"I thought you were literally going to butt heads with her. That was hot," Laurie murmured.
Briana's eyebrows quirked. "I was."
"You know she's a grizzly bear, right?"
Briana curled her lip delicately, and Laurie laughed out loud. "I guess that means you do know and liked your odds. This was your idea, Bree. That's why you're a genius."
"Was it? I guess it was." She shrugged, smiling up at him more genuinely now. "But you took the bull by its horns."
They said, "Bear," and "Goat," at the same time, both in response to their animals disapproving of the 'bull' part of the common phrase, and Laurie laughed again. "Taking the goat by its horns makes more sense than taking the bear by its horns, but also, Ireallythought you were going to take her by the…well, the whatever. Are you always that, um."
"Aggressive?" Briana asked sweetly.
Laurie might be a scoundrel, but he recognized dangerous territory when it was presented to him. "Confident."
Briana finally relaxed fully, with a laugh of her own. "Yes."
"It's hot," Laurie said again. "Want to go talk to the Faire council with me?"
"Sure, but it'd be better if I knew in advance whether I'm going to have to headbutt somebody."
"I doubt it. They're less fed up with me than Ashley is."
Briana snorted and went to climb in his truck with him, which made Laurie smile for some reason. The drive into town was quick, and the central square was empty today, or at least, not filled with an impromptu fundraiser fair. He and Briana went into the city council building, nodding a greeting at the receptionist behind the scarred front desk, and Laurie led Bree upstairs to the Faire council rooms.
The only council member in just then was Peter Collins, the smallish, balding, white-haired man who had been on the council almost as long as Laurie had been alive, maybe longer, and who played the fiddle at the Faire. He was getting himself a cup of coffee from an old drip coffee maker against the far wall, and turned toward the door as he heard it open, a smile already in place.
That smile fell away when he saw Laurie, whose heart twisted in confused worry. "Pete? Everything okay?"
"What do you want, Laurie?" Every note of friendliness that had ever been in the older man's voice was gone, replaced byhostility. "I heard you were volunteering. Mighty big of you, considering."
"Considering what?" Laurie asked blankly. "I know I haven't really been pulling my weight around—well, much of anything, I guess. But I'm trying to do better and helping to try to sort things out after this disaster seemed like a good…" He trailed off, genuinely confused as Pete's expression got darker and darker. Laurie had the impulse to tuck Briana behind him protectively, although he was sure she wouldn't appreciate it.
"Sure. Just volunteeringnow, out of the goodness of your heart. Got nothing to do with trying to make people look the other way, right?"
"No? It—oh." The last word was soft as Laurie suddenly understood. He closed the door behind himself and Briana. "This is about the shifting."
"You're goddamn right it is!"
Laurie sighed and came all the way into the office to lean on one of the desks. "I?—"
"How long have I known your family?" Pete demanded. "More than forty years now? Are youalllike that?"
"Yes," Laurie said quietly. "Yes, we are."
"Your parents?"
Laurie nodded, and Pete burst out with a furious, "What'd I do? What'd I do that you didn'ttrustme?"
Briana, at Laurie's side, said, "Oh," in much the same soft way Laurie had a moment earlier, and drew Pete's attention as she shook her head. "You didn't do anything, Pete. We just don't tell people unless they're our partners, or it's a terrible emergency."
"But you could trust me!" The old man sounded genuinely hurt. "How many people in this town decided they couldn'ttrustme?"
There weresomany, and Laurie had no way to say that without hurting the old fiddler even more. "I'm sorry, Peter. It's not you. It really isn't. Shifters just aren't very trusting of true humans in general. It's too dangerous."
Pete gave him a bitter look. "Friends I've had my whole life have been lying to me that whole time. This town felt like home until last week. Now I look around and wonder who else is lying to me. I don't think I can even stay here, and I've got nowhere else to go."
"Pete…" Laurie's shoulders slumped and he closed his eyes. This wasn't a conversation he'd ever imagined having, and he didn't know how to make it better. "I hope you don't go," he finally said. "I hope you can forgive us, and…" He sighed, looking up again. "It sucks. It sucks not telling people you care about the truth about who you are. It sucks wondering if maybe it would be safe to, but knowing that if it goes badly, it's not justyouyou're endangering, but your whole community. Do I think every single Torben would have trusted you? Yeah, I do. But what if…" He shook his head, searching for a name, and finally came up with one, voicing it with a hard little laugh. "What if Tommy Johnston was a shifter?"
