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“Best shift you ever played,” he says.

“Which one?”

“The one you didn’t take.”

I watched that one from Gabi’s sofa.

Colt does not have anything to say to it. Sully puts a hand on the back of his neck, gives it one shake, and lets go before either of them has to say anything. Then he goes back to his table.

“He held your neck.”

“He’s been doing that since I was nineteen.”

Sully sits down and picks up a fork as though nothing has happened.

“My father taught me to finish things,” Colt says. “Sully taught me everything else.”

“Have you told him?”

“God, no.”

“Good. He would hate it.”

Tova comes up behind me. “Gabi says you have to dance now.”

“Gabi has appointed herself what?”

From a table away, Gabi calls, “The person keeping this wedding moving. You’re welcome.”

“You were invited as a guest.”

“And look how that worked out.”

She lifts her glass. I hold her eyes long enough for her to wonder, and then I smile.

Tova takes my hand, then his, and pulls. Halfway onto the floor she drops both of us and escapes toward her grandmother’s table before either of us can object.

“Coward,” Colt calls after her. She keeps going.

His right hand comes to my waist. I put mine on his shoulder and press once, to tell him where the beat is.

He already has it. I have known that since the second Thursday at the annex. I tell him anyway, and he lets me.

“Tova knows about the broncos.”

He closes his eyes. “Mack.”

“She asked me whether you were any good.”

“What’d you tell her?”

“That you believe you were.”

“I was good.”

Behind him, Tova is telling Gabi something with both hands. She has lost a shoe. Ruth is laughing at something Mack said. I did not know that was possible.

“Are you going to tell me how good?”