Page 57 of My Big Fat Shifter Wedding

Wait no, not just a drink, an entire fucking fishbowl.

“What is that?” I asked breathlessly, taking in the pineapple with a fist-sized disco ball arranged artfully on a thick centerpiece sticking up out of the fishbowl.

“Exactly what it looks like, sweetheart! This is what we call our Every Night Fever! It’s a citrusy drink with mango, passionfruit, and pineapple. Your honey over there ordered it for you.”

I watched with fascination as she set it on the table. “Normally people split it or it’s for a whole table, but he said you have a high tolerance! Get it, girl!”

“Haha, I do all right by myself, I guess.” That was a humble way of not explaining that my shifter tolerance would make it impossible for any human alcohol to affect me.

“Go slow and have a blast! I’ll be back by once your fellas join you.”

“Thanks bunches.”

As she went off, I scanned the room to find the dartboard from my new position. Keith and Rolando were still there, laughing like they were at a comedy special while occasionally pausing to throw darts. I was worried Rolando might forget himself and use too much strength to shatter one of the things or even bury it in the dartboard, but since there were no yelps of surprise or wide-eyed looks his way, I figured he had this whole pretending-to-be-human thing in the bag. So, instead of worrying and anticipating the worst, I sipped my drink and watched as two people who were very important to me hit it off.

Was this how Keith had felt when I’d met his mother? It was pretty nice, I wasn’t going to lie. But try as I might to focus only on the positive, some of my brother’s earlier words lingered, casting a shadow that kept trying to reassert itself into the limelight.

What was I going to do when Keith found out that not only was I a shifter, but that I had been hiding it from him? It was easy enough to keep it a secret when I kept him separated from the rest of my pack, but how long would that last? How many more months could I put off him meeting the people who mattered so much in my life?

I didn’t know, and even though I knew it really wasn’t the right time to think about it, I couldn’t help but feel the invisible clock over my head counting down until I either made a decision or had the decision made for me.

I drank a little faster than I should, giving myself a bit of brain freeze from all the shaved ice in it, pointedly trying to ignore the sound that was the undercurrent of all of my thoughts lately.

Tick, tock, tick, tock, tick, tock, ticktock ticktock ticktock tickticktickticktick…

13

OLIVIA

BEST. GIFT. EVER

It was my thirty-first birthday, nearly a year since the party that had changed so much of my life, and three days after the celebration I’d had with my family.

It had been lovely in a lot of ways, but also not so lovely in others. Cesare got into an argument with my father about outdated alpha stuff that had culminated in the two of them competing in a series of physical trials to prove they still had “it”. What “it” was, I wasn’t clear on, but it annoyed me, especially when other men joined in.

That wasn’t enough to tank what was otherwise a lovely start and middle, but then multiple guests insisted we go on a run to reunify while others objected that it would be better to wait for the pack run. All that while several of the children kept asking where the fireworks were.

I wasn’t sure who had told them that my birthday had the same sort of celebration protocol as that of the United States. It would have been flattering if I hadn’t had to explain fifteen times that there would be no explosions.

At least, there hadn’t been any planned explosions, because as it turned out, Rolando and the triplets helped cover an early exit for me by, naturally, lighting something on fire.

Or rather, the triplets played the part of arsonists (a little too well, in my opinion), while my brother played the part of putting everything out before it could ruin more than decorations and my cousin Nina’s sweet mashed potatoes.

No big deal, of course.

Except for destroying sweet mashed potatoes. Who put sugar in Yukon gold potatoes? I liked to think of myself as adventurous, but that was for yams and sweet potatoes only. I’d recently thought those two were the same tuber, until Amanda spent thirty minutes explaining why they weren’t while we were playing Uno online.

“Are you all right? You’ve been staring out the window the past fifteen miles.”

I tore myself out of my reverie and looked over at Keith, who cut quite the impressive figure in his dark green suit with the black accents. I’d helped him pick it out early in our relationship, and it always made me all fuzzy on the inside when he wore it for special occasions. It was like a silent form of approval that didn’t need any words.

“Just thinking about things,” I murmured, pasting on a smile. From the expression on his face, I could tell it didn’t quite land.

“Anything you wanna talk about?”

“No, not really. I was thinking about my birthday and how so much has changed since then and yet so much hasn’t.”

He nodded. “Family stuff?”