He refused to look away from the man who still had his hand. When Tate’s father shook it, his mouth twitched at the side. And he floored Logan by saying, “Yes. I can see that you are, son.”

Logan wondered if he’d imagined what he just heard, but when Tate put a hand on his back and his lips by his ear, saying, “You can let go of his hand now,” he knew he hadn’t.

Did his dad really just call me son? he thought, and released his hold.

When Tate’s father chuckled, Logan reached for the tumbler in front of him and downed it. So Tate poured another glass for him, clearly sensing he needed it, and then started asking questions.

“You said Mom was over at Jill’s? What’s that about? She didn’t know I was coming.”

“No,” his father agreed. “She didn’t. But ever since…”

As his words faded, Logan lifted his glass back to his lips. He didn’t think what was about to be spoken aloud was going to be anything good, and he wanted to be a little more inebriated before it was voiced.

“Dad?” Tate urged. “Just say it. Ever since what?”

Logan cleared his throat, hoping in some way to dissuade Tate’s father from speaking—it didn’t work.

“Ever since you woke up in the hospital and she found out Logan had been coming to see you—that I had been letting Logan in to see you—things changed.”

Tate rested his hands on the counter and asked, “Changed? How?”

“Tate,” Logan warned softly, not at all comfortable witnessing this conversation.

“It’s okay, Logan. He deserves to know. Your mother… She’s staying with Jill right now.”

“What do you mean?” Tate asked, and then he looked over at Logan as if he knew what was going on—which he certainly did not. “She left because of a decision I made? That’s…that’s—”

“Not what happened,” his father interrupted, grabbing the bottle from Tate. He poured himself a much larger serving than before and then turned to Logan and added to his glass, saying, “He can drive you home. I think you need this as much as I do.”

Awesome, Logan thought and sat his ass down on the barstool at the kitchen island.

“Tell me what happened,” Tate said as his father reached for the pack of cigarettes on the table.

He held them out toward Tate, but he shook his head.

“I quit.”

His father turned Logan’s way and asked, “This your doing?”

Logan wasn’t sure if he was about to get in trouble or be praised, so he stammered a little. “I…ahh…may have mentioned something once or twice.”

Tate laughed at that, and when Logan glanced up at him, he caught him rolling his eyes.

“Do you disagree?”

“No. You just make it sound like you suggested it so nicely.”

“Didn’t I?”

“No. You told me to ‘do us both a fucking favor and quit.’ So I did.”

Logan thought about that and then, arrogant as ever, said, “I don’t see the problem. You quit, didn’t you?”

Tate smirked at him in a way that made Logan feel like they were the only two people in the room. “I did.”

“And I only mentioned it twice.”

Tate poked his tongue into the side of his cheek and nodded. “Sure, counselor.”

That was when Tate’s father spoke up, reminding Logan that they weren’t, in fact, alone.

“However you managed it, I’m glad for it.” He then turned to Tate as he lit up. “These things will kill you, you know.”

Tate shook his head and opened the window above the kitchen sink. The gesture seemed routine to Logan, as if the two of them had done this before when Tate had either lived there or visited.

“Dad, what happened with Mom?”

Logan looked between the two of them and then waited silently.

“She moved out a little while ago.”

Tate’s eyes crinkled up on the sides as if he were trying to understand what his father was telling him, and then he got his brain in order and managed to ask. “Why?”

When Mr. Morrison faced him, Logan raised the full glass to his lips and downed the third helping of bourbon. As it burned a fiery path down his throat, he felt a nice buzz start in his head and thought, Yeah, I just love being the reason for families to split. It seemed to be his specialty.

Tate stared at his father in shock as he waited for an answer. This was the last thing he’d expected when he’d walked in here tonight. He’d thought they would spend the evening trying to get his parents to accept them into their lives. Instead, there he was, sitting in the kitchen he had grown up in, asking where his mother was.

“We disagreed on something that was rather important.”

Tate walked around the counter until he was standing in front of his dad and asked, “Me?”

His father raised his cigarette to his lips, took a drag, and then nodded. “Yes. You, son.”

Tate said nothing as he placed his palm on the counter—he’d even forgotten he had told his father not to call him that. All he knew was that in that moment, the man standing in there was the same one he’d admired as a boy.

“When you first came to us with Logan, it was a shock. A big shock. It was hard to comprehend that you’d gone from being a married man to being—”

“With a man?” Tate supplied.

“Right. And we didn’t react well at all,” his father admitted as he turned away from him, almost as though it were easier to say it if he didn’t have to face him. “I’m ashamed of how we acted that day, and I’m even more ashamed of the way I treated you when you came back to see me.”

Tate glanced at Logan and found him sitting still as a statue on the stool as if he were afraid to breathe. He knew the feeling. He wanted to know where his father was going with all of this, but he was also terrified to hear the truth. So he waited patiently.

When his dad got to the sink and pressed the butt of his cigarette into it, he hung his head as if feeling the shame he’d talked of. “When I saw you lying in that hospital bed, I knew there was nothing that was going to stop me from having a relationship with you again.” He leaned up against the sink, crossing his ankles out in front of him. “I couldn’t believe that I might lose you, and the last thing I’d ever said was—”

“I was no longer your son,” Tate whispered as he approached him. “Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“What happened with Mom?”

“She…”

Tate nodded and said softly, “She doesn’t agree with you, I assume?”

“No. She and Jill still feel as they did before.”

“But you don’t?”

As his father stood tall, he reached out and clasped his shoulders. He wrapped his arms around him, and Tate felt his heart break a little as he said in his ear, “You’re my son. And this man—he loves you.” When he pulled back, Tate saw the tears in his eyes. “He wants you safe and happy. I may not fully understand it, but how can I not support that?”

He looked over Tate’s shoulder, and when Tate turned to search out Logan, he saw that his blue eyes were glassy—from tears or the third drink, he wasn’t sure.

“She needs to decide what’s more important to her. But my family comes first, and Tate, you’re family.”

Tate hugged his father, and as he stepped away, he raised a hand and swiped at a tear that had managed to escape. Then he had a thought, one he knew would take not only his mind off all of this, but Logan’s too.

“Is my guitar still upstairs?”

“Yes,” his father replied. “It’s in your room.”

As Tate walked over to the island, he asked Logan, “Want me to show you the guitar I brooded over as a boy?”

Logan gazed past him to his father as if seeking permission, and the gesture was so unlike him that Tate thought that it was absolutely endearing.

When he stood, Tate snagged the bottle and said, “We’ll be back in a minute, Dad.”

“No rush. It’s your house too.”

Tate nodded, and when he turned back to Logan, he raised his eyebrows impishly and said, “Follow me.”