The Brothers Rule - Carolyn Faulkner Page 0,36

here. You might as well be family." Adam smiled.

"You may well be family at some point—" Ryan grinned.

Jace cut him off from wandering down that mine filled road. "So, would you like to join us? We'd love to have you."

"Sure, but I should change," she offered a bit tentatively.

"Only if you want to," Nick told her. Not that he wasn't unaffected by her, but he would have been just as happy if she appeared at the table in her pajamas and robe. She looked incredibly cute in them. He was fighting the fact that he found her very attractive, and he knew that his older brothers had prior claims on her that were already entirely too entangled for him to let anyone know that. "Tonight's all about being comfortable and having fun."

"Thank you. I'll be there in a minute."

"Great!"

One of the things that everyone had come to love about her was that she wasn't a fussy woman, and she took Nick at his word. When she reappeared, to be escorted to the table as if it was a fine dining establishment by Ryan, the host, she was wearing a pair of old but clean pink Juicy sweats, comfy and warm pink boot socks, and a pink and white t-shirt that had seen better days and said, "I am a delicate fucking flower", which had the younger guys snorting.

Jace cleared his throat pointedly at her, but Laurie, who was sitting to his right and next to Tanner, just looked back at him calmly.

"Nick said wear what's comfortable. This is comfortable. Not to mention excruciatingly accurate," she grinned, winking at Jace when he grumbled back at her.

It was a veritable feast before her. The table was literally laden with food from end to end—egg rolls, fried rice, Moo Shu pork, boneless ribs, Kung Pao chicken—all of the usual favorites.

"I forgot to ask you what you might like, so I got you cashew chicken. I hope that's okay?" Ryan asked.

She smiled at him. "Of course, it is!"

As usual, she ate about a tenth as much as everyone else did. She was amazed to see that the boys had mowed their way through almost all of the Chinese food by the time they were finished.

She stood to help clear the table and put stuff away, half expecting to hear someone tell her not to, but everyone got up with her except for Ryan, who was busy getting the games arranged.

Laurie was getting used to the physicality of operating around so many big men, too, and she was developing her own defenses because of it. She kept her elbows at the ready, as they did, although the problem was that they were so much taller than she was that instead of hitting her in the ribs, as they would with any of their brothers, they were likely to catch her in the side of the head, for which she smacked whatever part of them was closest.

Not that she hesitated to dig her sharp elbow into their sides whenever she needed to get one or more of them out of her way.

In fact, since she was the one who was in the kitchen most, she took over, issuing orders about what went where and how things were to be stored in the fridge. They were just going to keep everything in the paper containers they came in, but she got out the plastic so it wouldn't soak through.

And, to her amazement, they all obeyed her, pretty much without question.

When they all settled back around the table—everyone with their favorite drink close at hand—Monopoly was the first game, always played early on in the evening before everyone had had too much to drink.

Tanner won it, but then she won the Yatzee tournament, as well as Trivial Pursuit. They played a vicious game of Uno, then went on to Skipbo and Sequence, ending with everyone's favorite, poker, which was played as penny ante only, so that very little money was ever exchanged. It wasn't about the money—it was about the bragging rights when you won a big pot!

Aside from helping with the main meal, though, the guys got up more often than she did, never forgetting to ask her if there was something they could get her each time, so she was waited on like the queen she was.

Ryan had been feeding her gin and tonics, but when they started to play poker at the end of the evening, everyone was doing shots of tequila, which she joined