25. Keith
KEITH
BOYS WILL BE BOYS
“And may I now present to you, Meaty Mountain!”
My blindfold was ripped off, and I finally got to see for the first time since I’d been picked up from my house.
Although Olivia and I had the funds to go absolutely ham on our bachelor and bachelorette parties, we’d decided to keep it relatively low-key and rent two Airbnbs in the city to celebrate.
But apparently, the members of her family who had planned my part of the night had decided to go ham.
Literally.
When the car had stopped, I was certain we’d pulled up to a barbecue restaurant, but no, we were at the Airbnb.
Riccardo, Rolando, and Chuck—a friend I’d made at the community college who ran the metalworking workshop—had rented a truly absurd number of smokers, grills, and whatever else a person might use to cook meat.
The air was thick with scents, and in the center of the patio area was a huge table covered with those heated steel containers that were always used at catered events.
Containers that were now uncovered to reveal ribs, burgers, brats, brisket, and yes, even literal ham. There was more, so much more, but I could only ogle the true monument to shifter appetite for protein.
“You wolves are crazy.” I laughed, clapping Riccardo on the back.
“Wolves? That some sort of sports team?” Chuck asked from where he was doing something behind a double-wide, chrome grill that looked like it was capable of traveling to the moon.
“Uh yeah, the Rizolis are all huge soccer fans. They call it football, though,” I said quickly, grimacing at my blunder. I couldn’t be the first human the pack trusted with their secret only to blow it after a few months. Talk about proving Olivia wrong in trusting me.
Then again, could they really blame me? They’d spent months calling me the big human to my face when they should have been protecting their secret. No one could call us masters of subterfuge.
“Ha! That’s funny. Let me tell ya, there ain’t nothing like true American football! Running with the pigskin, tailgating with your buddies, making bets in sports bars that none of you intend to honor. It’s a time-honored tradition!”
I enjoyed my blue-collar friends and accepted their various eccentricities the same as I did with the Rizolis, but I braced myself for one of the wolves around me to remind him that America was actually quite young and football had been invented in England.
Instead, Massimo yelled for Chuck to catch.
A moment later, a can of beer was in the older man’s hand and he cackled.
“Hell yeah, brother!”
And thus, any arguments about football versus football were avoided, and we got right to the important part: eating.
There were only a dozen of us present, as I didn’t have the widest circle of friends and Amanda was at Olivia’s shindig, but the number was perfectly fine with me. To me, it was a literal representation of the two worlds I’d been straddling for so many years without ever belonging to one of them.
Woodworking made me decidedly blue collar as well, and I was not ashamed of that.
I liked working with my hands, I liked being productive, and I liked having physical representations of my work.
It made it hard to deny productivity even when the critical voices in my head grew insistent.
But there was a lot of art to it. Drawing, painting, a lot of tools of creating and as much knowledge of the color wheel as I did of different wood types.
Sometimes, it felt so incongruous, but meeting people like Chuck, who could make a stunning peacock lawn ornament as easily as he could make a sword, taught me that it was fine to straddle the line right there in the middle.
Somehow, I ended up in that same position with Olivia’s family. I wasn’t a wolf shifter, but I was part of their pack. My schedule was affected by the moon now, and I joined in what activities were appropriate for me. But I was also human.
Two worlds. Two ideas that I once would have thought were directly opposed. But no. With a little support and a whole lot of love, and maybe some blind optimism thrown in, there wasn’t really a bridge that existed that couldn’t be crossed. As long as people were willing, of course.
“To the groom!” Rolando cried out.
I looked up from my plate, which Riccardo had piled high with a truly obscene amount of food that even I was going to have a hard time getting through. Everyone had raised their various drinks. Most had wine, some had energy drinks or soda, and Chuck had a beer in each hand.
“Guys,” I muttered, my face flushing from all the positive attention. “You don’t have to, really.”
“No, but I want to!” Riccardo said, standing and gesticulating so wildly with his wineglass, I was sure one of us would end up covered in wine. I should have had faith in his wolf reflexes, though, because somehow, all the liquid remained either in the glass or his mouth.
“Brothers, cousins, various relations, and Chuck—”
“That’s me!”
“—today we are celebrating our grande umano!”
Thankfully, Chuck didn’t have a comment on that one, and neither did the other human I’d invited, my old woodworking mentor who I’d met in high school and who had helped set me up for my whole career.
I’d lost touch with him in the last couple of years, but seeing Olivia push herself to make new connections outside of her pack inspired me to reach out to him.
Not only did I owe him for my success, but when I was a kid, he’d been the closest thing I’d had to a father figure.
I regretted that I’d let life get so busy that I hadn’t so much as shot him an email in many, many months.
“When I first saw this mountain of a man, I thought, merde! That is one tall ginger! But then, after my neck got used to having to tip back so much, I realized there was a reason our pickiest and maybe even smartest sibling chose him. But don’t tell her I said that!
There’s only so many humiliations a big brother can take! ”
There was a round of chuckles. I glowed at the fact that the eldest child of the Rizolis thought it made sense that Olivia had picked me out of all the handsome and Italian wolf shifters around her.
I still had a hard time trying to reconcile that idea since I was going to die much younger than her, that she was going to have to take care of me in my older age, and that she was stronger and faster than me, but I had learned not to question it.
If it was possible for me not to care that Olivia occasionally ripped away her flesh to reveal a prehistoric direwolf that could easily bite my head off, then it was possible for her not to care about me being a different species too.
Love was love, and we were living, breathing (and furry) proof of that.
“I know it hasn’t been easy, going from...
” This time, his gaze shifted to Chuck and my old woodworking instructor.
He caught himself before he said anything too wolfish.
“Your culture to ours, but you have handled it better than anyone could ask you to.
When we threw you curveballs, you caught them, and instead of telling us off like maybe you should have, you accepted us with a spirit of open heart and communication.
“And I have to say, although it might be the sentimental side of me, I do think we are all better off for the blending you’ve introduced into our pa—family!
Many of our elder aunties and uncles are learning more English to get in the hu—outside world, and you practicing your Italian with the little ones has eased a lot of their fears about the younger generations losing our roots.
You have introduced us to so many restaurants we would never try, and of course, Mama loves having a new soul to feed. ”
I knew my emotions simmered closer to the surface than a lot of people would expect for my gruff exterior, but I was truly touched by Riccardo’s kind words.
He had always been pleasant once we got over the slapping-my-back-too-hard misunderstanding, and I got the feeling that he too was trying to reconnect with his family after several years of being busy with his own business that he’d started.
At least, that was the impression I got from Olivia.
“I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how much better things are for my baby sister.
We used to joke that she was born already eighty years old, but now, after seeing how she smiles with you, laughs with you, how she dances at parties and doesn’t try to take on every task like she’s the only one in the world who can do it, I realize that perhaps we didn’t allow her to be anything other than an old soul. ”
He stopped his emphatic hand movements and raised his glass as high into the air as his lengthy arms would allow.
“So this is to you, my soon-to-be brother. Though there may be arguments and misunderstandings in the future, and less accepting folks in our family who cause drama and other struggles, none of us will forget what you have done for not only my sister, but all of us! Saluti!”
“Saluti!” everyone else echoed.
“Cheers!” Chuck added.
We all tipped our drinks back, even me despite how embarrassed and pleased I felt at the same time.
Thankfully, no one else thought they could top that, so we went back to eating and talking, the conversation drifting to the story of how I’d first met Olivia, to both kinds of football, to European cars, to future furniture projects that my mentor or I were involved in.
At one point, Rolando and Massimo asked Chuck if he could make a full set of armor, only for him to jokingly tell them he couldn’t afford it.
After I assured him that they could probably afford an entire troop of medieval knights, he got a whole lot less jokey and a whole lot more interested.
In other words, it was absolutely wonderful.