Page 18 of Dead Serious Case 5 Madame Vivienne

“Leigh neglected to mention that when I spoke to her last.” Danny’s scowl deepens.

“Honestly, if it wasn’t for Grandma, I think Mum might be tempted to move down here herself.”

“I’ll give her a call later,” Danny decides. “Why don’t you and Aidan start moving the food into the living room? We might as well move everyone in where there’s more chairs.”

“Are you sure I’m not interrupting anything?” he asks, glancing at the trays and trays of food.

“Not at all. Chan cooked way too much for all of us, so you may as well stay and help us eat it all.”

“Are you celebrating or something?”

“Actually, we went to a funeral this morning,” I tell Nick. “This is kind of her wake. We were really the only people she had in her life, so we figured we’d eat and get drunk in her memory.” I stop and my eyes widen slightly as I realise how that sounds. I still don’t know Nick that well and I don’t want him to think we use any old excuse to get shit-faced. “Notdrunkdrunk, but maybe mildly drunk. We are responsible adults, after all.” Dusty snorts loudly behind me. “You’re more than welcome to join us—with the eating, I mean. Not the getting drunk, obviously. Youmay technically be able to drink legally, but I’ve only just met your mum and I’d rather not get on her bad side if she likes to let kitchen utensils do her talking for her.”

Nick laughs. “Don’t worry. She loves you, wouldn’t stop talking about how happy she was for the two of you after you visited.”

“Aw that’s nice.” I smile; at least some of Danny’s family like me.

“How old are you exactly?” Chan asks Nick.

“Eighteen.”

“Eighteen,” he murmurs. His eyes flick toward Aidan, who is still staring mesmerised at Nick.

“So are you staying?” Danny asks.

Nick turns to Aidan, who manages to snap out of his stupor long enough to give Nick a shy smile.

“Sure,” Nick says, still looking at Aidan.

“Why don’t you two start taking the food into the other room then,” Danny says.

Aidan goes to pick up a couple of the platters, but Nick takes them from him gently. “I’ll take those for you. Are your hands sore?”

“Sore?” Aidan blinks.

“From burning them on the tray.” Nick’s mouth twitches.

“Oh.. oh!” Aidan replies. “No, they’re okay.” He picks up another tray and follows Nick from the kitchen like a puppy.

“Not very subtle, are they?” Sam grabs another Dorito from the bag and pops it in his mouth, crunching loudly.

Danny chuckles. “They’re still young.”

“Oh my god.” Chan closes his eyes and lets out a tragic breath. “I’m going to have to worry about them playing doctors and nurses, aren’t I?”

Sam snorts and chokes as he tries to swallow.

“Give them a break, honey,” Dusty says. “They’re still babies.”

“Dusty.” Chan fists his hand on his cocked hip and flips his long hair over one shoulder. “Do you remember what we were like at that age?”

“Oh, fuck,” Dusty winces.

“Yeah. Horny little monsters was what my sister used to call us. Trust me, considering how unsupportive Aidan’s parents were of his sexuality, I don’t know if anyone’s had the talk with him. But he sure as shit’s going to be getting the whole safe-sex presentation from me, complete with diagrams, a flow chart, and the condom and banana demonstration.”

“Oh my god.” I can’t help my snigger. “That poor kid. You might want to include an icepack for his face. He blushes just when Danny says hello to him. If you try to talk to him about gay sex and the wonders of the prostate, I’m pretty sure he’ll burst a blood vessel in his face.”

“Tristan’s right. Go easy on the kid,” Danny adds.