“No one was terrible to you,” Mom said. “Heck, Logan, we hardly got to see you.”

“Exactly!”

“You hated visiting us,” Daniel said.

“Because you all made me feel like I didn’t belong.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Mom said. “You were always welcome in our home.”

“Your home. It was never my home.”

The three of them stared at the table, the tension so taut Logan expected at least of one them to snap like an overtightened guitar string.

“Are you going to give me the money or not?” Daniel asked.

He didn’t know. He was feeling a bit vulnerable and a lot put on the spot. He wished Toni were with him for moral support and to help him consider his options logically so he wouldn’t simply run on blind emotion. “I might consider loaning it to you . . .”

Daniel shook his head, looking like a cornered rat—desperate, scared, and more than a little scummy. “You always were a selfish brat.” He shifted sideways in the booth. “Let me out, Mom. I need to go to the bathroom.”

Mom looked from one of her sons to the other as if she’d just discovered they were both adopted and her memories of their births had been implanted by futuristic scientists.

“Mom,” Daniel prompted.

She slid from the bench to let him out and surprised Logan by slipping into the spot next to him. Daniel headed for the bathroom, and Mom took Logan’s hand, squeezing it reassuringly.

“I had no idea you felt excluded from the family, Logan. I thought you didn’t want to come visit us. I figured you felt you needed to be loyal to your dad and that’s why you were so miserable whenever we saw you.”

Logan snorted on a laugh. “You give me far too much credit; my emotions have never been that complicated. I was jealous as hell of Ray. He was closer to Daniel than I ever was.”

Her arm went around his back. “You wouldn’t think that if you had to live with those two,” she said and offered him a smile. “Why didn’t you ever tell me how you felt, sweetheart? I missed you so much.” She brushed a curl from his forehead, the simple gesture clogging his throat with emotion. “I hated your father for being a cheating bastard, but I hated him even more for keeping you away from me.”

“He didn’t do it intentionally,” Logan said. He knew he was partially to blame for keeping his true feelings bottled up inside himself for so many years.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” she said. “Now, about Daniel . . .”

“He can have the money.”

“I don’t want you to just give him the money, Logan. You make him pay you back.”

Logan traced the rim of his coffee cup with one finger. “Oh? What made you change your mind?”

She rubbed a hand over one eye. “I’m scared he’s going to do something crazy,” she whispered, “and I didn’t want to set him off by not siding with him.”

Logan scratched his forehead. “But it’s okay if I set him off?”

“He expects you to be tough on him, Logan. Just don’t be too tough, okay? He idolizes you.”

Sure. That’s why he never called.

“So what am I supposed to do, Mom? Stretch out his payments for decades and don’t charge him any interest?” Logan asked.

“If you’re okay with that.” She smiled at him hopefully.

Logan nodded. “I’m okay with that.” Hell, his current feelings of happy contentment were well worth a hundred grand to him. But if Logan started giving Daniel free rides now, he was sure to come back for more.

“So what’s this about a tabloid?” Mom asked, reaching across the table to draw her untouched cup of coffee toward herself.

Logan shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. Someone got a hold of personal information about the guys in the band and smeared our names all over the tabloids. All the hoopla will pass in a few weeks.” And by then hopefully Toni would be back on tour with them. He already missed her terribly. “I know it’s rude, but do you mind if I make a quick phone call? I’m starting to worry about my girlfriend. She should have called by now.”

Logan wasn’t sure if it was the idea that he had a girlfriend or that he was capable of worrying about someone besides himself that had his mother staring at him in wide-eyed shock. She waved a hand to indicate she didn’t mind his rudeness, and he pulled out his phone.

Logan was smiling, anticipating hearing her voice, when after a few rings his call went to her voicemail. Strange. Was she rejecting his calls? Why would she do that?

“You have a girlfriend?” Mom asked.

“Well, I did. But I think she just rejected my call.”

“Is her ringtone ‘Milkshake’ by any chance?”

Logan went still, and then turned his head to offer his fidgeting mother an inquisitive stare. “Yeah. How do you know that?”

“I kind of answered your phone while you were in the shower. And I might have said something she probably took the wrong way.”

He dialed Toni again, and this time the phone barely rang once before he was sent to voicemail again.

Logan growled in frustration and slammed his phone on the table. “What did you say to her, Mom?”

“I didn’t realize you were serious about her. What kind of man sets ‘Milkshake’ as his girlfriend’s ringtone?”

“The kind of man you gave birth to.” And Toni wouldn’t let him use the sound of her climaxing with his cock in her mouth, so this had been their compromise. He dialed Toni for the third time. This time he didn’t even hear a ring; his call went directly to voicemail. Which meant that either her battery was dead or she’d shut off her phone to avoid talking to him. He had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that it was the latter. He knew he should have gone after her the night before. “Toni,” he said to her voicemail. He hated leaving messages, so he kept it as brief as possible. “Please call me as soon as you can. It’s important.”

He hung up and scrubbed his eyes with both hands before trying to smear the gloom from his expression by drawing his hands down his face. “Please tell me what you said to her, Mom. She’s very sensitive.”

“She asked me who I was,” his mother said. “And all I said was I was your entertainment. I figured she was one of your fangirls and I was doing you a favor by suggesting you were with someone.”

“You told her you were my entertainment?” Well, Toni would definitely take that the wrong way. Hell, was there even a right way to take such a claim?

“She went completely silent for a minute or two. I thought she hung up.”

“She’s obviously upset,” he said. “She won’t even answer my calls.”

“Let her cool off and try back later,” Mom said, patting Logan’s knee under the table. “I see our breakfast coming this way.”

He didn’t feel much like eating. Not even the plate of fluffy biscuits set before him. Daniel returned just as the waitress set his meal in his empty spot. He flopped down into the bench like a petulant toddler.

“Logan has decided to loan you the money,” Mom said, “but not charge you any interest. Isn’t that nice of him?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s swell,” Daniel said, his tone thick with sarcasm. “I hope he agreed to give me fifty years to pay it off.”

“Is that acceptable?” Mom lifted her eyebrows at Logan.

“Works for me,” Logan said. “I’ll have my accountant send you a check and whatever documents are required. I figure a year’s grace period ought to give you time to get your feet beneath you before you have to start paying me back.”

Daniel sagged into his seat. “That’s fair,” he said. He began digging into his breakfast like a man who hadn’t eaten for days. And maybe he hadn’t. Logan was relieved to see a bit of color return to his brother’s cheeks. And he was oddly satisfied knowing he’d been able to help him out.

Normally Logan would have enjoyed his nostalgic biscuits drizzled with honey and the congenial chit-chat he shared with his family, but the idea of Toni thinking he was being entertained by another woman had him entirely distracted.