Octo BEAR fest (Renaissance Shifters #1)

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

" W ell, you're welcome, Bill Torben…" Gwen ran out of things to say, because 'dude I'd like to climb like a tree' didn't really fit into the same scansion as 'Accidental Talent' did. Eventually, feeling silly for having tried to echo him, she just said, "You're welcome," again, and smiled.

It was true, as far as it went. She wanted to help him get the weekend sorted out because it was good for her and her band. But more than that, she knew what it was like to feel like you were the only one keeping everything afloat, while everyone around you went along like everything was great. It was lonely and exhausting and in her experience, ended incredibly badly. Even if she could only help for a weekend—and for some reason that thought gave her a funny little pang in the heart—she could at least help for the weekend. Maybe it would be enough. "How long have you been in charge?"

"About five years now, I guess." Bill said it like a man who could give it to her in days, hours, and minutes, but was trying to restrain himself. "My second brother, Steve, he used to help a lot, but he moved away a few years ago and it's basically been me ever since." He glanced at the almost-finished sundae between them, looked embarrassed, and pushed it a few inches back toward her. "I've eaten all your ice cream."

Gwen laughed and shook her head. "I ate all I could. Go ahead and finish it."

"I can't. It's yours." He hesitated. "But I could eat all but the last bite."

Gwen accidentally said, "Aww," right out loud, and for the third time since she'd met him, Bill Torben blushed. She loved that he blushed easily. It made her want to suggest increasingly blush-inducing things, to see if he would spontaneously combust, or better yet, take her up on some of those things. Instead she promised, "I'll eat the last bite," and watched him sheepishly eat everything but. Then she dug into the bowl with her spoon, impressed he'd managed to leave her some hot fudge in the bottom, and savored the last bite with a happy sigh. "Okay, that was worth it. Thanks for sharing it with me."

"Anything else you want to share?"

Gwen looked up with a delighted grin, and Bill's ears went scarlet. "I mean, I just kind of unburdened myself on you. Do you have anything you need to talk about?"

"You mean like, am I afraid I'm wasting my best years on trying to crack the airwaves as a rock star in a world where the radio only carries pop and hip hop? Do I wonder how I'm going to pay next month's bills without another gig scheduled? Whether I should throw it all in for the van life, because at least that way I don't have to worry about rent? Nah," Gwen said with a shake of her head. "No, I'm good, thanks."

"I could never do it," Bill said almost before she'd finished trying to downplay her own stresses. "It's hard enough running the pub, and it's got a forty year history of success behind it. Trying to make it in a creative field where you don't have any control over whether people find your work, or like it, or buy it instead of pirating it? How do you do it?"

The questions and the insight actually took Gwen's breath away, leaving her gazing at the big man with her lips parted and a rush of astonishment wiping out all the words in her mind. When she was finally able to speak, she landed on the last part of what he'd said, because, "Nobody except artists ever thinks about digital piracy and how it affects them. How do you even know that's a problem?"

Bill looked sheepish. "You remember those old warnings they used to show before movies? 'You wouldn't steal a car?' The first time I saw them I didn't even know what digital piracy was, so I looked it up and found out it's all kind of a big mess, especially for smaller artists. Not that it's cool to pirate a big movie or something, but I get the idea that musicians, like you, or writers, or people who draw or whatever, that maybe your numbers are affected enough by that kind of stuff to really be the line between making it or not."

"You're really right." Gwen gave him a crooked grin. "Like, really right. I know a lot of artsy types, and it's a real problem, like the difference between albums being made or not, or sequels getting published, or comics getting finished. All kinds of things. And I don't know how I do it," she admitted. "Sometimes just by not thinking about any of it, because if I think about the odds I'll lose my mind."

"'Never tell me the odds,' eh?"

"Hah! Yeah. Yeah, I guess so."

"So does that mean you're living the van life?"

"Aaaaah!" Gwen threw her head back, rolling her eyes at the ceiling, then smiled ruefully at Bill. "No, not quite yet, although sometimes I honestly think it'd be easier. Just stay on the road all the time, go from gig to gig. Except there aren't always enough gigs, so I gotta keep the day job."

His eyebrows rose and he looked her as up-and-down as he could, given that she was sitting across a table from him and so at least half of her body was hidden from his view. "You have a day job?"

Gwen, deadpan, said, "I work at an ice cream shop," and Bill's eyes flew open. She laughed. "No, it's worse than that. I'm a receptionist."

"For a music company?" Bill's voice rose, and Gwen couldn't help another snicker.

"You'd think, wouldn't you? No, you've got to look at this." She took her driver's license out, pushing it across the table. "I think of that as 'Gwen, Playing Human.'"

"You're definitely already human," he said absently, but picked up the card to examine the little picture of her with her dark hair tied neatly back, her makeup neutral and not at all eye-catching, and wearing a pink blouse with a Peter Pan collar. "Holy sh—I mean, uh, you look like a different person."

"'Day Job Gwen,'" she agreed, taking the license back. "About the only thing that's recognizable are my freaky pale eyes. I look like they took a vacation in Antarctica."

"They're perfect rock star eyes," Bill said a little vehemently. "Able to cut right through your soul. Perfect."

"Oh." A stupid little grin pulled at her mouth. "Oh. Thanks. That's. Gosh. Thanks. Maybe the nicest thing anybody's ever said about them. I always thought they looked freezer-burned. Like I should be able to shoot ice beams out of them." She turned her head and squinted dramatically, pretending she was spraying ice from her eyes and going pew crackle pew pew for the sound effects.

"That would be so cool, " Bill said, and when she looked at him, spread his hands and smiled. "Who doesn't like superheroes?" Or other people with unusual gifts, like turning into grizzly bears. He wondered how Gwen was going to react to that.

"Well, I'm afraid my only real superpower is playing a mean riff on the guitar, and hitting the high notes every time. Seriously, though, thanks." Gwen pushed the empty ice cream bowl to the middle of the table and finished her coffee. "So should we go check out these venues?"

"I dunno. Are you gonna play for me?" Bill smiled as they stood and she glanced at him in surprise. "Well, it seems like I should have some idea of what you sound like, since I hired you for the festival, right?"

She clicked her tongue. "Should have brought my guitar, then. Maybe later. Do you have an opening act, or is it just me and the girls?"

Bill made a face as they headed out of the ice cream parlor/coffee shop. "No opening act. We used to have one, back when things were going better, but people didn't show up until the main event anyway, so I let it go a couple of years ago. And I've been worried about that," he admitted. "Although it probably wouldn't have been great to book a jazz act and then have a rock band follow it."

"So what's the deal with the numbers falling?" Gwen swung up into his truck like a pro, buckling in as she asked questions.

"I'm not sure," Bill said with a wince. "Things were fine up until Mom and Dad retired, and…" A gulf of uncertainty opened in his chest, and he found himself saying, "I'm afraid I'm just not any good at this. That it's me, somehow. They did so well for so long, and I'm just trying to keep it going for them, but…"

"For them?" Gwen's voice softened, like the question was sharp enough on its own.

He glanced at her, seeing kindness in those cool blue eyes of hers, and exhaled. "Steve went off and built his own place in upstate New York. Part of me is crazy envious, but…" He shook his head. "I don't want to leave Renaissance. I love it here. I even love the pub. I just don't know how to keep it going. I used to actually do the brewing, you know? Developing a new IPA was one of my favorite things to do. But there's not much time for that anymore."

"What's your audience like?" Gwen laughed at herself. "I mean, your clientele. Young, old, in between?"

"Pretty old, honestly. Closer to Mom and Dad's ages than ours. Mine, I mean. You're probably about twenty-seven."

"Thirty-five. How old are you?"

"Thirty-eight next month. So we're not that far apart. But a lot of the clientele's in their sixties."

"So on one hand, maybe retired, a lot of free time to come hang at the pub. On the other hand, maybe not looking for a really loud night with hundreds of strangers. Maybe you secretly hired me on purpose. Maybe your subconscious is telling you it's time to rebrand."

Bill threw a genuinely startled look her way as he turned down Fourth Street toward the Harlequin, the place Laurie had recommended. "Rebrand? No, I couldn't, it'd kill Mom and Dad."

"Yeah? Have they told you that? 'Hey, Bill, never rebrand the Thunder Bear Brewpub. It would kill us.'"

He squinted at her. "You're kind of…"

Gwen smiled sunnily at him, her dark wine rock star lipstick at odds with the sparkling expression. "Abrupt? To the point? Blunt? An asshole?"

"I wasn't going to say that!"

She cackled, letting it turn into a full wheezing laugh. "Probably not, because you seem like a pretty decent guy, but it's possible I'm a bit of an asshole sometimes. I'm sorry. It's just…have you ever seen While You Were Sleeping ?"

"Um. No?"

"It's an old Sandra Bullock romcom. Top ten desert island movie for me. Point is, the hero is a guy who's supposed to inherit the family business, but he doesn't want to, and he's afraid to talk to his dad about it because he doesn't want to hurt the old man's feelings. I watched it when I was really young, and I kind of decided I'd try to just go ahead and have the hard conversations in my life, because putting them off doesn't seem to help anybody very much."

"Wow. How's that worked out for you?" He pulled them into the Harlequin's parking lot. He hadn't been in there since he was a teenager pretending to be a little older than he was, but the colorfully-painted harlequin mask that gave the club its name still looked fresh and new where it rose partway above the building's roof, and the club's name, outlined in bright lights, had every bulb in place, shining merrily. It was all well-cared-for, which gave him a sense of satisfaction.

Gwen wobbled a hand as they parked. "Well, it's cut a lot of bad relationships short, anyway. That's something."

His bear roused, offended. Who's been bad to our mate? We'll swat them!

Bill sort of felt the same way, although he didn't make the offer out loud. Instead he said, "It sounds terrifying," which was a little more honest than he'd intended to be.

"It is, at first. Although I guess it helps if you start when you're about twelve." She smiled at him, then laughed as he gestured for her to wait, got out of the truck, went around, opened the door, and offered her a hand down. "What a gentleman. The thing is, we make things worse in our heads than they are a lot of the time, and if it turns out they really are that bad? At least we've got more information. What's the absolute worst that could happen if you told your folks you wanted to rebrand?"

"I don't think it would actually kill them," Bill conceded. "I guess…they'd be disappointed, or hurt, or angry. I guess that's what I'm worried about."

"And how do you think they'd feel knowing you're miserable with things the way they are?"

Bill's jaw dropped open. "I'm not miserable!" A stab of guilt shot through him as he protested, though. Maybe he was unhappier than he could even let himself admit.

It was too bad it took his fated mate showing up to make him realize that. He would have preferred to be solid and reliable as a rock for her, not struggling to find his own path. He felt the dismay growing in his chest and on his face, and wondered how he could possibly be a good mate to a woman who seemed to have her act totally together, when he couldn't even admit to himself he was unhappy.

"Hey." Gwen put her hand on his arm, encouraging him to look down at her. She smiled when he met her eyes, and tilted her head toward the Harlequin. "Best way I know to blow off a little angst is through rock and roll, baby. Let's go check it out."