He smiles quietly. “We’re friends,” he says, his voice soft and broken. “It’s inevitable.”
I grin. “I really like that word.”
1. Where Tyson Learns to Breathe
Six Years Later
“DO I really want to know why you’re suggesting getting a jumping castle?” I ask Bear and Otter, narrowing my eyes. They exchange one of those secret looks that couples do, full of smiles and memories and heat, and I’m giving serious consideration to vomiting right here and now. “Because I don’t think finding out your brother and his partner have a rubber castle fetish is something an almost sixteen-year-old should ever have to know. Think about what that could do to my eternally fragile psyche. I was in therapy for nearly four years. I’d hate to have to call Eddie to tell him I’ve regressed to the mentality of a nine-year-old, even if I was pretty much the most awesome thing in your tiny little world at that age.”
Bear rolls his eyes and sits back in his chair in the kitchen of the Green Monstrosity. “If that helps you sleep at night, keep telling yourself that, Kid. And jumping castles are awesome. Ask anyone, anywhere, ever.”
“Dominic is turning twenty-two, and most of the people coming are going to be cops! You know what? I changed my mind. Get the jumping castle so I can have you arrested for embarrassing the crap out of me. I’m pretty sure that’ll get you the death penalty.” God, Bear is so annoying!
“Jumping castles hold special memories for me and your brother,” Otter says, grinning at Bear like he’s the greatest thing to have ever existed. I might have to take umbrage with that.
“I so don’t want to know,” I mutter. “I don’t think I’ve recovered yet from Bear trying to fumble through the sex talk he had with me. You’d think he’d never had sex before the way that went. I’m giving very serious consideration to being a virgin for the rest of my life.”
“Hey!” he snaps at me. “Just because I didn’t know what a dental dam was when you asked doesn’t mean you can give me shit for it. You didn’t know either.”
“You told me you thought it was some kind of sexy dental floss used to tie people down during BDSM scenes! I couldn’t take going to the dentist seriously for a year afterwards because I was convinced Dr. Kao was some kind of kinky Dungeon Master.” It definitely didn’t help that he was at least four hundred years old and had removed my wisdom teeth right after Bear had told me this. I was absolutely sure I’d been part of some dirty scene while I’d been under the gas.
“Maybe he is,” Otter says thoughtfully. “I could see him in all leather.” We stare at him and he scowls back at us. “What? Just because I could doesn’t mean I want to. You’re both prudes. I still remember finding you
two hiding in the pantry looking at the ingredients of canned tomatoes after I explained what a dental dam actually was.”
“You didn’t have to use visuals,” I grumble. “I could have done without the demonstration involving a plastic baggie and a cantaloupe. I have the most humiliating parental figures out of everyone I know. It’s like you want me to be a social outcast.”
“Your awkward teenage angst is really neat,” Bear tells me. “I’m so glad you’ve morphed into a surly adolescent. Lord knows I don’t get enough of those during the day. And you better be a virgin for the rest of your life. I won’t hesitate to bust some little blonde girl’s head should she try to get up in your business.” He mutters about some whore named Tiffani.
“Sure, Teach. No unwanted teenage pregnancies for me.” And that’s pretty much true. What with skipping grades and applying for colleges, I don’t have time for girls in any way, shape, or form. Or, if we’re being honest, boys. I haven’t quite decided where I fall on the spectrum, though I’m pretty sure it’s about as full-on gay as one can possibly get. Of course, right? Of course that would happen. Just one more thing piled on top of all the rest. But hell, I figure I’m young enough that I don’t have to make up my mind about such things until I’m ready to. Or maybe never. People are too complicated. They confuse the hell out of me. Not Dom, though. He never has. Well. For the most part. There are times when I—
Nope. Not even thinking about it. Not today. Not again.
“That’s Mr. Thompson to you, Kid,” Bear says, winking at me.
I laugh, trying to distract myself. I still can’t get over the fact that Bear is an English teacher. Bear. Derrick Thompson. A teacher. It blows my mind daily to think about him standing in front of a classroom and opening his mouth and letting actual words fall into the impressionable young minds of the next generation. The world is so screwed. “You just wish I’d taken your class, Mr. Thompson,” I say. “We could have sparred back and forth on the relevance of Aldous Huxley to this modern age. I would have made it rain up in your classroom, and everyone would have been all like, ‘Oh, that Tyson is so awesome. I wish I could be like him one day because he’s wicked badass and he knows more than the teacher and we all love him more than life itself.’”
Bear huffs at me. “No, they would have been all like, ‘I wish that kid who looks like a faded Xerox copy of the stunningly handsome Mr. Thompson would stop talking so we could actually learn something instead of hearing blah, blah, blah.’”
“No! They would have all been like, ‘I wish Tyson would be our teacher so we didn’t have to listen to Mr. Thompson who sounds like he just started trying to learn the English language twenty minutes ago because he’s all like duh. Duh. Duh.’”
“No! They would all be like—”
“As fun as this conversation is,” Otter says, “and believe me, it’s the most fun I’ve had in at least sixteen minutes, we should probably focus on the party.”
“We’re the most fun you’ve ever had ever,” Bear says, tapping Otter’s hand. “You best remember that.”
Otter smiles at my brother and it hits his eyes. Bear told me once that with Otter, you can tell everything he’s feeling all the time, that he can’t ever hide anything. I didn’t think it was true at the time, because I figured anyone can hide something if they really wanted to. I still don’t know about that.
But he’s not. Not now. Now he’s looking at my brother like he thinks Bear hung the moon and the stars, which, according to Otter, he might have. I’ve never understood how people could be so against them when they look at each other the way they do. All they’ve ever really wanted is each other (whether Bear knew it or not, but do we really need to go through all that again?) and to exist in their own little corner of the world. And they’ve gotten it, for the most part. Or, at least, I hope they have.
“I remember,” Otter says quietly, grasping Bear’s hand. Their wedding rings catch the low light as they scrape against each other. It’s nice, but it’s also getting to the point where if they keep swooning into each other’s eyes, we’re all going to drown in their saccharine sweetness as rainbows fly out their butts. I’ve got things to do today. Trust me when I say this moment, for me, is the equivalent of other kids walking in on their parents. It’s the same exact thing, and it’s really gross.
I make it my mission to kill the moment as quickly and efficiently as possible so we can talk about my problems again. I’ve learned teenagers are the most self-centered creatures on the planet. We preen more than show dogs. “This is lovely and all,” I say, quite loudly, “but I’d really like to move forward with the next item on the agenda.” I only called this meeting because I need their funds for the party. Bear has refused to let me get a job like normal people my age, saying that he wants me to focus on school.
I don’t normally ask, but on the rare occasion I need money for anything, I go to Bear and Otter. We’re not rich (or, at least, I don’t think we are), but we seem to do okay. Even so, I don’t want to ask them for money for Dom’s present. I want to be able to get it on my own, with my own money. This has seemed important for me to do ever since the idea first hit my brain a few months before. (Every so often, little things like that crash into me, worming their way into my head until they’re all I can focus on. I’m pretty sure I’ve got a little OCD buried in me somewhere, but I try not to let it take over if I can. Fact: do not go online to try and diagnose yourself. You’ll end up convinced you’re far worse than you actually are. Trust me; it took Otter and me three days to convince Bear he only had the flu when he was sure that WebMD was telling him he had all the symptoms of rabies. He told us we should probably go away before he started frothing at the mouth and developed a taste for human flesh. “Have you seen Cujo?” he growled at us. “You should probably just put me down now!” I looked at Otter and said solemnly, “I’ll do it, Pa, if you’ll get me the shotgun. He’s my dog. I should be the one to put him out of his misery.” I reached over and petted Bear’s head. “You’ve been a good dog,” I told him. “The best a boy could have. I reckon I sure am going to miss you.” Otter thought I was hysterical. Bear had just thrown up again. I tried not to take that last personally.)
So instead of asking for money, I got clearance to tutor kids in AP Chemistry and AP Calculus, seeing as how I’d taken both the year before. Bear tried to argue with me about it when I had to get his okay, but I countered that it would give me more human interaction outside of the family and that it’d probably be good for me to have better social skills as I was going to college in the fall. I might or might not have also given him that look he always falls for. He relented. And I wasn’t totally full of shit about the social-skills part.