12. Olivia #2
At that, my petite mother nearly jumped out of my arms, clapping her hands together. “Are you sure? You would not joke with your mama about such a thing, would you?”
“Never in a million years. You know I’m serious about my sweet treats.”
“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.
“You’ll be you, but you also won’t be. You’ll be a new you. A new you that’s built on all the parts of the old you to the point where it’ll be impossible to tell the two apart.”
“That sounds kind of scary.”
“It can be, but luckily, you’re surrounded by people who love you and will give you all the support you need.
And if you need something outside of the pack, I’ve found some great pathways to forging connections.
I could even get you a human therapist. You won’t be able to talk about wolf stuff with them, but you’d be amazed at how many pack issues are mirrored in human families. ”
“Hopefully, I won’t need anything like that, but thank you. I’ll try to keep that in mind if it comes to it. Have you liked it?”
“Therapy? Yeah. I love it.”
“No, I mean being around humans all the time.” He put his large hand on my arm. “Being in love with one.”
The concern in his voice touched me, and if I wasn’t driving, I likely would have looked over at him and given him the kindest smile I could. However, I didn’t want to cause a pile-up on the four-lane highway. I settled for rotating my wrist so he could interlock his fingers with mine.
I’d hung out with humans enough to know that my pack, my family, was what some would consider weirdly touchy-feely, but I was grateful that none of my siblings were scared to hug me or to hold hands, even if I wanted to slap Leandro more often than not.
“It’s wonderful. Really, truly wonderful. I feel seen in a way I never really felt in our own pack. It’s helped me change my behavior, too, because I was allowing myself to be treated in a way I don’t like.”
“I have noticed you’re not running yourself ragged like you used to. It’s nice.”
“I’m glad you think so. And even though Amanda, Keith, and his mother are all humans, we have a whole lot in common. So, I’m getting to learn and experience all sorts of things I’d never have if I stayed only within the pack.”
“Aren’t you worried about them finding out about the whole shifter thing?”
“Sometimes.” A lot more than sometimes, but I didn’t want to bring the mood down. “And I’ve got plans for if that happens.” I didn’t know how effectual those plans would be, but they existed.
“Doesn’t it have to happen eventually, though? If your romance with Keith keeps going, you’re going to have to tell him, right?”
He wasn’t asking me anything that I hadn’t already asked myself, but it was disquieting hearing those same queries in my little brother’s voice.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
It wasn’t the most practical answer, but Rolando didn’t call me on it. Instead, he squeezed my hand, and from the corner of my eye, I saw him smile.
“Just know that I’ll be here when you do, no matter what kind of bridge or what kind of trolls live under it.”
He always knew how to make my heart ache in that wonderfully sharp way it did sometimes when kindness got all the way through my chest.
“Thanks, Rolando. I won’t forget that.”
“Good!”
Clearly, he’d had enough of sentimentality, because he turned the radio on and connected his phone via Bluetooth.
I let him, not only because I was feeling all soft and fuzzy around the edges, but because he didn’t have the worst taste in music.
A lot of oldies from the seventies and eighties, but some great club hits from the aughts as well.
“Olivia?” he murmured as I pulled into the parking lot of the themed bar and found a space.
“Yes?”
“Am I meeting your partner guy at a disco bar?”
“Technically, it’s a disco-pop restaurant-bar, but yes,” I answered, leaning over him to pull out a pair of oversized, era-appropriate sunglasses out of the glove compartment.
“I told him you liked a lot of music from that era, and Saturday Night Fever, so he figured this might be fun. It was either this or a bar with line-dancing, but they don’t allow anyone under the age of twenty-one. ”
“Maybe in three years then.”
I grinned as I unlocked my car door. “You sayin’ you think our relationship will last that long?”
He gave me a certified little brother look. Yeah, I deserved that. “Olivia, I’ve known you my whole life. You never do anything half-measured. If you’ve lasted this long, you’re gonna last forever.”
I hoped so.
I really, really hoped so.
“So, like, is the whole menu disco-themed or is there a dance floor? Live music?”
“I guess we’ll have to wait and see. And don’t forget, no wolf stuff.”
He shot me a droll sort of smirk. “What, you mean I can’t discuss the drama of Bella getting her wolf form before Marc, who’s two years older and is soooo sure he’s gonna be an alpha?”
“Nope, none of that.”
“Darn. There go my hottest conversation topics.”
I was absolutely sure my brother wanted to keep on snarking, but a familiar large figure stepped out of the front doors, dressed in a fitted black button-down and flared denim pants that he’d had to do an astronomical amount of surfing the web for.
Shopping as a plus-sized woman was difficult, but it turned out that being a plus-sized man and tall was damn inconvenient too.
Especially with biceps as big as some people’s heads. It was like the fashion world didn’t appreciate how fucking sexy that was.