Bear, Otter, & the Kid 03 - The Art of Breathing (45 page)

“Dom will be out in a minute,” Paul tells me. “He’s in the bathroom. I need to go back up and help Helena turn back into Sandy. Kori’s up there, so we’ll be a bit if you want to wait.”

“That’s fine.”

“Or,” Vince says, “you can stay down here with me, and we can go find that corner of the bar to go make out. You know, for old time’s sake. Remember what happened later that night?”

Paul rolls his eyes but can’t hide the smile. “Maybe later. Scratch that. Definitely later.” He kisses Vince and disappears back into the bar.

“Butt sex happened later that night,” Vince says to me happily.

I laugh. “I figured as much. What happened to oversharing?”

He shrugs. “I figured you were wondering. Couldn’t leave you hanging.”

How kind. “You love him, huh?”

“Paul? Oh sure. With all that I’ve got. He’s the only thing I need. I tell him it’s real, and he believes me. What more could I ask for?”

“Tell him it’s real?”

“It’s a thing, I guess. Our thing. He didn’t believe me, for whatever reason, when I asked him out the first time. Thought I was playing a joke on him.”

“Well, I can see that,” I say. “I mean, you’re… you. And he’s….” I don’t know exactly what I’m trying to say. It sounds like it was going to a real shitty place. I’m not like that.

But neither is Vince. “He’s what?” he asks, sounding confused.

“He’s what you need, I guess.”

Vince nods. “That’s a good way to put it. I’m just glad he figured out I wasn’t joking.”

“Did it take long?”

“Nah. I wore him down. I can be persuasive when I need to be.”

“Hit you with his car, did he?”

“Flew right over it and everything. Also saved his life from choking on spinach, so his life pretty much belongs to me. It’s in good hands, I think.”

“That’s a Chinese proverb,” I tell him.

He rolls his eyes. “It’s all Asia. The point is that I gave him his life, and he gave me mine in return. And a family that loves me, just the way I am. I don’t need anything else.”

“I’m happy for you, Vince. It sounds great.”

“You going to tell Dom?”

“Tell him what?”

Vince grins. “That you love him. Duh.”

“Shocked” doesn’t even begin to describe me. “Excuse me?”

“Well, you love him, right? He sure loves you. You guys look at each other like Paul and I do. Sandy and Darren say it’s gross, but they do the same thing.” He frowns. “I’m still working on them. I’ll figure it out. Or they will. Or the world will end. I don’t know which will happen first.”

It’d be so easy to bullshit, but I think I might be done with that now. “I don’t know,” I say quietly. “I don’t know how to tell him. I
did
love him, at one point. I don’t know if it’s the same.”

“Sure seems like it.”

“Does it?”

“Why not just say it?”

“You can’t just say something like that.”

He looks surprised. “Why not? You know, if people actually said what was in their hearts instead of just overthinking everything in their heads, things would be so much easier.”

To which I have no retort. Absolutely none at all. Me. A McKenna. Nothing. “You’re pretty smart, you know that? Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. If they do, you tell them a member of MENSA told you that.”

He beams at me. “Thank you! That’s awesome of you to say. But isn’t MENSA the group of old gross guys who molests little boys? You probably shouldn’t belong to that. I don’t want you to get molested.”

“No… that’s…. Vince, that’s NAMBLA.”

“Oh. Is MENSA Jewish food, then? I don’t know if I’ve ever had Jewish food. I went to Asia and had Asian food, and it wasn’t like Panda Express at all. Everything there had tentacles or used to be a dog, and I felt really bad because I would
never
cook Wheels. You know? That would just be so wrong and….”

A B
RIEF
Intermission from the Sages (And From Real Life In General):

I go back inside to find Dom to tell him… I don’t know. Something. Anything. He should have been out there by now.

Do I love him? Fuck if I know.

Shit. Of course I do.

I probably never stopped.

Peachy. This is just fucking peachy. Goddammit.

I walk into the bar. The dance floor is packed.

I can see movement up on the balcony.

Maybe he’s up there.

I turn the corner.

He’s standing there, leaning against a wall. Talking to some guy. I watch as he leans in and says something. The other guy laughs. Dom smiles, and I swear I’m back in that hallway, I’m fifteen years old, and I have a present in my hands I want to give him. I just want him to see the story I made him, to show him how I see us, and maybe, just
maybe
he’ll look at me and say,
There you are. Right in front of me this whole time. I don’t know why I’ve never seen it before. But I do now, and I love you. I love you too.

The guy reaches up and touches his arm. A caress that’s more than friendly.

It’s what I deserve, really. For taking this long. I should go back outside. Whatever will be will be. Gay, bi, whatever. He’s my friend, and that’s all that matters. I just want him to be happy.

I turn to leave.

An explosion of laughter behind me.

He looks over.

Our gazes lock.

I can’t breathe. The earth quakes beneath my feet. Everything I’m feeling is splayed across my face, I know, and I can do nothing to hide it. The anger. The jealousy. The fear. Rage and desire, amassing as one.

He stands up straight.

Run
, I tell myself.
Please, run.

Run
, it whispers.
Please, run.

But I can’t. I can’t move.
Breathe, Kid.
It’s Bear. I can hear him. All other sounds fade away to the voice of my brother.

Just breathe.

Dom takes a step toward me, leaving the stranger behind.

Inhale
, Bear says.
You can do this. Inhale.

I breathe in. I almost don’t make it. But I do.

Good. Hold.

I can do this. I know I can do this.

One.

Dominic pushes past the bar.

Two.

Someone bumps my arm.

Three. Exhale.

I breathe out.

Hold.

Somehow, I do.

One.

Dom is almost to me, and I’ve never been more scared in my entire life.

Two.

He’s never looked bigger than he does right now. I’m just a little guy.

Three.

The roaring sounds of the bar come back.

“I d-didn’t mean to i-i-interrupt,” I tell him as he reaches me. My voice breaks. “I’m s-s-
sorry
. I’ll g-g-go and—”

He kisses me.

In my tiny little world, in my tiny little brain, everything explodes in colors and shapes and stars, and all I see are
stars
, and they fill the world until I’m sure everything around us will blow away like so much dust. He moves his lips over mine, gripping the side of my face, and it’s
him
, it’s
him
, oh my God, it’s
Dom
, and he’s got a hold on me like he’ll never let me go, he’ll never let me leave again, and I think to myself, filled with so much wonder,
This is nice, but I should probably kiss him back so he doesn’t think it’s like kissing a dead fish.
And I
do
, and it’s awkward and wet and oh so perfect, and when he touches his tongue to mine, I understand fireworks and supernovas and life itself for just one brief, shining moment. This is what life is, these moments of fireworks and exploding stars and synapses blazing.
These
are the moments that lift us up when we think we can’t take another step.
These
are the moments that put us back together when we’ve fallen apart.
These
are the moments that make us whole.

It’s not a matter of breathing.

It’s who we are.

He pulls away, but barely. His eyes fix on mine. “I’ve been waiting,” he says almost angrily in that beautiful broken voice, “for the look you just gave me. Is this clear enough for you, Tyson? Do you understand now?”

Well, no, I don’t understand anything at all because I’m pretty sure I’m brain-dead and have an erection in the middle of a gay bar fifteen hundred miles from home after having the first kiss to end all first kisses. “Flarg,” I say rather eloquently. “Gah.”

“Good,” he says. “Just so we’re clear.”

He lets go of my face and turns on his heel, disappearing into the crowd.

“Gah,” I say again. No one seems to notice.

T
HE
F
INAL
Sage:

It’s hours later and I still haven’t quite recovered from what I’ve determined to be a life-altering event of a magnitude that I can’t even begin to understand.

Dom and I haven’t said much to each other since we left the bar. To be honest, I haven’t said much to anyone as my speaking ability appears to have been temporarily destroyed, and I can do no more than make grunting noises to questions that I’m not quite hearing. It probably doesn’t help that whenever I look at Dom, he arches an eyebrow at me, asking me a question I cannot remotely comprehend.

Funny thing, though. I can breathe. It’s not even an issue.

And now everyone’s gone to bed and Dom is in our room, and I’m putting off following him in there because I’m convinced that either I’ve constructed what happened in the bar as some sort of elaborate fantasy and it didn’t happen, or it
did
happen and Dom is waiting for me in the bedroom so we can
talk
and
kiss
and maybe (probably!)
get down to business
, and all I can picture is that huge fucking dildo in the drawer and what if he wants to use that? On me? Or on him? Do I have to put a condom on it? Is it even clean? Can you get STDs from rubber dongs?

Yeah, I know. I sound ridiculous. But I can’t help it.

So instead of taking charge and getting what I’ve been waiting for all this time, I’m sitting in the dark in the living room on Sandy’s couch replaying that kiss in my head over and over and over again. Stupid, stupid, stupid—

The light switches on overhead.

“Gah,” I say. “Gah flarg!”

“Because that makes sense,” Sandy says with a yawn. “I thought I heard some noise out here. What are you still doing up? Can’t sleep? Me either. Takes me a while to calm down after a show.”

“He! Did stuff! To my face!”

“Uh, come again?” he asks. He sits down next to me on the couch. “Who did stuff to your face? Did someone hurt you at the bar?” I can hear the steel in his voice. Helena’s never too far away.

I shake my head and clear my throat. “No. Kissed me!”

“Who kissed you?” Then a smile splits his face. “Well, I’ll be fucked. Did someone perchance find out what a certain officer of the law tastes like?”

“Holy shit!”

“Holy shit, indeed,” he says. He reaches over and wraps his arm around my shoulders and pulls me close. Holy crap, do I need this. I curl up against him, and he laughs quietly to himself.

“What’s so funny?” I ask, because I’m failing to find any humor in this situation whatsoever.

“That didn’t take long,” he says. “I expected you to last at least another week or so.”

“It wasn’t me! He did it!”

“Even better, then. It means he got tired of waiting for you to open your eyes. Gotta love a man who takes the initiative.”

“I’m so confused,” I mutter.

“Why, baby doll? You’ve got what you wanted. Dom is, at the very least, interested in your cute little ass. And at most, it’s what you’ve been waiting for.”

“I don’t even know what that means!”

“No one does. That’s the beauty of it. You’ll find out together. The big thing that you need to do is just go with the flow and not overthink it.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly a ‘go with the flow’ kind of guy,” I remind him.

He laughs again. “Yeah, I kind of figured that. You’re lucky I already have plenty of experience with Paul. You two are peas in pod. Maybe you’re a little less neurotic and a little more of a smartass, but you remind me of him. And that’s a good thing.”

“He and my brother can never meet,” I warn him. “It really would be the end of the world.” And then it hits me what I’ve forgotten. “Oh
shit
,” I moan.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“My brother!”

“What about him?”

“He’s going to
kill
me.” And he really will. There’s going to be no end when he finds out that Dom and me are doing… well, whatever it is that we’re doing.

“Why?”

“He’s… overprotective.” Understatement, that.

“I thought you all have known Dom a long time.”

“We have.”

Sandy cocks his head at me. “I don’t understand, then. You’re twenty years old. You’re an adult and capable of making your own decisions. Who you love and choose to spend your time with shouldn’t be dictated by your brother.” I can hear the frown in his voice, and it’s my fault, really. He doesn’t know about Bear and me.

“It’s not like that,” I tell him. “It’s hard for people to understand who haven’t been through what we’ve been through.”

“And what’s that? If you don’t mind me asking. And if you do, please tell me to shut the hell up and mind my own business. I won’t be offended.”

“It’s a long story.”

“We’ve got all night.”

I think I’ll balk at it. Sandy’s nice and he’s becoming my friend, but I’ve known him all of two days, and there are things I haven’t told people I’ve known for years. I open my mouth to tell him thanks, but no thanks, but instead I say, “One morning when I was five years old, I woke up on the couch. I looked down, and Bear and Otter were sleeping on the floor. Otter was curled around Bear protectively, and I remember thinking how happy I was about that, how Bear needed someone to look out for him. I thought I couldn’t do it on my own because I was just a little guy.