The Art of Breathing (The Seafare Chronicles 3)

I nod, though it costs me. My hands start to shake. “I’m fine. Hey, let me go get ready so we can go out for dinner, birthday boy. We don’t want to waste you turning into an old man by sitting in your car all night.” Though that sounds good to me. Every bit. Every part.

He doesn’t stop me as I open the car door this time. I take a deep breath, the salt in the air thicker than normal. I hear the cry of seagulls, the normal sounds of traffic on the street. Somewhere, someone laughs. It’s normal. It’s the same.

I don’t stop him when he puts his arm around my shoulders as we walk up the steps. I don’t stop him when he holds me close. I put one foot in front of the other and ignore how he smells. His grip on my shoulder tells me we’re not done talking. Maybe it can wait. Maybe it can wait forever. Maybe we can just turn around. Maybe we can just get back into the car and drive away and go somewhere else where I can be an almost sixteen-year-old kid with no expectations weighing on me, and he can be whoever he wants to be, and it will just be me and him. It’ll be the two of us against the world, and we’ll tear it apart and carve out our own place. Things are starting to disintegrate within me, and I need him to know the choice I’ve been given. I need him to make up my mind for me.

I need him to tell me to stay. To never leave his side.

I look up at him and he looks down at me, and for the first time in all the years I’ve known him, that weird twinge in my heart becomes something more, something so much more that it roars in my ears. It hits me like a sledgehammer to the chest, and only one real thought comes to mind as I realize that I’m in love with my best friend: Bear’s going to shit himself silly when he finds out about this. It’s impossible. It can’t be like this. It’s not supposed to be like this.

But it’s inevitable.

I open my mouth to tell Dom everything, because I can’t keep this from him. I just can’t. Then he opens the door to the Green Monstrosity.

“Surprise!” everyone screams.

Surprise. Surprise. Surprise.

“REMINDS ME of the party we had for you,” Creed tells me hours later. “You remember that jumping castle we had in the backyard?”

“Urgh. Don’t remind me. Bear and Otter wanted to get one for Dom as a joke, but I think they’re weirdly kinky about jumping castles. I don’t think the guests would have appreciated a show.”

Anna gives a choking laugh from her spot next to her husband. “That’s something that I could have completely gone without knowing.” She furrowed her brow. “Wait, weren’t Bear and I still dating when that party happened?”

“You are so not allowed to be jealous over something like that,” Creed says, pretending to look wounded. “Besides, you know nothing happened between them back then. At least at that point.”

“Except the falling in love with each other part.”

“Well, think of it this way,” he says. “You traded in a gay and got a huge old motherfucking stud. You upgraded, baby.”

“Daddy? What’s motherfucking?” JJ asks, appearing at his side. Like most five-year-olds, he looks a bit sticky, juice and cake and dirt smeared all over him. The fact that he’s the spitting image of his dad and uncle makes the effect slightly more amusing.

“It’s what I do to your mother,” Creed tells him, grinning.

“Creed!” Anna slaps him on the arm before leaning over, licking her thumb, and wiping her son’s face. “Your daddy is in big trouble,” she tells JJ. “He’s going to be grounded later, much like you’ll be if I ever hear you say that word. We don’t say that word out loud. Right, Creed?”

“Er. Right. Never, ever say motherfucking. Or balls.”

JJ nods. “Okay. I won’t say motherfucking balls.”

“I love you, dude,” Creed says, adoration clear in his voice. I laugh until I get a glare from Anna.

JJ cackles and high-fives his father before he takes off running in a group of munchkins being led by Bear and Otter.

“You know,” I tell them, “you guys cursed around me that much when I was his age, and I turned out okay.”

Creed eyes me up and down. “Define ‘okay’.”

“I can dress myself and feed myself and walk without falling down. Most of the time.”

“Success, motherfucker!” He says it in a low voice, though, so his distracted wife won’t hear him. Anna has the run of their version of the Thompson household, that’s for sure. Creed likes to pretend he still has his balls, but I’m pretty sure they were removed the moment he asked Anna to marry him last year. I asked them once why they waited so long. Anna said she was carefully weighing all her options just to make sure. I thought that was funny. Creed didn’t.

We watch as Bear and Otter lead a group of kids in some game I can’t quite figure out. Bear looks like he’s miming that he’s either a teacup or a rhinoceros with a skin disorder, and Otter’s jumping up and down as if he’s excited about Bear’s status as a cup or a flaky rhino. The kids around them scream with laughter, and JJ breaks through all of them and jumps into Otter’s arms, shouting, “Uncle O! Uncle O!” Otter laughs and spins him around and around and around.

“Have they talked any more about adopting?” Anna asks me, a look of fondness on her face as she watches our family.

I shrug. “A little. I don’t know if they’re ready for it yet, though. Moving across the country is taking up a lot of their time, and I don’t think Bear is quite there yet. And you know as well as I do that Otter won’t push.”

“That’s not who he is,” she murmurs, smiling as JJ attempts to climb Otter like a tree. “Bear will get there.”