Page 54 of My Big Fat Shifter Wedding

“Yes, you inherited that from me.” She nodded enthusiastically and offered me her hand, which was beginning to become wrinkled with age. I thought about Angela, who was only a few years older than my mother. Age had hit her much harder because she was human. I likely still had at least seventy, eighty years with my parents. How long before Keith was all alone?

And if we kept going, how long until Keith’s hair turned gray and he noticed that his girlfriend wasn’t aging at the same rate?

“Are you all right, darling? Did something I say trouble you?”

I shook my head, banishing those thoughts even though I knew they’d roll back in whenever I had a sleepless night.

“No, I’m just distracted. Come on, let’s go, there’s a café calling our names.”

“Wonderful! I can’t wait!”

***

“How do I look?” Rolando asked.

I was a little amused at the question, since I’d asked the same thing right before I met Miss Angela. Except Rolando wasn’t being introduced to her, but rather her son.

“Like an upstanding young gentleman,” I answered with all the sincerity I had, tucking my phone away in my pocket. I’d been texting Amanda, who was encouraging me from the sidelines about our plans for the night.

GET IT GURL! U CAN DO THIS! Its gonna b so good bby, I promise! Kisses!

A boatload of emojis followed after that.

“You think so?”

“I know so,” I insisted.

It tickled me pink that he cared so much about impressing my human partner. If I knew anything about Keith, he was going to like Rolando. “Thank you for being willing to meet me here.”

“Hey, it’s no problem at all. If you pulled up to the house a week early from your vacation and had me get into the car all dressed up, there’d be way too many questions. I’ve been able to use the clueless little brother card a lot, but there’s a limit to how much it’ll work. I’d like to save that for when I really mess up.”

“Can’t argue with that logic.” It was difficult for me to imagine my sweet-natured, giant of a brother doing anything where he would need to call in that big of a Hail Mary. But still, if he did, I would be right there to help him. It was the least I could do after he had been instrumental in the new chapter of my life. “You ready to hit the road?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

I put my car into drive, leaving the mall parking lot and heading to our destination. While my brother wasn’t dressed to the nines (no doubt because I’d told him to wear something he could move in), he was still in a nice, button-down short-sleeved shirt, a pair of clean black slacks, and a matching black vest with gold buttons.

Silver wasn’t really our thing.

“Do you think he’ll like me?” my brother asked as we pulled onto the highway. Usually, when boys transitioned into young men, they went through a period of being real buttholes, but so far, Rolando hadn’t lost his adorable earnestness. I hoped he never did.

“I know he will, silly. You’re a pretty cool dude.”

“Me? Cool? Since when?”

“Since always! So don’t go changing now that you’re legally an adult. At least in the human world.”

“Who cares about that? Eighteen feels the same as seventeen. What do years matter once you get your wolf form?”

I smiled to myself. He still had a lot to learn about experiencing life and aging. Even with our enhanced healing and incredibly long lives, shifters still had to face the inevitable decrease in physical mobility directly in proportion to an increase in our aches.

Oh well. At least he couldn’t get pregnant.

“I wonder if you’ll have that same attitude in a decade.”

“A decade is a long time. I’ll almost be thirty then, almost as old as you are now. I don’t know if I’ll be me by then. When I try to think about it, it’s like there’s an entirely different person in my mind.”

I was glad Rolando still trusted me with these kinds of conversations. Ever since he’d gotten his wolf and the other young males in our family had taken more interest in him socially, I’d braced myself for the moment when I’d become the uncool older sister. So far, it hadn’t happened yet. Maybe my brother had skipped that particular phase.