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he started thumbing through the pages once again. “Cass Cavanaugh.”

Two
    â€œYou two should be on an island somewhere,” Cole grumbled, dropping into a chair. “Those looks you’re passing between you gotta be making everyone in this place damn uncomfortable.”
    â€œWhat looks?” Sheridan asked, turning away from her fiancé to stare confusedly into the faces of her new family, who were all clustered around a table inside the decently packed Bull’s Eye.
    Cole just snorted. Love. It made his lip curl. The idea of it. The weakness of it. Could slice you in two, drop you to your knees if you gave in to it. How the hell his brothers had fallen off the face of the earth into that pit of bullshit he’d never know. But he wanted no part of it. Ever.
    Leaning in close to Sheridan’s ear, Cole’s brother James bit the lobe gently. “I think he’s referring to how I look when I’m staring at you, honey. Hungry,” he added on a growl. “And not for food.”
    Cole groaned. “Come on. I just got here. Can I at least order something before the two of you make me puke?” He grabbed a menu and ripped it open. He was starving. That’s what eight hours a day of training did to a guy.
    â€œGot a bug up your ass, little brother?” Deacon inquired dryly, one brow raised over amused green eyes.
    â€œBecause I don’t want to bear witness to your mutual descent into the hell of wedded bliss?”
    Deacon’s lips twitched. “That’s cold.”
    â€œI’d say so,” Mac agreed, her blue eyes sparkling as she slipped her arm through Deacon’s.
    Of course she’d say so,
Cole thought. His sister-in-law, who also happened to be the forewoman of the Triple C, was all happy and agreeable now that she’d married her childhood crush. Forget the fact that her new husband had only a few weeks earlier tried to destroy the one thing she loved above all else. The Triple C.
    â€™Course, Deac wasn’t interested in that anymore.
    Love
.
    He sneered. Changed things for a while maybe. But it wasn’t something a person could count on to last. The pain would find you soon enough.
    â€œDon’t pay him any mind, y’all,” James said, scooping up his beer and taking a swig. “He’s one week from a fight.”
    Tipping back his hat, Deacon’s eyes widened with understanding. “Ah, right.”
    â€œWhat?” Sheridan asked, looking from one brother to the next. Deacon’s beautiful assistant had been around the brothers for only a short time. She had a lot to learn. Not that she wasn’t capable. Filly was damn smart.
    â€œWhat’s the one week about?” she continued.
    â€œFists Cavanaugh here is just livin’ in the world of the deprived, is all,” Deacon told her with a grin.
    â€œPoor baby,” James added, his ocean-colored eyes flashing with the opposite of sympathy.
    Shithead.
    Cole ordered a burger with cheese but no bun from the passing waitress, then turned back to his family—the ones who had called his ass home tonight. “First of all, go to hell. Second, let me know when y’all are done chappin’ my ass, ’K?”
    Mac looked utterly nonplussed as she popped a French fry in her mouth. “Someone better clue me in here. Was/is Cole poor and/or deprived?”
    Sheridan, who was seated on the other side of her, explained, her business voice cranked up to high, “I believe it might have something to do with the rules fighters follow before a match. The things they abstain from.”
    â€œYou got it, honey,” James said, dropping a kiss on her cheek.
    â€œLike what?” Mac asked.
    â€œOh, come on,” James said on a laugh. “You ain’t that innocent, are you, Mac?”
    She reached past Sheridan to punch him in the arm. “Shut up.”
    James chuckled. “Your woman’s got some power behind that