I nod slowly. “Okay.”
Mason shifts slightly, his gaze softening. “You shouldn’t be handling this alone.”
“I’m not,” I say automatically, then pause. “I mean—I have Joelle—”
“You have us, too.”
I swallow, my eyes dropping briefly to my hands.
“We were thinking,” Brookes says carefully, “if you don’t want to be here on your own, you could come stay with us.”
My head lifts.
Mason nods. “Just for a bit. No pressure. No expectations.”
My first instinct is to refuse. I can feel it rising out of habit—independence and the need to hold onto normality.
“I can’t leave everything,” I say.
“We’re not asking you to. But you could take some vacation. Or sick days?” Brookes says quickly. “Have you eaten?”
I blink, thrown by the shift. “Just lunch.”
“I’ll make dinner,” he says, already standing. “If that’s okay.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I want to,” he replies simply.
I watch him head toward the kitchen, moving through my space with an ease that feels good.
Mason shifts closer on the sofa, brushing my ankle lightly. “Sit back.”
I frown at him. “What?”
“You look like you’re about to fall over,” he says. “Put your feet up.”
I hesitate, then I do it, because arguing feels like more effort than I have right now.
He lifts my feet into his lap without making a thing of it, his hands warm as they settle around my arches. The first press of his thumbs makes me inhale sharply, tension unraveling in a way I’ve never experienced before.
Mason Fletcher, big, bad cowboy, is giving me a foot rub while his brother prepares a meal. It’s as though I’ve slipped into another dimension where up is down and down is up, and rough ranchers are domesticated. A different kind of Bermuda Triangle where cowboys are gentle and emotionally intelligent.
“Better?” he murmurs.
I let my head fall back against the cushion. “Yes.” It comes out breathy and a little too much like what I gasped when he was inside me, and his brother was playing with my clit.
His mouth curves slightly, but he doesn’t push it. He keeps going with perfect pressure.
In the kitchen, I can hear Brookes moving quietly, the sounds of chopping carrying through the space between us.
For the first time all day, my thoughts start to slow.
The panic is still there. The uncertainty hasn’t gone anywhere.
But I no longer feel like a plastic bottle tossing back and forth in the ocean. The appearance of these men has given me an anchor of sorts. They said the word options, then Brookes made a light suggestion and left it with me.
I could take some time off. Give myself the time and space to think this through.
