8. Olivia
OLIVIA
FIRST DATES, SECOND MEALS
I was going on a date with a human.
I was going on a date with a human!
I was going on a date!!!! WITH. A. HUMAN!
“Okay, and what’s the number to the restaurant again?
” Rolando asked as I tried for the third time to put my earring in.
Going on the first date I’d had since college had put a tremble into my hands, which was making it difficult to do tasks that required fine motor skills.
Thankfully, my makeup had turned out okay, but the closer it came to the time I was supposed to leave, the worse it got.
“I texted it to you, love,” I murmured, setting the earring down and taking a calming breath. I usually only had to do that when I was anxious. It was an entirely new experience to do it when I was anxious and excited.
“I know, I know, I just want to double check that everything is right.”
Strangely, my baby brother’s nerves about the situation eased my own, and I let out a soft laugh.
He was the only one I’d told, because after years of my mother, aunts, sisters, and various cousins always trying to set me up with some nice, young, Italian wolf, I knew better than to invite them into my personal affairs.
Besides, I didn’t need them knowing that my first date in years was with a human man.
A possibly Scandinavian human man.
I didn’t know what would offend them more, him not being a wolf or not being Italian, so I chose not to find out. Maybe that was me being secretive, but I preferred to think of it as proactively avoiding drama.
Yeah, that was it.
It wasn’t like I was going to tell them I’d decided to go to therapy. After living a lot of my life as the fixer and doer, it was nice to have some things that were for myself.
“Don’t worry, fratellino, you’re the best backup a girl could ask for,” I said before trying to put the earring in again.
This time I got it through the hole with no problem.
Piercing your ears was an entire process for shifters if it wasn’t done early enough in life.
If someone could already shift, it involved a silver wound and fire.
Unfortunately mine were a bit crooked because they’d been done in a rush after I got my period a year earlier than my sisters had.
“You mean that?” he asked.
Goodness, he really was the sweetest.
“Of course I do.”
A satisfied grin broke out over his face. “Good. So now confirm for me the phone number and address of the restaurant you’re going to and your itinerary for the night.”
“You sneaky little…” I declared, throwing my pillow at him. But he dodged and cackled like the little brother that he was.
“Fine, fine, I’ll copy-paste the text. But I do want you to confirm the code word you’re gonna text me in case there is an emergency and you need backup.”
I had no idea what kind of emergency a human man could give me—especially such a sweet man like Keith—since I could shift into a wolf that was nearly five foot tall on all four legs and could bite his head off, but I wasn’t going to begrudge my brother if it put his mind at ease.
Besides, it was nice to be cared for. Why would I discourage Rolando from doing that? I still owed him for opening my eyes to how I needed to be proactive about my own life and desires.
“Fettuccine.”
“Awesome. And you don’t think he’ll guess that? You know, because we’re Italian?”
“Actually, I’m not sure if he even knows that I’m Italian. It hasn’t really come up.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean it hasn’t come up?”
“I mean literally that. It hasn’t come up! He asked me out after our second class, and we’ve only had one more since then.”
He had wanted to get together that weekend, but unfortunately, our monthly pack run during the full moon coincided with that, so I’d arranged for the weekend after instead.
I was taking steps to carve out my own destiny outside of helping my family, but there were some things I wasn’t going to miss out on, and pack runs were one of them.
“Let me get this straight, you are going out with your teacher who doesn’t know you’re a wolf, doesn’t know anything about your family, and doesn’t know you’re Italian? What’s there even left to know?”
I got why Rolando would be baffled at my choices, and it was a sharp reminder that ultimately the whole thing was futile because Keith was human.
“I’ll have you know that he actually seems quite fond of my personality.
And my curiosity! He likes the questions I ask and he laughs at my jokes.
” I didn’t add that he seemed to have a trade-related fondness for how strongly I handled the wood, because that sounded way too much like an innuendo.
I hoped eventually the double entendre would wear off in my mind, as I was a grown woman, but I wasn’t there yet.
“I’m sorry, Liv, I didn’t mean it that way. I just... This is all really new. And I’m proud of you, but it’s new.”
I nodded. It was new. And terrifying. And exciting. And although I knew ultimately nothing could come from it because of our differences, it didn’t mean that I couldn’t enjoy the journey.
“I know, I do. And I just want—”
A knock at the door interrupted me, and a beat later, Massimo’s voice permeated the thick wood. He really had to project to get through the soundproofing in the bedroom, so even before I heard his full first word, I was already gritting my teeth.
“Hey, Oliviaaaa,” he chorused, really drawing my name out.
I had a theory that the more syllables and vowels one of my relatives put into my name, the more annoying the task they were about to ask me to help with was.
“I’m having trouble uploading my new technical videos to my website.
I keep getting these errors that I don’t understand. Could you take a look at it?”
Rolando and I exchanged looks. Logically, I could say no, but we knew it wouldn’t be that simple.
Thankfully, Rolando was my superhero, because he turned the music on his phone up and motioned me to the window.
I stared at him dubiously for a bit longer than it should have taken me to get it, but when I did, I had to wrap the idea around my brain twice. Surely he couldn’t mean what I thought he did.
“Are you seriously telling me to climb out the window?” I whispered. Even with the soundproofing of my room and the music playing, I didn’t want to risk Massimo overhearing my presence.
“Yes! Because if you say no, Massimo’s gonna ask why, and then everyone’s gonna know your business before you’re ready for them. You know how our parents are. Do you wanna deal with all those questions?”
No, I really didn’t.
“Good point!”
“Olivia! You’re there, right? I’m sure I saw your car in the driveway!”
“Actually, Olivia’s not home,” Rolando said with a bit too much panic in his voice, although I appreciated the effort. I swung one leg out the window, looking down the house to figure out the path of least resistance to my car.
I supposed I could jump down—I was a shifter after all—but I wasn’t willing to take the pain, even if I was likely to heal before my date.
Plus, I wasn’t sure my heels could take that kind of impact.
So, I scoped out a way where I would drop a few feet down onto the balcony over our entrance, then clamber down the trellis between two sets of windows where hopefully I wouldn’t be visible.
“What? Oh, Rolando? If Olivia’s not here, why are you in her room with the door closed?”
The increasing panic on Rolando’s face would have been a lot more amusing if I wasn’t busy swinging my other leg out the window. However, I was grateful that I did get to hear the last of their conversation before I dropped down onto the balcony below.
“Uh… a prank?”
There was a pause, but only a slight one before Massimo’s plaintive pleas turned pleasant. “Sweet, dude. Lemme get in on it!”
Brothers.
I landed true with that thought, then shimmied down the lattice like I was in a nineties romcom. Finally, I made it to my car.
Somehow, I’d escaped the house without anybody noticing, so I wouldn’t have to mentally navigate around trying to lie about what I was doing. I loved my family, I really did, but I didn’t want to deal with any of them questioning where I was going, why I was going there, and who I was going with.
I pulled out quickly, before anyone could spot my headlights coming on in the rapidly approaching twilight, then headed toward the restaurant that Keith and I had agreed on.
Part of me mourned the fact that we couldn’t do a traditional first date with him picking me up at my house, but I’d chosen to do it this way.
There would be sacrifices and things we had to do a different way, but that didn’t mean they weren’t worth doing.
For the first time in many years, I was getting to experience a frivolous and titillating social interaction that was supposed to be a normal part of life. For me, however, it had been locked away behind a glass case, and it turned out I’d held the keys the entire time.
“Whatever happens, this is a good thing,” I told myself. Even if it blew up in my face, I would be that much richer, that much more experienced for trying.
And wasn’t that what life was all about?
Well, that and pasta, of course.
I was happy to see that while the parking lot wasn’t a ghost town, there were also plenty of spaces to choose from. I parked, then sent a quick text to Keith’s number that I had arrived. His reply came immediately, telling me he was already inside.
What a gentleman!
Or maybe my mental bar was just low because the men in my family, especially the younger ones, were regularly half an hour late to everything. It wasn’t unusual for some of my aunties to joke that their husbands would miss their own funerals.
Checking myself out in the mirror one more time, I fussed with my hair, reapplied my lip gloss, then texted a quick confirmation that I had arrived to both Rolando and Amanda.
I didn’t even have time to lock my screen before the latter responded, her text so full of emojis that it was a bit like reading a comic book.