Chapter 24

CHAPTER 24

P enny worked her way through the crowd once Ashley left, greeting people, accepting congratulations, and forgetting names as soon as she was introduced. Everybody wanted to meet her, and nobody seemed to mind she couldn't remember who most of them were. They were even decent enough to let her go stand at the bar once she'd gotten through them all, and to give her a few minutes to recombobulate.

They were nice, thank goodness. There were just so many of them.

"It's totally overwhelming, isn't it?" A woman who wasn't a shifter came to stand next to Penny companionably. She was in her late fifties, curvy, and dressed rather gorgeously in Christmasy colors that flattered her skin tones. "I'm Pam. My husband is Richard, the big one over there with the good hair."

"That describes every man in the room," Penny said dryly.

Pam laughed. "I know, but let's be real, you wouldn't remember which one he was anyway, would you?"

"I probably will eventually!"

"Yeah. Eventually." Pam smiled at her. "For now, just let it all rush over you like?—"

GIANT STOMPING ELEPHANT FEET!

"How do you even know what an elephant is?" Penny asked under her breath.

The partridge looked offended. You know what an elephant is.

I know what a Christmas tree light and a ceramic haystack in a manger are too, but that doesn't seem to have made any impression on you!

The partridge drew itself up into as regal a stance as a small brown bird with red markings could manage. Elephants, it said with dignity, can stomp you.

That was difficult to argue with, although Penny had the urge to try. Pam distracted her, though, with a tentative, "They're saying you just recently discovered you were a shifter?"

Penny squinched her face but couldn't help a laugh. "And here Ashley had been trying to convince me they weren't all talking about me. Yes, just a few days ago. Ashley's been helping me through it."

"What's it like?" Pam asked with a mix of curiosity and longing.

That sent a piercing thread of compassion through Penny. "It's a lot, isn't it?" she asked softly. "Not being a shifter in a room like this? How long ago did you meet Richard?"

"A little over thirty years. My whole life has been surrounded by shifters ever since. I gather it's not quite as crazy for people whose mates don't have enormous families, but it does make you feel a little left out sometimes. What does it feel like?"

"Weird. Annoying. Kind of cool. I think it would just feel ordinary, though, if I'd grown up this way. It feels—" Penny hesitated, considering it. "It does feel like a question has been answered, kind of. Like I was missing something that I didn't know was missing. But for what it's worth, if I'd never found out about it, I'm not sure I would have felt like I was missing anything. It's just this sort of additional weird thing about me, not the answer to everything about who I am. I was already that person. I just have a worried partridge in my head now."

Pam laughed, then tipped her head thoughtfully. "Thank you. It is ordinary for all of them, so I could never ask, but the rest of us who aren't shifters have always wondered amongst ourselves. Whether…"

"Whether you were less than they were?" Penny asked quietly. "You're not. A little different, that's all. I've spent my whole life hiding so well that not even I knew I was a shifter, and now that I know, I still have to hide. I don't think either is better, true human or shifter. There are just different constraints that come along with both of them."

"That's what Rich always says, but it's different, hearing it from someone who spent their whole life being human up until now." Pam leaned her shoulder into Penny's in a friendly way. "Thank you. So," she added more brightly, "how's fated-matedness treating you?"

"Pretty great," Penny admitted dippily. "Ashley's…she's everything."

Pam beamed at her. "Good. Hold on to that, and enjoy your happily ever after. That's the best thing about it all. Knowing, without a doubt, that they're the right choice for you. The best one in the whole world, for you. And speaking of fate…"

A tall, handsome Torben man came up to bow theatrically and offer his hand. "Would you care to dance, Mrs Torben?"

"I would be delighted, Mr Torben." Pam put her hand into the man's, smiled at Penny, and went off to join a floor full of joyfully, if not elegantly, dancing shifters.

Ashley reappeared as Pam left, and slid her hands around Penny's waist. "You want to dance?"

"Horizontal mambo, maybe," Penny said, to Ashley's snerk of surprise.

"Not in front of eighty of my relatives, Pen."

"You've got the keys to the staff room, don't you?"

"So do at least nine other people here!"

Penny gave her mate a wicked smirk. "Adds to the spice."

"I have had enough spice for tonight."

Penny laughed. "Coward."

"Yes, but only because I've been a shifter long enough to know that shifters have excellent senses of smell and hearing and I can one hundred percent guarantee you there would not be a single soul at this party who didn't know exactly what we'd been up to, and what we'd said to each other while we were doing it."

"Oh, dear God. Okay, right, the regular ol' dance floor it is."

"Wait, though." Ashley pulled her closer and gazed down at her in bewilderment. "How did you even do that? My guts are still burning. I think they're going to keep burning for the rest of the month."

"Luckily it's the 24 th ," Penny said cheerfully. "Only a week of burning left. I've always liked spicy foods, ever since I can remember. The heat's never bothered me at all. I just get this really complex layering of spices and flavors, not the heat, not the way everybody else does, I guess. But do you know what I learned when I was reading about being a bird, this week?"

"That technically a bird as big as you can get shouldn't be able to fly?"

Penny laughed. "That too, but no. I learned that birds can't taste capsaicin. The hot stuff in chilis that makes it burn when mammals eat them."

Ashley stared at her, trying to take that in before her jaw dropped. "Wait. Wait, what? You just couldn't taste all of that? That' s why you were so sure we could win?"

"'Fraid so. All I tasted were the yummy yummy flavors, not the burning heat."

Ashley burst out laughing and picked Penny up, spinning her around. "Well, aren't you just magnificent!"

"Yes," Penny said modestly. "Also I'm a rock star, did you know that?"

"I did . In fact, I'd make you and your bandmate perform for us tonight, but if I do that, I can't dance with you. So we're just going to have to make do with—" Ashley burped and paled. "Excuse me. I have to go to the bathroom again."

"Oh, poor honey! Okay, you go." Penny, eyes sparkling, watched Ashley bolt for the bathrooms, where a woozy-looking Jon was now emerging. Grinning, she made her way over to him. "So that trip to Disneyland…"

Jon groaned with true pathos. "We'll pay up, but can we not talk about it now? I don't know how you're even still standing. You're half my size and you ate twice as many wings. You should be basically dead right now. Laurie's in there lying on the bathroom floor moaning."

Penny giggled. "Small but mighty, you know?"

"What I know is every single bear shifter in this entire family now respects the hell out of you," Jon said wryly. "I mean, they would have anyway, and they would have liked you anyway, because you're Ashley's mate, but damn, woman. You just ate us under the table."

"Good thing it wasn't a drinking contest," Penny said. "I couldn't have won that. But hot wings, well, I told you I liked them!"

"Yeah, but damn, woman!" Jon grinned down at her a little messily, his stomach still obviously in rebellion. "I think you're good for her, you know? Ash has always been really, I don't know, structured? She wanted things to be just exactly right for everything. Makes her an incredible costumer and amazing at running a business, but she never knows when to step back. Not that I'm saying she should, with getting her feet under her as the manager here, but you're kind of a little chaos in her life, right? I think that's good for her. She can't get so dug into plans and everything having to happen at exactly the right time when your job means you'll be in and out and if she wants to spend time with you, she'll have to adjust to that." He finished, "Oh, God," and ran toward the bathrooms, leaving Penny to laugh after him, and to call, "She's good for me, too!"

Ashley's mom, Holly, came to tuck her arm through Penny's. "Those three are going to be useless for the rest of the night. I'm going to re-introduce you to everybody, since they're all talking about you anyway. Out-eating a bear is once-in-a-lifetime entertainment for these guys."

"I did meet most of them once," Penny protested, slightly embarrassed.

Holly snickered. "Yeah, and if I re-introduce you, you might remember five or ten of their names tomorrow."

By the time Ashley came back out to sway with Penny on the dance floor, she'd met nearly the entire clan again, and could remember almost a dozen of their names, which would have been more impressive if she hadn't already known about that many.

"It's fine," Ashley whispered into her hair. "You've got lots of time to memorize them. You're perfect, you know? And not just because you can eat capsaicin and put my dumb cousins in their place over that silly beef. You're my dream come true."

Penny grinned. "But putting your cousins in their place didn't hurt, right? How's your tummy?"

"I believe I'm still going to die," Ashley said dramatically. "My bear isn't speaking to me. But," she said with a grin, "we're going to Disneyland, because I'm fully gonna make those dorks pay up on that bet, and that'll be awesome."

"Maybe for our honeymoon," Penny said a bit rashly, then felt herself blush as Ashley's eyes widened. "I don't mean to jump the gun. I was just thinking it'd be a great honeymoon."

Ashley's wide eyes turned to a bright smile. "On one hand, yes. On the other, I think the deal Jon suggested was 'the losing team takes the winning team to Disneyland,' and I'm not actually sure I want my cousins along on my honeymoon."

"Oh, God! No! You're right! I hadn't thought of that!" Penny laughed. "Never mind! New plan!"

"We have all the time to make plans." Ashley sealed the promise with a kiss. "And now, because I'm a real romantic, I'm going to beg you to bring me home and tuck me into bed. I still feel awful after all those wings, and if I'm here when the party ends I'll end up staying and supervising until everything's cleaned up."

"My chariot awaits!" Penny said grandly. "If you can accept that I mean 'beat up old van' by 'chariot.'" She put her hand into Ashley's and led her off the dance floor, stopping long enough to collect their coats before they slipped out of the party without saying goodbye. Both of them were asleep by a very sensible hour by rock star standards, although Penny was awakened early by Ashley's quiet giggles and then her phone being slid across the bed toward her.

A long list of text messages were full of admiration and complaint that Ashley had managed to sneak out before cleanup time. Half of them were in support of the two women running off together, but Laurie and Jon were trying to make a new beef of it. Bill had added his two cents, saying, You're just trying to get out of taking them to Disneyland. Suck it up, bros, and that had ended the late-night text chain, except for a handful of heartbroken emojis from the two younger brothers.

"This is what you're going to have to put up with forever," Ashley warned Penny sleepily.

"I think I'm getting off easy." Penny reached for her own phone, found a video clip she wanted, and tilted it toward Ashley so she could see a hall full of fans wearing Sixty Pix t-shirts and making an incredible amount of noise as the band came out of an interview. "This is what you're going to have to put up with."

"Except I'm going to stay away from all of that as much as possible," Ashley murmured. " You're going to keep coming home to my huge crazy family. I think you get the worse end of the deal."

"I absolutely do not," Penny disagreed. "Because I get to spend the rest of my life with you, and there's nothing better I can think of doing."

Ashley gave her a dippy smile and nestled in close. "Well, when you put it that way…oh, Merry Christmas!"

"Yeah," Penny murmured, "yeah. Merry Christmas, always."