‘Oh, we are so not going to waste time talking about dusty professors and boring classes, unless they’re sexy, sexy classes. Let’s get to the important info. Do you hate it enough to come running back here to us yet? And yes, I’m actually kind of hoping that will happen, sorry, but we miss you loads, Claire.’ Eve, always quick to cry, had a glimmer of tears in her eyes. ‘It’s not the same around here with you gone.’

‘She’s right,’ Michael said. He would have probably gone on, but Eve put her hand up in front of his mouth.

‘Sorry, just need to clarify … what was that you said?’

‘That you were right.’

‘Ah. I thought you said that. Just wanted to be sure. Although I think you left out the word always, there, and I know you meant to add it in,’ Eve said. ‘Just trying to be helpful.’

He managed to hold back his sigh, but only just, and leant forward into the camera. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘could you please tell my lady here that she doesn’t have to harass me all the time?’

‘Sorry, I do have to. It’s part of the marriage vows. Didn’t you read the fine print? To have and to harass.’

‘Honey, I hate to break it to you, but you need glasses.’

Eve smacked him, which meant exactly nothing to a vampire; he did her the courtesy of making it seem like he actually noticed. When she tried it again, he caught her hand, held it, and kissed it. Well, that was hotly romantic, and Claire felt the temperature notch up a couple of degrees between them. ‘Um, you guys, get a room.’

‘Got one,’ Eve said, and smiled so serenely she looked like the Mona Lisa. ‘Got several, and trust me, we’re working on breaking them allllllll in …’

Claire put her hands over her ears. ‘La la la, can’t hear you!’ Then she took her hands down and said, ‘Wait a second, my bedroom?’

‘Couldn’t exactly use Shane’s, could we? It smells like sweat socks and Mentos in there. Besides, if he found out about it, that would be a whole lot more strange conversations around the dinner table than anybody really needs.’ Eve waved it away. ‘Okay, enough about our luscious sex life, about which you don’t want to hear anyway. Amelie invited us to be on the new Morganville City Council. Takes the place of the old vampire-themed one, and it has to be more than fifty per cent humans. I guess they figured including me and Michael would send a message about how seriously she was taking this whole new let’s-be-nice-to-each-other thing.’

‘So how’s that going?’