Octo BEAR fest (Renaissance Shifters #1)

Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

G wen hadn't really thought Bill was gay, although there'd been a moment there where she'd been shocked at the crushing dismay she'd felt at the idea he might be. He had kind of a weird thing about bears—the comment about bearding a bear in his den had been the second one he'd made about them in the few hours she'd known him—but fond of wildlife didn't even rank in the list of strange things her exes had been into. Maybe there was a bear rescue or sanctuary near Renaissance. That would make sense, with it being at the foot of the Colorado mountains, and Bill seemed like the kind of guy who might volunteer somewhere like that.

He kept saying thank you as they drove back to the pub, until Gwen had to put her hands up, palm out, like she was creating a physical wall. "Look, you don't have to thank me. I want this weekend to go well, too. It doesn't do either of us any good if it's a bust, so if it helps, you can think of me doing this gig at the Harlequin as covering my own ass, okay? Trust me, I've played for audiences who didn't want me there before, and it's no fun."

"Okay. It's just…" Bill shook his head, then nodded, and more firmly, said, "Okay. No more apologizing. Sorry."

There was a pause, and, at the stoplight, Bill briefly put his forehead against the steering wheel. Gwen started laughing, and when Bill lifted his head, he said, wryly, "I guess I'm bad at stopping apologizing. S?—"

Gwen hooted laughter again as Bill clamped his mouth shut on another apology. She was still grinning as they pulled into the pub's parking lot, finding a space marked staff to park in. "You said your parents were driving up from Arizona? That's a long drive."

"Twelve hours or so, but Mom doesn't like flying. They got an EV as soon as they came on the market and they've driven pretty much everywhere since. I just have to…" Bill killed the engine and sat there a moment, staring at the pub's log-cabin walls. "I haven't really told them that things aren't going so well. They entrusted the business to me, and I'm just running it into the ground."

"Are you really?" Gwen asked quietly. "Is it that bad, or is it just not as good as it used to be?"

He wobbled a hand, still gazing at the building. "The brewery is doing really well. My younger brother Steve, the one who moved out to New York a few years ago, he's actually helped us expand across the upstate area there. People've really gone for our IPAs. And we reached market saturation in Colorado a while back so we've been expanding into the Pacific Northwest and starting to reach toward the east, too, and—" He broke off abruptly. "I'm good at that. I like that. The pub…I'm not good at running it. I thought I would be. How different could it be?"

Gwen laughed, hoping it didn't sound mean. "How different could running a pub be from running a brewery? I think they sound like completely different skills, Bill."

He gave her a startled look, blinked, and managed to look more surprised than he had before the blink. "I…I guess I hadn't thought of it that way? It's all our beer, after all."

"And your other brothers? The one I met, Laurie, and…Jon, did you say his name was? What are they good at?"

"They run the pub at the Faire every year. Not just here in Renaissance, but all over. It's part of how we've expanded into other states. They're great at it, but they want to do it at Faire, not here, stuck in one place day in and day out."

Gwen pursed her lips. "Well, something's going to have to change, isn't it? Either they have to step up or you have to find somebody else to run the pub so you can do the thing you're good at."

"But that's just it, that's where I'm failing my folks." Bill gave his head a big hard shake. "Look, though, you don't need to get caught up in all of this. I'm going to drag you down, and you've got shows to do all weekend."

"I have this strange desire to be caught up in all of it," Gwen admitted with a smile. "I don't have much family, so maybe I find it all weirdly compelling." Or maybe she found Bill Torben compelling, although not at all weirdly. The big man with his dramatic pompadour hair just delighted her, and she wanted him to be happy even if she'd only known him a few hours. "Think your parents will be here before I have to be back at the Harlequin?"

"Maybe." Bill eyed her. "God, you're not proposing to meet my parents already, are you?"

Gwen laughed. "I guess I am. Don't worry, I'll try not to embarrass you."

"I don't think you could," Bill said. "You handled my brother just fine."

"He thinks a lot of himself," Gwen said absently, and a little too truthfully. Bill gave a sharp, startled laugh, and she winced. "I probably shouldn't have said that."

"Maybe, but you're not wrong. I'd think a lot of myself if I was that good-looking, too, though."

"Oh, believe me, next to you he's left wanting." Gwen swung out of the big truck without giving Bill a chance to respond, partly because she was afraid he wouldn't believe her, and partly because she was afraid she might lean over and hug him, or possibly kiss him, if she didn't. She'd thought he'd been going to kiss her back at the club, and her heart jumped again at the memory of his dark eyes gazing down into hers, and the warmth of his huge hands on her waist. She'd felt so very secure in that moment, as if nothing in the world could ever harm her.

Whatever Bill thought about her compliment, he'd hidden it as he joined her at the front of the truck and they went into the building. She thought his gaze lingered on her a little longer than it might have otherwise, but it might have been her imagination.

What was not her imagination was that it was well after 5pm now, and the pub was considerably less busy than she would have expected it to be. The decor was still as clean and welcoming as before, but the only action in the place seemed to be at the bar itself, where Laurie Torben, who had pulled his hair back in a ponytail, was leaning on the counter flirting with a couple of women who seemed to appreciate it. Overall, it wasn't any busier than it had been at mid-afternoon, and Gwen suddenly understood Bill's concern. "Is it like this most nights?"

"Busier on the weekends, but yeah. It's like the light has gone out of the place." He sighed. "I guess my folks were the light."

"So we change the bulbs." Gwen smiled up at him, then startled as Laurie raised a hand and called out to Bill in a voice about an octave deeper than it had been that afternoon. "Dude, did he swallow a bullfrog since we saw him?"

"Oh." Bill grinned. "That's Jon, not Laurie. You haven't met him yet."

"No, I def…" Gwen trailed off, staring at the guy behind the counter. Now that he'd straightened up, she could see he was maybe shorter than the man she'd met that afternoon, and that his dark blonde hair was probably light brown, and wavier than Laurie's. His cheekbones were a little broader, and his jaw maybe a bit squarer, but he looked an awful lot like the guy she'd already met. "Are they twins?"

"They are not," Bill said with amusement. "Jon's older by eighteen months. All four of us definitely look like brothers, but Mom says she just used the same mold for those two because it was too much work to come up with a new one after three boys already. They're a huge hit at the Faires."

"I've gotta see a picture of all four of you," Gwen said incredulously. "That's crazypants."

"You should see our dad, too." Bill took out his phone. "Here, I've got a picture from Steve's wedding earlier this year. That's all of us. Steve's the one right next to me."

Gwen actually took the phone, squinted at the picture, laughed, and studied it again. Bill was right: the brothers were all cut from the same mold. He had the fanciest hair, with the terrific pompadour, and when the picture had been taken he'd been wearing a slightly longer, but well-trimmed, beard than he currently had. His brother Steve was both shorter and narrower than Bill, although not by much, and his own dark blonde hair was worn in a more conservative, but basically standard male haircut. The other two younger men in the photo still could have been twins, as far as Gwen was concerned, and all four of them sort of reminded her of the Hemsworth brothers: there was absolutely no doubt they were related, even if she thought Bill was easily the most attractive of the four.

But their dad was in the picture, too, and looking at him made Gwen laugh again. "You all look exactly like your father. I know what you'll look like in twenty years. The amazing thing," she said, still studying the picture, "is you all also look like your mom."

"Mom says she introduced the variations on the Torben theme," Bill said wryly. "I've got her eyes, Jon's got her cheekbones. Steve's jaw is a little slimmer, like hers. Laurie's got her mouth."

"The poor woman," Gwen said, handing the phone back. "She has no facial features left to herself."

"Well, she's got her nose left. We try to be polite about it. You know that old song 'Eyes Without A Face?' That's Mom, except she's 'Nose Without A Face.'"

Gwen laughed. "I'm really, really glad that's not true. She's really pretty, actually. Your whole family is. Crazypants lookalikes, but very good-looking."

"Tell Mom," Bill said with a smile. "She likes to take credit for making us."

"I will!" They'd been standing there talking long enough, ignoring Jon's greeting, that he was now staring at them curiously from behind the bar. "I think your brother is feeling neglected."

Bill, not quite enough beneath his breath to go unheard, said, "My brother is feeling amazed I'm talking to a woman," then put a smile in place and tilted his head toward the bar. "So I guess I should introduce you."

"It cannot be unusual for you to have a woman fawning over you," Gwen said without entirely thinking about what that implied. Or didn't imply, even. She'd just straight-up said she was fawning over him. She put a hand over her face and wondered if there was a ditch she could fling herself into, instead of dealing with the embarrassment of being herself.

For a guy who had to have women throwing themselves at him, Bill looked awfully pleased, though. "I haven't dated a lot recently. Been busy with the pub. But I'm glad you think I seem dateable. My brothers stopped believing I could meet women about ten years ago, I think." By that time they were at the bar and he was adding, "Hey Jonny. This is Gwen Booker."

"The accidental talent," Jon Torben said as he offered his hand. Gwen's eyebrows rose and he grinned. His smile was more lopsided than Laurie's, although that was still the most obvious-to-Gwen difference between himself and his younger brother. "No, I didn't come up with that on my own independent of Laurie. He posted it in the family chat, which," Jon said, eyeing Bill, "you haven't answered in hours ."

"And look at that," Bill said in a tone that suggested this was a surprise to him, "the world hasn't even ended."

"No, but Mom's having palpitations. She and Dad will be here in an hour or so. So what's going on? I looked you up," Jon said to Gwen, "and you seem great, but you're, well. Not a jazz musician."

"I'm really not," Gwen agreed. "I'm gonna—" She cut herself off, suddenly aware that she was about to announce to one of Bill's family that she thought he should up-end the pub's whole business plan and do something completely different. That was not something she had any business announcing, or even doing. "I'm gonna get a drink and let you guys talk it out," she mumbled, and tried not to wince. Talk about a bad recovery.

Although neither of the Torben men seemed to notice. Bill even smiled at her. "Drinks are on the house."

"Aren't you lucky I'm a cheap date who only wants a soda, then?" Gwen wiggled her fingers at them in farewell, although since Jon was behind the bar, he actually got her the ginger ale she wanted, and Bill added, "Don't go far. If you leave me here, I'm not going to be able to escape so I can show up at the Harlequin on my own in a couple hours."

"Right. I'll be over there." Gwen pointed at an empty booth, then swiveled on her heel and went the other way. "As soon as I get my guitar…"