I looked from him up to Nathaniel, and the first tear slid down. They both looked worried until I laughed and quoted something Nathaniel said sometimes back to both of them: “Sometimes you’re so happy you can’t hold it all in and it spills out your eyes.”

   They smiled and hugged me then. I finally broke from the hug, dabbing carefully at my eyes so I didn’t smear the eyeliner. I didn’t usually wear this much, but Nathaniel liked it when I dressed up top to bottom; he’d taught me to dab at my eye makeup, not just rub and smear it. Having boyfriends who wore makeup onstage had made me much better at the girly side of being a woman.

   “I hate to be the one who breaks such a great mood, but Tomas is really hurting.”

   Neither of us asked if he meant the gunshot wound, because that was a given, but it wasn’t what Micah meant. Nathaniel asked, “How can we help him?”

   “What he said,” I said.

   “We need to talk to Manny first.”

   I looked up to scan the crowd, but the dance floor was full again and I was too short, even in heels, to see over everyone. Micah didn’t even have the heels, so it was Nathaniel who started leading us around the edge of the floor. We just trusted he’d seen Manny and followed him.

   He was dancing with Rosita, his head resting on her generous bosom like it was his favorite pillow. She looked embarrassed and pleased, as if she felt torn between setting a good example and enjoying the fact that after nearly thirty years of marriage they still danced like teenagers at a prom in need of a chaperone.

   Nathaniel put his arms around both of us and said, “I want us to be like that in twenty years.”

   I gave him a one-armed hug, resting my head against his chest. “I can’t imagine twenty years in the future, but yes, yes.”

   Micah smiled at Nathaniel, but there was something in his eyes that didn’t match the happiness of the moment; maybe it was talking to Tomas? “Twenty years is a long time, but I’ll do my best.”

   If Nathaniel heard the hesitation in his tone, he didn’t show it. He just gazed at the happy couple, face almost shining with the potential of marital bliss that could really last for a lifetime. I caught Micah’s gaze, and he said, “I hate to interrupt them with serious things.”

   Ah, he didn’t want to ruin their happy moment or take any of the joy out of Connie’s wedding day. Me, either. “Can it wait?” I asked.

   He thought about it very seriously, the weightiness of it darkening his face, filling his leopard eyes with thoughts that would never go through the eyes of a real cat. They didn’t weigh other people’s happiness against their immediate needs, or maybe they did; I was more a dog person.

   He nodded.

   “I’m still looking for someone who makes me feel like that,” a voice behind us said. It startled me, but neither of the men reacted; maybe they’d heard her coming. Mercedes Rod-riguez, maid of honor, looked great in the royal-blue dress. The color made her skin seem even darker, as if she had that perfect, dark tan that other people risked skin cancer trying to achieve. She had her mother’s height but her father’s slenderness, so that she looked model-like, but with too much of her mother’s curves to truly look like a modern model. The vampires in my life had told me that thinness that extreme was only for the poorest of people, those who couldn’t afford food. If you had money, you didn’t starve yourself. Times change, I guess.

   The last time I’d seen Mercedes had been in the hospital with Tomas. She’d looked younger and a lot less finished. Today with full makeup, she looked like she and Connie could have been twins; without makeup she looked younger, but didn’t most of us under thirty? Mercedes had graduated with a degree in nutrition and was actually working in a doctors’ group that specialized in helping athletes, and us ordinary folk, after an injury. Last I’d heard they’d partnered with a gym whose trainers specialized in helping people after injuries, or helping them prevent injuries through smarter exercise: work smarter, not harder. I hadn’t even thought about it, but it was almost designed for helping her little brother. Sometimes karma plans way ahead of the game.

   I moved closer to Mercedes to say, “I thought you were living with the tall, dark, and handsome that’s been at your side most of the day.”

   “Frankie, Francisco, is great.”

   The tone alone took a lot of the positive out of the “great.” I raised eyebrows at her but didn’t want to say anything she wasn’t ready to hear. You can realize someone is wrong for you a long time before you’re ready to say I quit. Mercedes and I chatted, but we weren’t like besties or anything, so it wasn’t my job to say the hard, awkward things.

   “I don’t think I realized until tonight that he doesn’t make me feel like that”—she nodded at her parents on the dance floor, and then turned to me—“or make me feel like the three of you.”

   She’d said it, so I took the opening. “Then why are you living with him?”

   “He’s handsome, charming, athletic, a doctor specializing in sports medicine with an emphasis on rehabilitation after injuries. My degree in nutrition will help us treat the whole patient, not just the injury. Professionally we’re great.”

   “But professional isn’t everything,” I said.

   She gave me a smile that was more irony than laughter. “Maybe not.”

   I was debating on whether she wanted more girl talk, or if we should just tell her about Tomas, but she saved me the trouble, stepping forward and including Micah and Nathaniel in the conversation. “I saw you talking to Tomas. He hasn’t wanted to talk to anyone in the family much, but he seemed to be talking to you.”

   “It’s part of my job to talk to people afterward,” Micah said.

   “After what?” she asked.

   “Usually it’s after they, or someone in their family, has been attacked by a lycanthrope, but violence is violence, and how people react to it is pretty similar.”

   She nodded, as if that made sense to her. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk without spoiling the reception for anyone else.” She looked up, then nodded and smiled at her live-in boyfriend, Francisco, because that was what he’d introduced himself as, not Frankie. She took my arm and pantomimed that we were going somewhere together. He’d probably assume we were going to the bathroom. Men were always willing to accept that women weren’t capable of going to the restroom alone, because most women moved in packs for the powder room. I’d never understood why; I was okay on my own, but in the blue formal you might need some help with the skirts. Connie’s gown with its layers of lace and hoop skirt was lovely, but I was betting she’d need all the bridesmaids to hold the skirts if she wanted to use the bathroom. It was one of the reasons I was not wearing a hoop skirt for my own wedding.