Page 9 of OctoBEARfest

"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 toactually 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 seenWhile 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 toinherit 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 reallyarethat 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."

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