Trust (Temptation #3)(97)

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.