Octo BEAR fest (Renaissance Shifters #1)

Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

T he pub had that 'aftermath-of-a-party' vibe to it, Gwen thought. It had been cleaned up—no sad streamers or deflated balloons in the corners, no paper plates or red plastic cups piled anywhere, not that there would have been anyway because it hadn't been that kind of party—but it seemed sort of tired and echoey and empty.

Although honestly, there were quite a few people there for an early Sunday afternoon. A lot of them were Torben family members—and they all looked exhausted , which might have been why Gwen thought the whole place had a tired, afterparty air to it—but there were a number of patrons, too. She suspected some were people from the gigs who were hoping to catch a glimpse of her, but as long as they were at the pub, spending their money, that seemed just fine. And some of them didn't have an "I've been partying all weekend" aura to them: they were just cheerful afternoon patrons, a trio of whom were twenty-somethings wondering why they'd never been there before.

"I thought it was for old people," one of them said. "I drink their beer at a couple of the bars downtown, but I thought this place was for old people, you know? But I guess it was party central all weekend so I gotta put it on my list of places to watch for gigs and stuff."

"I couldn't get tickets," another said morosely. "I was at the Harlequin on Thursday but by the time I went to the ticket site, the gigs for the pub were sold out."

Gwen grinned up at Bill, put her finger over her lips, then went and slid into the free seat in the booth the trio of twenty-somethings. "Hey, sorry for being rude and interrupting, but how was the Harlequin gig?"

The young man she'd sat down next to said, "Oh, it was gre holy shit !" with the last two words at such volume the whole pub fell silent. He turned red. The young woman across the table turned even redder and put her face in her hands. The third, another young man, just sat silently, gaping at Gwen, and then in a fit of brilliance, lifted his phone to take a picture of her huge cheesy grin and his friend's red, red face. The guy at her side said, "Oh my God, you asshole, don't post that—" and the guy across from her said, "Too late!"

Gwen, beaming, said, "I'm glad you enjoyed the show," and got up and left to the sounds of their agonized protestations. She went back, laughing, to get pictures with all of them, and then left them to their business, which she was fairly certain would be incoherent squealing for the next while.

Bill watched the whole thing with a look of bemusement, as did a number of the other Torben clan members. "So this is my life now," he murmured into her hair, and Gwen shrugged up at him cheerfully.

"This is the fun part of it, yeah. Lots of it is less cool, but yeah. Ashley!" She waved vigorously at the young woman. "Bill says you're basically single-handedly responsible for the service going so well over the weekend. When he hires you as the general manager, demand a raise immediately."

"I'm already offering her a built-in raise!"

"She needs another one!"

"How about a Christmas bonus?"

Gwen pursed her lips. "Okay, I can work with that." She beamed at Ashley. "I'm sure it was chaos from the floor side of things but it was amazing from the performance side, so good job, and thank you, and when are you starting officially?"

"I was just helping out. I mean, sure, I'd love to." The young woman shrugged, looking embarrassed. "But, you know, it's Bill's pub."

"And I've been trying all weekend to hire you!"

"Wait, really? I mean, you've been serious?" Ashley's eyes widened. "Really?"

Bill gestured her toward a booth, and all three of them went to sit down together, Ashley still agape. "I'm absolutely serious. I talked to my parents about it yesterday. You were right, Ash. I'm doing two jobs here, and I literally haven't even been to the actual brewery in days. And—I haven't told most of the family yet, but," he lowered his voice, "Gwen is my mate."

Gwen, under her breath, said, "I can't believe you call true loves your mates ," and rolled her eyes, which got a glimpse of a smile out of Ashley, but the young woman was too busy gawking between Bill and Gwen to really laugh at the comment.

" Really ? Oh my God. Congratulations! But—oooh!" Ashley's eyes widened again. "So that's…oh, that's why you want a general manager? Because maybe you'll be, like, not here?"

"I want a general manager because I don't like running a pub," Bill said wryly. "Not really. And you said you've got a vision for it. Well, let's sit down with Mom and Dad and talk about your vision and your salary. But also yes. Because I might not be here as much."

Ashley bounced in the booth, clapping her hands but trying to keep it small and quiet. "Oh my God. That's amazing. For you guys, I mean! Not for me! Also for me. But much less so! Congratulations! Oh my God," she added again to Gwen. "How'd you take it? The whole, you know, raar." She made claws out of her fingers and bared her teeth.

"I hid behind a bench and swore a lot," Gwen said with dignity, then quirked her eyebrows downward. "And then I was okay, actually. What's that about? How do you make the adjustment from," she also dropped her voice, "'holy shit he's a bear' to 'oh ok he's a bear' in like ninety seconds?"

The two shifters—she assumed, anyway, that Ashley was a shifter, but if she wasn't, she certainly knew about them—both blinked at her, then at each other. "It must be part of the magic," Bill said after a moment. "I never thought about it. Mates just always seem to come to terms with it pretty easily."

"Of course." Gwen shook her head and smiled. "I should have realized."

Bill, more able to stay on point, said, "Can we talk about it? You as general manager here? Not right now if you don't want to, but pretty soon?"

"I would love that." Ashley beamed. "Yeah, I'd love that, if you're sure. Ooh, I have plans . Okay, I'm gonna go write up a business plan. Congratulations again!" She bounced out of the booth and strode off toward the office, leaving Gwen and Bill to smile after her.

"That's going to work out well for you," Gwen said at the same time Bill said, "I wonder what her plans are." They both laughed, and he added, "She's got a business degree, so I imagine her plan is going to look very official. I'm almost afraid."

"I have a degree in music composition," Gwen said, still looking after Ashley. "I could not write a business plan with it."

"No, but you could apparently write a chart-topping rock ballad with it, and I bet Ashley can't do that. I went to college for a brewing degree."

"They have those?" Gwen asked, astonished. "For real?"

"For real. You can even get a Masters degree in it, but I didn't finish the course. I was still doing the faires then and it was more fun to do that from April through October than go to school."

Gwen laughed. "A crack shows in his responsibility armor?"

"More like it hadn't finished forming yet, I think." He smiled at her.

"Oh," she said, thoughts bouncing ahead, "oh, that makes sense though. Not the responsibility armor, but Ashley's got a business degree and you went to school to learn to be a better brewmaster. Your heart's really not in the pub at all. Did you even realize that?"

Bill hesitated, then blinked. "No. Not when you put it that way, no. I thought brewmaster, pub, it all made sense. Although I didn't know I was going to end up running the pub, then. Look at you." He grinned. "Fated mate, coming along and making sense of my whole life."

"Look at you," she said back to him. "Fated mate, still can't believe you call it that but moving on, coming along and giving me the support and confidence I need to move on with my life."

"You had the confidence," he disagreed.

Gwen's eyebrows rose. "Not sure I did, but even if we leave it at support, it's a big deal, big man. I haven't talked to the band yet?—"

Bill laughed. "Yeah, I'm aware. We've been joined at the hip since the gig ended last night."

Gwen leered. "Yeah we have. In the best possible way, too. Any way. But I did text them to see if we could have a talk this afternoon about whether we want to sign with your friend Mike's label. Is there somewhere we can hang out where we're not right in the public eye like we are here?"

"Yeah, the event room." Bill tilted his head toward a part of the pub Gwen hadn't been in. "I'll show you. You think you'll sign with him?"

"I don't know. On one hand, it's giving a third party some of our income. On the other, if he's good at his job, it could really catapult us. So we'll have to talk about it." Gwen nudged his hip with her own. "Scoot, big guy. Let's go get some cinnamon rolls to soften up the band with."

"You do know we serve food here, right? Quite good food, actually? Award-winning and everything?"

"Yes, but do you serve cinnamon rolls?"

"Well." Bill sighed theatrically. "No. No, we don't. All right, to the bakery, then. You want to take the Impala or my truck?"

"They're both in the back lot now anyway, so let's toss a coin when we get there." Gwen slid her hand into Bill's and let him lead her through the pub toward the back door. A number of Torbens winked or waved at them, and she said, "Who did you tell about this whole mates thing, because I think everybody knows now."

"I may have mentioned it to my parents."

Gwen laughed. "Oh. Yeah. Okay. Everybody knows. Ashley must have been late to the family gossip chat."

"Even I am," Bill confessed. "I've barely looked at it over the weekend. I think it's been good for me." He pushed the back door open to a blast of cooler air, and shot a look at the mountains. "We don't need winter yet, dammit."

"Then you shouldn't live in Colorado." Gwen smiled up at him, then glanced past him toward her car. There was somebody leaning on it: an older man, white, baseball cap and a jeans jacket over a t-shirt and jeans. She yelled, "Hey!" in immediate outrage. "Get the hell off my car!"

The guy stood up immediately, swiping his baseball cap off to reveal thinning brown hair and an ingratiating smile. "Hey, sweetheart."

Gwen recoiled internally, but that didn't stop her furious forward motion. She stalked past Bill, which took some effort: he was striding toward the Impala, too, and he had much longer legs than Gwen did. She snarled, "I'm not your fucking sweetheart, asshole," at the stranger. "Whatever the hell you think you're do?—"

"Gwen," the guy interrupted. "Gwen, baby. It's me. It's your Daddy."

The world fell out from under Gwen's feet so hard and fast she would have collapsed if Bill hadn't been right there, slipping an arm around her waist. She looked down, making sure the asphalt parking lot surface was still actually there , because it really didn't feel like it. It was, which almost didn't make sense.

It made more sense than the thin asshole at her car being her father , though. She looked up again, shaking with rage, confusion, and adrenaline as she stared at the guy.

It took entire seconds before he snapped into place, recognizable as the man she'd last seen fifteen years ago. Ike Booker was thinner than he'd been, obviously older, dressed far more casually than she could remember seeing him for almost her entire childhood. He wore glasses, which he hadn't before, but the ingratiating, too-white smile was the same. Her income had paid for that smile, both the straightness of his teeth and the veneers that made it so bright.

For a long few seconds, that was all Gwen could think, looking at him: she'd paid for his teeth. She'd been eleven and had done a series of commercials, and he'd used most of her paychecks to get his teeth done. It would help her career, he'd said. The better-looking and more professional he was, the more seriously he, and by extension, she , would be taken.

The bitter thing was, he may well have been right. But now all Gwen could think was, she'd paid for those teeth, and in exchange, her father had disappeared with every penny she'd ever made.

He was beaming at her with that bright, bright smile. He even opened his arms for a hug. Bill, at Gwen's side, growled so deep in his chest she thought he might actually turn into a bear.

Part of her wanted that more than anything in the entire world. It would be so amazing to watch him shift into that huge grizzly and swat the asshole who called himself her father right into oblivion.

But that would be really, really bad for the shifter community. The last thing she wanted was for Bill, and maybe his whole family and who knew how many others, to be outed, just because her knees had stopped working.

All at once they were working again. Gwen stalked forward, straight up to her father like she'd return the embrace but with her fists balled.

At the absolute last second, she remembered a fight scene she'd had choreographed in one of the few movies she'd done as a kid, and instead of literally punching him, she thrust the heel of her hand straight into her father's nose, and felt a shockingly satisfying crunch before he screamed and doubled over in pain, clutching at his face. "You crazy bitch! What the hell! What the fuck, Gwen? What the actual fuck?!"

Gwen wiped blood onto her jeans and whispered, "Gross. I didn't think that through," before getting her phone out with shaking hands. "Bill, can you hold him please. I'm calling the police."

"Yeah, you call the police, you crazy bitch, I'm gonna have you up on assault!" Her father make a glerk ing sound at the end of that, as Bill, with extreme calm and ease, wrapped a big hand around the back of his neck and held on. "Get your fucking hands off me!"

"I think," Gwen said, as calmly as she could, "that the police will be more interested in the fifteen million dollars you stole from me. Yeah, hi," she said into the phone as Bill's gaze snapped to her and he mouthed 'fifteen million ?' in visible shock. "Hi, I need an officer or something at the Thunder Bear Brewpub. My name is Emma Hart and I've just found the man who stole every penny I'd ever made."

There was a shocked silence on the other end of the line before the woman who'd answered said, "Emma Hart from Starting School ?"

Gwen inhaled through her nose. She hadn't introduced herself that way in a very, very long time. But she nodded now and said, "That's the one."

The woman's voice rose. " You found your dad ?"

"I did," Gwen said after another deep breath. She'd used her stage name because she wanted to be recognized, just this once. It didn't make it any less weird to have a random stranger know the details of her life. "He's currently being restrained in the back parking lot of the Thunder Bear Brewpub. He'll probably want to press assault charges. I think I broke his nose."

The woman muttered, "Good for you," and then cleared her throat. "I mean, I'll have an officer sent right away, Ms. Hart."

Gwen said, "Thank you," and hung up, only then allowing herself to become aware that her father was still swearing and dripping blood on the asphalt. She stared at him a long moment, trying to slow her heartbeat. It didn't work: she was cold, sweaty, and sick to her stomach. "Have you been in Renaissance all along?"

"What the hell does that matter, you crazy bi ?—"

Bill tightened his hand on the back of her father's neck. "I would watch my language if I were you, Mr. Booker."

"It doesn't matter," Gwen said quietly. "Bill, I'm really sorry to do this to you, but?—"

"Go," he said immediately. "It's okay. I can handle this guy." The last two words dripped with disgust. "Go find my parents. They'll take care of you until the cops get here. And Gwen?"

She hesitated, already on her way inside, but looking back. Bill smiled. "I love you."

The ice in her chest burst in a flash of heat and joy, and all of a sudden, despite her father, everything was all right. "I love you too."

She fled inside.