My first thought, seeing as I was female and these thoughts usually took precedence above all others, was that these guys were hot. Not hot, per se, if you were talking the average sense of the word. Hot in the Brock sense of the word, which was to say mouth-watering, off-the-scales hot.

My second thought was they not only shared hotness quotients with Brock, but both of them in different ways also had the wild man, dangerous man aura.

For some reason, Brock was communing with his brethren and the serious vibe pulsing in the room said it wasn’t over beers, war stories, and nostalgically reminiscing about the bitches they’d tagged.

This was something else.

“Hey, babe,” Brock rumbled. “This is Hector Chavez and Vance Crowe, friends of mine.”

“Hey guys,” I greeted.

To this I got a “Yo,” from Vance Crowe, the Native American man but the Hispanic man just gave me a chin lift.

Definitely Brock Brethren.

I hefted the bags up over the back of the couch and dumped them on the seat then turned to Brock, pulling off my knit cap, and immediately running my fingers through my hair in an effort to fix or hide any possible hat head. “You need me to find something to do in the bedroom?”

“No.” He shook his head and said softly, “Come up here, darlin’.”

Damn.

Just as I thought, that something else had to do with me and/or it was not good news.

My eyes did a sweep through the male talent in my man’s kitchen and I found myself having the curious reaction that not a lot of females would have. That was that I would rather go out, get in my car, and track down Martha and Elvira to drink cosmos than take off my coat and join the three best looking men I’d seen in my life in my man’s kitchen.

Regardless of that, I nodded, unbuttoned my coat, and took it to the hall closet that separated the downstairs to the boys’ rooms with the upstairs to the kitchen. I hung it up and headed into the kitchen.

The moment I got near, as usual, Brock claimed me with an arm around my waist, pulling my front to his side, and I noted all the boys had bottles of Bud.

“You want a beer?” Brock asked and I looked from the counter to him.

“I was thinking hot cocoa.”

He grinned but he didn’t commit to it. I knew this because it didn’t reach his eyes and it didn’t hit the room.

Damn again.

“What’s up?” I asked quietly.

“Some shit went down today, babe,” he answered.

Crap.

“What shit?” I asked.

He looked to his brethren then back down at me. “Olivia got the letter from my lawyer.”

I found this confusing or, more to the point, this reaction confusing.