Who We Are (The Seafare Chronicles 2)

“HOLY shit,” Otter breathes as I step out of the hotel bathroom, finally finished putting myself together. I’d even got that gross hair stuff and run it through my hair like Isaiah had. I looked like I had before. But still not like me.

Otter seems to like it, if the way he’s stalking me is any indication. I smile at him as he reaches me and grabs me by the arm, spinning me around, checking out my ass encased in tight jeans. I laugh as I’m groped. “You look good, Papa Bear,” he growls in my ear. “But I bet I know why the Kid was pissed off at you now.”

My laughter stops as I step away from Otter. “Yeah,” I say, looking in the mirror above the chest of drawers. “He saw this and said I wasn’t me anymore.”

“Are you?” Otter asks me. “You didn’t have to dress like that. I love you no matter how you look.”

I roll my eyes. “You’re biased.”

“So is the Kid,” he reminds me. “Maybe even more than I am. He’s gone through so much change in the last couple of months that it’s probably freaking him out a little bit. Where’d you get these clothes, anyways? You hate shopping for clothes. The last time I made you go with me, you told me you think you’d have more fun having bamboo shunts shoved under your fingernails.”

There’s nothing like hearing your own melodramatic quote to make your skin crawl. I probably should have told Otter about my trip to Casa de Isaiah sooner. This is going to be fun. “Uh, they’re not mine,” I say, stating the obvious.

Otter arches an eyebrow and looks slightly sinister. “Oh? And whose clothes would they be? Something I should know about, Papa Bear?”

“Promise you won’t get mad,” I say nervously.

“Uh-huh.”

“So… I may have told Isaiah that we were going out here, and Anna said I didn’t have anything to wear and that I’d look like a homeless man trying to go into the bar, and then Isaiah said he had clothes that would fit me that he used to wear before he got hot and buff.”

“Hot and buff, right.” His eyes flash.

“And then Anna said that he was just trying to get up in my business and that he couldn’t be named like we are, but then she decided to call him Jackass because she said he looked like a drug-addled donkey.”

“Is that so?” Nostrils flare.

“Yeah, and then I said that I didn’t need to wear anything differently because I looked fine the way I was, but then he said he wanted to have a threesome with you and me, and then I got mad because I don’t want anyone touching you but me, and he said fine, we don’t need to have a three-way, that he could just fuck me and then he would have sex with you, and that got me really mad.”

“Well, how about that.” Jaw twitch.

“So then Anna said if I was going, then she was going to go to his house, and so we went, and he made me look like this, and I thought it was kinda trashy at first, and it still kinda is, and then the Kid saw me and freaked out and told me I didn’t love him anymore, but then it got weirder, and I think Dominic is gay because he said he wished he was a few years older because I looked fucking hot.”

“He said what?” Eyes bulge.

“Oh shit, I wasn’t supposed to tell you that. Don’t say anything to him, okay? But it’s weird, right? It’s like we’re a gay bug zapper and all the gays keep flocking to us because they think we’re bright and shiny, but all I want to do is electrocute most of them because they annoy the crap out of me with their high-pitched whining. Okay, not all of them. Dominic’s okay, I think.

Isaiah can be… forward, but he’s not so bad. Ty seems to like David Trent.

And… oh. Uh-oh.”

“Uh-oh what?” Arms flexing.

“Uh… Isaiah might be there tonight. He said he wants to meet you, and Anna thinks you’re going to destroy him because he kissed me, and he calls you Walrus.”

“I am going to destroy him.” Lips sneer.

“Don’t be an idiot. I’m not going to do anything with him. Duh.”

“He already kissed you!”

“I didn’t kiss him back!”

“No, but you went over to his house!”

“That didn’t happen on the same day. And besides, Anna came with me!”

“Oh, because you needed a chaperone? Is that it?”