A minute later his brother texted back to sayHalf the town watched you two bounce from the Harlequin last night, it wasn't that hard to put two and two togetheralong with an emoji of a bear, a goat, and a kissy face. Laurie laughed out loud and showed it to Briana, who giggled around her cinnamon roll.
"He must have gone over early, or called it in really early. They'd usually be sold out by now."
That was true: the cinnamon rolls, which were enormous and delicious, often had people lining up for the bakery's 6 o'clock opening. Jon had clearly gone to some effort to make sure Laurie and Briana would get a delivery. Laurie texted,Thanks,again, and Jon sent back a thumbs up.
"Pretty good family," Briana said with a smile.
"They are. Is yours?" Laurie asked cautiously. She'd mentioned them, but family could be a difficult issue, so he didn't want to presume anything.
"Yeah, they're actually great, which doesn't mean I'm not happy to be a couple hundred miles away from them."
"Oldest sibling," Laurie remembered her saying, and Briana nodded.
"Right. Although ironically I miss my youngest sisters most of all. Most of us are three years apart like clockwork but Autumn and Summer are just barely eighteen months apart, so they're still in high school and I kinda hate that I'm not there all the time to see them growing up."
"Jon and I are like that. He's seventeen months and one day older than I am."
"And then Bill and…Steve?"
Laurie nodded. "Steve, yeah, he's the middle-oldest. He's three years older than Jon, and then Bill's five years older than him."
"So we have a lot of family, between us." Briana sat down, pulled her knees up, and tucked them inside Laurie's shirt, since there was room for two of her in there anyway. He went to the fridge for milk, asked if she'd like some by waggling the carton at her, and poured two glasses before coming back to the table to sit and have a cinnamon roll himself.
"I have fewer siblings but I havesomany cousins. There are six in my Dad's family, too, and they all have at least two kids. There are dozens and dozens of Torbens. Family Christmases are insane."
"Hah! Both my parents come from small families so they wanted a big one of their own, so I don't have that many cousins. I know your cousin Ashley, and Liam, he's the only one who's prettier than you are? And I've met Bill and Jon, but not Steve, I don't think."
"No, he left Renaissance a while ago. And Lu—Liam.Sorry, he recently started using his Faire name all the time and I'm not used to it yet. Liamispretty," Laurie said with a note of resignation. "He's had modeling scouts come for him, but they all want him to lose twenty pounds and he says he likes food more than he likes money."
Briana blinked a couple of times, then rolled her eyes up like she was calling up a vision of Liam and making sure she was thinking of the right person. "I don't see how he could possibly need to lose weight. He's already chiseled. He'd be gaunt."
"That's what he says. I guess it's the 'the camera adds weight' thing? Anyway, yeah, that's him. And if you can identify five of us off the bat you're doing really well, plus if you've got a lot of siblings maybe they won't completely overwhelm you." Laurie made a face. "They tend to be a lot, when introduced to our mates. And my mom, jeez. Just so you know, she wants us all to have a lot of babies immediately."
Briana grunted. "No."
Laurie laughed out loud. "Yeah, I thought that might be your take on it, what with having five younger siblings."
His fated mate was eyeing him warily now. "What about you and kids?"
"Um, I've recently been realizing that I've got a lot of growing up to do myself, so I would say I'm definitely not ready for them.Maybe someday, but if you're just not interested at all, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it."
The wary look faded from Briana's eyes and she smiled a little before glancing down at her cinnamon roll. "I'm surprised and feel like I shouldn't be, if fate really knows what it's doing. We wouldn't be perfect matches for each other if you were all in on kids, but…"
"No, I get it. Even if we weren't comparatively rare shifters—I mean in relation to true humans, not like bear shifters are rare among shifters—so many people just expect couples to have kids. I get it."
Briana's smile broadened. "I was gonna say, bear shifters aren't rare! But yeah. Yeah," she said again more softly. "Heaven forbid, but I'm starting to think maybe fatedidget it right. Look, Laurie?—"
"If you start to apologize for being hard on me, or something like that, I swear I'll stuff this entire cinnamon roll up your nose."
Briana's mouth snapped shut, though a laugh escaped after a moment. "I was going to do something like that, yes, but as I don't want cinnamon-nose, I guess I'd better not. Instead I'll say, I hate to walk away from cinnamon rolls, but I should possibly go home and put some different clothes on. Never mind the walk of shame thing, there's the memorial services this afternoon," she finished more quietly. "A sexy backless dress probably isn't the right thing to wear to that."
"Probably not," Laurie said just as quietly, though he did gesture at the cinnamon rolls. "You can take one with you, or…it's not a rush. Finish breakfast and then I'll drive you home. Or out the fairgrounds, if you want, so you can finally get your Jeep."
"Maybe you should, yeah. It turns out getting in a truck with you leads to hanky-panky."
Laurie spluttered. "You started the hanky-panky. Also, if I'm going to drive you out there, doesn't that threaten further hanky-panky? Also-also, hanky-panky?"
"I have no idea where that came from," Briana admitted, looking sheepish. "It's not in my usual vocabulary. And I think I'm safe from further truck-based hanky-panky in the broad daylight."
