Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

A shley knew perfectly well that the swan had been Maggie Ross. She didn't know why Maggie had poked and prodded at her fated mate, and now that Penny had gone up on stage, Ashley was having a difficult time not stalking up to the professional wrestler and demanding to understand what was going on.

We can take her, Ashley's bear said placidly. Swans are large, but we're larger. Much. Much. Larger.

Much , Ashley agreed ferociously. Except in human form, Maggie was a solid four inches taller than Ashley, and considerably broader and more muscular. And also did stage fighting that required real skill for a living. Ashley was fairly confident that the professional wrestler could suplex her, and then probably tie her in knots and hang her from a tree.

Her bear produced a vivid image of swatting the swan shifter halfway across Renaissance, feathers flying everywhere. Despite her pique, Ashley ended up giggling. Not unless we shift to bear form, and that would raise a lot more questions than it settled.

Hnf. The bear offered another image of dragging Maggie off into the woods by her long neck so they could shift and put the big swan in her place out there.

"No," Ashley murmured, smiling again. "No, you're missing the point, you're missing the part where unless we're shifted, she can probably kick my ass."

Her bear made a dubious sound. You're a very strong human.

Yes, but so is she! We're both shifter-strong, but she's also a professional athlete! And she's bigger than me!

The bear said hnf again. We could take her.

"Or we could talk to her!" Ashley whispered. Fortunately the band was up on stage, greeting everybody and encouraging a lot of noise, so Ashley didn't sound like a total lunatic talking to herself. Or maybe she did, but nobody was likely to notice, which was more the point. She stretched her neck, looking for Maggie—as if, being the two tallest women and two of the tallest people at the event at all, it would be hard to see her—and when she didn't, settled back down a little. Maybe we should just watch Penny perform.

Yes, the bear said happily. Watch everyone admire our mate. After a pause, the bear, somewhat warily, added, …our mate is very loud.

That was true. There was no way around it. Penny made a hell of a lot of noise on those drums, but she did it with style. We'll soundproof the garage so she can practice in there, Ashley offered, and her bear settled down, satisfied with that idea, mostly because it had no idea Ashley didn't have a garage, just an apartment with a parking space below it.

Even with only two members of the band, and a local stand-in to help out, watching the Sixty Pix up on stage was an absolute joy. Penny and Gwen both obviously loved what they did, and Ripley, whom Ashley had known since they'd been a kid, was beaming like they'd been given Christmas and their birthday all at once. The audience loved them all, too, singing along, cheering when they didn't know the words, and dancing under the tents to keep warm. It was just about perfect, Ashley thought.

A few minutes into their set, she went reluctantly back into the pub, making sure nothing was on fire in there, either figuratively or literally. Jon grabbed her as soon as she came in, muttering an apology but explaining there was a patron looking for the manager. The patron, a man in his sixties who had been coming to the Thunder Bear for a long time, didn't like the new look, the new music, or the crowds, and felt he deserved the opportunity to tell somebody about that at length.

"I've been coming here as long as you've been alive," he told Ashley, "and you're ruining the place. Your aunt and uncle must be horrified. I expect things to change, young lady. The customer is always right."

"In matters of taste," Ashley said politely.

The older man frowned at her. "What?"

"The entire phrase is 'the customer is always right in matters of taste,' Mr Wilson."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means I would never argue with your tastes."

His eyebrows drew down in confusion. "So you're putting it back the way it was?"

"I wouldn't dream of it." Ashley gestured and began to walk the older man out, although he didn't realize it yet. It took him a moment to realize that she wasn't agreeing with him, and came to a belligerent stop.

"What do you mean? You just said the customer is always right!"

"See, the problem is that we've gotten used to the first half of that phrase being the end all and be all," Ashley said, still determined to be polite as she started walking again. Wilson had to scurry to catch up if he wanted to keep complaining to her, although she didn't give him much chance. "But in fact, the customer is wrong a lot of the time. In this case, you're specifically wrong about Aunt Heather and Uncle Pete being horrified, but in general, you're wrong that your personal preferences should dictate the direction a business you don't own should go in."

Wilson spluttered. "But I've been coming here for thirty years!"

Ashley beamed at him. "And we appreciate your patronage, and hope to see you back again as the Thunder Bear Brewpub embraces a new look and feel for the new year. Please, have a beer on the house the next time you come in." She handed him a coupon and walked him all the way into the parking lot, where she left him stammering with confused outrage.

"That," Jon said as she came back inside, "was awesome. Is that the new vibe around here? Escort entitled buttheads out and leave them confused in the cold?"

Ashley took a deep, deep breath. "I think it might be, yeah. I'm…" She pursed her lips, gazing around the busy pub. Between the two holiday parties and the youthful, cheerful crowd who had come in to fill the rest of the space, they were at pretty near capacity. Much, much busier than Sunday nights had been just a few months ago, with an entirely different crowd being catered to. The pub felt vibrant and alive, with the scent of food and beer both rising through the chatter and bursts of laughter.

"I'm not Bill," she said after a while. "He was trying so hard to keep things the same, to honor your mom and dad's legacy. It's really not his fault that the clientele was aging out, that they had other things to be doing, but he was afraid to change things and disappoint your folks. I came in with a whole new idea and laid it out to everybody when Bill offered me this job. I'm really not interested in pandering to the old crowd, which was diminishing anyway. So…yeah, I guess so. If anybody is going to be a dick about the direction we're taking the place, then they're not the clientele we want. I'm happy to show them the door."

"You're not worried about taking a hard line?"

"I don't think it's all that hard," Ashley admitted. "But no, I guess I'm not. If there were only twelve people in here tonight and they were all sitting in a booth of their own, nursing a drink and sulking, then yeah, okay, I guess I'd be worried about the choices I was making for the business. But the place is packed, and that's not even including the insane last-minute party going on in the back lot. I get that right now it's Christmas, and I know that the last few months we've been riding on the high from having the Sixty Pix do such incredible gigs here in October, so things will probably calm down in the new year and it's going to take more work to get great nights like this going here. But unless it falls back to where it was, and falls hard , I think we're going to be just fine telling people like Mr Wilson that he can take his business elsewhere. And," she said with an upward flicker of her eyebrows, "I bet he won't anyway."

Jon's eyebrows rose too. "No?"

"Well, for one thing, I just offered him a free beer the next time he comes in. But also, he's been coming here for thirty years. This is his habit. I'm guessing he'll complain about it, but he'll come back."

"You're kind of ruthless, aren't you, Ash?"

Ashley grinned at her cousin. "Are you seriously only just now figuring that out?"

Jon drew, "Nooo" out, but his expression was curious. "I've just never seen it in action in the adult world, maybe. You used to run us ragged when we were kids, but somehow I didn't—" He broke off, laughing. "I didn't think of it as 'leadership skills' until just now, I guess. I just thought you were?—"

Ashley held up a warning finger. "I'm sure you're not about to end that sentence with 'bossy.'"

Jon, who had obviously been about to end that sentence with 'bossy,' said, "—uh, pushy? Please don't hurt me." He mimed cringing away fearfully from a blow, and Ashley obligingly threatened him with one before he said, "It's good, though. You're good at this. Sorry again that Laurie and I have been making it harder. Speaking of which." He nodded back at the floor, and returned to work.

Ashley made sure there were no other crises going on, and made it out to the charity tents before the Sixty Pix quite finished up, so she was there to clap and cheer as the performers came off stage. Penny bounced toward her, shining both with enthusiasm and, as she'd warned earlier, sweat, and shied back from the hug that Ashley offered. "I'm much too disgusting right now. I'd stain your dress. As it is I'm going to have to pay for dry cleaning on this before I return it. I didn't think of that," she admitted as she gestured at the autumn-gold gown she'd rented. "But at least I looked pretty."

"You looked gorgeous," Ashley murmured. "You look gorgeous. Sweaty and all. You really come to life up there, don't you?"

"It's the best thing in the world," Penny said. "I love performing. I love drumming. I love my life, and," she said with a sudden violent shiver, "I love really big warm fluffy coats or going indoors because oh my god, the sweat drying on my skin is going to turn me into an icicle in about ninety seconds here. I didn't think it was that cold out until just now!"

"It's been that cold all along," Ashley promised. "You just weren't as, um, perspire-y."

"Sweaty," Penny said firmly. "There is no delicate word for the amount of sweat I work up on stage. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with sweat. There is something wrong with freezing to death!"

"Right!" Ashley put her arm around Penny's shoulders and swept her toward the pub. "Do Gwen and Ripley need to be returned to warmth, too?"

Penny cast a look over her shoulder. "Bill's got Gwen taken care of, and Ripley wears much more sensible clothes than what I've got on right now. I think they'll be fine. I just need to dry off and put a coat on and I'll be okay too. Or I can stay inside and watch you rule the roost." She smiled up at Ashley as they went inside. "Which sounds pretty appealing, really. If I stay in here, nobody will recruit me to help clean up out there now that the party is over."

Ashley laughed. "I see how it is! I'm being used to avoid work!"

"Yeah," Penny said cheerfully. "I'll just pull up a bar stool, eat some cheese fries, and let everybody else do the heavy lifting. I couldn't risk this dress anyway."

"Cheese fries will be on the house," Ashley promised, and a few minutes later, Penny was indeed perched on a bar stool, nursing a beer and eating cheese fries while Sixty Pix fans stopped by to ask for pictures and autographs.

Our mate is popular, Ashley's bear said with great satisfaction. She'll be good for you.

Ashley blinked at the bear, vaguely offended. Am I not popular ?

You take working very seriously. You should spend more time sunning and eating. Our mate will make sure you do that, because many people want to sun and eat with her and she'll want you to join her when they do.

"Oh," Ashley said out loud, glancing toward Penny again, and then, silently, Oh, no. That whole life is way beyond me. I'm just a bar manager. I don't want to be famous.

Are you going to let your mate eat all her meals with other people? the bear asked archly.

What? No!

Satisfaction radiated from the bear again. Then you will spend more time relaxing, and that will be good.

Ashley, with the sense that she had absolutely lost this argument, went back to work like that wasn't proving the bear's point.