Page 37 of The Vampire and the Barista

“Enough already,” Karl grumbled.

Jamie fake scowled at his brother. “Just wait until you find your somebody and see what I do to you!”

Karl dropped his hand. “That’s just mean.”

Jamie laughed, pulling out of Ivan’s arms, looking from Karl to Kitty. He touched both their shoulders. “How was your day?”

“We had fun, and Jessamy is teaching us martial arts. Gio let us try sword fighting, and tomorrow we have lessons in explosives,” Kitty said in a rush.

“Sounds like you both had fun.”

“And we helped Jack and Spencer look for the secret library. It must be well hidden, because we couldn’t find it,” Karl added.

Jamie laughed. “It is well hidden, but I got to see it this morning, and once I work out my notice at the library, I’m joining Dave and Max working there.”

“Yay,” Kitty said, hugging him. “You get to do proper library things.”

“I do indeed,” Jamie agreed.

“Let’s go into dinner, shall we?” Ivan said, nodding to the kitchen.

Dinner was in full swing, and happy chatter rang around the table.

Dave looked at Max, who seemed to be enjoying himself and interacting with everyone happily. He looked at Gavin, who was also joining in, silently laughing and looking happy again. He could kick himself for unintentionally upsetting him earlier. Then he remembered Gavin’s text from earlier.

Dave waited until there was a moment of quiet. “This dinner is lovely. Thanks, Mum, Tom Tom.”

Thomaz dropped his fork as everyone looked at him before bursting out laughing. He looked at Dave. “Who told?”

“I have no idea what you could possibly mean, Tom Tom,” Dave replied with fake innocence.

“I’ll poison your food if you keep that up, and steal your dog.”

Everyone laughed again, and Dave looked at Gavin and grinned before looking back at Thomaz. “Bruno is loyal to me, and Mum won’t let you poison me.”

“Well, I don’t know, Davy, you did threaten to throw your father and me out into the streets,” Annie reminded him.

“You wanted to hand me over to the cartels,” Dave pointed out.

“Twenty million was a lot of money, Davy. But we didn’t, though, did we?” Willard queried

Dave huffed. “And I didn’t throw you out.”

Annie ignored her son and looked at Jamie, Karl and Kitty. “You need to tell Thomaz and me your favourite foods, so we can cook them for you. Or if there are things you don’t like or are allergic to.”

“I’m allergic to vegetables,” Kitty said quickly.

“And yet you still have to eat them,” Karl said, glaring at her.

“But..,” Kitty started to protest.

“You’ll eat them. They’re good for you,” Jamie added.

“But Ivan only had peas, he didn’t eat any other veg,” Kitty pointed out, as if that would make a difference.

“Ummm welll,” Ivan was at a loss for what to say, and then said the first thing that popped into his head. “I like peas.”

Jamie wasn’t the only one who laughed at that. He patted Ivan’s arm and looked at Kitty. “Don’t worry, in the future Ivan will eat all the vegetables.”

Ivan looked at Jamie. “I will?”

“Yep, because if you do, so will Kitty,” Jamie replied.

“Gah,” was Ivan’s only reply.