Page 64 of My Big Fat Shifter Wedding

I chuckled, touched and amused at how protective and passionate she was. For a while, I’d worried that she was ashamed of me in some way and didn’t want to introduce me to her tight-knit family, but it was very obvious to me now that wasn’t the case. My baby had some good old anxiety like I did, which was probably the biggest issue.

“Are you sure? Because I can always bring a sword along to fall on in case I say anything particularly egregious.”

“You think you’re funny, but my father would like it if you showed up with a sword. He’s got a thing for antiques, especially European ones.”

Good to know. It never hurt to have a good bribe idea in your back pocket for your in-laws.

The people I was about to have lunch with would indeed be my in-laws if things went well at this meeting. It was kind of hard to wrap my head around that, and suddenly the calm I had been trying to maintain vanished entirely.

Drat.

“I promise, I’ll be on my best behavior. I won’t lean into self-deprecation too much,” I said, pulling Olivia into a hug. Now I knew how she’d felt when she met my mother, except I’d had a full year to build up this meeting in my head.

No pressure.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Now, why don’t you finish getting ready, and I’ll go make sure the car is cool before you get into it.”

“You’re the best,” Olivia assured, pressing a kiss to my cheek before hurrying off. And yeah, she made me feel like I actually could be.

I washed my hands, then headed out to the car. Olivia hated getting into a hot car, so I always rolled down the windows and ran the AC for a while so she’d be comfortable when she got in.

“Oh my god, you’re a lifesaver,” she practically moaned when she opened the door a few minutes later, looking absolutely stunning in her modest sundress. Maybe some would consider it boring, but I always thought she looked particularly ravishing in them. That and something she called muumuus.

Or no outfit at all, but that wasn’t really appropriate for meeting her parents.

Maybe later, though?

Even after a year, I was still relentlessly attracted to her. That would never change.

“Ready?” I asked once I was sure she was buckled up, quickly noting that her purse was at her feet and her phone in the arm rest on her door. Although Olivia was usually pretty good at remembering things on her own, she occasionally left things behind, and considering how nervous she was, I wouldn’t have blamed her if something slipped her mind.

“As I’ll ever be,” she said before letting out a feather-light chuckle.

“Care to let me in on the joke?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing too hilarious. That’s the exact same thing my brother said before meeting you.”

“Did he?” I asked as I put the car into reverse to pull out onto the street. “That’s funny, he seemed so chill.”

“Nah, he was nervous as all get-out. You distracted him from those nerves with all the super shiny sparkles at the disco.”

That startled a laugh out of me. “I’m pretty sure that’s a sentence that’s never been uttered in English before.” Still, I was grateful Rolando would be at the lunch as a buffer. I was determined not to need that, but it was nice knowing the option was there. A sort of ace in the pocket, so to speak.

“Maybe, but it’s probably been said a couple of times in Latin. Or maybe Ancient Sumerian.”

“I’ll make sure to ask the next bilingual immortal I meet.”

“Or perhaps an Assyriologist?”

“What did you call me?” I shot back.

Olivia cackled before retorting again.

Back and forth we went, and much like every other time we were troubled, it became a lot easier to forget our mutual anxiety. Surely even the biggest tribulations in the world couldn’t be so bad as long as we were facing them together.

However, the closer we got to the end of my GPS’s route, the faster and faster Olivia started to talk, until she was rattling things off at a mile a minute. I let her talk, chiming in when I could and squeezing her palm with my free hand to let her know I was right there with her.