“Bear,” Alice says gently. “I know you didn’t have the best—or any—relationship, but you’re allowed to be upset.”
“I know that,” I say. “But I don’t have time for it right now. The Kid is going to be—oh shit, the Kid. What the fuck am I going to say to the Kid?”
Otter puts his hands on my shoulders, his thumbs brushing along my neck. “Bear, listen to me, you gotta calm down, okay? We’re fine. I promise you, we’re fine—”
“Fine? Fine? Otter, what the hell about any of this is fine? We woke up this morning thinking how things were going to be, and now everything is different. Do you get that? Nothing is the same! Nothing. Every time I’ve answered the door today, things have gotten worse. Do you know what that does to people? No one should have to answer the door five times in one day and have things get worse. My biggest issue of the day was whether or not our unborn child was going to have a tail and be a serial killer, which, why haven’t you disproved that? Why have you not offered me solid evidence that’s not going to happen? And now we’re having twins? Otter, what if both of them have tails? What are we going to do? We can’t sell them to a traveling circus, because that’s wrong. And I don’t even know if there are traveling circuses anymore! But we only have three more months to try and find one if that’s what we want to do, because there are at least six hundred people in my kitchen right now, and every one of them could become victims to our unborn serial killer twins with tails. And the laws of horror movies say that the pretty one goes first, and you know that would be me! I mean, you’re hot and everything, and so are Creed and Anna, but I’m the pretty one, Otter. Our children will come for me first, and they’ll stand in the hallway wearing old-timey clothes and bow ties and their tails will be twitching and then I’ll be murdered. And what about Izzie? What’s she going to do then? You would be a single parent to three kids, because you know we’re going to do everything we can to keep her. I don’t fucking care what we have to do, and no, I’m not fucking sad that my mother is dead, because fuck her. Fuck Julie McKenna for everything. Because we were fine. We were fine. And now I have to tell my little brother that the woman who didn’t give two shits about him is dead, and that he is going to be an uncle to traveling-circus children, and we only have one crib! One crib. We’re having twins. We have to get two of everything now. Why do I have to have such potent sperm? Out of all the things that could have happened to me, why do I have to be pretty and have powerful spunk?”
“Did everyone follow that?” Otter asks, never once looking away from me.
“I… think so?” Alice says slowly. “Megan… she’s… she’s your surrogate.” She sounds like she’s just awed by the thought.
“Yes,” Otter says. “She is. And she’s now twenty-two weeks pregnant. With twins. Something we just found out about today. The twins part. Not the pregnancy part. It was supposed to be a surprise, but. Well. Bear’s had a very trying day, so I don’t blame him.”
“Right,” Creed says. “But what about the part with circuses and serial killers—ow, babe, you really should stop kicking my shins. You know I bruise easy.”
“Then stop talking about the circus,” Anna says.
“Bear started it—ha, you missed me!”
A phone chimes.
Otter sighs and pulls it from his pocket, still keeping one hand on me, as if the touch alone was enough to keep me from falling apart. And I really think it is. He’s always done that for me. He’s always put up with my shit, no matter how fucking stupid I sounded.
“I love them,” I tell him, needing him to know. “We don’t even know them yet, but I love them. I want to keep them. With you. I don’t want to sell them at all. Even if they try and murder me.”
“Because you’re the pretty one,” Otter says, pulling me forward and kissing my forehead. “We’ll keep them. I think we’re probably past the return-by date, anyway.”
“Did Otter just make a dad joke?” Creed mutters. “Because I swear to god that was a dad joke. And that totally makes sense now.”
“I’m so proud,” Jerry says to no one in particular. “I have so many of those to share.”
“You never shared them with me,” Creed says.
Otter glances down at his phone as I lay my head on his shoulder. He tenses slightly before sighing. “Shit,” he mutters.
God, what now?
He holds the phone up in front of my face.
There’s a text message on the display from Dom.
We’re about ten minutes out.
“Shit,” I breathe.
7. Where Bear Tells Tyson Everything
I’M WAITING on the porch when a truck pulls up in front of the Green Monstrosity towing a large camper trailer behind it. The windows are tinted, but I know who’s inside, and I’m simultaneously wanting to run toward them and away at the same time.
The truck switches off, and there’s a moment when nothing happens.
> Then the passenger door opens and he’s running toward me, a grin on his face.
My heart stutters a little in my chest, and I take a step forward, and then another, and then another. He’s up the steps and colliding with me only a moment later, his hands wrapped around me, and he’s laughing, okay? He’s laughing, and it’s a sound I haven’t heard in a very long time, happy and carefree. When he left here, when he put Seafare at his back, he still wasn’t the person I remembered. He was getting there, and I knew he’d do it, even then, but he still wasn’t… there.
But here he is, and he’s laughing, that high-pitched noise he makes when he’s really excited or finds something really funny. I grip him tightly, and his hands find the back of my hair and he’s babbling in my ear like he’d done when he was just a little guy, talking about the things he’s seen, like the world’s largest ball of twine and something called Carhenge, and how they were in the middle of nowhere New Mexico and they saw a meteor shower, the brightest one he’d ever seen, and it’s been amazing.
I don’t let him go for the longest time.