Page 52 of My Big Fat Shifter Wedding

“I would hope so. It’d be a big red flag if you weren’t.”

“You think so?”

If I was petty, perhaps I would have made a comment about how I had yet to meet her family, but I didn’t. I trusted Olivia. I was sure that if she hadn’t suggested us getting together that there was a good reason for it. I just needed to be patient.

Besides, it wasn’t like I didn’t have important issues to focus on like, for example, how exactly to give her the ring I had hidden in my sock drawer at my place.

Yeah. That was probably one of the biggest riddles I needed to puzzle out in my life.

And I couldn’t believe that I was lucky enough to do so.

12

OLIVIA

DOMESTIC DISCO

“Olivia, why does it say on the calendar that you’re unavailable for a whole week?”

I looked up from my laptop. My mother was standing in the doorway, her apron covered in flour. Made sense. It was Tuesday, which was her traditional non-weekend pasta-making day.

“Because I will be unavailable.”

Was it snarky? Perhaps. But it hadn’t exactly been easy navigating having a secret relationship for an entire year while keeping my family in the dark. My cover would have been blown ages ago if not for Rolando, which was especially touching considering even he didn’t know Keith’s name or who he was.

He never even tried to be nosey and ask.

I was pretty sure that my youngest sibling had to be up for some Brother of the Year award because, truly, I owed him all the joy and happiness I’d been experiencing in the twelve months since first dating a human.

It was never supposed to get this far, but I hadn’t done anything to stop it. Because when I woke up in Keith’s bed feeling excited for the day instead of exhausted or even afraid, I realized we were more compatible than I was with any other shifter I’d ever met. He was so incredibly kind, funny, strong, and smart. It didn’t hurt that he was exactly my type as well.

He had that Strongman build I really liked. Not striated and dehydrated like competitive bodybuilders, but he had forearms bigger than my calves and that padded stomach over an intense core of muscle, and all the body heat one could want under the covers on cold nights.

The beard was hot as hell too.

Pretty much every man in my family was clean shaven, so it hadn’t been anything I’d ever thought of before, but something about it enticed both my human and wolf sides.

Go figure.

“Come on now, tesoro mio! We haven’t been apart that long since you went to summer programs with other shifter packs. Are you going away? Are you traveling? Why do you tell us so little nowadays? It’s like having a secret agent in our house.”

“Better than being a Bond girl,” I answered offhandedly, trying not to think of the frilly, pink negligee and wig I had hidden in a box in my closet. Weird how spies kept coming up more and more in my life. Was the universe trying to tell me something?

Maybe.

“Olivia-a-a-a!”

There had once been a time when that particular sound would have filled me with so much shame that I would immediately bend to whatever my mother wanted or tell her the answer she was seeking. But in addition to falling more in love than I ever thought possible with a human man, I’d also fallen a lot more in love with myself.

I still didn’t have the boundless charisma or self-assurance that Amanda had, but I had improved a lot, and I was much better at knowing how to set up appropriate boundaries with my family and maintain them relatively easily.

“Mama, I’m about to be thirty-one. I want to have a week to myself. I gave you a four-month warning, so it shouldn’t be that big a deal. I’m not going far, and I’m just taking time for myself.”

“I think I am getting sick of that phrase! Always time for yourself! Sometimes it feels like you are not even part of the family anymore!”

Now that came as a surprise. I knew my family was curious about what I did when I wasn’t here, but there was a lot of hurt in my mother’s tone.

“Mammina…” I murmured, standing and crossing to my mother while holding my hands out. I led her over to sit on my bed while I schooled my internal reaction.