Page 24 of OctoBEARfest

"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. "Thatis 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 peopledostill 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'tlieto 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.

CHAPTER 16

Bill froze, which was the absolute worst thing he could do, because it meant he was standing there holding two cinnamon rolls against Gwen's face. But he couldn't make himself move, either, because in his mind he could hear the stickyshluck!of the cream cheese frosting releasing from her skin, and that somehow seemed worse than…than standing there framing her face with cinnamon rolls.

Oh, God,he whispered to his bear.I don't think even fated mates can fix this.

Gwen's gaze had softened as he'd spoken. Those ice blue eyes of hers had darkened into warm, welcoming pools, and he'd believed for a moment that he could really tell her anything, that she would love and accept himexactlyas he was. She'd tipped her chin up, invitation for a kiss, and…

…he'd smeared cinnamon rolls all over her face.

He was fairly certain several thousand years had passed in the few seconds he'd been standing there, holding sticky pastries as he gazed down at her in absolute horror. Her eyes widened, then narrowed, and he waited for the inevitable slap, or knee to the nuts, or whatever the appropriately violent response to being cinnamon-rolled was.

Gwenslitheredfrom between the cinnamon rolls as she doubled with laughter. Cream cheese slid through her hair. A blop of it fell from her hair to the ground, and her laughter rose into a helpless shriek before she fell back against the door of her car, absolutelyhowling. Tears ran down her face, smearing her eyeliner, so now she was both covered in frosting, cinnamon, and sad, dark clown streaks. She caught her breath, started to speak, looked up into his face, and dissolved into laughter again, clutching her arms around her belly as she shook with giggles. Eventually she gasped, "Oh my God. Oh my God," grabbed his shirt, and pulled herself upright to stand on her toes and kiss him.

She tasted like heaven and blessings and, inevitably, cinnamon-flavored cream cheese. She was also still laughing, and it ran through him like water, loosening some of his distress into an uncertain smile against her mouth. When she broke from the kiss, her eyes still bright with tears of laughter, he said, "I'm sorry," in a voice even he thought was small, and she threw her head back and laughed until she cried again.

"Don't be. Don't be. That was the best first kiss in the history of kisses. Oh, my God, that was amazing. 'How did you and Daddy meet, Mommy?' 'He shoved a cinnamon roll up my nose and I knew it was love.'" Gwen fell back against her car again, wiping her eyes as she giggled. "No, sorry, escalating, I know, big escalation there, just, oh my God. Your face. I have never seen a man's life pass before his eyes before. Ghosts would come to you for lessons on how to be white as a sheet. I thought you were going to throw up. And now you look like a fish out of water." A fresh bout of giggles swept over her.

She was right. Bill could feel his mouth opening and closing but he didn't seem to be able to stop it. He still had cinnamon rolls in his hands, for God's sake.

And Gwen Booker had just escalated their relationship in to 'Mommy, Daddy, love.'

He knew it was her amusement talking. That didn't stop his heart from clenching like someone had squeezed a fist around it, and he seem to have forgotten how to breathe. Weakly, as a protest that absolutely didn't help or even matter, he said, "I did notshoveit up yournose," and Gwen sank to the ground, throwing her head against the car door as she laughed and laughed.

"Oh, God, you really are the best. You're just wonderful. No, you didn't, you smeared it all over my face, but never let the truth get in the way of a good story, big man. Oh, man." She wiped at her eyes again, less carefully, and came away with makeup smeared on her knuckles. "Oh, God, look at me. Okay, first stop before we go hang these non-existent flyers, we gotta go to my hotel so I can shower and fix my face."

"I don't know what to do with these cinnamon rolls," Bill said desperately.

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