Two Bears are Better Than One(31)

“He weighs about three-fifty. I think he can handle some baby shots. Hey, big guy, is there anything else in there?”

“Why can’t we just go to the store like normal people? We coulda bought half the stock of that place on the corner for what his experiment with sorority drinking just cost.”

“Do they have Fat Tire?” Rogue asked, rolling over like a hookah smoking caterpillar to ask.

Jill quirked a half smile in his direction. “It’s a corner store in the United States, of which you all are now a part, and it sells beer. Yes, it has Fat Tire.”

“You’ve never been there, how do you know?”

“Because everywhere has Fat Tire. I’ll even go get it if you want, although it’s kind of sad that two giant bears are going to let their busted up mate go buy beer for them.”

Oh my God I can’t wait to see these two try to navigate an exchange of currency, she thought, getting a little giddy at the idea. This is so mean, but... shit I’m not lying about that bar tab he just rang up.

A look of suspicion came over Rogue’s face, his stunning eyes darkening slightly. The dimple in his left cheek went a tad deeper, and Jill felt a quailing in her stomach. King stood up and frowned. “Why do I feel like I should be having more fun?” he asked.

“Well at least you moved on from the loincloths when we came back to civilization. As much as I liked them, I doubt you’d be able to convince one of Santa Barbara’s finest that you weren’t a crazy person.”

“You’re Santa Barbara’s finest,” King said in a flat tone.

He didn’t catch his slip of the tongue.

“That’s very sweet,” Jill said, “and I can almost see you two exchanging a high-five over that one, but I don’t want to have to explain to Tripp why there’s no liquor left in any of his tiny fridges, nor do I want to pay for it. Come on.”

Rogue and King exchanged a glance, Rogue shrugged and flicked off the TV. As soon as Jill stood, she winced, ever so slightly, and before she took her next step, there was one arm from each of her bears, gently around her waist.

The walk to The Corner Emporium was short, even with Jill’s unsure hobbling, and the store was far less impressive than the name would indicate. For a second upon entering, Jill considered talking her bears into trying a vast array of hobo wines – Wild Irish Rose, maybe some Boone’s Farm – but decided that something that could turn normal men into hooting beasts? Probably not the best thing to give to men who could do that anytime they wanted.

“There’s... so much,” Rogue said, his voice an awe-struck whisper.

This is absolutely ridiculous, Jill thought, stifling a laugh.

King, for his part, immediately went to work turning every single bottle on the nearest shelf so that the labels were lined up, facing outward. The clerk at the counter, a slight man, bald on the top and round around the middle, wore a slightly frayed cardigan, and was watching the spectacle with just about the same look on his face that Rogue had when he walked past the beer cooler to the shelf filed with singles from all over the world.

Jill, sensing his confusion, shambled over and propped herself on the counter.

“They’re from Virginia,” she said.

The clerk look more confused. “I mean, like, in the woods Virginia.”

“Oh,” he said, in a long, drawn out way. “You mean like the part of Virginia that may as well be a different planet?”

“You have no idea,” she said with a grin.

“Whoa!” she turned back to the pair of man-bear-children, just in time to see Rogue teetering around with about forty bottles in his arms. “Holy... hey, can you get him a basket or something?”

With a heavy sigh and a little less enthusiasm than she’d like to have seen, the old guy rounded the counter and helped Rogue fill a shopping cart. As the man filled the basket, the bemused bear wandered off again, chasing some other squirrel.

King had straightened an entire row of bourbon bottles, and was just finishing his adjustments to the Wild Turkey section when he stood up very straight, very stiff, and then just started laughing.

“I thought you said they were from Virginia,” the shop keep said pointedly. “Not the damn loony bin.”

Jill bit down on her lip, once again trying to keep from cracking up like an idiot. Of all the trials they’d been through, all the pain and the fear, to think that the biggest obstacle to their getting on with life was safely escorting these two through the process of buying beer without dying from laughter?

Things could definitely, definitely be a lot worse, she thought.

At least Rogue had enough experience with the human world to know he had to pay for the stuff he was gathering, instead of just smiling at the panic-stricken turkey on the label and trying to walk out the front door.

“This... all together?” The shop keep looked slightly amazed, but she knew he’d seen some rough characters walk through here before. Jill just nodded.

“They’re trying new things,” she said.

“Do you have Fat Tire?” Rogue asked, over top of Jill and the clerk’s exchange. “I didn’t see any.”

“Ahhh,” the old man groaned, pinching one of his eyes up in what might’ve been a practiced tic. “We’re out. Truck usually comes Thursday, but it’s running late. Sorry about that.”

Rogue let out a long, low grumble, and caught Jill’s eye with a look so smug she could have set him up with Tripp and they’d be able to float an iceberg with their combined smug might.

“He said they were out of it,” Jill said, “not that they didn’t carry it.”

Rogue kept right on looking smug. “It feels good to be right.”

Jill rolled her eyes so hard they could’ve clacked against her teeth.

As she took out her credit card and scanned an absolutely ungodly amount of booze through, she couldn’t help but smile when she felt first Rogue’s hands, and then King’s, on the small of her back. I bet this guy thinks this is some weird cousin-dating circle, she thought with a little grin.

That tiny, impish grin grew a lot wider when King got a little adventurous – apparently drinking a bunch of baby shots made him randy – and stuck a pair of fingers down the loose waistband of Jill’s comfy cotton trousers. She twisted away, but at the same time, kinda wanted to just let go, let the wild ride just keep right on.

Then again, a PDA ticket probably wasn’t the best way to make her California homecoming memorable.

With a box hoisted onto each of Rogue’s shoulders, and a paper bag in King’s arms, the unlikely trio made their way back to the Stop N Drop, though it was much slower than the trip to the store. Each step, each moment that they walked, Jill watched her two bears, their muscles moving under their shirts, their shoulders rising and falling with every breath they took.

This, she thought, is a much better way to remember coming home than getting thrown in the can for making out in a corner store.





-18-


“That’s probably not a good idea.”


Jill


With the cubs asleep in their multitude of rooms, and the Spectravision turned off from the front desk – Arrow discovered the thrill of pay-per-view the night before – Jill, Rogue and King made their way downstairs just after midnight. The agreement was that they could swim after hours if they kept it quiet, and didn’t make a mess.

Tripp really did turn out to be a pretty good guy.

She slid below the surface, letting the cool water lap away the soreness in her sides. Without her bandages, walking was harder, but in the water, she didn’t feel anything but free.

That’s not true. She felt a pair of hands glide around her hips, and then she spun around to find one very intense looking bear with one green eye and one amber one, staring straight into her soul.

“Oh look out there, cowboy,” Jill said with a quirk in the left corner of her mouth.

King’s hands on her back, sliding underneath the one-piece she had on – no one wants to go for a bikini when they’ve got big bruises running down their sides, even if it was after midnight – sent trills of excitement up and down her spine. Everywhere his huge, rough hands went, goosebumps rose right after.

The calluses on his palms catching her swimsuit’s fabric got Jill thinking things, naughty things, that she probably shouldn’t have been thinking about in a public swimming pool. Mostly because she was almost certain that plenty of other people had those same thoughts, followed by the resulting actions, in the pool at the Stop N Drop, so maybe it was best to avoid...

“I can’t wait,” Rogue said, gliding up beside her in the water so close she could smell the vague remnants of the CK1 she had him try. It had always been her favorite, but she found that she preferred the raw scent of bear to something from a lab. “Just seeing you like this, moving, healthy—“

“Yeah, I’m sure being wet in a skintight swimsuit has nothing to do with it?” Jill asked, arching her neck to rest her head on his chest, but not looking away from the other bear for a second. She reached out, tickled King’s chest and then indulged in sliding her hand the rest of the way down his body and ran her palm along the swelling length of him.

“I hate these,” King grunted, pulling up a leg and yanking his swim trunks off. Before she could even giggle – and she absolutely giggled – Jill wrapped her hand around his free nakedness, gliding it from the tip to the base. Somehow his skin was burning hot, even in the water.