After pushing the covers aside, he then walked out into the kitchen to grab a glass of water. Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d be able to fall back asleep for a couple of hours before the sun decided to rise.
When he was halfway to the kitchen, a quick rap of knuckles on his front door brought him to a halt. Thinking he must’ve been mistaken, he continued across the hall until, again, there was a firm knocking more urgent than the last.
What the—
“Okay, okay,” he called and ran a hand through his hair.
Once he’d reached the door, he switched the light on and winced at the bright glow that reflected off the cream paint. With one eye closed, he pressed the other to the peephole and was shocked to see Logan standing on the other side.
He’d been expecting a neighbor who’d locked himself out, not the broody man who’d dropped him home and kissed him on the cheek. Actually, now that he thought about that…
He pulled the door open, and Logan’s eyes widened in stunned surprise.
“The cheek? You kissed me on the fucking cheek when you said goodnight to me earlier. What was that about?”
Logan studied the road ahead, anywhere but at his passenger, as he weaved through the traffic. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Tate shifted in the seat beside him, and Logan knew he’d turned to look at him. That was one thing he loved about Tate. If he was coming at you with the truth, especially the hard stuff you didn’t want to hear, he never backed down. He always did it with his eyes on the target.
“I don’t understand how you managed to just sit there for the rest of the night and act as if everything was okay. It was as if it didn’t even bother you, seeing him or talking to him. I guess I’m just…confused by how easy you made it seem. That’s all,” Tate said into the dark confines of the car.
“It wasn’t easy. Acting like that,” Logan said, thinking back to the way he’d forced himself to smile and greet everyone who’d stopped by their table. It was a miracle he’d even managed that much considering he’d wanted to find Chris and tell him to take his business and shove it up his ass.
“It sure seemed that way. ”
“Well, it wasn’t,” he reiterated. “Tonight was supposed to be about you and me. I was simply choosing not to play his games. ”
“By letting him have the last word?” Tate asked, his tone rising with his incredulity.
“Yes. If the choice was between a brawl or a public retelling of my past, then yes, he got the last word tonight. Not me. ”
“Fuck that,” Tate spat out, disgusted all over again at the entire situation.
“What would you have had me do? I was one of the hosts. The people in that room conduct their business though my office. Tell me, Tate. Do you think they want to see me or my boyfriend in a fight with my ex?” Logan demanded, turning to see Tate’s pissed-off expression before returning his eyes to the road. “They want to trust the person they pay thousands—sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars, too—to protect them. What kind of message am I sending if I can’t conduct myself like an adult for five fucking hours? Now, drop it, would you?”
