Who We Are (The Seafare Chronicles 2)

He grinned at me and it was dazzling. “I know, Papa Bear. I can’t wait for the Big Move (It’s About Time).”

My smile widened. “Me either.”

He cleaned his bowl in the sink and whistled as he walked out of the room.

I laughed quietly, feeling strangely pleased with myself. I’d gone toe to toe with the Kid on current events and hadn’t come across sounding like an idiot. I’m not normally one to be topical (I mean, really, who has the time?) but this caused me to want to learn even more. I picked up the Kid’s discarded paper and started to flip through it, wanting to read more news stories that I could talk to the Kid about. Expand my horizons a bit. I wondered who this Newt Gingrich was and why he was crazy, and I started searching for his name.

Otter stood and began clearing the table while I was on my quest for knowledge. When I’d finally found the dude’s name and started to read, he bent down and gripped my chin gently. He brought my mouth to his and kissed me sweetly, his tongue parting my lips and tangling gently with mine.

I couldn’t help it when I groaned into him, his lips soft and warm against my own, urging, but not really pushing for more. He pulled away after a minute and touched his forehead to mine. I stared up into that gold-green that meant so much to me and sighed happily to myself.

“Bear,” he breathed. “You know I love you, right? With every fiber of my being?”

I nodded, suddenly feeling a bit misty-eyed. He tends to make me like that.

“And you know I think you’re smart?”

I nodded again, squirming at his praise.

“Well, then, I hope you’re not going to be upset when I tell you this.”

I shook my head, a little worried.

“The Kid just totally played you.”

I cocked my head.

“Like, seriously, completely manhandled you.”

I furrowed my brow, feeling my jaw grow tense.

“Like, he destroyed you.”

My eyes twitched.

“Like, to the point it was almost brutal to watch.”

My lip quivered in righteous indignation.

Otter sighed. “But, holy crap, do I love you.” He kissed my forehead and left.

“Kid!” I roared.

OKAY, so, what happened then wasn’t done on purpose. You have to believe me. Totally an accident. I’d found the MEAT ISN’T NEAT shirt piled in the corner, somehow missed but not forgotten. There were only a couple of boxes left, and I figured I could just put it in one of those to get it moved.

How was I supposed to know that there was also a bottle of bleach in that box hidden under other cleaning stuff? How was I to know that said bottle of bleach had a leak in it? That when I shoved the shirt into the box without looking, it’d fallen right into the corner where the leak was happening? It wasn’t done on purpose. I wasn’t looking! I had a billion other things on my mind!

But, my God, did that start a war.

I was in the kitchen of the Green Monstrosity (our new house, our wonderful house, the house that was the most horribly offensive color known to man) when I heard the Kid cry out, the horror in his voice sending chills down my spine. I dropped the pots and pans I’d been putting away, and they clattered to the floor as I ran. I can’t even tell you how many scenarios exploded through my head as I rushed toward my little brother, who had cried out again, a sound so long and mournful that it caused me to ache. Did he hurt himself? How bad is it? Do we need to go to the hospital?

Oh God, I hope I know where the insurance cards are. Fuck the cards, I can get them later. What if he broke his arm? What if he found a human skull under the floorboards? I never checked to see if this house had an unsolved murder that’d happened inside it. Why didn’t I check that before we moved here? Oh God , what if there are hundreds of dead bodies under the floors!

Like, what if this was the former home of what will be known as the world’s worst serial killer? Is our house haunted now? I don’t believe in ghosts.

That’s stupid. There’s no such thing as ghosts. What if the Kid saw a ghost?

When you hear your little brother cry out like that, it’s not always going to be rational thoughts that go through your head. I suppose I could continue on in that same vein, but you get the idea. I’ve learned in my short time being a brother/parent that it’s way too easy to automatically believe the worst has happened. I expected there to be blood or a severed limb or maybe a big python wrapped around his little body, choking the life out of him.