Kathryn sipped her wine and smiled. 

"Other than present company, I agree."

Merci hops off the counter and adds some angel hair to the rolling boil of water, turning down the heat and shielding the other women from view as she shakes some garlic salt into the pasta water. It was her dumb secret and she wanted to keep it. 

"There's no shame in your game. Do what makes Gracie happy. Or do WHO makes Gracie happy. Then immediately call your beasties and dish the details," she says, sliding a look at @Kathryn and trying to convey that this should be a collaborative effort. 

Gracie shrugged, "As soon as there is something to tell," she said emphasizing the word to, "Then I will." she blushed again and took another sip of wine. "But as Kat here is aware, I'm pretty oblivious to things," she said pushing her hair out of her face and then setting down her wine glass. "But right now, I need to get out of this latest problem before anything else."

Kathryn smirked.

"I believe I offered to help you with that oblivious stuff, Gracie. Anytime you want. You know we're here for you."

She grinned at her two best friends, "Thank god Merci loves olives, otherwise we'd never have met." she told them both, "Honestly, thank you for being here." 

Joe walked into the kitchen with a slight blush creeping up his neck though he did his best to hide it. He held a bottle of wine in one hand and his scotch glass and a bottle of scotch in the other. 

"Smells wonderful ladies. More wine?"

So saying he refilled everyone's glass before setting the bottles down on the counter and taking a long sip out of his glass before leaning down toward Gracie and lightly whispering

"The day you want there to be more to tell all you have to do is say the word."

She tried really, really hard to keep a straight face, but unable to control her reactions she felt a small smile form on her lips and then her face go red as she turned her head to look at Joe, resisting the urge to fan herself.  "I'll...I'll keep that in mind," she told him with a nod. She lifted her wine glass to her lips and downed about half of it in one go, hoping that maybe that would make her slightly less awkward. Maybe. Probably not though. Then she took the wine bottle from the counter and topped off her glass before asking, "Are you here to check out the pipes or do you want to help cook?" as she gestured to the food. 

Joe stood back straight as Gracie drank a substantial amount of her wine and smiled at her.

"Put me to work, I always did enjoy cooking - though I make no promises about how much you may like my cooking." 

Joe chuckled slightly

"What can I help with?"

She found herself staring at Joe, watching his mouth as he spoke. It took her a second, but she caught herself and bit her tongue hoping the pain would clear her head a bit. "Right, food." she said hoping no one had noticed, "Well I need to finish up this salad, but I'm sure you can figure out how to cook another pot of pasta and brown up some sausage, right?" she asked him. 

Joe watched Gracie closely and hoped he was reading her eyes correctly - but he would wait and see were that might lead. 

"Pasta and sausage, that sounds simple enough." 

Joe grabbed a large pot from below the counter and set water to boiling before grabbing a skillet and placing it on top of a burner. Adding olive oil, garlic, rosemary, and letting it heat up until the oil was staring to pop slightly. 

As the oil was heating he had chopped up two sweet red peppers and onion which he added to the oil and began to saute. As the peppers and onions started to cook slightly he added the finely ground sweet Italian sausage and fried it on high until the sausage had started to brown. Turning the down the heat he chopped up three large tomatoes and added them to the pan and continued stirring regularly until they began to cook down. He then covered the frying pan and lowered the heat to medium low too allow the sauce to continue slow cooking until the pasta was done. 

"Should be good to go in just a bit."

She blinked in surprise, "Holy shit," she whispered to Merci and Kat, "He can cook." she watched him work her kitchen while sipping her wine. "Well, you might have gone into the wrong business." she told Joe with a smile, "That smells amazing." She looked around at a loss of what to do now, "I suppose I should go see how the others are faring," she told them, "give me a shout if you need help carrying stuff out." she looked at her two best friends and mouthed the word, "wow" before exiting the kitchen and looking for Curry, "Have you found anything interesting?" she asked him before nudging the bag of her belongings with her foot. 

Kathryn and Merci quickly walk out of the kitchen and spin Gracie around, giving her a gentle push back towards Joe. Kathryn leaned in and whispered in Gracie's ears.

"Go cook with him. When in doubt, ask questions and actually listen to his answers. We'll chat with Curry."

Giving Gracie a light tap, Kathryn exchanges a smile with Merci before turning to The Courier.

"So, Curry, like Grace said, find anything interesting?"

The Courier had his head deep inside the cutlery cabinet when he heard Kathryn's voice ask the question. He chuckled, and responded without turning to look at her. "Aye, I've emptied the cash register, but 'tis nothin' compared to what I've just found. Lil' Gracie doesn't know a bargain when she sees one." 

He steps out of the cabinet and turns to Kathryn, holding a fork in his hand. "Now I don't know where she got these from." he tells Kathryn, holding up the cutlery. "But, these right here are pure sterlin' silver. I don't know if she's aware of 't, but she's been feedin' her customers like royalty." 

Grace stood in the doorway of the kitchen, frozen as she watched Joe move around the room as if it belonged to him. She was startled into moving when the swinging door came back and hit her on the rear end. She gave a little yelp and moved further into the kitchen. She leaned against one of the counters, a decent distance away from Joe and racked her brain to think of anything to ask him, "So, do you often burn buildings down?" She finally settled on before shaking her head slowly and silently berating herself. 

Joe stood considering her question for a moment before he laughed briefly and smiled at Gracie. 

"I can't say I make a habit of it, but I've torched a place or two when the need arose."

Joe quickly checked the pasta and saw that it needed to cook for slightly longer so turning to Gracie he asked

"You have any french bread around here? What we need with this is a little bit of garlic bread."

Gracie shook her head, "Of course you have." she said to him before rolling her eyes, "I don't think I'll ever get used to this." She said to him as she walked a bit closer and then pulled open the oven door, "Looks like Merci's Garlic bread is just about done. That woman, is a saint. When they said "Lord have Mercy", they meant her and her garlic bread." She told him. "Although if you want to make more, I won't stop you, thats for sure." 

Joe looked in confusion at the oven for a moment before his eyes slid over to Gracie who was bent over looking at the garlic bread to see if it was done. As she turned back to him and spoke he quickly looked away blushing slightly. 

"I think the one bit of garlic bread should be enough. What are you not sure you'll get used to? The, shall we call it, loose association with the law?"

She chuckled and closed the oven, "If you say so, although I could probably live off garlic bread." she told him as she stood up. "And yeah, this is all pretty new to me." she shook her head, "Still coming to terms with the fact that the people I spend time with have probably actually done time." she snorted, "I'm not one to judge, but its just so different from the lofty social circles I was forced to be a part of back in Philly, ya know?" She said to him/ 

Joe pondered for a moment before replying

"I honestly can't say I do sadly - my entire life I was brought up around this thing of ours. My father was involved and his before him and as far back as I can recall ever hearing about. I imagine it must be a bit of a culture shock though if I go by what some of my client's might think. 

Joe chuckled slightly

"Feel free to tell me it's none of my business, but, mind if I ask what got you involved? I mean, doctors don't normally wind up hanging around mobsters do they?"

"Family history, I get. Thats why I'm a doctor." She told him, "And, oddly enough, I killed a man that Merci and Kat were trying to kill, but I did it on accident." She shrugged. "Then someone tried to kill Kat, Merci got shot instead and I saved her life." She thought back to that time, what felt like years ago and grinned, "I got fired because I broke a few rules, but I moved out here, found Kat and Merci on accident and here I am."