Page 67 of Bear With Me

Everyone turned to look at Bjorn and Dennis, both of whom were still clutching their cleaning implements but neither of whom was actually cleaning. “Uh, I think we’re done, too,” Dennis contributed, glancing at the spotless counter and sink. “Yeah, we’re done.”

Ted looked down at his smartwatch and smiled. “Wow, less than two hours to finish everything. Good job, team!” He turned to the teenagers. “You guys can go, if you want, or I think there might be a pick-up basketball game going on in the gym.”

Randy wrinkled his nose. “I’m good. I need to head home anyway.”

Juliette, on the other hand, dusted off her hands and grinned. “I’m totally up for basketball. See you guys later!” she sang, and darted out of the room without waiting for any responses.

All of them blinked after her. “Was I ever that young?” Ronald asked no one in particular, and Ted chuckled.

“No idea, my friend, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t.”

“Hey, I’m still young,” Bjorn threw in playfully. “Just…not that young.”

Dennis patted his mate’s arm consolingly. “Face it, Bjorn, we’re ancient compared to a pair of teenagers.”

Randy snickered. “Dude, you have gray hairs. He’s right, you’re ancient.” He gave them all a wave. “I’m going. See y’all again some other time. Ted, I’ll be here for group tomorrow night.”

“You got it,” Ted said with a smile, and Randy made his exit.

The remaining adults all looked at each other, Bjorn and Dennis on one side of the room and Rowena and Ronald on the other, with Ted in between the two pairs. “Can we go, then?” Rowena asked tensely.

“You don’t want a tour of the center?” Ted asked as if shocked, and Dennis strongly suspected that was well-disguised sarcasm.

Rowena just rolled her eyes, but Ronald surprised Dennis when he said curiously, “Is it that large, that we need a tour?”

Ted shrugged. “We’ve got a lot of rooms with various uses. Might not hurt to get familiar with the place, since you’re gonna be here a lot.”

Dennis bit his lip to keep from laughing at Rowena’s expression in response to that comment. Her stank face was actually pretty epic when it wasn’t being directed at him or Bjorn.

“We’ll look around,” Ronald said, again surprising Dennis. “Rowena, come along.” He gestured his wife forward.

Ted was obviously surprised as well, judging by the movement of his eyebrows, but he accepted this with good grace. “Great. Let’s do it. Dennis, Bjorn -” he turned to them “ – thank you so much for your help today. Maybe we’ll see you again in the future, eh?”

Dennis didn’t have the heart to tell him they’d be leaving the area very soon and going back to their real lives. “Maybe,” he said instead.

“Ok, folks, come this way. I’ll show you the gym first, and we’ll see if Juliette managed to catch the basketball game before it ended.” He led Bjorn’s parents out of the room, Rowena moving much more reluctantly than her husband, leaving Dennis and Bjorn alone in the kitchen.

Dennis looked at the doorway they’d disappeared through. “Ok, that was weird, right? Your dad suddenly being interested in things?”

Bjorn looked thoughtful. “I think he’s really curious about humans, under all the jerky behavior. And by the end, he seemed to think Juliette was…cute?” He shrugged. “I don’t think that’s the right word, but the way he told her ‘you’re young’ reminded me of how he is with some of the den kids. Condescending as hell, but I think not because he’s trying to be, you know?”

Privately, Dennis thought Bjorn was ascribing better motives to his father than the man deserved, but he chose to not vocalize that. “Well,” he said, looking around the room, “I think our work here is done. Should we get going?”

Bjorn grinned and pulled Dennis into a bear hug. “We still have time to go out for lunch somewhere, if you want. Or we can go back to Gran’s and I’ll make something.”

Dennis melted into the embrace in spite of himself. “Let’s go out on the town. We can call to check in with Gran.”

“You got it, mate. Anything you want.”

25

Bjorn

They ended up taking a long walk – or was it a hike? How strenuous did a walk have to be before it became a hike? – through the woods surrounding the den, chatting idly as they navigated the narrow path that occasionally forced them to brush against each other; sometimes just hands, other times whole bodies as they tried to squeeze through narrow passages.

By the time they made it back to Gran’s house, sweaty and laughing, Bjorn had been hard for an hour from the touches, though he was pretty sure he’d managed to disguise it from his mate. The last thing he wanted to do was make Dennis feel pressured.

“Shower?” Dennis asked as he let them into the house and slipped off his shoes.