Octo BEAR fest (Renaissance Shifters #1)

Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

G wen Booker was going to be the death of him. Bill blushed again . He hadn't blushed this much since he was a teenager and had a crush on a girl whose name he couldn't even remember right now. She'd been the center of his world, at the time, and he bet she was still a terrific human being, but she couldn't possibly hold a candle to Gwen. To his mate . Who said lascivious things right in front of other people. He made a little strangled sound and Gwen laughed, putting her hand over his.

Her hands were small, but not smooth. Calloused, especially the fingertips, with little dented ridges from guitar strings. A shiver ran through him at the thought of those slightly rough fingertips stroking over his body, and his blush turned even hotter. He tried to sound normal as he said, "Then I'll just watch."

If the way Mike Piccolo tried to hide a laugh was any indication, he'd sounded like a horny teenage boy instead.

Gwen, still with her wicked grin, touched the tip of her tongue to the middle of her upper lip, and Bill thanked God he was sitting down, because the way his jeans suddenly got very uncomfortable made it clear that anybody who happened to glance at his crotch would see his interest was, uh, aroused. Then, as if she hadn't just given him an incredible hard-on, Gwen turned a cheerful smile back to Mike. "So what time tonight? Would Ripley want to make up a set list? That way they can be sure to pick stuff they're comfortable with playing."

Mike glanced at his phone, tapping his fingers against it before saying, "Eight o'clock, for a ninety minute set? I'd like to say nine, because it picks up here around then for a couple hours, but an early gig might get people in sooner, and I don't know what the rest of your schedule is like."

"The rest of the crew gets in around two tomorrow. Early enough to set up and test the acoustics at the pub without disturbing many patrons." Gwen cast another glance at Bill like she was checking to see if that lined up with his expectations, and he nodded.

"People start showing up for the Oktoberfest weekend around two," he said. "More come in after five, obviously, but yeah, that'll be fine."

Gwen beamed at him, and a warm happy flush ran through him. Not a blush, this time. Just a feeling of contentment. His mate was smiling at him, and all was right with the world.

Except all wasn't right with the world. He still had a festival weekend to pull off at a failing pub with the wrong entertainment, never mind trying to explain everything to his family. At least they'd stopped texting: his phone hadn't buzzed in a while.

Humans , his bear said, exasperated. You worry too much.

On one hand, he thought his bear was probably right. On the other, it wasn't the one trying to balance the books every month.

"So!" Gwen turned back to Mike. "Tell you what, I'll show up around seven-thirty, help set up, meet the crew, rub elbows a little, whatever you need. We'll hit the stage probably around eight-fifteen, just start to warm things up, and we'll call eight-thirty the start time, and play until ten. Hopefully that'll catch enough people to get some blood flowing and we'll draw a decent crowd to the pub over the weekend."

"You don't have to help set up," Mike said, but Gwen shook her head.

"Oh, but I do. Even if I just run a couple cables somewhere, it goes a long way toward smoothing things out and making sure people don't think I'm too big for my britches. If I'm gonna drop in like this, yeah, I'll put in the tech work too. So is seven-thirty good?"

"Sounds great." Mike offered Gwen a hand, and they shook before Mike tilted his head toward Ripley. "You want to ask them to make the set list?"

Gwen's grin lit up the whole room. "I'd love to." She bounced out of her chair and went back to the stage, leaning on it as she spoke to the young guitarist.

Mike watched her, then turned his attention to Bill. "You have no idea who you booked there, do you?"

"Um." Bill spread his hands, embarrassed.

"She would've been Joan Jett, in a different generation. Rock's hard to break through with these days. She's this far," Mike held up his fingers a centimeter apart, "from that big break anyway. Real underground following. Won't sell tickets through any of the big vendors, though, and hasn't signed with a label since they tried to make her into Britney."

"Gwen?" Bill turned to look at the woman leaning on the stage, somewhere between of course and no way , emotionally. "She doesn't look like a Britney type."

"No. She was famous as a kid star, but when she turned eighteen and they wanted to market her as the next pop princess, they couldn't get her to fit in the box. She put out an album so bad it's legendary." Mike chuckled. "It got her a lot of fans, in fact. They figured she couldn't have made an album that bad accidentally. But the label dumped her and she went dark, and has been on her own since. I would've killed to sign somebody like her when I was a producer."

"A kid star?" Bill glanced toward the stage again, shaking his head. "I don't remember any Gwen Booker, but I didn't pay much attention to music even when I was a kid. So wait a minute, you mean she's working as a secretary and thinking about the van life because she had too many principles to play ball with a label?" Bill wasn't certain he'd had all that many preconceived notions about Gwen in the couple hours he'd known her, but he found he was having to rearrange some anyway. "I figured she was…"

"Working as close to the top as she was ever going to get? Nah. She could've been Pink, if she'd been able to play the game a little better. Or been willing to," Mike said. "I'm not sure she wasn't able to. Like I said, you have to know exactly what you're doing to put out an album that bad. I'd love to talk to her about it, but I'm not sure it's something she wants to discuss. She changed her name and disappeared after that album, so you had to actually be watching and paying attention to realize she's the same woman. Either way, you landed on your feet, Bill. If you were going to screw up a booking, getting Gwen Booker and the Sixty Pix was about the best you possibly could have done. This place will be packed tonight. Speaking of which." He rose. "I should go hit the mailing lists and the chat rooms and let them know about our special guest star tonight. I'll see you later?"

"Apparently I'll be watching," Bill said absently, and just barely managed not to blush again as Mike cackled.

"You'll like what you see," he predicted, and headed over to shake hands with Gwen, then went off to his own business. Bill waited where he was, feeling large and out of place in a club space clearly meant for lithe young things. He was neither lithe nor young anymore, although he knew he wasn't really that old. He just felt old sometimes, and remembered from his own youth how adults in their late thirties had looked ancient to him.

Gwen, though. She fit into this space. Apparently she'd fit into it her whole life, although he couldn't for the life of him place her as any teen or kid star he remembered. Regardless, she wasn't that much younger than he was. Maybe it was all a mindset. His was old and boring and staid, and hers was vibrant and young and challenging.

He would make a terrible mate for someone like Gwen.

Don't be silly, his bear said. You're exactly what she needs. And she's what you need.

I'm not sure, Bill replied. It wasn't that he doubted the mate bond. It was more that he couldn't see how this one would work. He had a local business to run, and Gwen was apparently bordering on being a breakout rock star. Those two things just didn't seem to fit together, to him.

It'll work out, his bear promised him, and Bill, who had a lot of other things to worry about, sighed quietly and for the moment decided to just try to trust the bear, and the power of fate. Gwen was still chatting with Ripley, and it gave him a moment to watch her without any other agenda. The way she leaned on the stage gave him an exceptionally nice view of her rear end, particularly of a tear in her jeans across the bottom of her left cheek. There was no sign of panties, although he assumed that meant they were high cut, rather than she wasn't wearing any. He'd always assumed wearing jeans without underwear must be uncomfortable for women, with the riding up he figured the denim would do. He'd also never asked.

You could ask Gwen , his bear said brightly.

Bill made a face. Maybe when I've known her for more than two hours.

Hmph. Two hours, two years, it won't matter. She's your mate. She'll tell you.

Maybe, Bill said, but it seems like a weirdly invasive thing to just ask.

The bear sighed dramatically and said, Humans, again in a tone that suggested it would never really understand Bill's reluctance to bring certain topics up.

Gwen finally pushed away from the stage, shaking herself. Her hair shivered in delightful waves, and her leather coat fell into place. Bill took a moment to be grateful that October in Colorado wasn't, mostly, all that cold yet, so she could get away with wearing a waist-length leather jacket instead of something sensible and warm that would cover her from the top of her head to her knees. It looked so good on her.

A hungry, horny little part of his brain informed him that it bet the coat would look even better off her, especially if all the rest of her clothes also mysteriously disappeared.

Bill said, "No," firmly and aloud, as if both his bear and his betraying brain would listen better that way. Gwen, coming back over to him, lifted her eyebrows curiously.

"No?"

"I was, uh." Bill scrambled for an explanation and landed on one that seemed plausible. "Telling myself not to look at the family chat, that's all."

"Brave of you." Gwen smiled up at him. "Is that a lion we need to beard in its den?"

"Bear," Bill said absently.

"…bear the lion in its den?" Gwen's eyebrows went higher. "You know, I don't even know what that phrase means, exactly. Or I know what it means , obviously, but why beard?" She took her phone out, looking it up, and made a cheerful sound. "Oh! Kind of a combination of, like, grabbing you by the scruff to make you face the music," which she actually did, lifting her hand to curl it in the coarse hairs of Bill's short beard. He swallowed and covered her hand with his, making her notice what she'd done, and she was suddenly gazing up at him with those pale eyes swallowed by the darkness of her pupils. She wet her lips, and he had the incredible urge to bend and kiss her.

Before he could, Gwen said, "I'm so sorry," faintly, and tried to uncurl her fingers. He let her go immediately, his heart hammering at the missed opportunity, and she ducked her head, color staining her cheeks before she glanced back up again. "I really am so sorry," she mumbled again. "I'm a pretty touchy-feely person but not usually with people I don't know well. I've had my hands all over you all day and it's really rude. I'm very sorry and I'll try not to do it anymore."

"It's okay," Bill said in a rush over the last words of her apology. "I really don't mind. I'm not used to it. I'm big and people usually try to avoid me. But I don't mind."

"Still." Her smile was embarrassed. "Still, I'll try not to be so weird. Anyway, it's partly 'beard' because grabbing you—grabbing someone —by the beard is a way to draw their attention, and partly because I guess people maybe used to use 'beard' to mean 'face' so it's kind of a pun, face the lion in its den. I never heard 'bear the lion in its den' before, though. Oh, you probably meant beard the bear in its den." She laughed, letting her embarrassment drain away. "I'm not sure about that, though. Bearding the bear in his den sort of sounds like being the fake girlfriend for the big gay guy when he goes home." Her eyes suddenly went round. "Oh. Do you need that kind of beard?"

"No!" Bill's voice rose so fast it nearly broke on the single, short syllable. "No, no! God, of all the various problems with my family, that's not one of them. I'm straight, but they wouldn't care if I brought home a boyfriend. I mean, they'd be really confused, because I'm straight, but…"

Maybe , his bear suggested, you should stop talking now.

That, Bill thought, was a very good idea.

Gwen was grinning up at him, all her own embarrassment clearly forgotten. "Good."

"Which part?"

Her grin got wider. "All of it. Especially that you're straight, though." As Bill's heart soared, she added, "Look, I gotta go back to the pub to get my guitar, if nothing else. If you do need to talk to your family and need backup, I'm happy to help."

"I just want them to know it's all under control."

Gwen reached for his hand, then, clearly remembering her promise to stop touching him so much, pulled hers back again, much to Bill's disappointment. "And it is. C'mon, big man. Let's go prove it to them."