“Just a few more minutes?” His eyes pleaded. “Then I’ll go in.”

“Fine. But after that, you’re finishing your homework.”

“Sweet!” Ben shot a few rapid baskets. “So how long do you think it’s going to be before she’s not mad at you anymore?”

“How long was it before you started liking me after I took you off the streets and made you start bathing regularly?”

Ben snickered and passed the ball back to Giovanni. “Not as long as I acted. The food was a lot better at your house.”

Giovanni snorted. “Better than the randomly purloined hot dog? I should hope even my cooking beat that.”

“Well, it was close, but—hey!” Ben dodged the ball that Giovanni threw at him. It hit the wall of the garage and bounced back toward Ben. Giovanni grinned at the boy’s sharp reflexes, which had been part of the reason he’d been such a successful pickpocket until a little over a year before.

“I’ll go start dinner. Come to the kitchen in a few minutes.”

Giovanni walked back in the house and went to start a pot of water to boil. He had little interest in food that night, but because he was determined to civilize Benjamin as much as possible for a twelve-year-old boy, he had made nightly dinner at the table a priority.

When he’d found the boy in New York, Giovanni had spotted his wasted potential almost immediately. The urchin had stolen his wallet, and if Giovanni hadn’t had preternatural senses, he would have easily gotten away with it. As it was, he’d let the boy have the wallet, followed him, and done some investigating.

Ben was the illegitimate son of a con woman and a cabbie. After looking into both parents and talking to the boy, Giovanni decided that neither one of them was deserving of his help—or their own child. One physically abusive and the other a manipulator, they had passed on to Ben little more than the ability to fend for himself and lie convincingly to authorities.

Giovanni, however, had seen the sharp intelligence and survival instinct the boy exhibited and decided he deserved more than to be chewed up on the streets of the city. On paper, Ben had become Giovanni’s nephew, the son of his deceased brother and his wife, who had died in a tragic car accident the year before. They had spent the previous year resolving the details of the adoption and catching Ben up on the realities of his new world.

The boy barreled into the kitchen just as Giovanni finished putting the jar of sauce on the spaghetti. He set it on the table along with a salad he’d put together from a bag and a bowl of olives.

“Spaghetti again?”

He cocked an eyebrow at the boy. “Tomorrow night you can cook. Besides,” he said as he flicked the back of the boy’s ear as he sat at the table, “you’re an Italian now, you need to eat lots of pasta.”

Ben snorted and dug into the food. Giovanni watched him scarf down his food with gusto; it reminded him of how much Caspar had eaten at that age. It had been harder to find food for Caspar in postwar Britain, but with the proliferation of American all-night markets and Ben’s natural independence, the two of them managed just fine.

“I’m not Italian, really,” Ben said between bites. “I’m Leba-Rican.”

Giovanni smirked at the boy’s quick wit. Ben was half Lebanese and half Puerto Rican, but their coloring was close enough that no one questioned their relation. The only difference was Ben’s dark brown eyes, which had always reminded Giovanni of Beatrice.

“You might have to be the one to convince her,” he mused.

“Convince who? Beatrice?”

“Mmmhmm. You’ll have to convince her I’m not a complete bastard.”

“Well, technically,” Ben said between bites, “we both are.”

Giovanni flicked the boy’s ear again. “You know what I mean.”

Ben paused and set down his fork. “You know, if we were friends and then you went away and I didn’t see you for five years, I’d be pretty mad, too.”

“You don’t have to worry about me leaving you, Ben.”

“I know, but she—”

“It was important for her to have time on her own. Without all the vampire stuff, as you like to call it. That’s part of why she came here.” He paused. “It’s complicated, Benjamin.”

Ben smirked a little before he began eating again. “That’s always what grown-ups say when they’re not sure they’re right. So did she decide all that? Or did you? ‘Cause you’re pretty bossy, you know.”

He decided to change the subject. “It’s a good thing I am, or you’d never finish school. Finish up your dinner, then go upstairs and do the rest of your work. Do you need help with anything?”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“If you do, I’ll be on the patio talking to Carwyn.”

“Okay.”

“No video games until after your work is finished. None.”

The boy rolled his eyes. “I got it, I got it.”

Taking the bowl of olives and a glass of wine with him, he went outside to the large covered patio that spread across the back of the house. He’d set up a rotary phone connection there, which he used to dial his friend in Northern Wales.

“Uncle Gio!” Carwyn answered. “How’s the boy doing?”

“Well,” Giovanni sipped his wine. “Very well. His studies are coming along, and he hasn’t run away since the last time I called you.”