Page 75 of My Big Fat Shifter Wedding

Normally, I would turn on some tunes for any drive longer than twenty minutes, but after all the talking and hubbub, it was nice to sit in silence and be in my own thoughts while I navigated my way back home.

Olivia was right; her family was a whole lot, but not impossibly so. If anything, my time with them had shown me that even if having a large, opinionated family would complicate my life, it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Besides, even if it was a negative, Olivia was worth it.

And no one could change my mind on that.

16

OLIVIA

GIRL TALK

Somehow, life had gotten even more hectic since I’d gotten engaged, which I’d thought was physically impossible considering I was still partially juggling two lives. Except now, my family knew my fiancé was human and couldn’t find out that we were shifters. There had been… mixed success on that front, but for the most part, everyone had kept the wolf talk to a minimum (barring the few slips of using the word wolf in idioms) during the lunch with my parents and the Greek Italian chorus that had snooped themselves into the house at the time.

Even though it had been a month since that interaction, sometimes I still wondered if I dreamt it all up. From Nonna arriving unannounced, to Keith’s practically perfect answer when my father pressed him about why he hadn’t asked for permission to propose to me, it had been a whirlwind of emotion and conversation. And although some of my family still didn’t get why I would want to be with a human and couldn’t see the point in concealing ourselves from him when I was supposed to be marrying him for life, no one was actively sabotaging us.

For that I was grateful.

Grateful, and very, very busy.

Planning a wedding that would somehow follow all the traditions of my family without tipping off my fiancé that we could all spontaneously burst into giant wolves wasn’t enough. I was also taking swimming lessons at the local Y. I didn’t want to be a stereotype who could only do the doggy paddle if Keith and I went somewhere tropical for our honeymoon. I was also taking that metalworking class that had been too full when I decided to join Keith’s, and I enjoyed giving him little recaps about what I liked and disliked, so he could tinker with his own workshop.

Then there was my workout schedule, which I had again increased because, frankly, I liked feeling strong and not getting as breathless on our pack runs. Apart from that, I was still gaming and hanging out with Amanda.

Although we were still what I would call best friends, I felt like I’d been neglecting our girl time together, so now I was trying to make a concerted effort to maintain my side of things. Which was why, even though I was headed toward the shower after coming back from a pack run, when I saw that she had called me nearly a dozen times I ran up to my room and dialed her right back.

“Hey, is everything okay?” I asked, a million-and-one awful scenarios running through my mind. All my life, I had been warned about the possible dangers of interacting with humans, but no one had ever told me that my biggest fear would be that something would happen to them.

Keith and Amanda, while quite capable and intelligent, were also so fragile in a way that was still alien to me despite knowing them for so long. Sometimes, all it took was a simple fall for everything to break apart.

So yeah, once she answered, I was a bit anxious. But who could blame me?

“Heeeeeeey,” Amanda drawled. To a stranger, she probably sounded nonchalant. However, I knew from experience that was her tone when she was trying to pretend something wasn’t a big deal to her. “Sorry about all the calls. I know it’s one of your family weekends. Honestly, I was being silly.”

I knew Amanda to be many things, but silly was not a word I’d use to describe her.

“Hey now, don’t downplay yourself. I’m sure you had a good reason for calling. If you want to share, I want to listen.”

“You sure?” she asked, and even without any enhanced senses I could hear her relief through the line. “It’s, like, no big deal or anything.”

In a move that was straight out of a coming-of-age movie, I flopped onto my bed on my belly, kicking my feet up behind me as I put my phone on speaker—again, something I wouldn’t do without the soundproofing in my room. I wasn’t sure what my family might think if they found out my best friend was also human. One shock was enough for the moment.

“Big deal or not, you gotta dish. That’s what friends are for, right?”

She let out a tiny laugh. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“I have a habit of being right.”

“Not when we’re playing Words with Friends,” she shot back, which of course she would. While I loved bantering with Keith and he always made my cheeks hurt from smiling and my belly hurt from laughter, no one quipped as fast and as snarkily as the personified Barbie.

“That was one time!”

“Uh-huh, sure it was.”

“Okay, now you’re trying to distract me.”

“You know me too well.”