“Because there are obviously no stores between here and Tucson,” I tell him. “I don’t know what on earth I’m going to do when I find out I don’t have enough shampoo to last me for the next fourteen years.”

“You’re not helping,” he says with a scowl.

“You had to get a completely separate bag just to hold all the shampoo,” I remind him.

“This should probably stop before it escalates,” Otter suggests. “Because, knowing you two, it will.”

“He’s the one who made me take all of it!”

“Oh sure! Blame me for wanting to make sure you had clean, shiny hair that didn’t flake! I’m so sorry!”

“And it escalated,” Otter sighs.

“You can come with us,” Corey says to him. “Leave those two here. Are they really arguing about shampoo?”

“They’re just going to miss each other,” Otter explains. “This is them showing it.”

“Oh gross,” I moan. “That’s not even remotely close to what’s going on right now. This is about my American right to not take six thousand shampoos with me on a week-long trip.”

“Miss him?” Bear says incredulously. “For the first time in I don’t know how long there’s going to be an empty house with just the two of us, and you think I’m going to miss him?”

“I give it an hour before he starts bitching how quiet it is in the house,” Otter says.

“I don’t bitch!”

“You kind of bitch,” Dominic says.

“All the time,” I agree.

“Not that you’re any better,” Dom says to me. “Or, rather, you didn’t used to be.”

“He’s still that way,” Corey says. “Trust me. When they both get going, you’d swear they were just making high-pitched noises and not forming any actual words.”

“Fall off a cliff,” Bear and I both mutter at the same time, as if we needed any more evidence that we’re essentially the same person. How fucking annoying.

“Are you two done?” Corey asks. “It’s too early for this, and I’d like to get on the road so I can go back to sleep and let you two chauffeur me like the help you are.”

“That’s so reverse racist,” I tell him.

“I’m black,” he snaps back. “Consider it recompense.”

I’m not even going to touch that one. “Good-bye!” I say loudly, going toward the car. “Later! Good-bye, house! Good-bye, Otter! Bite me, Bear!”

“You stop right there,” Bear says.

And I do, for fuck’s sake.

He stands in front of me. I glare at him. He glares right back.

“You have fun,” he says, even though he sounds like he doesn’t mean it at all.

“You too,” I reply. “You know, with all that quiet.”

We hug each other stiffly.

“You going to be okay?” he whispers so the others can’t hear.

“I think so,” I whisper back. “Can I… can I call you? If I need to talk? Or whatever?”

“Day or night.”

“You’re going to do pretty good at this parenting thing. If you don’t screw them up completely.”