Mary looks me squarely in the eye. “What did you do to give her reason to?”
I looked back down at the paperwork in front of me and began writing again. “Nothing,” I grumbled.
She sighed. “Bear, just—just don’t be all machismo on this. Sometimes the best thing a guy can do is admit he’s wrong and try to make amends. Do you know how many times Frank and I have broken up?” Frank was her biker boyfriend, the only biker in all of Seafare. He was big and burly (a bear of a man, if you will) and had steel-toed boots and chaps and a leather coat with fringes all over it. But saying you’re the only biker in Seafare is like saying you’re the smartest kid in remedial English. Big whoop.
“It’s not the same,” I told Mary, wishing she would drop it. “It’s done this time.”
“Do you want it to be done?” she asked me curiously.
I hesitated, only for a moment, but I instantly felt guilty. I did want it to be done, and I knew we would never go back to where we were, but that it was more me than her. Even if she would take me back, and even if I wanted to go there again, I knew that for the rest of my life, I would know that something was missing, that I was missing a crucial piece of me that completed the puzzle. Awww, that’s so sweet, Bear! it chuckled. This is going so much easier now! Good job. You’re welcome.
“I do,” I said to Mary quietly, and she didn’t say any more, and when I looked up again, she was gone. I heard her voice as she called good night to Anna, and then the doors whoosh opened and closed, and Anna and I were the only ones left, for another two hours. I started staring at the clock, counting down the seconds.
At nine thirty, the phone rang. “Thanks for calling The Food Warehouse. This is Bear. How can I help you?” I said glumly, staring at the clock as a few more seconds clicked by.
“It sounds so hot when you say that,” a voice said huskily in my ear.
I grinned and rolled my eyes and for a moment, everything was fine. “You think that’s hot? Maybe I should read off the produce order, and we can see where this goes.”
Otter chuckled. “Bring it home with you, and we’ll talk. How’s work going?”
I glanced up at the clock again. It was still nine thirty. “Meh,” I told him. “It’s better now. What are you doing? How’s the Kid?”
I heard Ott
er switch the phone from one ear to the other. “Well,” he said, “he was going to wait up until you got here, but I got him drunk and then gave him Nyquil and then chained him to his bed. We may just have to get naked when you get done.”
“You drugged my little brother so you could sleep with me?” I asked, amused.
He snorted. “It’s easier to do that than drug my little brother so I can sleep with you. Creed wouldn’t fall for that in a million years.”
“Thanks for watching him tonight.”
“Oh, please. You think you had to twist my arm to get me to come over here? I’m getting ready to knock Creed into next week, so it was good for me to get away for a while.”
This was news to me. “Huh?” I asked. “Why, what’s he doing?”
There was a pause, and then Otter sighed into the phone. “He’s being… Creed.” He laughed, but it sounded forced. “He keeps asking me what’s going on between me and Jonah.”
“Jonah?” I said, flabbergasted. “Why would he ask about him?”
“I don’t know. He brings him up every now and then, asking me if I talked to him lately. He thinks that my so-called ‘return to normalcy’ has to do with the fact that Jonah and I are talking again. Which we’re not,” he added quickly.
I felt a small twinge of jealousy, but I pushed it away. “Well, whatever,” I said, trying to keep any bitterness from my voice. “Let Creed think what he wants. You can come over to my house anytime.” I heard his grin through the phone, and I closed my eyes, picturing his face, crooked smile and all. Heat brushed slowly through my body, and I marveled again how quickly he could make me feel that way.
“Everything else good?” he asked happily.
“Well….”
“What?”
I got up as quiet as I could and peered out the door to the registers. Anna stood with her back to me about twenty feet away, flipping through a magazine. I went back to the chair and lowered my voice as best I could. “Anna’s working tonight.”
“She is? Has she tried to talk to you at all?”
“No.”
He laughed. “Have you been in the office all night?”