Page 69 of My Big Fat Shifter Wedding

“Nah, didn’t have that either. Only child.”

His head tilted in the same way Olivia’s and Rolando’s did whenever they were trying to puzzle out something, but it looked like the man might be about to twist himself in a circle. “But surely cousins from the aunties and of the uncles?”

“Ah, no. My mother was an only child too. It was just the two of us, but like I said, I understand what you mean by being surprised at how fast kids grow from other little ones more adjacent to my life.”

Dead silence. He turned to Olivia-Two and started speaking rapidly in Italian. He didn’t sound angry, but confused, like I was the one speaking in a foreign language. I didn’t know whether to be amused or insulted.

To her credit, she didn’t seem annoyed at us interrupting whatever she was doing on her phone, and it seemed like she was defending me. Which was confirmed when the man made a couple of gestures before the young woman said something with finality.

“Ricordare, è americano.”

“Ah, si. Americano!” He looked back to me and seemed a lot less lost. “Coworker’s kids, yes! They grow!”

“Keith, are you in here?” Olivia called, even though she knew where I was.

“Coming, honey!” I called back, tilting my head to the older gentleman before hurrying out and sighing in relief.

However, I didn’t get within five feet of Olivia before a feminine voice called from the kitchen.

“Tesoro, cara dear, will you come help me with something in here?”

Olivia grimaced, and I saw a sliver of that more nervous, quiet woman who’d been trying to fall through the floor in my first class. I opened my mouth to tell her that she didn’t have to go if she didn’t want to, but she was already calling back more loudly than I’d ever heard her speak before, and I’d watched Italian soccer matches with her.

Italian football matches.

“Coming, Mama! I’ll be there in a second!” And then her attention was back on me. “You’re doing great, you really are. Ignore the kooky things my older relatives say; a lot of it is stuff that doesn’t translate well into English. Slang, you know?”

“Yeah, I totally get it. And for what it’s worth, I get at least eighty percent of things.”

“Perfect! And stick close to Rolando. He’ll be your translator if anyone is a little too off the wall. They’re not really used to talking to people who don’t understand Italian.”

If she had told me that before, I would be a little suspicious, because didn’t they talk to anyone outside of their family? But I’d only met a handful of her family members. They could probably talk to a different person every day and not repeat a meeting with another relative for multiple months. It was so the opposite of how I’d grown up that I was stuck between wonder and being overwhelmed.

I’d heard the phrase “it takes a village” a lot, but Olivia’s family was nearly a whole damn city.

Could I fit into a dynamic like that?

I’d gotten really good at dismissing my anxiety when it presented me with random questions that were only meant to spike my cortisol, but this particular thought felt different. It was unsure, yes, but not all uncertainty was fear and vice versa. Sometimes it was just the mind evaluating things to make sure it understood the circumstances it was presented with.

“Hey there, sorry for disappearing, I had to take a call.” I turned only to nearly get hit in the face as the man around Olivia’s age approached me and joshed my shoulder. She had warned me that her family was a lot more handsy than I was used to, but I really hadn’t expected to have been grabbed or otherwise touched by four different people since I’d come in. “So, you’re the Romeo who managed to steal my sister’s heart, huh? I admit, she has always been different, but none of us ever expected her to be interested in someone so... so...”

“American?” I asked.

My guess seemed to cheer him. He clapped my back again with enough force that I had to wonder if he was being passive aggressive. That was one of my biggest stresses when meeting new people: figuring out all the subtext in what they did and whether they were being sincere or not. It was one of the many things I’d never had to go through with Olivia because she was always completely honest with me, no matter how awkward it was.

She was one of a kind.

“Yes! American! You get it. Always thought she’d settle down with a nice Italian boy, a librarian or something. You know, a real sensitive type.”

I was certain the man wasn’t trying to neg me on purpose, but I didn’t like what he was saying. So, I decided to change the subject. “I’m sorry, what did you say your name was again?”

“Oi, where are my manners? You’ll have to forgive me for my excitement. You see, Olivia used to be the baby of my siblings, and I always worried about her a bit, you know? She was always the odd wolf out. Seeing her happy and doing her own thing has been real nice.”

Uh. So one of her older brothers, which I had figured. Quickly doing mental calculations like I was in a meme, I tried to figure out which one he was. But then I remembered the bevy of names that Olivia had blurted when the surge of Rizolis had appeared.

“Ah, so you’re Riccardo?”

“That I am, that I am! I see my baby sister has told you about me. Don’t believe a word she says!” he said with a laugh.