Ben grinned. "Yeah, that would be an important part of the process. Uh, Jane says dinner's ready, so we should probably get down there."
Georgie pocketed my iPod and skipped down the stairs, leading us to a rather formally set dining-room table. But really, this was the first time the five of us had sat down to dinner together, just the residents of River Oaks. We'd had rushed breakfasts as Jane and Ben and I peeled off to go to work. We'd had larger gatherings with Jane's extended "family." But never just us. Gabriel had gone all out, with the big china mugs of blood on little saucers, candles in real crystal candlesticks, and flowers gathered from the backyard.
There was no silverware. For that, I was grateful.
"So, what exactly happened to you in the lab?" Georgie asked, sipping her blood. It left a little blood mustache on her top lip, but I sure as hell wasn't going to be the one to tell her about it.
"No shop talk until after dinner," Jane said. "Let's just try to have a nice, normal meal that doesn't involve discussions of bloodshed and felony assault."
"What does that leave us to talk about?" Georgie asked, frowning while Jane motioned to her own top lip. Georgie wiped her mouth with a napkin.
"How are things at the shop?" Ben asked Jane gamely. "You haven't had much time to work there since you took over the Council position."
"Actually, it's doing pretty well. I miss it. I wish I had more time there, but I'm lucky to have Andrea to run the day-to-day operations."
"What kind of shop do you have, Jane? Also, how have we not talked about this?"
"It's a bookshop, some occult books, but lately we've moved into a more general-interest, vampire-friendly mode, if for no other reason than people kept trying to kill us for the rarer occult items. And we haven't talked about it because most of our conversations revolve around Council business. I'm far too used to the people around me knowing about that part of my life, and I realize that is a big oversight on my part. I'll take you to the shop sometime this week, if you're interested."
"Sure," I agreed immediately. "I'm getting a little sick of my textbooks. I could use a good read."
Jane beamed at me. "So, Georgie, it's your night on dishes, which means the arguments against our ‘ridiculous draconian expectation' for you to do chores begin right about . . . now."
Georgie cleared her throat. "Since we last spoke, I have done some research on the topic, and it turns out that today's parents are actively discouraging their children from doing chores. The prevailing theory is that the expectation to contribute to the household heaps additional stress onto the kids, who are already overscheduled and overstimulated."
Ben and I locked eyes over the rims of our cups, grinning at Georgie's carefully organized, completely bullshit argument. She kept up this passionate discourse against dishpan hands throughout dinner and the carefully spiced dessert blood Gabriel had prepared.
"While your arguments might be compelling to a small percentage of blogger moms, I think I'm going to point out that you still have about six months of dishes to wash before you replace the flat-screen you pulverized when you failed level 829 in ‘Candy Crush' and launched your phone at the wall. Try again next week, Georgie," Jane said, pointing at the kitchen.
Georgie slumped away from the table, dirty dishes in hand, grumbling all the way.
"Now that dinner is officially over, here is Dr. Hudson's preliminary report, which he had Gennaro slip under my door as he was getting ready to go all Jersey Shore tanning bed on you."
"Are you doing this now so Georgie won't be able to hear?" I asked.
"No, I can hear you just fine," Georgie called from the kitchen.
"She can hear us just fine," Jane said, rolling her eyes a little as she slid a thick file folder across the table. "But now I can tell myself that we did have some uninterrupted family time."
///
Gabriel laughed but glanced over the report as Jane spread it out on the table. "Now, from what I can decipher from Dr. Hudson's science-speak, which I'm pretty sure he made more complicated than necessary just to be a dick-"
"Right?" I exclaimed.
She snickered. "You've got a lot of different genes thrown in there with yours, which is fun," she said. "Rattlesnake and shark and even a little lizard, plus some botanical samples."
"He was serious about the vegetables?" Ben groaned. "I was really hoping he was just going for a quip."