Chapter 16
In retrospect, Luke should have realized that a date with Sabrina the night they got back to Virtue would inevitably mean 'Sabrina is coming to dinner with the family whether you like it or not because we all want to see you with your fated mate!'
Worse, the entire family turned out for the barbecue. His parents, sure, but also six siblings, nearly all of whom had partners of their own, and some of whom had kids. There were about twenty people, and they were all…
…great, actually. Luke honestly adored his family, from the little shouting rug rats to his parents, who were loveable homebodies.
His mom was round like Emmy, and his dad had gotten progressively rounder as the years went by, although he was also where Luke had gotten his height from.
Most of his family were fairly tall, actually; it was only Emmy who had gotten the literal short end of the stick.
Luke was the tallest, though, and Sabrina was shorter than Emmy, so it all balanced out somehow.
At least, it did if he didn't think that through too carefully.
Sabrina was standing with Emmy and their brother Aaron, whose soon-to-be-husband Dion was at the table, scooping an astonishing amount of potato salad onto a paper plate.
Sabrina was brandishing a barbecued rib, building something in the air with dramatic gestures, while Emmy and Aaron listened avidly. Luke's mom sidled up to him. "Sooooo…"
Luke groaned good-naturedly. "I haven't told her."
"You spent all weekend together and didn't tell her?" His mother sounded a lot like his rabbit just then.
I TOLD you you should've told her! his rabbit said, seizing the slightest opportunity.
"What if she freaked out?" Luke said reasonably. "Then she'd have been stuck with me on the other side of the country for days. That's not fair to do to anyone."
"Fated mates don't freak out," his mother replied steadily. "On the other hand, I've apparently managed to raise a gentleman, so I can't entirely fault your decision-making process here."
"I'd like to think it was clear I'm a gentleman!"
His mom smiled up at him. "Well, I think it's clear, at least. She's adorable, Luke.
I suppose you already knew that, of course.
So did we, for that matter, since she's been over to visit Emmy several times.
But I can't wait for you to tell her. Imagine how happy the kids would be if they could be bunny-rabbiting around. "
Luke, watching the four or five little ones running around screaming gleefully, said, "I'm pretty confident they're happy anyway, Mom," and gave her a kiss on top of the head before returning to Sabrina. "Please tell me they're not spilling all my awful childhood stories."
"Only some of them," Aaron promised. "Like the time you rode your bike into the mailbox."
Luke winced. "Not my finest moment."
"The impressive part was he appeared to be looking straight at it, and rode into it anyway," Aaron said to Sabrina, who grinned.
"I once lost a bicycle fight with a tennis court net, so I probably can't throw any stones here."
All the Joneses within earshot looked at her in bewilderment, and she sighed dramatically.
"There was a tennis court near where I lived, and when it wasn't being used I would ride my bike around the two courts, weaving between the nets.
Only I clipped one somehow and went down in a blaze of glory.
I still have the scar." She turned her wrist up to show off a long slender scar on the inside.
"So yeah, me and my bike lost a fight to a tennis net. "
"You two are a perfect match," Aaron said, sounding impressed in an 'I'm trying not to laugh' kind of way. "Dion, c'mere, do you have any idiotic childhood injury stories to tell?"
His partner came over with a plate laden by potato salad and shook his head.
"I was a careful and graceful child. No, seriously, I was!
" he said to the skeptical sounds everyone made.
"I didn't like getting hurt and I didn't like getting dirty, so I was careful.
I gather Aaron was a little more reckless.
Did he tell you about falling into a puddle and deciding he should go for a swim? "
"It was a huge puddle!" Aaron protested, laughing. "And I was only six! Small! It made sense!"
Dion shuddered delicately and Aaron leaned over to kiss him, narrowly avoiding dumping his dinner on them both.
"Oh my God," Dion said. "To the table, lest I wear your mom's potato salad for the rest of the evening.
" He and Aaron went to sit down, and Emmy broke off to go see what her boyfriend was burning at the grill, because something was certainly burning.
"I'm extremely sorry for all of them," Luke said as soon as Emmy left. "I'd say this is a trial by fire and they're usually less determined to tell stories about each other, but I'd be lying. They're always like this."
"I know! I've known Emmy and your parents for over a year, and met most of the others at least once!"
"I wish we hadn't missed each other all those times you were visiting," Luke said. "It would have been great to meet you earlier."
"All things in their time," Sabrina intoned. "Although it would have been nice to not need to do fake boyfriend shenanigans at the wedding. Derek called me out on it!"
Luke's eyebrows shot up as he struggled between two answers and landed on the second. "He did?"
"He said you were in Norway live-streaming some kind of event on July fourth!"
"Oh. Oh, shoot, I was. Whoops? Did he rat you out?"
Sabrina shook her head, her blonde ponytail bouncing. "No, he was so impressed I'd managed to pull a rabbit from the hat—"
I'M THE RABBIT! I'M THE RABBIT IN THE HAT! Luke's rabbit hesitated. Was I in a hat?
Luke said, No, it's just an expression, but even he stumbled over the particular phrase. "Rabbit from the hat? Why did he say that?"
"—by turning up with a fake boyfriend that he didn't want to blow my cover," Sabrina finished.
"Oh. Oh! Right, of course. That rabbit. That hat."
She lifted her eyebrows at him. "You okay there?"
"Yes. But…look," Luke said abruptly. "Could we get out of here? I'd like to talk to you about that thing I wanted to…talk to you…about…" He trailed off, increasingly aware he sounded like an idiot, although Sabrina's eyes sparkled with humor as he faltered.
"Your not-anatomically-big secret? Yeah, of course, except will they think I'm a cold fish if we leave early?"
Technically, Luke thought, his big secret was anatomical in its way. Just very much not in the way Sabrina was imagining. "They might not even notice if we sneak out. There are dozens of them."
"Yes, but you're very tall," Sabrina said like that made sense, and he decided it didn't not make sense.
"Let's risk it anyway." Instead of risking it, Luke actually went to say goodbye to his parents, who put up the absolute minimum of protest before letting them go.
They cut through the B&B to make good on their escape, with Sabrina shaking her head as they reached Virtue's big town square, golden with evening sunlight.
"My parents would never," she told him. "Either they'd have kept us there lecturing me for an hour, or I'd have heard about it for months if we'd snuck out.
'Propriety, Sabrina,'" she said in a voice that was obviously channeling one or both of her parents.
"'You have to think about how things look.
' Well, I do," she added a bit dryly. "I think about how buildings look, all the time.
Only that's apparently not what they meant. "
"It's a difficult relationship?" Luke asked cautiously.
"I mean, not anymore, in the sense of I just don't talk to them very much. It's too easy to get dragged back into the dynamic if I visit, so I just…don't."
"I would hate that," Luke admitted. "I don't know how I'd live without being close to my family. Is that—would you be okay with that? If this dating thing went somewhere?"
"If? You bring me home to meet the family on the first date and you say 'if?
'" Sabrina teased. "No, I'm okay with it.
I really like your family, and you all seem to like each other, which is crazy from my perspective.
Good crazy, but crazy. I wouldn't want to live with them," she added hastily, and amused relief swept Luke.
"I promise I used to have a place of my own, but this past year I've been doing so much sponsored travel that it seemed dumb to keep an apartment. I'm not planning to live at home again forever."
"Wait, sponsored travel? Oh, I keep learning new things about you. You really are a successful influencer! Waaaaait. Sponsored travel puts you in economy class?"
For a moment Luke wished he was a turtle shifter so he could pull his head all the way into his shell and hide. He mumbled, "No," and Sabrina hooted.
"You were making all that fuss about flying business class! Why? What'd you think I was going to think?"
"I don't know! I was trying to seem really normal!"
"I'm pretty sure at least some normal people fly business class," Sabrina said. "Me, for example."
"You're the farthest thing from normal that I've ever met. You're incredible." They'd crossed the square and were heading in the direction of Sabrina's apartment, with the sunset becoming increasingly gold. "I feel unbelievably lucky to have met you."
"You mean to have had your sister thrust me upon you," Sabrina said wryly, but Luke shook his head.
"No, I promise, even if Emmy hadn't gotten involved, I would have approached you the moment I saw you."
"You think?"
"I know. I'll explain why when we get to your place."
"You can't explain out in the open?" Sabrina smiled, but Luke shook his head.
"Not and have you believe me."
Sabrina drew her eyebrows down curiously, but nodded, though she was clearly just about itching with anticipation by the time they got to her apartment.
It was a nice space, with lacy curtains and soft tablecloths which gave it a homey touch, even if he knew she didn't expect to be living there all that long.
But she has to stay, his rabbit said woefully. She's our fated mate.
Or maybe we'll have to move, Luke said. It'll work out somehow, assuming she doesn't throw me out the window as soon as she sees me shift.
The rabbit gasped in horror. She WOULDN'T!
Probably not. But just in case.
By that time, Sabrina had locked the door behind them and turned to him with that curious smile in place.
"I've been trying to figure out what it could possibly be.
We already discounted married or prolific baby daddy, so…
what? You're a secret billionaire and need to show me your bank account in private?
You're actually from Mars and have to shed your human disguise to show me your true self? "
"Aaah, that second one is…closer than you think."
Sabrina's eyes popped. "You're an alien?"
"No! Oh my God, no. I'm human. Mostly. More or less. I…"
"Superhero?" Sabrina asked. "I don't know what else might be 'mostly' human. Wait. Cyborg? Do you have a prosthetic…" Her gaze raked him. "No, sorry, I mean, I've seen quite a lot of you already and the only thing left that might be prosthetic is…well. I hope it's not."
"Not a superhero either," Luke said with a slightly panicked laugh. "No prosthetics. It's not actually that…normal."
"Oh, uh, okay! Vampire? Werewolf?"
Luke blurted, "Sort of," and before she could make another guess, shifted into his rabbit form.