“What?” Logan questioned. “Why?”

“I’m asking because it must have impaired your brain. I thought about it with you because you wouldn’t give me a minute not to think about it. Every time I turned around, you were there.”

Awkward and tense silence greeted Tate after the final words left his mouth.

“So, you only did it because I was always there?”

Tate wasn’t quite sure, but he was almost positive that Logan sounded unsure, on the verge of vulnerable. That was something he’d never heard in him—ever. Logan didn’t strike him as the type of guy who usually poured his heart out.

“I did it because you got in my face and made me see how irresistible you are, regardless of your gender. And Logan?”

“Yeah?”

“I still think that, but now, there’s so much more to it. I really like you.”

The laugh that met Tate’s ears was devoid of humor and full of mockery. “Really? Ninety percent of the time you’re furious with me.”

“Yeah, I know. You drive me crazy because I like you,” Tate stressed. “A lot.”

“A lot, huh?”

Closing his eyes, Tate imagined—finally—the smirk he could hear in Logan’s voice.

“A whole lot.”

“Like how much?”

Tate started laughing. “What are you? Twelve?”

“No. I’m drunk or really close.”

 “So, now is when I should ask you all the hard questions?” Tate queried only half-serious.

“Do you have hard questions?”

“Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Sure then. Fire away,” Logan replied flippantly.

Tate heard the underlying tone, and he recognized it for what it was—caution. “Okay. What really happened with Cole today?” Tate hadn’t realized he wanted to share that burden until it came out of his mouth.

Logan sighed. “You heard everything that happened.”

“Yeah,” Tate agreed, “but I only understand half of it.”

Tate wondered if this was the moment when he would see that this all meant more to him than—

“Well, you know he’s my brother, right?”

Tate let out a sigh of relief. Logan wasn’t going to shut him out. “Yeah.”

“We didn’t know that until I turned eighteen, and our father’s trust was made known to me.”

Logan stopped talking, and Tate waited.

“And I already told you that his father had an affair…well, obviously, he didn’t choose my mother and I...”

Tate couldn’t even begin to imagine how that would affect a teenager. Not only growing up without a father, but then also learning that he had a whole other family? A family that included a brother he had never known about.

“The asshole died when Cole was five, so at least I never had to meet him…” Logan revealed, and his voice trailed off, leaving Tate to wonder if he really meant it.

“Anyway, you didn’t ask all of this.”

“No. Don’t do that,” Tate finally spoke.

“Don’t do, what?”

“Don’t change the subject or assume that I don’t want to know about you. Talk to me. Tell me.” Tate held his breath and waited, hoping that Logan would open up and trust him.

“Okay. You want the details? Let’s see…my mother never married. She told me that she had fallen in love once and that the pain she’d felt from loving someone she shouldn’t far outweighed any joy, so there was no point.”

When Logan paused, Tate had to ask, “Someone she shouldn’t?”

“Yes. Sounds familiar, huh?”

“As in me? I’m hardly married, you know that.”

“But you’re straight.”

Tate swallowed and remained quiet, not really knowing what to say.

“I promised myself, I’d never have regrets, like the one she had.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I didn’t care one way or another what you said. I was willing to try anything just to taste you once.”

Tate knew that to be the truth, but decided to ask anyway. “And how did that work out?”

“I haven’t regretted it yet,” Logan answered right away. “But that’s a different conversation. You want to know why Cole was upset. Hmm, well, I tracked Cole down the minute I got to college. He was just starting his second year, and he hated me as soon as I told him my name.”

“Well, that’s bullshit.”

“Is it? All he knew was that his father, a man he’d idolized, had left a college trust fund to another kid—his other kid. I would have hated me, too.”

Tate sat up on the couch and shook his head. “But it wasn’t your fault.”

“That didn’t matter. I represented everything bad that his father had done.”

“But you work together, so obviously, you get along now,” Tate queried.

“Oh yeah, I was a total pain in his ass the first month of college. Everywhere he went, I showed up.”

“Imagine that.”

Logan’s voice took on that same serious edge he’d had earlier. “When something is important, I don’t give up.”

Tate was about to pursue that, but then Logan started again. “Then, I found out where he was living off-campus, and I made myself at home on his doorstep until he talked to me.”

Tate couldn’t help the loud laugh that escaped him. He could only imagine how annoyed Cole had been to find Logan on his steps every day.

Then, Logan confirmed it. “He was furious. We got into a fight that first day. He punched me right in the mouth.” Logan chuckled. “I thought he was going to do it again today.”

And there they were, back where they’d begun. “Why? What made him so mad?”

“You did.”

And with those two words, Tate felt his breath leave him at the blunt confession.

* * *

Logan put the bottle down next to him and sat up. God. The alcohol was making him run his mouth even more than usual.

“What do you mean, I did?” Tate’s voice finally filled the silence.

“He’s worried about me.”

“Well…yeah.”

Logan ran a hand over his face and up through his hair. What the fuck? Might as well put it all out there. Tate heard everything anyway.

“You asked me the other night, if I’d ever dated anyone else…” He trailed off, finding that for the first time, he was uncomfortable with discussing his sexual encounters—well, this particular encounter. When Tate stayed quiet, he rushed out, “If I’d let anyone else be with me like you are. And obviously, you heard I was with a guy named Chris.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

Logan nodded and waited. When he heard nothing at the other end, not even breathing, he probed, “Tate? You there?”

“Yeah,” Tate sighed.

It sounded to Logan like he had been holding his breath.

“Sorry. I was just thinking.”

“About?”

“You and Chris.”

“And?”

“It pisses me off.”

Logan felt the nice buzz in his head finally relax him a little. “I told you, you’re always pissed-off at me.”

“And I told you why.”

“Because you like me,” Logan repeated Tate’s words from earlier. “A lot.”

“I like you too fucking much, Logan.”

Logan swallowed and let that admission warm the rest of his body. “Chris and I met at college. We had the same algebra class. I was good at it. He wasn’t. So, I tutored him.”

“In algebra and…”

Logan could hear the veiled question hiding in Tate’s comment.

“And nothing. I only taught him algebra.”

“But he taught you things?”

“He taught me everything,” Logan confided and sat back in his chair.

He tried to picture Chris in his mind, but he came up blank. All he could see were Tate’s brown eyes and unruly curls and the lips that snarled or smiled at him, and he had to stop and really focus to even remember who Chris was.

“I don’t like him,” Tate’s voice interrupted matter-of-factly.

“You don’t know him.”

“I still don’t like him.”

“Because…” Logan drawled.

“Because he had you,” Tate told him much more boldly than Logan would have expected. “He fucked you, didn’t he?”

Enjoying Tate’s jealousy a little too much, Logan answered, “Yes. Quite a bit.”