The Dinner

Frederick and Caroline lived on the older side of Northbridge, in a stone house with a long front porch and more windows than any one family needed. Celia had been to enough Sunday dinners there by now to know which step creaked and where Caroline hid the good chocolate, but she had never walked up that path with a ring on her hand, and her steps slowed without her meaning them to.

Her mother's car was in the driveway. Elaine had driven up that afternoon and was already at the kitchen counter beside Caroline when Celia came in, the two of them slicing bread and laughing at something she had missed. She stayed in the doorway a little longer, just to watch.

Colin went straight past her. Elaine had barely set the knife aside when he bent to hug her, and she patted his back twice, the way she always did, and informed him that he had better take good care of her daughter.

Caroline wiped her hands dry and held them out. "Let me see it."

Celia held out her left hand. Caroline declared that the ring suited her perfectly, and Elaine took it in both of hers and turned it toward the window to watch the stone catch the light and did not let go for some time.

The others arrived soon after. June was first, as Celia had known she would be, and threw her arms around her hard enough to knock her back a step before demanding to see the ring for herself. Bennett and Iris came in together. Bennett shook Colin's hand as though they had just closed a deal, then gave up and hugged him, and Celia too. Iris handed him a card with FINALLY written across the front in large letters.

Paige arrived last, still in her work clothes after a Saturday at the Avenor office. She had worked alongside Colin there for years and had known him since they were six, and she was talking before the door had closed behind her. She hugged Colin, then Celia, then him again, and confessed that she had cried for ten minutes when his text came through and was not even slightly embarrassed about it. It was hard not to like her.

They ate in the dining room, with Frederick at the head of the table. He stood up with his wine while the plates were still being passed and waited for quiet.

"I've watched my son make a great many decisions for this pack, and I've argued with a fair number of them." He turned to Celia. "Not this one."

They all drank to that. Elaine pressed her napkin to her eyes and pretended she had something in them, and nobody believed her.

Colin had taken the seat beside Elaine without being told, and through most of dinner Celia watched him keep her plate full and ask about her garden and laugh at stories he had certainly heard already. Caroline asked about the building Celia was designing at work, and June entertained everyone with the drive home from Iris's housewarming, when Celia had not been able to say one sensible word about the man with the wine bottles. Iris claimed full credit for the engagement. Bennett reminded her that all she had done was buy a house.

It was over dessert that Paige set down her fork.

"Okay. I have been very good all night and haven't said one word about the wedding."

"You've been here an hour and a half," June pointed out.

"Very good," Paige repeated, unbothered. "But you both know it's going to be huge, right? It's the Alpha's wedding. The whole territory is going to want to be there. You'll have the leadership from the neighboring packs, and half the Avenor board, and their families." She was counting on her fingers now and running out of them. "Northbridge hasn't had an Alpha wedding since Frederick and Caroline's."

Caroline laughed. "Ours had four hundred people, and I barely remember any of it. Mostly I remember that my shoes hurt."

"She complained about the shoes during the vows," Frederick added, and the laughter went around again.

Celia waited for it to settle. "I think we'd been picturing something a little smaller."

Paige smiled at her, warm and entirely certain. "You say that now."

Colin answered first. "We'll decide together, Celia and me. Whatever size it ends up being." He kept his tone easy, the way he did with almost everything, but there was no mistaking that he meant it.

Paige put both hands up, laughing. "Fine, fine. I surrender." Then she picked up her glass and stood, and one by one the others reached for theirs. "To Colin and Celia," she announced, and then, raising her glass a little higher, "and to the wedding Northbridge has been waiting for."

Everyone drank. Celia drank too, set the glass back on the tablecloth, and caught herself still turning the words over. In all the times she had pictured her wedding, with her mother's dress and a few dozen people they loved in one room, it had never once occurred to her that it might belong to Northbridge as well.