“What are you thinking about?” Logan questioned as their waitress walked away.

Deciding he needed to just have this conversation and get it out on the table, Tate replied with, “You.”

“What about me?”

“I want to know where you see this”—Tate indicated between them—“going. Is this just a quick hook-up to you? Because…I don’t know. I can’t just change my whole fucking life for a night in your bed.”

“How about for two?” Logan remarked flippantly.

“How about you get serious for a moment?”

Logan brought his arm down and moved to lean across the table. “I want you. Tell me how I can have you.”

Tate brought the beer to his mouth and took another swig of the contents. Slowly placing it back down, he brushed his knee against the leg pressed on the inside of his own. “For a night?”

Logan eyed him hungrily, and offered, “For as long as you want.”

With that, Logan bent his torso down over the table with his hands behind his back and opened his lips wide over the shot glass in front of him.

Tate watched with rapt attention, as Logan lifted his head and swallowed the sweet contents of the drink in one gulp. Reaching up with one hand, Logan took the glass from between his lips, but before he lowered it, he made sure to stick his tongue as far into it as he could, licking clean all of the creamy liquid from the inside. When done, he placed it down on the table, brushed his thumb along his bottom lip, and smirked.

Tate was equally frustrated and turned-on by what Logan had just done, but at the same time, he was still unsure of everything he was feeling. So, he remained silent as Logan casually sat back and once again, placed his hand along the seat.

“Hmm, always gotta make sure you lick up every last drop. Don’t want to waste the end of a good blow job.”

Tate cleared his throat, pulling himself out of the sexual haze he was in and blinked across at him. “Is that right?”

“Well, that’s my rule anyway.”

“To lick up every last drop?”

“Of you?” Logan asked with a cocky wink. “Count on it.”

Stretching out both hands, Tate shuffled the bottle back and forth between them as he chewed on his lip.

“Okay, let’s come back to that later. How about you tell me a little about yourself?” Logan prompted.

Tate couldn’t help the burst of laughter that left him.

Logan raised a brow. “What’s so funny?”

“I was just thinking about how long it’s been since I’ve gone on a date.”

“So, this is a date?”

Tate shifted in his seat and looked around to make sure no one was listening. “Well, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know. Do I get to kiss you at the end?”

“Logan, come on, be serious.”

“I am being serious.”

Tate lifted the bottle again, and this time, he finished the beer as he waited for a better answer than what he’d just been given.

Then, Logan gave it to him. “Yeah, it’s a date. I’m out with someone I find extremely attractive. I’m going to buy him dinner, and hopefully, walk him outside and kiss him good night.”

“Walk me outside, huh? In case I get mugged in the big, dark, scary alley?”

Logan’s eyelids lowered until the look he was aiming Tate’s way lit a fire in his stomach and made his cock weep.

“No. So, I can kiss your fucking brains out and then watch you get on your bike and drive away. I’ve been fantasizing about seeing you straddled over that vibrating piece of metal since you walked into the bar with your helmet.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. You have the whole sexy-rebel thing down.”

Tate shook his head. “Rebel? Not me. I’m straight as they come.”

Logan barked out a teasing laugh. “That’s way too easy. You can’t just hand me lines like that and expect me to sit here silently.”

“I would never expect you to be silent—anywhere. Tell me something about yourself. You said Cole’s your brother? Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”

Logan shook his head as the waitress appeared with their food. She slid the wings down in front of Tate and placed the cheeseburger down for Logan.

“Would you like another beer?”

He was about to answer when Logan spoke up, “Yeah, grab him one, would you, hon?”

She smiled down at Logan before spinning to walk away.

“I can order a beer, you know,” Tate pointed out.

“Yeah, but then I have to watch her drool all over you.”

“Jealous?” Tate joked, grabbing a piece of celery and dunking it into the bleu cheese dressing.

“Yes. I want you drooling all over me.”

Baring his teeth in a grin, Tate bit down on the vegetable and chewed slowly.

“Cole is my only sibling, to answer your question. And he’s my half brother. We met when he turned eighteen.”

Bringing the celery back to his mouth, Tate finished it. “Why eighteen? Or is that too personal?”

Logan grabbed the ketchup bottle, shook it a few times, and then put some near his fries before dipping one into the sauce, and stuffing it into his mouth.

“Hungry?” Tate questioned around a mouthful.

“I’m fucking starving. I missed lunch, remember?”

Tate picked up a wing, pushed it into the blue cheese, and then brought it to his mouth. After taking several bites, he dropped the bone back onto the plate, and then he began to lick his fingers one by one. Once they were all clean, he looked back across the table to find Logan had zeroed in on the finger closest to his mouth. Feeling relaxed and playful, Tate took a moment to suck that one back into his mouth and make a big show of it.

Logan coughed and shifted on his seat before focusing once again.

“I lived with my mother. She had a relationship…well, affair, I guess you would call it, with our dad when Cole’s mom was pregnant. He remained married to Cole’s mother, and they lived as one big, happy family.”

“Oh…wow.”

“Yeah. Great guy, huh? Such a shame he’s dead.”

Tate could tell by the clipped way Logan had finished that particular story that the subject was now closed. Trying to think of something to say, he decided that eating seemed like a good fallback plan when Logan picked up his burger and took a bite.

Silence. Sometimes it was much more effective at solidifying a bond than all the talk in the world.

* * *

Logan sat quietly as he took a third bite of his burger, and internally he cursed at himself for being a giant asshole. It wasn’t Tate’s fault that he’d just happened to ask him the one thing that pushed all his buttons.

He could tell Tate was trying to think of something to say, but he seemed to have given up for the moment. When the waitress appeared with two more beers, neither of them acknowledged her. This time, they were just sitting in brooding silence.

Come on, man, snap the fuck out of it. You finally have him sitting across from you, and you’re screwing this up!

Lifting his beer to his lips, Logan opened his mouth and continued on the fucking stupid route of doing everything wrong this evening. “So, how long were you married?”

Tate had been halfway to bringing a wing to his lips but paused and glanced at Logan, lowering it back down to the plate. Wiping his hands on a napkin, Tate slowly picked up his Corona and took a long gulp.

“Sorry,” Logan told him. “That’s none of my business.”

Rubbing a hand over his face, Logan thought, Why am I screwing this up so badly? I’m never like this, especially with people I want in my bed. Get with the program, Mitchell.

“Four years.”

The words came out like a curse, and as Logan met Tate’s eyes across the table, Tate continued, “I spent three and a half of them trying to work out how to leave.”

“And in the end?” Logan asked curiously.

“I woke up one morning, opened the front door, and walked out.”

“Just like that, huh?”

Nodding, Tate answered, “Just like that.”