Octo BEAR fest (Renaissance Shifters #1)

Chapter 15

CHAPTER 15

G wen had not expected Bill to actually send her a shower pic. She could only thank her lucky stars that she'd gotten up to get coffee when that picture came in so that his mother, who was sitting right next to her, hadn't seen it.

After that, she counted her lucky stars that he'd sent it at all, because dear lord, that man was built. Not flawlessly chiseled like a film star, but big, strong, heavy muscle that looked like it came from hauling beer kegs around, not gym weights. His hair, dark brown when wet, had been slicked back and still dripping water down his incredibly wide shoulders, which looked a hundred times wider in the from-above selfie angle, and those deep brown eyes of his were alight with mischief. He'd been biting his lower lip, though, not a lot, just enough to suggest he was a little unsure of himself.

How anybody with that thick chest, huge arms, and delicious, lickable belly sliding into a low-wrapped towel could be unsure of himself, Gwen didn't know, but it made her like Bill Torben that much more, and she was already nursing a ridiculously powerful crush on the guy. Her heart actually skipped a beat when he came into the pub, and although it was no lie that his family were all good-looking people, she honestly could have been in the room alone with him, for all she cared about anybody else. His whole presence was warm and charming and reassuring, and she wanted to grab him, some cinnamon rolls, and go into the back office for some delicious downtime with him.

Down being the operative term. God damn. That towel had needed to be a little bit lower to satisfy Gwen's curiosity, or—ideally—just not on him at all. She was busy licking the frosting out of her cinnamon roll and staring at Bill when someone said something to her, emphatically enough that she thought they'd maybe spoken to her already. With a jolt, she put the cinnamon roll down and blinked at the—cousin, thank God it was a cousin and not his mother—on her left side. "Sorry, what?"

The cousin—this one was Ashley; the women were easier to keep track of, mostly because there were only three of them present—was grinning at her. Like, really, really grinning. She leaned in to say, "He's a really good guy. Super serious. I think you'd be good for him."

Ashley had obviously seen Gwen licking the cinnamon roll and staring at Bill. She wanted to be mortified, but instead laughed and screwed her face up in a squinch. "That obvious, huh?"

"The whole tongue thing there was kind of a giveaway," Ashley said, wide-eyed with innocence. "Although he's gonna be real lucky if you're always that good with it."

Gwen clapped her hands over her face, laughing. "Gimme a cherry stem and I'll show you."

Ashley burst out laughing and knocked her shoulder against Gwen's. "Show him , girl, not me! Tell you what, you let me know what you need done around here for setup and I'll see if I can get all these huge lunks to do something useful while you make time with my cousin." As Gwen's eyebrows rose, Ashley spread her hands. "You're only here for the weekend, right? Gotta make hay while the sun shines. And no, I don't usually play wingman, but Bill really is a super good guy and he could use some time with a woman who watches him like he's a snack."

"A great big delicious snack," Gwen breathed, and Ashley smacked her hands together.

"See? That's what I'm talking about! Oh, shut up," she said to one of her cousins who was trying to overhear. "I'm getting Gwen to tell me what needs to be done to make this off-beat gig tonight a sell-out tour, and you're going to help me do it. All of you are," she said, raising her voice firmly to the whole gathered family. "Luke, you and Jimmy can tend bar tonight, because you know they're going to need more help. Ruth and I will be backstage runners and help the musicians with whatever they need. And the rest of you, I'll give you something to do when I've got a list."

"Not me," the sole uncle—who might have been Ashley's father, Gwen thought—announced. "I'm gonna sit around with the rest of the old folks and enjoy the show."

"Who are you calling old!" Heather said indignantly, and her husband, placidly, said, "Me. You remain in the bloom of freshness and youth, and always will."

Bill's mother rolled her eyes but also blew her husband a kiss, getting a sickly-sweet but also heartfelt "awww" from the gathered family. Gwen ducked her head, smiling at it all. She hadn't had a family life like this one. It was better not to dwell on that, but for a moment, she could at least feel envy and admiration. Luke, who was pop-star pretty, stuck his lower lip out as if pouting would get him his way. Gwen bet it often did, in fact, although none of his family looked moved by it as he said, "None of us will be able to do anything in half an hour. We'll all collapse of a carbs-and-sugar rush."

Gwen pointed at him. " That is why I got the cinnamon rolls with pecans and walnuts. Protein. "

He protested, "It's not enough protein to make a difference!" under his family's cheers and applause and mockery: clearly they were in fact used to him pouting his way out of doing things, and Gwen had apparently won favor by putting him in his place.

"What time's your band get here?" Ashley murmured.

"About two." Gwen looked at her phone like it would suddenly be almost two, although it couldn't be—and wasn't—much past ten.

Ashley beamed. "Perfect. Go do some important marketing stuff with Bill." Above everybody else's chatter, she said, "All right, Gwen and Bill are heading out to put up flyers—I know, I know, totally retro, but it turns out people do still go to the mall and stuff—and the rest of us are going to get this place ship-shape for the concert tonight. They'll be back at two, 'cause that's when the Sixty Pix are supposed to be here. Bill, better take some cinnamon rolls for the road. You know, to keep your strength up."

Gwen made an undignified sound that was mostly drowned out by the others teasing Bill about not being able to go out and hang posters up without needing a rest, although Ashley heard it and gave Gwen an absolutely wicked smirk. Bill rose, a cinnamon roll in each hand and a look of faint confusion writ over his handsome face. Gwen stood, too, and shrugged a smile toward him. "I guess we've been given our marching orders. I've got the flyers in the car."

He said, "Oh good," in a completely befuddled tone, which was entirely reasonable, since Gwen did not, in fact, have flyers in the car.

Jon, though, sounded genuinely impressed. "You guys are a two-person marketing machine. If we had somebody with your level of get-up-and-go working for the Faire we'd make a killing. Instead I've got Laurie."

" Hey !" The youngest Torben brother, who had mostly been involved in his phone, looked up with an expression of credible injury. Gwen tilted her head toward the door, inviting Bill to escape with her, and they fled as the family began a debate about who did the most work around there, and whether anybody should take credit.

"I feel like I should stay here and defend you as the person who does the most work," Gwen said as they scurried out of the pub together.

"I am so sorry," Bill said in a rush. "I had no idea you'd be here so early. I never would have subjected you to them all alone. They're so much. And you only have my word for me being the one doing all the work."

She stopped as they reached her car, turned to him, and put her hand on his chest, which he couldn't object to because he still had a cinnamon roll in each hand and stopping her would require sacrificing at least one of them. With as much wide-eyed sincerity and trust as she could channel, she said, "But you wouldn't lie to me, would you, Bill?"

"Never," he said with such intensity that she felt bad about playing it up so much. "No. I'll never lie to you about anything, Gwen Booker." He brought his hands together to cup her face, prelude to a kiss that she wanted more than anything she had ever wanted in her whole weird life.

Except his hands were still full of cinnamon rolls, and instead of a kiss, Gwen got cream cheese frosting smooshed across her cheeks.