“Not all the time.” She shrugged at his one raised eyebrow. “I worry. That’s what I do.”

“And you’re damn good at it.”

“Yes, yes. I know. That’s all I do. Sit around and worry about my family.” But if she didn’t worry about her family, who would? Some cutthroat agent? Some reality show producer? Toni shuddered at the thought.

“Is that why y’all broke up?”

“Excuse me?”

“Why you broke up?” Ricky asked again.

“Broke up with who . . . ?” she thought a moment. “Or is it whom?”

“Broke up with your last boyfriend?”

“Why are you asking about that?”

“Just curious.”

“Well, be curious about something else.”

“Breakup was that bad, huh?”

Toni rolled her eyes. “Is giving me that pity look supposed to get me to tell you everything about my last relationship?”

“That won’t work? Because it’s worked on others with equally large breasts as yours.”

“No, that won’t work.” But Toni laughed in spite of herself.

“Come on,” he pleaded with a smile. “Tell me somethin’. Toss this wolf a bone.”

“All right, all right. He was full-human—”

“Mistake number one.”

“Are you going to let me finish or comment on each new revelation?”

“Okay. Finish.”

“He was—is—full-human and an eye surgeon. He was nice but very . . . particular.”

“About your sexy times?”

“Again . . . no. But thanks for grossing me out.” She shrugged. “He was just particular about how things should go. He seemed to be on a schedule.”

“I figured you’d like a man with a schedule.”

“Not when that schedule specifically involves me.”

“Let me guess . . . he wanted marriage, right?”

“What makes you think that?”

“All full-humans want marriage. Waste of money, in my opinion.”

“That’s what my parents would say anytime I asked why they weren’t married. Funny thing was, my ex’s mother used to constantly ask when my parents were going to get married rather than living in sin. Her words. Yet my dad was home every night with his mate—”

“Hence the many pups.”

“Exactly. While my ex’s dad was banging his secretaries. But my parents are the ones living in sin? Really?”

“Full-humans do love to judge.”

Toni gave a small shrug. “I don’t know. Shifters can be judgmental.”

Ricky waved his spoon. “No, no. It is not the same. Our kind are born with preconceivednotions about each other. Cats hate dogs. Wolves hate coyotes. Nobody trusts the foxes, and everybody fears the momma grizzly. These are givens based on centuries of surviving in the wild together and putting up with each other’s bullshit when eating at a Van Holtz restaurant.”

He did have a point.

“So what happened?” he asked again. “Did he push for marriage?”

“He did. But that wasn’t the main problem.” Toni brought her legs up and turned her body so she could face the wolf, suddenly eager to have this conversation. She could have talked to Coop when it happened, but he’d been on tour. She could have spoken to Cherise, too, but she took it so personally when anyone hurt any of her siblings that Toni didn’t want to be responsible for what she might do out of anger. There was also Livy, Toni’s best friend. But if upsetting Cherise was a bad idea, then upsetting Olivia Kowalski, American-born, Chinese-Polish daughter of two take-no-shit immigrants was a mistake on a global scale.

“The main problem was that he couldn’t understand the connection I have to my family.”

“Of course he couldn’t,” the wolf said flatly. “Do you really think some full-human gal can understand leaving my bed some morning, walking out into my living room, and finding my entire Pack snoring on my floor or eatin’ my yogurt while they watch the Brickyard 400?”

“Am I supposed to know what that is?”

He sighed, long and deep. “Poor, pretty Yankee. That’s NASCAR, darlin’. You do know what that is, right?”

“Yes,” she replied eagerly. “Troy and Freddy like to watch it for mathematical and scientific reasons—I think they’re secretly planning to build a car. Kyle likes to watch it because he says it’s fun to see what the”—and she used air quotes here—“ ‘average’ human being does in his or her time off.”

“It must be hard for ol’ Kyle to be so—”

“Arrogant? Rude? Condescending?”

“I was just going to say snotty, but those words work, too.”

“He’s really not that awful,” she admitted. “Unfortunately . . . he doesn’t know he’s not that awful.”

“I have to say, though . . . I like Kyle.”

“You do? Because you’re one of the very few.”

“I like his attitude.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah. You know why?”

“No idea whatsoever.”

“Because he is what he is. I like that in a canine.”

“You’re an odd man.”

He scraped the last bit of melted ice cream at the bottom of his bowl. “Some might say.”