Read T.J. Klune - Bear, Otter, and the Kid 2 - Who We Are for Free Online Page B

felt a little sad then, wanting to fix this thing in him that I’d broken. I don’t really know what the issue is, whether it be how long I kept me and Otter from him, or whether it’s just the fact that it’s me and Otter, his older brother. I thought about it, late one night, wondering how I’d feel being in his position, like maybe if the Kid and him got together when Ty was older. That caused me to cringe and gag a little, so I think I could understand. But I think a lot of things have been left unsaid between the two of us, and while I want to be the bigger man (for once) and broach the subject, I think maybe the distance will be good for now, and I’ll let him come to me. It’s not avoidance if you actively plan to pursue it. Someday. Of course it doesn’t help that I’m too much of a chickenshit to ask either one of them if they’re still together and doing the whole long distance thing. I don’t know why I should even care.
    And of course there’s Oliver Thompson, Otter to everyone because of me. It always seems to come back to him, seems to end with him. Otter, who still confounds me like no one else, who can—at the drop of a hat—shoot me a smoldering look that makes me forget my name, much less the involuntary act of breathing. It’s a talent he’s mastered and always reminds me he has. Sometimes I can resist. Most of the time I choose not to. Otter said he loved me and I believed him. I told him I loved him, and I think he believed me (even though his first time was done in bed and mine was done with a misanthropic seagull).
    Otter disappeared for three years. (Mostly my fault, that; but do we really need to rehash old details now? I have a feeling that’ll be done enough later on in this second part of my story. Aren’t you just so excited? Drama! Angst! Vegetarians! The Kid told me that if our story was a Lifetime Movie Event, I’d be played by Delta Burke and he’d be played by Taylor Lautner. I don’t even know who any of those people are.) But Otter decided to come back, saying he was haunted by me down in San Diego. He left behind my favorite person in the entire world, his ex-boyfriend Jonah Echols.
    When he heard me say this once, the Kid told me I was being facetious. I asked him what that meant. He told me to look it up. I tried to but then I had to go back and ask him how to spell it. He rolled his eyes and wrote it down for me. I found the following:
    fa-ce-tious [fuh see -shuhs] adjective 1 . Not meant to be taken seriously
intent; concerned
or literally. 2. Lacking serious with something nonessential,
amusing, or frivolous. I went back to the Kid and told him he was grounded. He asked me if I was being facetious. I told him no sir I was not.
    So Otter came back and reminded me that for all intents and purposes, we belonged to each other, regardless of anything else. Of course, nothing is ever that easy, and I kicked and screamed the whole way, creating way more drama than was completely necessary. Of course, in my own defense, there was the fact that my entire sexuality was in question, the fact that my mother came back and threatened me because of that (for reasons I still don’t understand), and the fact that Mr. Wonderful (Jonah—that was sarcasm ) tried to steal Otter back that compounded the situation. It’s hard to not create drama when it seems to explode around you anytime you open your mouth.
    But we survived it, somehow, him and me, survived it to the point where Otter felt the need to buy a house for us even before he was sure there would ever be an us again. Standing in front of the Green Monstrosity (seriously, whoever thought that color was a good idea should have their eyes removed) for the first time a couple of weeks ago had been life altering, not only because of what it stood for, but because of that man who stood before me, promising me a future I had never considered. I remember being shell-shocked and heartsore, but in a good way. We walked into that