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He especially liked cooking for Jem.

He could eat, too, if he had to, like at the dinner party Jem wanted to throw the coming weekend, now that they were fully moved in. Jem wanted to invite Nick’s family over, in particular, especially Nick’s parents, since they’d hosted them for dinners over the last six or seven months and Jem felt they were overdue.

Nick snorted at the thought.

He knew his mother would absolutely love the house.

She and his father would walk through every room, pretending to admire the architecture while they snooped on his and Jem’s life together. Nick didn’t really mind; his parents adored Jem, and they’d been surprisingly accepting about his sudden desire to live with a man, when he’d only ever dated women before.

Even so, he fully expected his mother to leave brochures in strategic places as she insisted on hinting massively about children and different ways he and Jem could use a surrogate to have a baby of their own, with at least some of their genetic material included. He didn’t know how to break it to his mother that that wasn’t going to work with either Jem’s seer DNA or with Nick’s vampire whatever-the-fuck now ran through his veins instead of DNA.

Adoption was a possibility, but he and Jem were in no way ready for that.

That was a while off for both of them––years, at least.

Right now, Nick was much more invested in convincing Jem to let him keep the dog.

Alaska? Blanche? Tinkerbell? Freia?

What about Winter?

Winter might work for a white dog.

His headset chirped.

Nick exhaled, already knowing who it was, and not only because he could see the ID with the virtual interface. He’d been looking forward to a quiet, non-chaotic morning, with him finding creative ways to cajole his boyfriend into letting him keep the cute, sweet, well-mannered doggie he’d found.

Reluctantly, he touched his ear.

“Tanaka.”

“Where the fuck are you? Where’s Jem?”

Nick grunted. “Mornin’, Quentin. How are you?”

Black blew past that like he didn’t hear it.

“We’ve got a new client. I’ve got stuff I need from both of you fuckers. Why aren’t you here?”

Nick rolled his eyes up to their high ceiling. It was slightly rounded, with pale blue trim, the ceiling itself painted a bone white.

“Because it’s our day off,” Nick grumbled. “Because we don’t come in on our day off. Which is pretty much the definition of aday off––”

“Well, day off’s been revoked. Boss prerogative. Get your ass down here.”

“You can’t just change our schedule, as if––”

“I can, though,” Black said. “I’ll make it up to you. A week off when it’s over. Two, if you’re going to be a fucking baby about it.”

Nick, inexplicably, and annoyingly, fought not to laugh. “What if we have plans?”

“Doyou have plans?”

Nick’s jaw clenched. His canines extended just the slightest bit.

“No,” he finally admitted, annoyed. He glanced at the dog. “Not exactly.”

“Then what the hell are we even talking about?” Black growled. “Why are you fucking with me right now, Tanaka?”