Who We Are (The Seafare Chronicles 2)

I smack him on the chest. “You’re totally angling to get laid again, aren’t you?”

He laughs. “Is it working?” he asks, grinding his groin into my stomach.

“Uh… I… what did you ask me?” I say, trying to stop my eyes from rolling back in my head.

“That’s what I thought. Let’s go find the guys.”

“Is this where I should do the whole ‘what if they don’t like me’ thing?”

He leans down and kisses the tip of my nose. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey, yourself,” I say back.

“You’re not really worried about that, are you?”

I think for a moment and can’t come up with an answer so I shrug.

“Bear, I know you don’t see it, even though I tell you constantly, but you are the most amazing individual that I’ve ever known.” Seriously, Otter should really give up photography and write greeting cards. But damn if it doesn’t cause my heart to beat faster. “They’ll love you, and even if, on the slimmest of chances they don’t, it won’t matter. What matters is I think you’re pretty damn cool.”

“You think I’m cool?” I say, trying to keep the incredulousness out of my voice, but not succeeding in the slightest. “Well, I think you’re rad.”

He grins, and it’s that grin I know. “I think we’re meant to be, then,” he says with a faux wistfulness in his voice. “After all, you said you’re the only one who could put up with my bullshit.”

“Damn right.”

“So, no nerves okay? It’ll be fine.”

“Thanks, coach. I’ll make sure I score the first football goal.” I pause, considering. “I don’t think I know that much about sports.”

“Not much, it seems,” Otter reassures me. “But, hey, that’s okay too.

You can just stay home with the kids and make sure dinner’s on the table when I get home.”

“Bastard.” I scowl as I hit him, trying to cover up how the word “kids”

has shot straight through me. “I’m not your fucking wife.”

“No,” he says, his eyes suddenly thoughtful and looking like he’s far, far away. “No, you’re not. But… hey. This may not be the best time to talk about this.” He takes a deep breath. “Bear, I’ve been thinking. A lot. Have you ever thought about… what… what if we—”

I don’t get to hear how he finishes that sentence as he’s suddenly pulled from my grasp and spun around, a delighted bellow coming from whoever has seen fit to interrupt whatever scary thing Otter had been about to say.

Countless things shoot through my head, from Otter proposing that we adopt a Haitian child and name him something weird and trendy like celebrities do (for some reason, I imagine our Haitian baby would be named Textile Mills Thompson or Banana-Rama McKenna) or telling me that he was serious about me being his version of a stay-at-home mom (I would have to make sure I could find the brownie recipe and start pricing minivan/SUV

crossovers—hell, I’m already a member of the PTA at the Kid’s school, so why not get my hair permed while I’m at it? This (of course) makes me wonder if men ever get their hair permed, and for that matter, do women still even do it? Or is that an eighties thing? I remind myself to look it up on Google when we get home).

Otter roars with laughter and wraps his arms around another guy, the man’s handsome face on his shoulder, eyes closed until they open and find me, and the smile widens. Jordan. He looks exactly like I remember him, his blond hair falling in waves down onto his shoulders, the beard on his face dark and thick. He’s gotten bigger than the last time I saw him, almost as big as Otter, and I wonder if it’s still possible I could go through a growth spurt at the age of twenty-one. Jordan’s still got that chip in one of his front teeth, and I vaguely remember him telling me it was from a time he’d been hit in the face with a bat in high school where he was apparently hot shit until he’d busted out his knee while roller-skating. I remember making fun of him incessantly about being so cool as to admit that he went roller-skating. Then, like so many things, he’d disappeared from my life after my mom left, after Otter left. I almost let myself focus on that, but I shove it away. Now’s not the time to wallow in self-pity. I’m in a gay bar, after all.

Jordan says something to Otter as he lets him go, and Otter glances back at me, and his eyes are bright as they watch me, and he says something back to Jordan as he holds out his hand to me. I reach up and grab his fingers and am pulled forward. “Jordan, you remember Bear,” Otter says, the obvious pride in his voice causing my face to burn. “He’s mine now.”

Jordan ignores my outstretched hand and wraps me in the same tight grip that he’d given to Otter. I yelp as I’m lifted off my feet and spun around in circles, Jordan’s laughter echoing in my ears. After what seems like days (and I’m pretty sure I’ve spilled the last of the world’s Coke all over the drag queen behind us—oh, woe, the loss!) I’m set back down on my feet, and Jordan puts his hands on my shoulders and grins down at me. “How could I forget?” he says, his voice whiskey smooth. “So, Bear, you’re the one I’ve got to thank for finally bringing this idiot to his senses and making him come home?”

My face is probably the color of a stop sign by now. “Uh… I don’t know about that. I think there was a bunch of other stuff too.” I shrug.

Eloquent as always, Papa Bear, it laughs. Life of the party, you are.

Stop talking like Yoda! I snap at it.

But talking like this, I like. Try it, you should. Popular, it make you at the gay bar.