She hadn’t initially planned on it, but Charlie went home with Zeke after they finished eating. She was going to marry him, after all; she supposed it didn’t hurt to trust him. Besides, logic told her that he wouldn’t go through all the trouble he was going through if he had any untoward plans.
His home was surprisingly small. True, it was still a penthouse apartment and the view alone probably cost more than a year’s worth of Charlie’s rent, but she had been expecting something enormous. Instead, there was a kitchen that led seamlessly into a dining room, an office space, and a living room, all easily viewable from the entryway just outside the elevator, with a door to the right that led into a room that had to be the bedroom just based on its size, and a door to the left that, logically, had to lead to a bathroom. Most of the outside walls were not actually walls, but were instead made of glass. There was a balcony, but even that was fairly small.
It was all so high up. All at once, Charlie had an urge to peer out the nearest window and stare downwards, but also to stay as far away from the windows as she could.
“I wanted to show you something.”
Zeke’s voice broke her out of her musings, and she turned to look at him over her shoulder. Her eyebrows rose towards her hairline as he untied his tie and began to unbutton his shirt, and slowly she turned to properly face him. She watched with silent, growing interest as he nonchalantly stripped, her eyes roving down his abs as his hands worked his belt loose.
When he was standing nude before her, she had only a moment to truly appreciate the sight before he… changed.
She couldn’t say it was grotesque, so much as it was just strange. His form expanded and shifted shape, until there was a bear the size of a rhinoceros standing in front of her, with a boxy head, round ears, a nearly invisible little tail, enormous feet with massive claws, and a long snout with distressingly large teeth. Looking at him in the light, his fur wasn’t quite brown, but more of a reddish, brownish shade of auburn. Charlie couldn’t help but to think that it would make more sense for his fur to be black—his hair was black, after all—but if she thought about it, she had never heard of any black bears that weren’t reasonably small, at least by bear standards.
(Granted, he seemed to be enormous by the standards of any bears, and she was going to stop trying to ponder how being a were-bear worked.)
Before she could stop herself, Charlie was walking forward, closing the distance between them. She lifted a hand, but she paused for a moment until Zeke bowed his head. Taking it as permission, she set her hand on the flat top of his head.
His fur was deep and surprisingly coarse, and as she slid her hand back from his head to his neck, her hand sank nearly up to her wrist into his fur.
“You’re a bear,” she observed, having apparently lost every single point of her IQ just then, as she stood and stared at him, one hand still buried (literally buried) in the fur of his neck. “I don’t even know what sort of bear. Are you any specific sort of bear?”
She had never seen any animal shrug before, but that was what he did, large, rounded shoulders lifting and then falling once again, and he huffed out a quiet breath.
“Do were-bears just not have distinct species, then?” she wondered. “Or—you can’t actually reply. I’m talking to a bear.”
There was another huff of breath, and that time it managed to sound distinctly amused. She was being laughed at. By a bear. An enormous bear was laughing at her and she had no idea what she was supposed to do with that information.
Slowly, Charlie sat down on the floor, her hand sliding off of his neck as she did. It wasn’t the best decision, considering it left her staring straight up at his snout, but he seemed content to keep his mouth closed for the time being, and then it was a non-issue, as he dipped his head to look down at her, curious and concerned by turns.
Charlie lifted her hands to gesture ineloquently at him, hands fluttering in no discernible pattern or gestures. “You’re a bear,” she repeated urgently, as if that was actually going to offer any sort of workable information to anyone.
Never before had she seen an animal roll its eyes, but just then, it happened. He rolled his eyes at her. She opened her mouth to object—she was perfectly justified in feeling like she was a bit out of her depth, thanks very much—but he leaned forward slightly, prodding at her forehead with the end of his nose. It was a fairly light poke, all things considered, but he was still enormous and Charlie had to put her arms back, her hands on the floor, to keep from toppling over backwards.
Before she could help it, she was giggling, lifting one hand from the floor again to cover her mouth as she did. Before long, she was doubled over her lap, both hands covering her face as she howled with hilarity, until her face was red and her eyes were watering. Zeke lay down in front of her, his head resting on the rug as he waited patiently for her to get herself back under control.
He had to wait for a few minutes. Eventually, though, chest heaving as she gasped in fitful gulps of air, Charlie managed to get herself back under control. She wheezed behind her hands for a few more seconds before she finally managed an unsteady, “I—I’m—I’m good. I’m calm. Okay.”
Zeke’s eyes narrowed slightly in suspicion, and Charlie very nearly started laughing again right then and there, but she swallowed thickly and clamped her mouth shut for a second before she reiterated, “I’m calm.” She reached out, setting a hand on top of his head again. “You, uh… are you going to turn back into a person?”
Not that he wasn’t a pretty bear—he was, though Charlie acknowledged that she wasn’t any sort of expert on the topic—but he was rather hard to carry on a conversation with when he couldn’t talk, and there were some questions that Charlie wanted to get some answers to.
*
“Question,” Charlie announced eventually, once Zeke was dressed once again. He sat down, joining her on the rug since she was unwilling to put in the effort to get back to her feet just then. His eyebrows rose expectantly, and Charlie plowed onwards. “Why the fixation on you getting married? I mean, I sort of figured it was a ‘billionaire legacy’ sort of thing, but—” she paused and gestured at him with both hands. “Bear.”
He rolled his eyes again. “That is part of it,” he agreed, “though it’s less a fixation on marrying and more a fixation on mating. Were-bears are not exactly common, and we get less common by the year. I’m expected to do my part to prevent that from happening.”
“But I’m not a were-bear,” Charlie pointed out, as if there were any way he could have forgotten about that. “How do I help with that?”
“We need to broaden the gene pool now and then,” Zeke replied, shoulders lifting in a faint shrug. “If we’re lucky, we find a bear family with no relation to us—you noticed, my mother is considerably younger than my father—but otherwise, just getting the genes out there is enough to keep us content. We don’t really have room to be picky.”
For a moment, Charlie tried to imagine what an inbred were-bear would be like, but she chopped that thought off with the force of a mousetrap. She didn’t want to know. She wasn’t going to ask. She wasn’t going to think about it. She didn’t want to know.
“What if I decide I don’t actually want to have kids?” she asked after a moment of pondering, largely just to change the topic and get rid of the mental image that was trying to form. “What happens then?”
Zeke shrugged once again. “Then my father will probably be gone before the ‘Oh, we’re trying, you know how it goes’ excuse wears thin, and it will no longer be an issue.”
Charlie arched one eyebrow. “Your mom won’t care?” she asked dubiously.
“Surprisingly, no,” Zeke returned. “She married my father because it’s what her family wanted her to do, but on the whole, she’s content if we’re content, and much like myself, she’s under no delusions that what our family does on its own has much of an impact on the larger bear population.”
Charlie hummed thoughtfully. “Well, I guess that’s good,” she mused slowly. “I mean, I don’t actually know what I want with regards to, like… family and everything. I’m twenty-three, I figured I would have plenty of time before I had to think about any of that.”
“Your parents never hinted at anything?” he wondered curiously.
She scoffed. “Mom was out of the picture way early, but Dad would be perfectly happy for all of us to have six kids apiece. It means he would have more people to mooch off later, since statistically, he would be able to convince at least a few of them that he’s not a complete shit ball.” She rolled her eyes. “But he can take his opinions and go fuck himself with them.”
Zeke held his hands up in a placating gesture, warding off any further bile. “Point taken.”
Charlie cleared her throat sheepishly. “Sorry. Just… not my favorite topic of discussion.”
“So I gathered,” Zeke mused dryly.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, her expression turning just a bit impish. “Seems like something we agree on, since you’re only putting on the appearance of going along with what your dad wants, and only so you can get what you want out of him.”
Zeke shrugged guiltlessly. “I’ve never particularly enjoyed having my life dictated to me,” he admitted easily. “I can play along when it seems like that’s the best option and it’s not as if I have any interest in hurting people, but I’m not going to be led around by the nose simply because someone else wants me to be.”
Charlie pumped one fist into the air slightly. “Right on.”
*
“You could move in,” Zeke pointed out eventually, looking out the wall of windows as he said it. “I can’t guarantee it would be any safer—you seem to be pretty well surrounded by other people any time you aren’t at home—but I’m working under the assumption that we’re going to be cohabitating once we’re married, anyway, and you expressed some interest in expediting that process.”
Charlie snorted. “It would be sort of hard to pretend we’re trying to make babies if we don’t even live together,” she acknowledged. “So yeah, it’ll happen eventually, but for now?” She shrugged carelessly. “For now, I like having my own space.”
“Are you going to move in before the wedding at all?” Zeke wondered wryly, though he didn’t sound bothered by the idea either way. “Or are you just going to wait until we’ve tied the knot?”
Charlie tapped her lip with one finger and hummed thoughtfully. “I don’t know, drawing things out as long as I can sounds like it could be pretty fun,” she mused. “I mean, it’s going to be a short engagement anyway. I’m sure you can be patient.”
“You’re going to be a very impressive task master, aren’t you?” he observed dryly, one eyebrow rising.
“Will you mind?” she wondered wryly, setting her hands on the floor in front of herself so she could lean closer to him, her weight on her hands.
“Probably not,” he conceded without anything even resembling an argument. “I might fight back, though,” he cautioned, with something like a smile tugging at one side of his mouth. “Just so you’re warned.”
Charlie grinned, sly and teasing, and leaned farther towards him. “Of course,” she agreed. “It’s not any fun if you don’t,” she reasoned. “And what’s the point if we aren’t having any fun?”
Whatever they were talking about by then, it was not the same thing that had started the conversation. Both of them seemed to realize it then, and Charlie’s smile dimmed slightly, self-consciously. Slowly, she leaned back until she was sitting flat on the floor again, and she folded her arms over her chest.
“We should probably, like… start thinking about wedding stuff?” Charlie suggested, shifting back and forth on the floor. “I’m assuming it’s going to be some giant spectacle.” The weddings of rich people were always spectacles, weren’t they? They always made the news, and they always had a billion camera people and they always needed to be put together by a small army of people.
Charlie didn’t think she was judging, per se, but to someone who had never thought she could even afford a wedding more extravagant than a tent in a yard, it all seemed like such a foreign idea. What was so fascinating about watching two people say ‘I do’ like that? Were the guests hoping some of the money might rub off on them, if they wished the bride and groom well loudly enough?
(Once she was thinking about it, though, she couldn’t actually consider that thought surprising. People were superstitious in all kinds of ways, especially when it came to money, and most especially when it came to vast amounts of money.)
“That depends on how much of a spectacle you want it to be,” Zeke returned mildly. “There will likely be a crowd, of course, just based on how many people my parents will insist I invite, since arguing with them about it just won’t be worth the headache I would get, but there will only be a true show if you want there to be.”
Charlie opened her mouth, ready to say that she was fine with keeping it simple, but she paused.
She hadn’t really planned on inviting her whole family, just the parts of her family that she actually got along with. But suddenly, she had an idea. “I think,” she began slowly, her tone contemplative, “that I would like to put on a show,” she decided, smiling slowly, sly and impish. She would invite her entire family. The brothers and sisters, the nieces and nephews, and her father. And the ones she got along with would undoubtedly be happy for her. And the ones she was on less pleasant terms with would be stewing in impotent, jealous outrage. It would be hysterical, and she always welcomed a bit of cathartic schadenfreude.
(She had, after all, never claimed to be the best person, but merely a good person. Everyone had their hang-ups.)
As if he had some idea of where her thoughts were going, Zeke huffed out a quiet laugh. “A spectacle it is, then,” he agreed. “Will it be a traditional spectacle, or something more fitting a Cirque du Soleil performance?”
“I want—” Charlie paused, trying to think of a word to describe what she was seeing in her head. “Colorful,” she decided on, nodding her head once. “Maybe not for the dress, but I’ll still need to think about that, but at least for everything else. Just… let me pick out the flowers, and then you can do whatever you and your money want to do.”
Zeke nodded once. “Duly noted,” he agreed. Charlie was rather getting the impression that she could tell him she wanted the wedding to be underwater and for all the staff to be exotic gnomes and he would still agree to it. He could probably even find a way to make it happen.
Luckily for him, Charlie had no intentions on turning into Bridezilla.
And if nothing else, it was nice to get the ball rolling on the wedding, even if it was only with the vaguest of vague talks. It felt like a productive day.