it as an insult, but I can’t quite figure out how. She called in a few favors, and a few days later, I had an appointment with an attorney in Portland.
On the day of, I sat in front of the mirror, trying to fix my tie, which seemed to somehow be inside out. I was listening for a knock at the door that would signal Mrs. Paquinn for Kid-watching duties when I heard a sigh.
“I don’t know why I can’t come with you. I mean, you’re trying to adopt me. Don’t you think they’re going to want to hear what I have to say?”
“I told you,” I muttered, wondering how the skinny end of the tie turned out longer than the fat end, “I am just going up there to feel her out. I need to make sure she can help us before we decide to do anything.” The stupid tie was obviously broken
He sighed again and came to stand in front of me, pushing me back so I sat on the bed. His hands batte
d mine away, and I lifted my chin, looking in the mirror and wondering if I should have gotten a haircut. Or shaved the wannabe facial hair that grew sparsely over my face.
“It’ll be fine. I mean, you’re wearing a tie and everything, right?” he said, the smile evident in his voice. “Are you going to be okay when you have to flirt with her?”
I cocked an eyebrow down at him. “Flirt with her? Why the hell would I have to do that?” Maybe I should change my shirt, I thought.
“Well, I was trying to research this whole situation,” he said, looping something over something else, “so I figured I may as well watch TV to do it, since the last time I turned on the computer, there was a picture of a guy wearing a jock strap and holding a soccer ball as our screen saver.” Goddammit, Creed. “Which, by the way, you should probably get rid of that, seeing as how you are trying to get custody of a nine-year-old boy. I don’t think that would fly too well with the courts.”
I choked down whatever thought was about to burst from my lips. I noticed the Kid was still talking, oblivious to the slow fire spreading up my neck. “I mean, why would anyone wear something like that? Jockstraps look gross, and do you really think he would have been playing soccer without any pants on?”
“Uh, Kid, I think it may be a good idea if this topic was never brought up again, especially if we happened to be visited by a social worker for this whole thing. I don’t think they would appreciate the subtle nuances of your line of questioning.”
He jerked the knot of the tie up to my neck, cutting off the rest of my reprimand. “Don’t make fun of me, Derrick,” he scolded. I felt properly rebuked.
“The lawyer?” I reminded him
He stepped back to check his work. I looked in the mirror and saw that the tie was perfect. How the hell he knew things like that was completely beyond me. “Right,” he said. “The lawyer. Well, since your porn was on our computer, and I thought I was probably already scarred for life, I figured watching some lawyer show would help me pick up on the law.”
“And?” I asked, heading to the bathroom to brush my teeth. He followed.
“Well, I found one show, and the lawyer was this pretty lady. Well, actually, all the ladies were pretty, which I felt was an unrealistic depiction of the workplace. All the women at your work aren’t babes, so I think something gets lost in translation with what are obviously misguided TV producers.”
I grunted my response through a mouthful of Crest.
“Anyways, all the ladies at the law firm had trouble with their love lives, and this one guy was trying to convince the really pretty lawyer to take his case pro bono. Which, in case you don’t know, means—”
“I bnoe fut it smeans,” I said, gagging on the toothbrush.
“Well, he started flirting with her, saying he could make the case worth her while, and then she took off her shirt, and he took off his pants, and then she decided to represent him. Because he had a good case and nice assets.”
I stared at his reflection. “What lawyer show was this?”
He shrugged. “It pre-empted Dateline. The point is, you may need to flirt with the lawyer. Society wants you to help a lawyer’s self-esteem.” He was almost finished with the last sentence when his façade cracked and a grin spilled out over his face.