24. Olivia
OLIVIA
GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN! (THE REMIX)
“To the last week of being a fiancée and to being a bride!” Ginna cried, lifting her glass of wine high into the air. “My baby sister is getting maaarrrrriiiiiied!”
Cheers erupted all around me, and I found myself flushing happily as I raised my own drink. We weren’t drinking shifter alcohol because I didn’t need to be getting drunk a few days before my wedding when I’d made so much progress on my skin. Plus, Amanda would kill me.
“To the bride-to-be!” Amanda echoed tipsily, because she was human and I was willing to put money on the fact that she’d been too excited about the bachelorette party to eat.
Where did the chicken wing platter go? If there was anything that would remind her to eat, it was hot buffalo flats with cold blue cheese. The chunkier the better.
“To me!” I chorused, joining in while still looking for those wings.
I couldn’t believe that it had been a year and a month since Keith had proposed to me in that fried chicken shop.
The same chicken shop that had supplied the food for my bachelorette party.
Not exactly the normal fare but considering that all my guests but one were shifters, I’d needed some heavy-calorie dishes available.
Plus, I liked food. That had never changed.
But what had changed was that my pack no longer had to pretend not to be pack. Keith had learned about shifters and hadn’t run screaming into the hills, nor had he held my lying against me. I still didn’t understand that, but I wasn’t going to question it.
We still had our miscommunications, our snafus, and I had a small chunk of fringe relatives who talked as much shit as they could while giving dirty looks. But there were perks to being the alpha’s daughter, and if he said my mixed-species love was okay, then it was okay.
The hardest part had been getting Miss Angela to meet with my family again. I had left that to Keith, because every time I thought about it, I got so embarrassed I swore my cheeks wanted to burn right off my face.
But she’d eventually come around after all the cousins, except Toni, showed up at her retirement home, volunteering for a litany of tasks from reading, to teaching a workout class, to moving furniture for anyone who wanted to shake up their room.
They’d also apologized to her both verbally and with carefully written letters.
I was ever so grateful for that, because I didn’t want her to have to be afraid for her son every time he was with me.
And as for Toni… well, he had been given a position with our warehousing business, at my suggestion, naturally.
That job happened to be in our Italy location.
Whomp, whomp. Maybe some time being the lone American who barely spoke Italian would give him a little bit of perspective. Travel broadened the mind and all that.
“So, how does it feel?” Serafina murmured tiredly.
I had to admire her for sticking it out as long as she had.
Cillian was watching the kids, including the twins, and he told her she wasn’t allowed to call and check in on them until she was ready to leave.
All she had to do was turn off her brain and have fun.
But when you gave a mother of two under two a chance to turn her brain off, that mostly meant her body was really trying to make her sleep.
“How does what feel?”
“Knowing you’re about to be a married woman.”
“Oh, I thought you were gonna ask what it feels like to be the first wolf in our pack in like three hundred years to ever marry a human,” Ginna drawled before making kissy faces at Rosemary, who had finished the special-diet paté my sister had put out in her pup’s custom rhinestone food bowl.
“Did you finish your meal already? Who’s a good girl? Who’s a good girl?”
I decided to answer Serafina’s version of the question. “It’s… strange,” I said, so many feelings rushing through me that I wasn’t sure if I could tell one from another. I was bubbling. I was fizzing. There were butterflies in my stomach dodging lightning strikes.
It was a lot.
I couldn’t be happier.
“It’s crazy to think that I spent thirty years of my life thinking no one could possibly ever want me, ya know? That I was going to be the spinster aunt who helped raise all your kids and who everyone went to whenever they needed help.”
“A lot has changed, hasn’t it?” Ginna mused, taking a break from heaping praise on her furry babies. “You and Keith are so romantic, it almost makes me believe in true love.”
“Love, twuuuu love,” Amanda added, flopping back onto the couch, hand in the air. “I can’t believe all dis has-had-has happened because of a woodworking thingy.”
“What are the chances, right? My happily ever after came along with a safety lecture about a lathe.”
“Hey, no one in our class got scalped, so I w-would call that a… uh… a…”
“A success?” I supplied.
“Yes! And that’s why we pay you the big bucks!”
“You don’t pay me anything.”
“That’s because you’re rich, bissssh. Pay my student loans!”
“Please, like you don’t make twice as much as I do in a year with all your fashion reviews and recommendations.”
“I am a journalist!” Amanda managed to declare with total seriousness, sitting up and giving me an affronted glare.
That lasted about three seconds before she started giggling, then choked on her own spit and coughed.
“Whoa there, Barbie, breathe for me,” Olivia-Two said, clapping my friend’s back. “You good?”
“No, I’m Amanda!” she answered before cackling and her joy was infectious, because Ginna and Olivia-Two joined in as well.
I watched them, nearly overwhelmed with happiness. I knew some people went to Vegas or Florida for wild bachelorette parties, but I’d rented an Airbnb and had a fully catered spread of all the foods my family didn’t tend to cook but I’d grown to love.
The aforementioned dishes from the chicken place, some amazing oxtail from a Puerto Rican hole-in-the-wall restaurant Keith had introduced me to, all the Americanized Chinese food six wolves could stomach, and perhaps my own weight in different kinds of kebabs.
It wasn’t exhaustive, as there was no Thai, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Indian, or Greek, but that was fine.
Even with the whole evening ahead of us, there was a limit to our shifter metabolisms and stomachs.
I loved sharing everything Keith had introduced me to with my family, and although I had fewer than ten of them present, I hoped they would spread the word about whatever they ended up liking.
A knock sounded on the door. That was odd. Was the music too loud?
I didn’t think so, but I couldn’t think of another reason someone would be at the door, so I got up to check. Amanda was squealing and trying not to cry because she was holding Rosemary in one arm and Oregano in the other. Both dogs were nuzzling her cheeks.
As soon as I dealt with whoever was at the door, I was so going to grab my camera to record some of that.
As one could imagine, the adorable scene distracted me, so I didn’t even think to scent who was behind the door until I opened it and was greeted by an incredibly jacked gentleman dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt so tight they might as well have been painted on.
“Uhm, hello?” I asked, wondering if he had the wrong Airbnb. Belatedly, I remembered to use my nose, but I couldn’t smell any alcohol on his breath.
“I’m on the lookout for some wood to chop, and I got a call that this might be the perfect place for me to find it,” the man said, clicking his tongue and giving me a wink in a way I was sure worked for him often, but all I could do was stare at him with the banal disgust that came when a particularly misbehaved pet ruined something because of their owner’s negligence.
“Excuse me?”
Only then did the other ladies in the room seem to notice I was having a conversation at the door, and Ginna let out a squeal I hadn’t heard since her third boyfriend bought my sister her very first Tesla.
“He’s here! Hit the music!”
At that, my cousin Maria quickly changed the music on her phone, blasting what I supposed was meant to be sexy music but mostly reminded me of awkward high school dances.
“Hey there, ladies, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” he said, sauntering in. I let him, because it made the man move farther away from me. I wasn’t repulsed in any way, and I got the fun of hiring a stripper, but I was wholly uninterested. “Now, who here is the head lady of the establishment?”
I could practically sense the way they were all going to point at me, so I crossed my arms and sent them the deadliest glare I could muster. “Don’t you even fucking think about it.”
Ginna seemed surprised by that. Even though she was fun and kind, she didn’t really get me. Serafina emphatically shook her head. More gazes went to Amanda, and for a moment I was worried she felt like she’d have to out herself, but she sat back drunkenly with Rosemary and Oregano.
“Sorry, my hands are already full.”
Thankfully, Olivia-Two decided to take one for the team. “Me! I’m the birthday girl!”
“Well, I’ll be. Thank you for your graciousness, ma’am. The least I could do is... repay your hospitality.”
And suddenly his shirt exploded.
At least, that’s how it looked. While I appreciated the aesthetic of his rippling muscles and striated abs, it made me want my man.
My Keith, who had biceps bigger than my head and thighs like tree trunks.
His stomach showed that he was strong enough to throw around someone like me but also liked to eat.
He was a strong man, my own personal Thor, so why would I ever accept a lesser substitute?
My gaze landed on Serafina. She looked a combination of mortified and exhausted. I gave a little wave, drawing her attention to me, and the two of us had a conversation without saying a word.
We were quite different. She got her joy from being a housewife, and I got my joy from all the new things I was trying. Still, we shared common ground.
A moment later, the two of us were outside, the cool night air a gentle kiss against the heat of our cheeks. I waited while she called Cillian to come pick her up. When she ended the call, I made sure to give her a hug.
“What’s this for?” she asked, and although she still looked very exhausted, there was a sweetness to her features as well.
“Do I need a reason to hug my big sister?”
“No, but for most of our relationship, I’ve been the one hugging you. Or need I remind you that I used to chase you around the house trying to love on you when we were kids?”
“That’s because you were sappy and gross, and I was too cool to ever show such weakness as loving my own sibling.”
“Sounds about right.” We shared a chuckle at that, and it was such a soft and sweet moment. The past two years of my life had been a whirlwind roller coaster. While I was having fun and never wanted the night to end, it was important to slow down occasionally and just… be.
But after a few minutes, and several truly interesting squeals from inside the Airbnb that were borderline concerning, Serafina turned to me with love radiating out of her so palpably I could scent it in her pheromones.
“I know it hasn’t been the easiest bringing a human into our fold, but I want you to know that I’m really, really happy for you.”
I smiled, reaching over to squeeze her hand. “You know what? I am too.”