Page 45 of OctoBEARfest

"It is." He reached across the table toward her, ignoring the fact that he had cinnamon roll stickiness on his fingers. Again. "Which is why I said we don't have to make all the decisions right now. I just really wanted you to know I'd be in your corner."

She curled her fingers into his. "If this album does well—we'll be touring anyway, but if it does well we might be touring a lot. For quite a while. That can be months apart, Bill. And I know we've only spent three days together, but months apart sounds like a lot, too."

"Well." He took a deep breath, then chuckled at himself. "I'm fortifying myself with a lot of deep breathing these days. You?"

"So much." Gwen flashed a smile. "I should become a yogi or something, that's how much. What were you going to say?"

"I talked to my parents about the pub last night. I'm going to hire my cousin Ashley to run the actual pub side of things, if I can convince her I mean it. The brewery needs less day to day supervision, but…if I need somebody to take over there, too, I'll find them, and step back into some other kind of position. Because yeah, months sounds like too long. And I've never traveled." He gave her a sudden nervous smile. "I mean, if you'd want me around."

"More than anything. Although Penny is going to lecture you about sex before game day."

Bill burst out laughing. "Isn't the problem with that the staying up too late thing? I promise to only have morning sex after you've awakened from your fabulous nights as a rock star? Or very, very late night sex after which you can sleep in until," he checked the time, "eleven thirty a.m?"

"I'll have you know I'm up unusually early after a night of rock'n'roll and sex, becausesomebodymade cinnamon rolls and drew me from my bed long before my natural hour of awakening."

"So you're saying if I'm going to go on tour with you and want to do actual tourist things, I should get up early, go do the stuff, and come back around one in the afternoon to worship my rock and roll queen until it's time for her to go bathe in the adoration of her countless fans?"

Gwen pursed her lips. "I think you're going to be very good at this."

Bill grinned. "I'm going to try. In the meantime, since I got you up so early?—"

"I would love to go back to bed and get thoroughly railed again."

Heat flashed up Bill's face. "I was going to ask if you wanted to go over to the pub with me and try to talk Ashley into actually taking the job I offered her twice yesterday."

"Oh." Gwen settled herself into the kitchen chair quite primly, like an embarrassed cat. "That sounds okay, too."

"Shower first?"

All the embarrassed cat body language went away, replaced by something close to a purr from his fated mate. "Now that sounds like an excellent compromise."

A few minutes later, beneath the hot water, they concluded that it absolutely was.

CHAPTER 27

The 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 lookedexhausted, 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 themdidn'thave 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 thisplacewas for old people, you know? But I guess it was partycentral 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 greholy 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?"

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