Page 64 of Bear With Me

Randy nodded. “‘Kay. Ok team, break!” He clapped loudly, signaling they could split to do their assigned tasks, which they mostly did, though both Ronald and Rowena looked hesitant to say the least.

Rowena wrinkled her nose, looking from the teenagers to the fridge she’d been assigned to inventory. “Young man, I don’t think you understand -”

“- how excited she is to work with you!” Bjorn cut in before she could get out whatever complaint she’d been about to. “Right, Mom?”

She sniffed wordlessly.

Ted tugged on Ronald’s arm. “Pantry is this way.”

Ronald yanked his arm away. “Don’t touch me!” he bellowed.

Everyone froze at the loud exclamation, the teenagers looking at Ted with wide eyes. Ted, for his part, ducked his head apologetically. “I apologize for touching you without asking for permission. We practice consent in all things here.”

“Well,” Ronald shot back, “I did not consent to…this!” He waved a hand as if indicating the entire center and the people inside it.

They hadn’t even started inventorying and already these people were on Dennis’s last nerve. “Yes, you did,” he snapped. “I distinctly recall you being given a choice of whether to come here or not, and you agreed in exchange for keeping your den status.”

“Den?” Randy interrupted. “Oh, wait, are you some of the bears who live outside town? That’s awesome!” Either not noticing or not caring that he’d broken into the middle of what was shaping up to be a rather heated discussion, he grinned. “I’ve always wondered what it’s like to be a shifter. And bears, in particular, are so badass!”

“Is it ok for us to ask you questions?” Juliette asked tentatively.

“Absolutely,” Bjorn said with a nod. “There’s no bear state secrets we can’t tell or anything.”

Ronald frowned. “We do not discuss den business outside the den,” he told his son repressively.

Bjorn waved that away. “I doubt they’re going to be asking for our tax ID number. It’s fine.”

“Yay,” Juliette exclaimed with a little clap, “question and answer time as we work! Ok so…” She turned to the cabinets above the sink and started shuffling through their contents. “What does it feel like to shift?”

“It is entirely natural,” Rowena answered, surprising Dennis. “We simply think about being a human or a bear and…we are.” She eyed Juliette. “I doubt a human could understand.”

Randy squinted at Rowena. “Why not?”

“Work while you talk, y’all,” Ted reminded everyone. He waved encouragingly at Ronald. “C’mon, pantry’s this way.”

Figuring cleaning products would be in the usual place, Dennis bent to look in the cabinet under the sink and was pleased to find sponges, brushes, and a spray bottle of cleaner. He retrieved the items and set them on the counter.

Rowena reluctantly picked up the fridge’s clipboard and opened the fridge, then made a disgusted face at its contents.

Dennis wondered what could be that bad, but didn’t ask. Instead, he sprayed down the sink’s faucet and wetted a sponge in silence. Bjorn grabbed a roll of paper towels and pitched in.

Dennis had almost forgotten a question had been asked when Rowena piped up from the fridge. “Humans have…limited comprehension of self-control,” she announced. “And control is paramount to shifting.”

Ted popped his head out of the walk-in pantry and gave her a cool look. “I don’t think it’s fair to pigeonhole all humans like that. Most of us have pretty good self-control.”

“Yeah,” Randy agreed, a bag of paper napkins in his hand. “Like, my brother pisses me off a lot but I can’t just haul off and punch him, you know, or else I’d get yelled at. So I gotta self-control myself.”

Ronald, who had been lurking just outside the pantry door, probably trying to avoid doing what work he could, sneered. “Yes, we know humans have violent tendencies. Which is exactly what my dear Rowena meant about self-control. You start wars and attack each other. Not exactly controlled.”

Bjorn snorted at that. “As if shifters don’t fight each other all the time? C’mon, Papa. I mean, we still let people get jobs in the den by beating up the previous person in that position.”

Rowena hissed repressively, but at a glare from Dennis, she ducked back into the fridge, scribbling on the clipboard as if it were the most interesting thing ever.

“Pack challenges are really a thing?” Juliette asked. “I mean, I guess they’d be den challenges. But like, those do exist? I kinda thought they were just in books.”

“What kind of books have you been reading?” Randy teased, and Juliette flushed.

“I mean, they appear in all kinds of books that feature shifters,” Ted contributed, voice muffled by the pantry he was still deep within. “And Juliette can read whatever she wants, Randy.”