Octo BEAR fest (Renaissance Shifters #1)

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

I t wasn't that Gwen hadn't played bars before. God, no, she'd played more of them than she could count. But most of the time those bars had a certain vibe to them, and that vibe was "ew."

The Thunder Bear Brewpub was about as far from "ew" as could possibly exist in a bar. It was only mid-afternoon, so there weren't crowds hanging around, which let the broad, log-cabin-style exterior walls gleam gold in the autumn sunlight. The main doors were flung open, giving the place a welcoming air, and there was a delightful-looking maze of outdoors beer gardens with corrugated plastic roofing that looked like it was either new or kept religiously clean. The beer gardens all had half walls with plexiglass windows ranging from all the way closed to all the way open. The seating, made up of benches and bar stools with tables to match their heights, had suspiciously comfortable-looking cushions. They came off the seats: Gwen could see the ties that held them in place. She bet they got industrial-washed at least once a week, and for some reason that pleased her, so she was smiling as she went into the main building.

Like the exterior, it was open, clean, smelled good, and had a friendly feel to it. There were a few people around, staff working behind the bar, tidying up, raising their eyebrows to see if she needed seating or a drink or anything, and going back to work but keeping an eye on her when she indicated she was okay. A handful of patrons were scattered comfortably around the interior seating, like they were in a place where everybody knew their name. One lifted his chin in greeting, and a woman gave her a curious look, which was fair. Gwen didn't, at a glance, look like she fit in with the local crowd.

Which was fair enough, as she was neither local nor even all that fond of beer, so a place known for its home brews generally wasn't her scene.

The entirely decent stage set up at one end of the biggest room was her scene, though. Wonderfully, it didn't have any chicken wire, either rolled up or already hanging down, to protect the musicians from bottles being thrown by the audience. That, Gwen thought, was a great sign. She'd played at way too many dives where getting beer bottles thrown at her was just part of the job. She nosed around a bit, checked the time, went to use the bathroom—also clean, smelling like lemon, and with mirrors that were neither warped, cracked, nor weirdly yellow from cheap backing. "I love this place," she informed her reflection as she washed her hands, then bopped back on out to the main room, skidding the soles of her boots across the floor to see how the traction was.

Good, just like everything else in this place. Not that Gwen was planning to have to make a run for it, but it had happened before, and she liked to be prepared. She went over to one of the staff. "Hey, I've got an appointment with Bill Torben…?"

The woman, white, in her forties, and with the practiced disinterest of long-time bar staff, looked her up and down. "Really?"

"Yeah, at two. Gwen Booker."

"Wow." The woman looked Gwen up and down again, taking a particularly long moment to examine the electric guitar she had slung over her shoulder. "Not what I was expecting when he booked you, but okay, sure. If you head back past the bathrooms, the hallway takes a left and there's a staff door there. Go through it and Bill's office is the last door."

Gwen was used to not being what people expected, so she just grinned, said, "Thanks," and scooted herself on through the staff door and down the hall toward Bill Torben's office. She knocked briskly, heard a " Come in! " and pushed the door open with the thrill of excitement that always came before a performance, even if it was just a one-man 'meet the guy who hired you' show.

To her horror, the door flew open like it had been waiting its whole life just for this moment. Like it had been practicing a vigorous swing that would slam it all the way into the wall and bounce it back again like a freight truck. Gwen slapped her hand up, catching the door before it smashed into her face, but honestly, the fact that she'd been able to do that was a freaking miracle , because the guy standing up at the far side of the room was the most ridiculously attractive human being Gwen had ever laid eyes on.

He was ' toll and thicc ,' in the parlance of her tweenage niece. Like, toll -toll, one of the tallest guys Gwen had ever personally met, maybe six five or so, and he was built like a brick outhouse. There was no particular taper from his shoulder to his hip: he was just lorg, as Cindy would also say. Barrel-chested, thick-thighed, huge hands. Gwen found herself focusing on the hand he'd reached out toward her as soon as she'd opened the door. It would engulf her own hand. She could think of some really incredible things to do with those thick fingers. The dude could use her for biceps curls, was all she was saying. She lurched forward and put her hand in his.

Yep. Engulfed. Also suddenly very warm and comfortable, like her hand belonged in his and always had. Gwen started to smile without really meaning to, gazing up at this huge, magnificent mountain of a man. He had tremendously thick dark blonde hair in a remarkable pompadour, and a beard that was just thiiiiiis much more than scruff. His deep-set dark blue eyes, strong nose, and wide mouth suited his face perfectly.

He also, she realized, had an expression of increasing dismay stretching the lines of his face longer and longer as he looked her up and down. "G…Gwendolyn Brooker?" The way he said it told Gwen he knew that wasn't right, but that he was desperately hoping he was somehow wrong.

Gwen kind of rolled her eyes, glancing around the room to see if anybody else was there, and offered him a crooked smile in return. "Uh, no? Gwen. Gwen Booker ."

All the hope drained out of the big man's face. He let go of her hand, put his face in both of his, and moaned, "Oh no ," into his palms.

Gwen froze, feeling suddenly a bit like a mouse that had alarmed an elephant. "Wh…aaaaat did I do?"

"Oh, no," he said, still into his palms, "no, it was me. Or someone on my staff, but…me. I'm the buck. It stops here. Oh, God, we're doomed."

"That," Gwen said, cautiously, "seems insulting."

Bill Torben—she assumed this giant of a man was Bill Torben, anyway—jerked his gaze up from his palms with an expression of overwhelming guilt. "Oh, God, no, not you, I mean, yes, you, you're a disaster , but no, not you ."

Gwen did the look-around-the-room thing again, moving just her eyes until she was pretty certain there wasn't anyone else in there. It was a six by ten room, give or take, dominated—well, dominated by the very large man in it, but in furniture terms, dominated by a desk and a wall of filing cabinets that seemed very retro but she felt in her soul were probably incredibly organized. There was a painting she'd only glimpsed on the opposite wall. She had the impression it was of a grizzly bear. A window with closed curtains was behind the desk, which was a shame, because it made the room seem smaller and darker than it needed to be, but on the other hand, if the curtains were open, the sun would glare on his computer monitor.

There was not, unless they were hidden under the desk, anyone else in the room. Once Gwen was satisfied of that, she looked back up at the distraught pub owner. "Still pretty sure I'm insulted."

"I hired Gwendolyn Brooker, " Bill groaned. "A jazz musician. Or at least, I meant to. I don't know what went wrong, oh, God ." He left Gwen standing in the middle of the room and went back to his desk, shuffling through neatly-arranged paperwork. Gwen stared at him a moment, then several moments, and when it became clear he was going to be busy for some time, shrugged her guitar off her shoulder, leaned it against the filing cabinets, and sat in one of the two chairs on this side of the desk, meant for visitors.

After a couple of seconds she made a face, got up, and tried the other chair. It wasn't any more comfortable than the first one had been. "You don't get a lot of people in here, do you?"

"What? No. What?" Bill looked up from the paperwork, his eyebrows—thick, like the rest of him, and darker blonde than his hair—beetled down. "What?"

"These are incredibly uncomfortable chairs," Gwen said with a degree of patient amusement. "Both of them. Like, exceptionally uncomfortable. Nobody sits in them, do they?"

"No, not—not really, no. We actually do most of our business out front, this is just, I thought Ms. Brooker would be more comforta…are they really that bad?"

Gwen's eyebrows lifted. "Have you never sat in one?"

Bill made a vague gesture at himself. At his backside, specifically. Gwen tilted sideways a few inches as if that would remove the desk and allow her to see said backside. "My big ass doesn't fit in most chairs, so I assumed they were more comfortable for other people."

Gwen had only had a brief look at the ass in question, as he'd gone back around the desk. To her mind, it had filled out his jeans extremely nicely. "Flying must be no fun for you, then."

"Oh, I don't fly. Bears walk. Uh." A look of horror came over his face and he shook himself. "Uh, I mean, drive? We…I have a commercial license, I drive the delivery trucks sometimes. Who are you?" The last words came out plaintively, like he was painfully aware of having messed everything, including this conversation, up. "I mean, Gwen Booker, I got that, but…"

"I'm a rock musician," Gwen said, taking pity on him. "I don't know Gwendolyn Brooker at all, and I don't know a note of jazz music. I'm sorry, dude."

"Bill," he said absently, and then horror crossed his face again. "I didn't even introduce myself, did I? Bill. Bill Torben."

"I figured," Gwen said dryly. "Nice to meet you, Bill. You're very tall. I'm sorry. That was a stupid thing to say."

To her relief, he laughed. A warm, deep laugh that wasn't very loud, but rumbled right across her skin and raised excited goosebumps. "I am tall," he agreed. "Biggest of my brothers, although Steve gives me a run for my money. You're very small."

Gwen laughed. "I'm not. Not really. But from your height probably everybody shorter than a linebacker looks small."

He scratched the side of his jaw, then kept scratching, like his beard itched now that he'd noticed it. "I was a linebacker in high school," he admitted. "You?"

"Funnily enough, I didn't play any football in high school. There was a girl at my school who did, through," Gwen remembered suddenly. "She was hot. Played quarterback. Fast. Great hands. Apparently. I never found out, myself."

To her astonishment, a blush shot up Bill Torben's face, starting from somewhere beneath his t-shirt collar, curdling his neck and then his cheekbones and forehead a deep red that she would have bought as a lipstick shade. Gwen's lips parted in astonishment, and, as his blush held on, turned to a grin. "So now you've met Gwen Booker, rock star and prone to saying inappropriate things at job interviews. Although I guess this isn't really an interview, since I've already been hired."

"We don't do rock at Oktoberfest," Bill said desperately. "I don't know how this happened, and I'm sorry, it's not your fault, but we're going to lose our whole audience because of you."