Page 60 of Love Is Brewing

She laughed while her coffee was brewing. Just a tiny one. Guess she was going for the powerful shit. He needed one of those too.

“I never thought of that,” she said. “I’ll have to consider it. About last night…”

“Oh boy,” he said, trying to make light of it. “Let me sit down for this. You’ve got your lawyer hat on. See, there is that elementof surprise. I look at you and see the passionate woman in my bed shouting out my name.”

Her face turned red and he loved he was able to do that to her.

“I’m still that person, and no professional hat on. I just wanted to talk for a minute.”

“Says no attorney ever,” he said.

“Is this yours?” she asked, moving toward the bread on the counter.

“Yours,” he said of the toast that he’d buttered. “If you don’t like it that way, there is more cooking. The eggs are almost done.”

She grabbed the toast that was ready. “This is good,” she said.

He found a plate. “Did you want eggs?”

“No,” she said. “You can have them.” He dumped them all on the one plate, the toast popped and he took care of that and sat next to her at the table. “Go on, hit me with it.”

She closed one eye at him. “Nothing to hit you with. I normally talk about this before and sort of lost my head with you. I seem to do that a lot.”

“The ‘you better not be sleeping with someone else while you are with me’ talk?” he asked.

She’d been sipping her espresso and looked over the rim of the small cup. Her light brown eyes were staring hard into his. “Yep.”

“No worries,” he said. “It saves me from bringing it up to you.”

“Oh really?” she asked, leaning back.

“Yep. I don’t share. I’ve never been good at sharing anything in my life. Ask my mother. She’ll tell you.”

“I think I’ll pass on the conversation with your mother about this,” she said, grinning.

“Good move,” he said. “If that is all you wanted to say, don’t worry about me. My mother would kick my ass too. And now I realize I talk about my mother a lot and probably sound like a wuss.”

“No,” she said. “You don’t. There are a lot of you in the family and you’re the closest to her. I’m willing to bet she leans on you more than anyone else.”

Funny how even his family didn’t get that.

“It happens,” he said. “I’m there for her if she needs me, but she rarely does.”

“But you still check in on her to find out if she’s fine,” she said. “I know it. You don’t have to admit it. I can see it on your face.”

“I do that,” he said. “We all do. Well, no. Not everyone.”

His younger brothers didn’t think of it much. West was often too busy half the time to check in with anything more than to see if their mother was financially set. Braylon talked more, but he wasn’t close by to do much, the same with Foster.

Which left him and he was fine with it.

Maybe it made him feel less like the fifth kid when he had the responsibility on his shoulders to help out.

“I get it,” she said. “Everyone has to do what works for them.”

“I only care about us,” he said. “And what works forus.” He finished his eggs and was biting into his toast. “I need to get home to shower and change.”

“Oh,” she said. “You don’t want to go to work in yesterday’s clothing?”

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