"Sorry!" Amy rushed into the kitchen and kissed the top of Lauren's head.

"Oh, Amy, you've been late for dinner before, it's not the end of the world," Maxine said, pulling a lasagna out of the over. "Besides, everyone else was late too."

"You almost done with your homework?"

"Mom, it's Friday..." Lauren complained from her stool.

"Sure, but if you get it done tonight then you can do more stuff over the weekend without having to worry about it." Amy said over her shoulder, pulling the wineglasses out of the cabinet.

"Oh! If I finish tonight can I go to the park with Chanel tomorrow?"

Amy put down the glasses and turned to look at her daughter.

"You walked right into that one, Amy," Maxine said as she carried the steaming dish into the dining room.

"Uh—yeah, I guess—" Amy stumbled, nodding. "But—but get it all done, ok?"

"Yeah." Lauren slammed her book closed and followed her mother into the other room. Amy followed and saw an unexpected guest sitting in the chair next to her daughter's.

"Hi, Sean," she said, looking at Maxine.

"Sean is under the misguided notion that he can no longer continue to date Courtney because I am having a disagreement with her father," Maxine said in explanation, "and broke a date tonight, after which I found him moping around the office and forced him to either call her back and meet her or come home for dinner with us. And here he is."

"I could go, if—"

"Sean, don't be ridiculous," Maxine said, sitting down at the head of the table. "You're practically family. And however incorrect your dating theories are, I do appreciate the thought... even though—"

"All right! All right, Sean did something nice, Aunt Max is having problems accepting, nothing new under the sun." Kyle said, coming in and sitting across from Sean. "Where's Peter?"

"Just hang on," came a voice from the living room. "We got a little held up."

"We?" Maxine asked, and Peter walked in with Shelby. "Shelby! How lovely to see you again."

"Hi, Mrs. Gray. Peter—Peter insisted I come with him for dinner after rehearsal. I told him I could just go home, or—if it's an imposition—"

"Nonsense!" Sean exclaimed, a bit sarcastically. "The Grays enjoy their dinner guests ever so."

"Only with a little garnish," Kyle clarified, and Vincent dropped into his chair across from Maxine. "You forgot the garnish."

"I'm interesting enough without it. Sean, good to see you again." Vincent shook his hand and Lauren and Amy sat down, gesturing for Shelby to sit across from Lauren.

"Well!" Maxine said, beginning to serve the food. "Here we all are. Now, I know Sean's story, but Peter, how did your friend come to be with us tonight?"

"Shelby's apartment was robbed," Peter said.

"Robbed? By who?" Lauren asked, panicking.

"By WHOM," Maxine and Amy corrected together.

"No, just my 17-year-old niece and her crazy friends," Shelby explained to Lauren. "It wasn't robbed, they just came over and ate all my food."

"We were going to go to a restaurant, but you can't beat mom's lasagna." Peter chimed in, raising his glass to Maxine.

"Thank you, Peter," she said, returning the toast.

"Hey, you know, if you guys ever need another singer," Sean started, but Maxine jumped in.

"Now, Sean, let's not make Peter and Shelby talk about work all night." She put down her glass. "Amy. How was your day?"

"They don't have to talk about work, but I DO?"

"You don't have to talk about work if you don't want to, you can—how is Mr. McLaren?"

"Oh, this is gonna be fun, you'll enjoy this," Kyle said to Vincent while Lauren coughed loudly into her napkin on nothing in particular.

"Well—all right, fine," Maxine said. "What—you know who I haven't seen in a very long time? Mr. Van Exel. How is he?"

"So Kyle, how's the bomb squad?" Amy asked in a desperate attempt to steer conversation in any other direction.

"It's not a bomb squad, it's a strike team." He corrected. "Always an adventure, at any rate—we had a situation blow up today, but—"

"Something blew up?" Lauren gasped.

"No, it's—you know," Kyle said, pointing his fork at his family members. "This job is not that dangerous. I probably won't get hurt nearly as much as I did at the hospital."

"At least at the hospital you had Dr. Lily looking after you," Peter said, spearing a piece of lettuce with his fork.

"I thought her name was Heather," Lauren said, and conversation stopped.

"That was someone else," Peter said suddenly, at the same time as Amy's "Does anyone want more wine?" and Shelby's "Did I miss something?" Maxine just continued to eat, very pointedly ignoring whatever had just happened.

"How IS Heather?" Vincent finally asked, and Kyle put down his fork. Vincent looked at his plate. "No, I'm—I'm just asking because—Carol called the other day and... she showed up on our doorstep looking for me and wanting to talk about you, apparently... or... something."

"Did Carol mention—anything about—how she looked?" Kyle asked, dreading the answer.

"No, didn't say anything, not about—" Amy cleared her throat and he thought better of finishing his sentence. "No, she—so Peter, how's the band coming along?"

"It is FANTASTIC," Peter said, "and we're thinking about trying out another city sometime soon, see how we're received."

"We think we could do really well in small clubs in maybe Chicago, maybe try St. Louis sometime, just to see." Shelby said, and Peter beamed at her. Lauren opened her mouth, but Kyle quickly cut her off.

"Why did she want to talk to YOU about me?" He asked Vincent. "She couldn't just talk to me directly? Do you know she ran off and I haven't seen her in—"

"Lauren, that is a lovely shirt you're wearing," Maxine said loudly. "Is it new?"

"Victor helped me pick it out," she said proudly. Amy choked on her wine.

"Did he?" Maxine patted Amy on the back. "How lucky to have a boyfriend with such taste in clothes."

"Having taste in clothes generally means something else when it comes to boy—" Sean started, and then withered under the glares from three generations of Grays.

"Ok. So. Who's this Heather character again?"

"No one," Kyle said, staring at his plate. Vincent toyed with his fork and said nothing. Then all of a sudden, Kyle threw his napkin on his plate. "I can't believe you kissed her."

"Who? You kissed who?" Amy asked, trying to keep up. "He kissed Heather," Kyle said, still looking at Vincent.

"She kissed me," Vincent said in an attempt to defend himself.

"You kissed each other—I was there, ok? Just because you and Carol were—"

"Who's Carol?" Shelby whispered to Peter.

"Mom, do YOU like this shirt?" Lauren asked, worried, and Amy reassured her quickly.

Maxine got up to answer the door.

Sean chewed thoughtfully, listening to three different conversations at once.

Kyle stood up and pushed his chair back and finished his argument with Vincent. "Look, I know what I saw, ok? And I know the facts. So don't go trying to pin it on anyone else, when you're the one to blame." He spun around and took one step toward the living room before Maxine walked in with the person who'd just knocked on the door, and he found himself face to face with Lily.

"Ooh." Said Peter softly to Shelby. "Now, THAT I did not see coming."