1. Olivia #4
When I got no objection, I pushed open the door.
My youngest brother was kneeling in front of the toilet.
Although, kneeling was far too dignified a term.
He was gripping the toilet like it was a scrap of wood in a turbulent ocean.
Judging from how gray his complexion was, he likely felt like he was on the ocean too.
“Too much shifter wine?” I asked in what I hoped was a relatively comforting tone.
Even though I knew he was having an awful time, I couldn’t help being amused.
With our shifter biology, he’d be over it soon.
Hopefully, he’d learned an important lesson about the type of alcohol our people brewed and why it was so much more potent than anything he could find in the human world.
“Mmmhrruuugh…” he groaned before losing more of the contents of his stomach. I was definitely going to have to clean it later.
I rubbed his back. “I thought so. When was the last time you had water?”
“Bruuughh?” he answered, which I took to mean as not recently.
“Have you eaten anything?”
“Nooo,” he groaned.
“Would you like me to stop asking you questions?”
“Uh-huh!”
“All right, you stay here,” I said like he had any choice. His body would probably stage a full mutiny if he tried to get up. “I’m going to go get you some water and crackers.”
“Blurghfuple.”
“You’re welcome.”
I hurried to the kitchen. Having a task worked to break the spiral I’d been slipping into.
So what if I hadn’t gotten any cake? I didn’t need it anyway.
And so what if my party had two other wonderful announcements to go with it?
It wasn’t like anyone had done anything maliciously.
We were such a tight-knit family that it was second nature to share all our victories with each other.
Yeah, that was it. My siblings were just excited to share their joy. How could I be mad at them for that?
That was the last thought I gave it as I tended to my youngest sibling. I instructed Rolando to sip the water very slowly and only nibble at the crackers as I continued to rub his back.
Although I wasn’t very familiar with human biology, from what I’d seen on movies, it took them at least a day to recover from such a state.
Fortunately, our wolf livers could process the strong stuff we made much more quickly, and about an hour later, the worst of it had passed.
Instead of sounding like he was auditioning for a remake of The Exorcist, my brother lay panting and sweaty on the bathroom ground with a new glass of ice water in his hand.
“Sorry,” he said cautiously, and I couldn’t help but think back to when he got the flu at eleven years old and had to deal with being the only one in the house who even could get sick like that.
He’d ranted at least a dozen different times how unfair it was as I’d stayed at his bedside and read to him, and I had tried to comfort him by telling him it was likely the last time he’d ever have to deal with the flu before he got his wolf.
Clearly, I had been wrong about that last part, but recalling such precious memories from his childhood filled me with warmth.
“Sorry for what? You got most of it in the toilet.” I would still sanitize once he was out of there, but the room was fairly immaculate considering the barrage of technicolor shouting it had endured.
He sat up slowly and gave me a bleary look as if it should be obvious. I tilted my head, not sure what he was on about.
Was I pleased that he was so drunk at the age of seventeen?
No, of course not. I would be having a long talk with my college-aged cousins who had no doubt pressured him into drinking to excess.
Even though he was young, I knew my brother wouldn’t purposefully make himself so sick.
He was a bit too trusting for his own good.
“For being messy on your birthday. For making y’take care of me.”
“Oh, I don’t mind. Besides, it gave me something to occupy myself. I’m not exactly a party animal, you know?”
I must have been talking a bit too fast, because his eyes narrowed, and he leaned in like that would somehow emphasize this point. “Olivia. It’s your birthday!”
“Glad to know you’re aware what day it is.
Can’t be too gone, right?” I said, standing and offering him my hand.
“Now why don’t we get you upstairs to your bedroom so you can have a quick nap?
In an hour or so, you’ll feel fresher and can rejoin the celebrations.
” My nose twitched a bit at the acrid smell in the bathroom. “And perhaps after taking a shower?”
He gave me a baleful look, which I didn’t really understand, but he allowed me to help him up. Really, I wasn’t actually sure what help I was considering he was so much bigger than me, but he still mumbled a polite thank you once he was swaying gently on his own two feet.
“No problem. What are big sisters for, after all?”
He didn’t answer, and I didn’t expect him to. We headed down the hall, pausing only when I passed Auntie Tatiana, who was headed to the bathroom. Upon seeing the two of us, she shot me a curious look, eyebrow raised.
I knew what she was asking. Any of the women in our household having been surrounded by far too many teenage and college-aged boys who had a regular diet of pasta, tomatoes, wine, and protein powder would have asked it as well.
Is it safe?
I shook my head gravely. With a tip of her head, she turned on her heel and hurried to the other side of the house where hopefully the facilities would be less desecrated.
Ah, the joys of having a large family.
Thankfully, that was the last of the interruptions until we got to the staircase.
But as much as I tried to coax Rolando up the stairs to his room, he stalwartly refused, and eventually I found myself being herded down into the basement where his and Massimo’s “man cave” was.
I loathed the term, but it was preferable to “gamer den” which was the more correct term considering the massive TV in the space along with just about every console and then a little workout area in the far corner of the large room.
“Come on now, bedroom’s not this way, big guy.”
Although it wasn’t exactly a new development considering my youngest sibling had hit his growth spurt when he was fifteen, it still seemed like a crime against me personally that my baby brother was so much bigger than me.
Not only was he jacked to the high heavens, but he was so tall.
And it wasn’t like I was short. I was five-nine and I still had to crane my neck up to see him.
“Hold on,” he retorted, seeming to come a bit back to himself.
“Holding.”
“It’s y’birfday.”
“Yes, we have both agreed on that.”
I realized he wasn’t aimlessly stumbling forward but doing a rather interpretive walk toward the downstairs fridge.
“Do you want a snack?” I asked, impressed that he was ready to move on from the crackers already. Ah, to be a teenager again.
“Nuh-uh.” Finally, he reached the fridge and threw it open, the bulk of his shoulders completely blocking the inside from my view. “S’only way I could make sure y’got it.”
Got what, I did not know, but I wasn’t sure how much was my sweet brother being my sweet brother, and how much of it was him being my still intoxicated brother. However, all became clear when he turned around with a white box that had a golden logo at its center.
“Wait, is that from Leo’s?” I asked, because of course I remembered the branding of my favorite bakery.
He nodded, gesturing for me to open the top by repeatedly jabbing it toward me. Somewhere between wanting to chuckle and wanting to get misty-eyed, I flipped open the top, revealing the glossiest Key lime pie I’d ever seen.
“S’yer favorite,” Rolando slurred. “Had to get ya yer favorite for yer birthday.”
Goodness.
“Thank you,” I whispered, my voice cracking.
“Oh no! Did I make you s-s-sad?”
“No, quite the opposite.” I took the pie and set it on the coffee table, then pulled my brother into a hug. I held him tightly, fiercely. Despite everything that had happened, I felt so seen. “You’re the best little brother I could ask for. You didn’t have to, really.”
“Of course I did. Everybody always s-seems to forget it’s your birthday. It’s supposed to be for you!” He frowned, stepping back out of my arms. For a moment, he looked so very young. “I hate how they treat you sometimes.”
Oh.
I had no idea what I could possibly say to that, but I didn’t have to worry about it, because he crossed over to the massive, overstuffed couch and flopped forward.
“Rolando?”
A snore hearty enough to be mistaken for a chainsaw answered me.
“And who said wolves couldn’t purr?” I mused to myself.
Rolando snored again in response.
How did I get so lucky to have a brother like him?
Very much in my feelings, I looked from the beautiful pie—my favorite dessert ever—to my sleeping brother.
I crossed over to tuck him in. Once he was fully covered with three throw blankets and I was sure his airway was clear, I took the pie and headed up to my room, wondering if I hated the way my family treated me too or if it was just the best I could ever hope for.