Octo BEAR fest (Renaissance Shifters #1)

Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

G wen was almost certain—by which she meant absolutely totally certain—that Bill hadn't kicked himself because she was amazing, although he wasn't wrong: she was pretty damn cool. She was also certain he wasn't going to tell her whatever it was he'd really been thinking, although from the way he'd blushed and blushed and blushed at her 'big man' comment, she bet she had some pretty solid ideas on where his mind had been in general.

She hoped so, anyway, because her own mind was trawling the gutter like it couldn't get enough innuendo to save its life. Lord , but he was a good-looking hunk of a man. A huge good-looking hunk of a man. Gwen usually went for skinny rocker boys with soulful eyes, bad hair, and worse personal baggage. She wasn't, by nature, an "I can fix him" girl, which meant those relationships tended to burn out fast and hard, but man, she had a hard time resisting the look.

Which was clearly because she had never met a look like Bill Torben before. She would have rearranged her personal aesthetic to be nothing but six-foot-five mountain-men types, if she'd ever met anybody like him before. She had badly hoped he wouldn't get out of the chair and she would get to sit in his lap, which was even more forward than Gwen generally thought of herself as being, and she rarely wasted much time dilly-dallying with guys. They were either into her or not, and she preferred finding out up front.

She was pretty sure Bill was into her, but for the first time in her life, she felt very slightly hesitant about asking. It would be too disappointing if he wasn't. Maybe just this once, living in hope would be better than being crushed.

Besides, it looked like in order to save his festival, they were going to have to spend the next few days mostly in each other's company. If he wasn't into her yet , Gwen decided, she would by God do her best to make sure he was by the end of the weekend.

"All right," she said briskly. "You said your brothers knew about some music venues? Text them and see where's good. We'll start with their recommendations and go from there. Is there somewhere I can leave my guitar? I was going to check the sound from your stage, but it looks like we've got more important stuff to do right now. I'll do that in the morning."

As she spoke, Bill's phone began to ding and buzz with incoming text notifications, and he grimaced from the bones out. "That'll be my family just reading the update about how good ol' Bill blew it and booked the wrong talent. I don't even want to look at it." With a sigh, though, he took his phone out, shoulders bowed as he unlocked it and skimmed through texts.

Gwen's heart went out to him abruptly. He looked tired, like he was carrying too much weight, and she had the impulse to hug him and tell him everything was going to be all right. "Hey. Bill. Hey. Look at me."

He did, a hangdog expression in his brown eyes, and she shook her head. "If they're going to get to you, don't look at it right now. We're working on fixing it, which is clear from the update I sent out."

"Well, I can't just not respond," he said blankly. "They're expecting me to."

"As it turns out, you can just not respond. Ask me how I know." Gwen gave him an encouraging smile. "And if you can't get an answer out of your brothers about the music venues without dealing with the rest of their questions, then we'll figure it out without them. Online reviews are there for a reason. C'mon," she said with a tilt of her head toward the door. "Give me a place to store the guitar, and we'll blow this joint."

"You can leave it here, if that's okay? The door locks and I can give you a key." He gave his phone another guilty glance, but put it in his back pocket and went to the filing cabinet to take a key out of a drawer labeled K.

Gwen grinned as he handed it to her. "Subtle."

"You would be amazed at how my brothers can't remember K is for key," Bill said with a sigh. "Sometimes I think it is subtle." His phone buzzed again and he winced, reaching for it.

Gwen grabbed his hand. "Half an hour. Give me half an hour to get you out of here and to a local jam session before you look at that."

"It's barely three in the afternoon," Bill protested. "There aren't going to be any jam sessions on at this hour."

"Oh ye of little faith." Gwen, keeping his huge hand in hers, pulled him toward the door. Bill slowed, but only enough to lock the door behind them. Then he came along willingly enough, although when she glanced back at him, he looked slightly befuddled. Apparently bossy rock stars didn't often come along and drag him out of his comfort zone.

Well, that was fair. Rock stars didn't usually come along and drag anybody out of their comfort zones, not literally. And Gwen might be overstating things a bit by calling herself a rock star , but dreams were for dreaming big with. Hand in giant hand with Bill Torben, she went back down the staff hall and out into the main pub, which was unexpectedly bright after the quiet dark office. A few more people had shown up, but nobody who seemed particularly interested in them, which was exactly what Bill needed right now. Gwen could practically feel guilt dragging his thoughts toward the phone he was bravely not looking at.

They almost made it out the door before hitting the first setback.

A good-looking man several years younger than Bill Torben, but clearly cut from the same cloth, came bounding—Gwen thought that was the right word, bounding —in through the main doors just as they were about to leave. Bill stopped dead, and the younger man's voice shot up in enthusiastic greeting. " Bill ! There you are! Mom's going nuts because you're not answering the family chat. Dude, what the hell? We all got the email update but you didn't tell us first? Wha?—"

"That's my fault," Gwen said firmly. She was forced to release Bill's hand to offer hers to the exuberant Torben brother, because this was very obviously one of Bill's brothers. "Gwen Booker, the accidental talent. Oh, I like that," she said mostly to herself.

"I'm Laurie." The younger Torben shook her hand automatically. He really did look a great deal like Bill, although not quite as tall or broad, and somewhat… prettier , Gwen decided. Not feminine by any stretch of the imagination, but his features were just slightly finer than his older brother's, and he wore his own sandy blonde hair long and loose. If she'd met him first, Gwen thought she might have thought Laurie Torben was the epitome of Hot Guy, but having met Bill, his younger brother looked slightly unfinished and a bit lacking to her eye. " You're the band we hired?"

"Well, I'm the lead singer, yeah. Gwen Booker," she repeated. "And it's my fault about not notifying your family first, sorry. I was helping Bill set up the email update we sent out and we got caught up in it instead of thinking to let you guys know first."

"You really don't look like a jazz singer."

Gwen laughed. "That's because I'm not. Which you know, if you read the email update."

"How the hell did you book her instead of Gwendolyn Brooker?" Laurie's gaze snapped from Gwen—which felt dismissive and made her set her jaw—to Bill, who grimaced again.

"I wasn't paying enough attention." He shrugged. "That's it, really. I was in a hurry and trying to get it done—" He drew a sharp, deep breath through his nose, loud enough that Gwen glanced up to find him arranging his expression into a brief, determined, dismissive smile. "—and I screwed up. That's it."

"Man, that's not like you. You never drop the ball. It'll probably be okay." Laurie offered Gwen what he probably meant to be a devastatingly gorgeous grin. It sort of grated on her nerves. "You seem pretty cool."

"I am," she assured him with a brief smile of her own. "Hey, since we've got you here, do you have any recommendations on clubs or gig spaces in Renaissance? With the change in music style, we need to do some advertising at places that are looking for a rock concert, not an evening of jazz."

Laurie laughed. "Are you just going to let her take over your whole job, Bill?"

She watched another rigid grimace that almost passed for a smile cross the older Torben brother's face. "No. I've got it under control." He turned that same expression on Gwen, although she thought his brown eyes softened a bit. "I do have it under control. Thanks for your help, though."

Gwen took a breath to argue, then held it, studying the big man and his stiff shoulders and even stiffer smile. There was more going on here than she understood, and she had the sudden, distinct impression that insisting wasn't going to help. Or rather, it would help, in the sense that Bill clearly needed it, but it would undermine the something else that was happening right now. She put her hand on his forearm before realizing that was at least the second time she'd touched him without permission, but he didn't pull away and for a moment, neither did she. The muscles beneath her hand were strong and warm, and she gave his arm a little squeeze. "Okay then. Look, in that case, for my own sake, I'd still love to know about any clubs you can recommend, Laurie, and then I'm dying for a cup of coffee, so if either of you could point me toward the best local cafe…?"

"The Harlequin on Main and Fourth," Laurie said promptly. "They've got a good scene. And Moxie's on Quad Street is a dance club, but it has a lot of live music and brings people in all the time. And I'd love to take you out for coffee."

"That's all right," Bill said in a suddenly thunderous tone. "I can drop her at Candy's on my way into town. I've got some errands to run."

"Dude," Laurie said with great sincerity, "you've got an absolute shit ton of stuff to figure out in like no time, and if you don't answer the family chat Mom's going to go into cardiac arrest, so I don't know if you should be running errands."

Gwen watched with grim concern as the back of Bill's neck started to turn red, burning toward his ears in a very different flush of color than his earlier blushes had been. "Candy's would be great, assuming there's coffee there."

"Sure, let me bring you do?—"

" I've got it, Laurie. " Bill Torben's voice dropped into a rumble prit near indistinguishable from a growl. Hairs stood up on Gwen's arms, but it wasn't a fear response at all. Not at aaaaalllll. Her whole body tightened with heat, and she felt a blush of her own crawling up her cheeks. She had all kinds of good ideas about how that rumble could rock her world, and she felt that she knew a thing or two about world-rocking in specific.

Laurie blinked rapidly, and while he didn't quite take a step back, he did lean back a little, visibly startled. "Jeez, okay, whatever. I've gotta go work on my baldric anyway. I'll see you later, man. Nice to meet you, Gwen." He edged past his brother and went into the pub, phone out and thumbs dancing over the screen. Gwen bet he was updating the family on having run into Bill, but there were more important questions to ask.

"Did he say…baldric?"

Bill sighed from what appeared to be the bottom of his soul, and on a man his size, that was a big sigh. "Yeah. It's a shoulder belt for a sword, like the Three Musketeers would use."

Gwen's mouth worked, trying to hold back a giggle. "Does your brother often need a belt to carry his sword in?"

Bill did a double-take at her so hard she thought she heard his neck pop before he gave a reluctant laugh. "God, I hope not. We already hear enough about his escapades. We'd never hear the end of that one. No, he's a re-enactor. He does Renaissance faires, specifically. There's a huge one here every summer. Did you really want coffee?"

"I always want coffee." Gwen walked under Bill's arm as he pushed the door open for her. "Of course there's a huge Renaissance faire in a town called Renaissance. Which came first, the faire or the name?"

"The name, obviously. The town was founded in the 1870s. I don't think anybody was doing Ren faires then. But when they started to be a thing…" Bill sighed. "Yeah. Obviously there's a huge one in a town called Renaissance. It's actually how Thunder Bear Brewery got started. Mom and Dad were into the faire right away, and Dad started his own home brew to sell at it. It did really well, like, really well, and about five years later they built this place." He waved back at the building as they went into the parking lot. "The rest is history. I'm sorry about all this," he added. "I'll drop you off for coffee?—"

"Aw." Gwen turned a hopeful gaze up at him as they reached her car, which was apparently parked next to his truck, a huge thing that managed to make Bill look regular-sized. "I was really hoping you'd come for coffee with me."

It was more than a little flattering to watch whatever resistance might have been in the big man just melt away into a soft smile. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Yeah, I'd like that."