Page 66 of Bear With Me

“And if we don't stop? Will you remove us?” Did Ronald sound…hopeful? Ugh, asshole.

Ted gave him a tight smile. “No. But I will remove you from this task and put you on something you’re likely to enjoy less. Like scrubbing toilets.”

The teenagers, who had been watching this whole exchange open-mouthed, snickered. “That’s the worst,” Randy chipped in. “It’s where he sends the people who really piss him off.” He grinned. “I had to do toilets once when I got in a fight. It sucked balls.”

Ronald looked like he’d sucked on a lemon as he thought about this. “Very well.” He somehow managed to make his agreement sound like a sneer. “Can we just perform this task without conversation, then?”

“Nobody said you had to talk,” Dennis pointed out. “You can easily not say a word other than what you need to do the inventory for the rest of the time you’re here. But the rest of us aren’t going to stop chatting just because you’re idiots.”

Rowena made a noise of outraged disbelief and looked at Bjorn. “Are you going to let your mate talk to us like this?”

Ted turned an exasperated look on Rowena, then Ronald, then faced Dennis. "How are you at handling toilet brushes, Dennis?" he asked in a threateningly pleasant voice.

Dennis shut his mouth, but the kids were distracted and carried them nicely off the topic of the argument: “Wait, when you said 'mate', did you mean he's, like, your fated mate?” Juliette broke in eagerly. “There's a difference, right? I bet you're fated; you seem like a really good couple.” She patted Dennis on the shoulder in congratulations.

He couldn’t hide his smile at that, both at her naive enthusiasm and at being openly referred to as Bjorn’s fated. When had that become something to be proud of rather than something to worry about? “It’s pretty cool, yeah.”

“So, tell us everything,” she urged, somehow managing to ignore Bjorn’s parents’ continued glowering. “Was it like in the books, where you met and a flash of electricity ran between you and you knew?”

Dennis thought back to encountering a naked man eating a fish and his what the fuck reaction, and laughed. “Bjorn says he knew. I definitely didn’t.”

“Hmph.” Rowena turned back to the fridge, muttering about humans and ignorance.

Bjorn rolled his eyes at Dennis, who shrugged back. At least she was muttering it now rather than saying it at full volume.

“So are you going to get married?” Juliette asked. “Wait, do shifters have weddings?”

“Sometimes,” Bjorn said. He glanced at Dennis. “We could do it if Dennis wants. I wouldn’t mind. But for most shifters, the bite and the bond are what they care most about.”

“Ooh, can we see your bite?” Randy asked, craning his head to try to see Dennis’s neck.

Self-conscious, Dennis slapped a hand over his bare neck. “Uh…”

“We haven’t completed the bond yet,” Bjorn said with what seemed like a deliberate evenness to his tone. “We’re…getting to know each other.”

Rowena sniffed. “Your father and I bonded the day we met. Shifters just know.” She eyed Dennis. “Which, if you’d chosen a proper mate, you’d know.”

“Enough, Mom. I’ve found my mate. Get over it.” Bjorn was evidently flat out of patience with his parents’ shit. He turned back to the counter they’d been cleaning and started scrubbing at the grout edging it with restrained fury.

“Well,” Juliette said, staunchly supportive, “I think it’s pretty cool. I’d love to meet my fated mate.”

Dennis offered her a smile. “Maybe you will, one day. You’ve got time, though.”

She grimaced. “Yeah, yeah, I know, I’ve gotta finish growing up or whatever. I’ve heard it all from my mom, too.”

“You are young,” Ronald said, surprising Dennis, who thought he’d been determinedly ignoring them since asking to finish their work in silence. “There’s a very good reason we don’t allow bonding between those under the age of adulthood, even when they identify each other young. Teenagers are still growing into themselves and learning about the world.”

Dennis blinked in shock at that surprisingly reasonable comment.

“He’s right,” Ted threw in, looking equally surprised. “Give yourself time. Maybe you will meet a fated mate, but it doesn’t have to happen today.”

Juliette rolled her eyes and made a dramatic whining noise. “Fiiiine.” She closed the cabinet she’d been intermittently counting items inside. “I think we’re done with the paper goods.”

“I finished the refrigerator a few minutes ago,” Rowena spoke up, leaning back against the now-closed fridge, “but you all were too busy with your little conversation to notice.”

So much for the parents being reasonable, Dennis thought. Rowena’s snottiness was apparently never-ending.

“Pantry’s done too,” Ted said, looking at Ronald, who nodded and set down the clipboard on the counter. “We need to restock the trail mix packets; I know you kids love those.”