Who We Are (The Seafare Chronicles 2)

“You could have helped me,” I snapped at him. “You should have said you did it!”

He cocked an eyebrow. “You’re joking, right? Did you see the look on the Kid’s face? Bear, I would take a bullet for you, I would jump on a grenade for you, but I would never get between you and the Kid when he’s pissed. You’re a goner, Papa Bear.” He grinned the Otter grin at me, but it took on a melancholy curve. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.” The smile faded and his lower lip quivered. “I am just going to miss you so damn much—”

“Shut it down,” I barked at him. “You’re not helping me at all.”

He started to back away. “I promise I’ll do my best to raise Tyson as you’d want me to. Somehow, I think we just might make it and I’ll—”

I took a menacing step toward him and sneered at him. “Bullshit. You wouldn’t make it a single day without me. You’d miss me too much.”

“And maybe someday,” he continued, the glint in his eyes growing brighter, “I’ll be able to find love again, and it’ll be like one of those romance novels that Mrs. Paquinn reads. Where a widowed man is responsible for a smart child and finds a new love who’s a doctor or a fireman who’ll break through the walls the sad man has so hastily constructed, and they’ll all live happily ever after as a family. My God, the clichés that will be our lives will be immense and wonderful.”

“Like hell,” I snarled. “If the Kid takes me out, you’re going to be alone forever. Nobody can put up with your bullshit like me.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Oh?”

“Only me,” I insisted. He stopped moving and I bumped into him, looking up into his eyes. He smiled down at me, causing my breath to catch in my throat. I still hadn’t gotten used to the way he sometimes looked at me, that regard that threatened to flatten me.

He brought up a hand and cupped my cheek before kissing the tip of my nose, a spot he knows I hate but still allow him to do it. I’m not so very good when it comes to saying no to Otter Thompson. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days, and his stubble was wonderfully rough as he rubbed his cheek against mine, like he was trying to embed his scent onto me to mark me as his own. My dick began to fly at half-mast, and it was almost enough to make me forget about the threats on my life by a nine-year-old.

“Only you,” Otter said before kissing me deeply.

Mushy bastard.

I WAS on my guard for the next day or so until I said something that caused the Kid to laugh hysterically, and he jumped in my lap and started babbling as he always did. After that, I figured we were in the free and clear. It was hard to imagine that someone like him could be so diabolical as to consider psychological warfare.

But that’s exactly what he did.

It started out with a simple observation. I had just gotten home from work at the grocery store, a ten-hour shift that exhausted me. I collapsed onto the couch as the Kid wandered in, smiling as he sat down next to me.

We talked for a bit about our days while Otter cooked dinner in the kitchen.

Then, as if distracted, the Kid stopped midsentence and reached up to brush off my shoulders.

“What?” I asked, looking down where his hands had been.

“Just a few hairs or something on your shoulder,” he replied with a shrug before continuing on about how he’d just finished watching some program on the effects of radiation poisoning. I tried to keep a straight face, but then he started talking about fingernails melting, and I had to gag.

“I can’t believe that shit doesn’t bug you,” I told him.

“Why would it?”

The next day, we were eating breakfast when he passed by me and gave me a hug. I was used to these little attacks from him, growing more and more frequent, much to my pleasure. His head rested on my shoulder for a moment before he looked up at me and smiled. Then I watched as the smile slid from his face. “What’s wrong?” I asked, trying to keep the worry from my voice.

He reached over and brushed my shoulder again. “You keep shedding,”

he muttered. Then his eyes rose to my head, and he frowned slightly before beckoning me to lean closer. I did, keeping my eyes on him. “Well that explains it,” he said quietly, almost somber.

“What?”

“The hairs I keep seeing on your shoulders.”

“What about them?”

The Kid looked slightly sad before he spoke. “You’re losing your hair, Papa Bear.”