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Back The Long and Winding Road
Chapters (31)
  1. The Long and Winding Road
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. Prologue: Or, Where Bear Answers the Door
  6. PAST
  7. 1. Where Bear Makes the Wrong Assumption
  8. 2. Where Bear Finds Out
  9. 3. Where Bear Makes a Decision
  10. 4. Where Bear Learns the Art of Breathing
  11. 5. Where Bear Has Bro-Time with Creed
  12. PRESENT
  13. 6. Where Bear Attends the Most Awkward Homecoming Ever
  14. 7. Where Bear Tells Tyson Everything
  15. 8. Where Bear Makes a Promise
  16. 9. Where Bear Goes to Lamaze Class
  17. 10. Where Bear Gets Advice About His Sex Life
  18. 11. Where Bear and Otter Role-Play at a Hotel Bar
  19. 12. Where Bear Faces the Reality of Married Life
  20. 13. Where Bear Sees Everything Change
  21. FUTURE
  22. 14. The Long and Winding Road
  23. Epilogue: Or, Otter’s Perspective, As It Were
  24. Coda
  25. No. Absolutely not. No way.
  26. More from TJ Klune
  27. Readers love the Bear, Otter, and the Kid Chronicles by TJ Klune
  28. About the Author
  29. By TJ Klune
  30. Visit Dreamspinner Press
  31. Copyright
Document

I know the moment he feels it. The moment he feels one of our kids moving in Megan’s stomach. It starts with his lip, the bottom of which trembles before his mouth drops open. It moves up his face in a flush before it hits his eyes, which widen to the point where they’re almost bulging. A sound comes out of his mouth that sounds almost wounded, and then his gaze finds mine and he says, “Bear.”

My hand is on top of his then, my fingers going between his, and there’s nothing, there is nothing, there’s—

A push, back up against us.

It’s stronger than I thought it would be. It startles me, and I almost fall backward, but Otter’s got his arm around my waist, holding me up, and it’s there again, another push, and I don’t know what it is, if it’s a foot or a hand or what, but it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt in my life.

There’s blood rushing in my ears, but I can still hear Otter murmuring next to me, saying, “Hi, babies, it’s your daddy and your papa, and you’re here, aren’t you? You’re here, and we can feel you. We can feel you. Oh my god, we can feel you. We can’t wait to meet you. We are so happy you’re almost here.”

No one says a damn word about how choked he sounds.

We stay there for the longest time.

10. Where Bear Gets Advice About His Sex Life

JULY ROLLS in, hot and sticky, a rare heat wave smothering the coast for weeks. It feels like the days are just crawling by, the date scrawled on the calendar (!!!!!SEPTEMBER 18!!!!!) still looking so far away. We keep being told that it’ll be here before we know it, but we’re getting anxious.

But it’s not like we don’t have other shit going on. We’ve managed to convince everyone that we don’t want a baby shower, but we’ve somehow found ourselves registered for shit at Target anyway, with daily deliveries coming of packages of all shapes and sizes filled with diapers and shampoo and toys and something called a Newborn Starter Kit filled with bottles and nipples that have anticolic valves built in. It’s overwhelming after a while, all this shit that I would have never even thought of, like sterilizers and diaper hampers and video monitors that I’m pretty sure are more high-tech than I’m capable of dealing with.

Everything is piled up in the nursery to the point where stuff was starting to get stacked on top of each other. We moved the crib we already had to our bedroom, given that we’d want to have it there when they came. We debated back and forth about buying another one, but Anna had told us it’d be enough for the both of them, and that they probably wouldn’t want to be separated for now.