Page 6 of Playing With Temptation

Ethan, because he’d become a single dad at sixteen when he took on the responsibility of raising his daughter, Carson, without the help of her mother. His family had stepped up in a big way, but Ethan was determined to bear the brunt of raising his daughter.

Two days later, when we sat down with Stacey to follow up on the call she’d made, she told us she didn’t get the job she’d applied for. Ethan stepped outside to make a call. When he came back in, he handed Stacey Matt’s contact info and told her there was a job waiting for her if she wanted to wait tables. She’d taken Ethan up on the job offer, but not my offer to help her track down a rental in a better part of town.

That was two weeks ago, and in those two weeks, we hadn’t been able to nail Tate down.

“Where did you see him?” Ethan asked.

“He was getting out of his car when I was pulling out of my driveway to come here.”

Ethan was already pushing away from the bar before Stacey had finished.

With a lift of his chin to Matt and Chelsea, he refocused on Stacey. “Was he alone?”

“Yeah.”

I fished my wallet out of my pocket and tossed a twenty on the bar. “Thanks for the drink.”

“It was water,” Chels reminded me. “You know, the free kind out of the tap.”

“Add it to your Holiday Extravaganza fund,” I told her as I skirted around the stools.

“If you think twenty bucks is going to buy you off my list, you’re wrong.”

It was time to find a new place to drink. Not that I had a lot of time to drink. Hell, I couldn’t even down a glass of water before duty called.

“Stacey. Thanks for the heads-up,” I told her and followed Ethan, who already had his phone out, undoubtedly texting his wife, Honor.

“If you have to get home to the wife and kids, I can hit up Tate’s place without you.”

Ethan lifted his head, speared me with a look that said I was a dumbass before he wordlessly went back to texting.

“You drive, I’ll call the station on our way there,” he told me. “We’ll swing back around so you can drop me off when we’re done.”

I didn’t have a good feeling about his plan.

I knew Ethan. There wasn’t much he’d give up an evening with his family for. A night out at a bar when neither of us could drink, meant he had something heavy on his mind.

As soon as Ethan finished his call to the station and hit me with his opener, I was suddenly grateful for the interruption at the bar and the short ten-minute drive to Tate’s.

“Everything good with Shay?”

I had less than zero interest in talking about my ex-wife. And that wasn’t me being a dick or holding onto long-ago, forgotten grudges. I just didn’t have anything to say about her.

“We share kids. Nothing more.”

“So, you being quiet these past few weeks has nothing to do with her getting married?”

That was a fuck no.

“What? Do I normally talk your ear off?” I asked.

“Deflection. So, you do⁠—”

“I do not give a shit she’s getting married. The only thing I care about is the kids. Hunter’s good to Juni and Cole, they like him, so there’s nothing more to think or feel about the situation.”

That wasn’t true. I was also happy the woman was giving up my last name, which she’d threatened to do during the divorce but she’d never followed through. I couldn’t say why this mattered to me, but it did. Maybe because at one time it had been a representation of us—family, unity, love. Then she shit all over the relationship and broke us.

“If it’s not Shay, and the kids are good, what’s going on?”