I threw a magazine at his head in outrage.

Otter rolled his eyes and said he didn’t know why he put up with either of us.

The Kid and I both said bullshit at the same time.

We both looked a little startled.

Then we laughed.

It was a start.

3. Where Bear Makes a Decision

FINALLY ONE April he came to us again, looking more nervous than he’d been in a long time.

“I had a thought,” he said as we sat around the kitchen table, the windows open, the spring air clean and warm.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Otter teased him.

“I’m serious!”

“Hi, Serious, I’m Otter.”

We gaped at him.

“What?” he asked, arching an eyebrow at us.

“Did—did you just make a dad joke?” the Kid asked faintly.

“I don’t know if I’m turned on or frightened,” I admitted.

“Ew,” the Kid said, making a face. “What a terrible thing to say. We eat at this table.”

“I’m funny,” Otter insisted.

“Eh,” the Kid and I both said at the same time.

“I’m divorcing you,” Otter said. He glanced at the Kid. “And I’m putting you up for adoption.”

“Good luck with that,” the Kid said.

“If you tried to leave, you’d be sorry,” I said. “I’d find you wherever you went.”

“Ah, marriage,” Otter said. “If it’s not love, it’s threats.”

“We trapped you,” the Kid said. “Forever.”

Otter looked rather pleased at the thought, and not for the first time, I thought of the binder hidden away in his nightstand next to the bed. It’d been on my mind more and more lately.

“So, I’ve called you both here today to discuss my future,” the Kid said.

“This should be good,” I said.

“Remember when he was nine and did this?” Otter asked me. “He made me give him five dollars but refused to tell me what it was for.”

“And I never will,” the Kid said. “You will go to your grave never knowing what I—”

“He ordered Sea Monkeys out of the back of a magazine,” I said. “He said he needed to study how they built the castles like advertised. It was really rather adorable, how gullible he used to be. I miss those days.”

“Bear! You vile betrayer! You promised you would never tell anyone.”

“I found him in his room talking to them,” I said rather gleefully. “He was telling them how when they became sentient, he was going to become their supreme ruler, and that any dissent against him would be met with swift justice.”

“You bought Sea Monkeys so you could become a dictator?” Otter asked with a frown. “That’s… frightening. And really not unexpected, actually.”

“I would have been benevolent. A loveable dictator, like Thomas Sankara.”

“We have no idea who that is,” Otter reassured him.