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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

His hand was in my hair, and I knew he had let it go, but for some reason, I couldn’t. “The binder.”

He tensed. Just a little. “Yeah?”

“Can you… hold on to it? For now. Don’t—don’t get rid of it. But, maybe just set it aside? Just for a little while.”

“I can do that,” he said, like it was nothing. “I can definitely do that.”

“It’s not like I don’t—”

“Bear, it’s okay. I promise. It’ll hold.”

Sometimes I thought Otter was our reward for all the crap that had been slung on me and the Kid in our short, complicated lives. And if he was, he was the best thing I could have ever asked for. It sucked that he got the shit end of that deal. “Sorry about dinner.”

He kissed my forehead. “It happens. We have all the time in the world.”

2. Where Bear Finds Out

I SHOULD have seen it for what it was.

And maybe I did. Maybe I saw all the signs but chose not to believe them. Maybe I subconsciously ignored them, because I knew the Kid couldn’t be that stupid. He couldn’t be. He was the Kid. He was the smartest, bravest, fiercest person I’d ever known. His convictions were ironclad, his heart strong, his head in the right place. I knew that. I knew all of that.

“How’s school going?” I would ask him.

“Fine,” he would always say. “Good. Real good.”

Later: “Figure out a major yet? What you want to do with your life?”

“Not yet. I’ll get there. It’s early yet.”

And later still: “Not on the Dean’s List?”

“You know how it is, Papa Bear. Competition is hard-core. I can’t do it every time.”

“No, it’s okay. I know. Just… you know you can talk to me, right? If you need to? I’m here.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

Dom’s name was never mentioned, at least not by or to the Kid. And aside from the time Dom had shown up on our doorstep demanding to see Tyson, I hadn’t really talked to him. Sure, there were texts every now and then, congratulations on the baby and the wedding. There was the how is everything going? and no, doesn’t look like we’ll be coming home this summer, sorry, but Otter was the one that kept in contact with him. I didn’t blame Dom for what had happened or the choices he’d made, because I couldn’t. I’d been the one to introduce him and Stacey. I’d been the one to start all of this, and maybe the reason we never talked about Dom was because I was too worried the Kid blamed me for everything.