“We have a reservation for Josiah Evans,” Tristan told the woman who stood behind the desk. He wasn’t sure why Tristan would have given Josiah’s name, but he wasn’t going to let it bother him, either. Not tonight.

She led them through the main room that was full of people. Tristan and Josiah were behind him, as he realized he’d stepped in behind her first.

“Here you go,” she said as she led them into another room. It was pretty obvious that it wasn’t typically a private room by all the chairs, tables and space inside. At least not for such a small party.

“Yeah...thanks,” Mateo told her. He stood there not sure what to do, but then she pointed to the man behind the bar.

“You can taste there, or if you want to sit at a table, you can.”

“We’ll sit,” Tristan replied for him.

Mateo tugged on his collar again, even though it was looser now. He would never get used to this shit, and he honestly wasn’t sure he wanted to. It wasn’t his thing...but here, tonight, a part of him was glad for it.

They sat at one of the small, round tables before the man behind the bar came over with a wine menu.

Teo let his eyes skate down the names. “I don’t know what any of this shit is.”

“Read the descriptions. See what sounds good to you. If you want, I can help you pick, but you should choose what sounds good to you first. We get to taste six.”

Teo went down the list—red wines and white wines, some with hints of chocolate, and a light taste of spice—and he wondered how the hell there could be so many different kinds of wine out there.

“If you wanted to get us drunk, there were other ways to go about it. Tell him, Jay. Hell, you don’t even need to get us drunk.” Teo hoped to get smiles out of them, which he did.

“Josiah and his mouth, and you with your damn stubbornness. I don’t know what I’m going to do with you both.” Tristan raised a brow at him.

“I think you’re doing just fine,” Josiah tossed back at Tristan.

“Shh.” Tristan eyed the menu. “Pick.” He paused a second before saying... “I used to come here, when I first moved to California. By myself, of course. When things felt like they were too much, I would come here, drink wine, and try to forget about everything else.”

In that moment, Mateo couldn’t even pretend to be pissed at being here anymore. Not when he knew this was another piece of Tristan, one that he wanted to share with them.

So even though he didn’t know what the hell he was doing, and he doubted he would like any of this shit, he picked a wine to taste. It had a spice to it that was too bitter for him. And then another, that almost tasted heavy. They gave them crackers and talked about mixed flavors, and Teo wondered how people could enjoy drinking something that had a science to it.

But when one glass was empty, he ordered another, and another. They talked, and soon he stopped pulling at the stupid, fucking collar on his shirt. It was when he got to his sixth wine, sweet and rich, that he perked a little when he tasted it. Mateo took another drink, then another.

“You like it, don’t you?” Josiah asked him.

He looked at Tristan and then Josiah. “Fuck...I think I do.”

Tristan didn’t say that he told him so. He just ordered two bottles of the wine before they had dinner.

He hadn’t felt like he was someone else tonight. He still felt like Teo. Tristan shared this piece of them with him, and even though it wasn’t something he would have chosen to do, he fit with them.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Josiah

Mateo took pictures of everything—Josiah, Tristan, the sand, the ocean, birds, cliffs; whatever he saw, he took a picture of. Often Josiah and Tristan watched him. Josiah wondered if he saw the world differently through the lense of his camera. If it let him get close to things that he wouldn’t typically, but with a buffer between him and the object. Did the world look like a different place? A safer place? A place he felt like he fit more when he looked at it through the camera?

“He’s obsessed,” Tristan said to Josiah as they walked down the beach. They were all in sweatshirts to keep warm, but it was perfect to Josiah.

“He’s beautiful.”

“That, too. I think he’s looking for beauty, like you said.” Tristan’s voice had this far off sound to it. Like he was experiencing what Mateo did, or was thinking about it. Like he wished he had it. As though he was proud but jealous at the same time.

Josiah reached over and threaded his arm through Tristan’s. “I usually am right.”