Blood Brothers

Entertainment

I jerked awake and panicked for a moment as I realized I had done exactly what I had said I wasn't going to do. I relaxed when I identified the low voices in the kitchen as Katherine and Ciro. I also smelled something delicious. I gravitated towards the kitchen and got a pair of glowing smiles as Ciro and Katherine broke from their rolling conversation to greet me.

"Evening Thomas. Sleep well?"

I grimaced at Ciro as I took the seat next to him at the kitchen table. "I didn't mean to fall asleep."

Katherine pulled something out of the oven that smelled of sweet pastry and apples. She glanced over her shoulder at me with a smile as she set down the pan and picked up a bowl with a whisk sticking out of it. "I told you, I do not need to be coddled."

I frowned at her back as she worked over her pan. "It's not coddling. It's protection." She just chuckled as she started moving whatever she had made to a plate and turned, licking her fingers as she set the plate on the table and sat down herself.

"I can protect myself too. Help yourselves."

Ciro dug in without further prompting, lightly picking up one of the apple turnovers she had just finished drizzling with icing and breaking it open to help it cool faster. I raised a brow as he blew over one side a couple times, then bit into it. He closed his eyes and moaned in bliss, despite the fact that it was obviously still too hot.

I sighed and shook my head as I picked up my own, breaking it open and letting it cool. Katherine happily took her own and bit off a corner, delicately licking her lips as she resumed her conversation with Ciro. "So she caught you flirting with the other woman...?"

"Oh. Yes! Caught me flirting with the other woman and slapped me right in the face. Then got into such an awful row in the middle of the street that someone called the police. I guess they thought someone was being murdered, what with all the screaming. And then, when the officer gets there, he takes one look at the two females, then comes over to me and asks if I need to be taken into protective custody."

Katherine laughed. It was mesmerizing. I dropped my gaze back to my turnover and took a bite, refusing to entertain those sorts of fantasies.

"And now?"

"They both dropped me. But I can get a date anytime I want so it's not that big of a deal." He hesitated as he took another bite, then slowly volunteered. "Poor Thomas here just got dumped too. He needs to find himself a new girlfriend."

Katherine glanced at me and I flushed a little, distracted from glaring daggers at Ciro. "I am sorry to hear that."

Ciro brightened up, asking with suspicious casualness. "Do you have a boyfriend?"

"Shut up Ciro."

"What?!"

Katherine laughed again, shaking her head as she glanced between us. "I have a girlfriend, back in France." She took another bite of her pastry as we stared at her in shock, completely at ease with who she was and who she loved. Her grey eyes met our gazes without a single hesitation or hint of unease.

Ciro abruptly huffed in amusement and shook his head. "Imagine that." He took another big bite of pastry before changing the subject. "Well then, my Lady, is there anything you would like to do this evening? Sitting around the house hardly seems like agood time. We would be happy to escort you wherever you desire."

She hummed thoughtfully as she swallowed her bite and shifted the pastry in her hand. "Do you have a cinema here? J'adore cinema."

Ciro grinned and nodded. "The movies it is."