Standing, Josiah pushed his things into a bag—the mail he needed to send out and other important papers. After making sure the letter was in place, he pulled the bag onto his shoulder. Josiah made it all the way to the door before his cell rang. Glancing at the screen, he put the phone away, not bothering to answer, knowing no one would be there anyway. Because since the first day those calls started, they hadn’t stopped, and they were all too fragile right now for Josiah to add something else into the mix.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Tristan

“You need to leave work and go to the Wharf.” Tristan glanced down, rereading the letter.

“Why? What’s wrong?” Tristan recognized the panic in Mateo’s voice.

“It’s okay. Or, I think it’s okay. Josiah is there. He said he’s not coming home, and that we need to meet him at eight.”

It would be empty at their spot down at the water by then, everyone inside due to the cold November nights. Would it rain? His mind flashed back to the night, years ago, he’d walked by the water late, picked Josiah off a bench in the rain, and taken him home with him for the first time. Living with Tristan had been Josiah’s home ever since that night.

“Fuck.” Mateo cursed into the phone. “I’ll be there.”

Tristan knew exactly where Josiah would be waiting for them. He and Mateo met by the street, the shadow of a body with its head bowed, on a bench, under a light hundreds of feet in front of them.

“He’s angry...he’s hurt,” Tristan said.

“He’s got the right to be. Let’s go.”

They walked, no sound except their feet on the concrete as they went. Josiah didn’t say anything as they reached him, just stood and started walking, leaving Tristan and Mateo to do the same.

“Remember the night you found me down here, on my birthday?” Josiah asked as they moved down the dark path.

“I do. I thought of that when I saw your letter,” Tristan replied.

“It was close to the beginning,” Josiah told Mateo. “I was alone...so damn alone. I needed you. I think I needed Tristan, too, even though I didn’t realize it at the time. He already meant something to me. He’d stopped coming around because we kissed, and yeah, like I said, I was alone. Tristan walked through the rain, soaking one of his expensive suits, and found me down here. He carried me to his car and took me home with him. I think I knew that night that I would fall in love with him.”

Tristan heard Mateo suck in a deep breath, no doubt painful.

“I never shoulda left you, Jay. I know that.”

It was with Mateo’s words that Tristan realized he’d done the same thing. He left Josiah after their kiss. He left Josiah when he refused to take their relationship to the next level, when he’d not been able to tell him he loved him. When they first started fucking, and he told Josiah that’s all it would ever be.

“We’ve both left you in different ways. We’ve both hurt you.”

Josiah stopped moving. “And you’re both doing it again. You’re leaving me out of whatever is going on between you. You’re breaking us apart, and you won’t even let me help. We’ll never be as strong apart as we are together. Maybe that’s not the way it should be, but that’s the way we are.” Josiah took a deep breath. Tristan saw Mateo reach for him, but Josiah pulled back. That one movement was a sharp knife through Tristan’s chest.

“It’s pretty incredible, how we work,” Josiah continued. “It’s a tricky balance, the uneven dips and bends only made okay because they’re something we all want. I love how Teo will always be gentler with me physically than he is with you, Tristan. I love that you don’t feel that need to be the same way with me, and it will always turn me on to see Mateo, those tender hands on me, be rougher with you. I love that you and I can share wine and Mateo will never fully have that connection, yet he likes sharing it time with us. Sometimes I lie awake at night and know the two of you are in the office talking, that you’re sharing your pain, even if it’s not a pain you share with me. I’m still a part of it because it’s what makes us fit. It’s those curves and edges that make the pieces mold together. But this?”

Josiah shook his head. “This isn’t part of it. This isn’t a mutual balance or lack thereof. It’s the two of you, changing our shape, making it harder for our pieces to make a whole.”

“Josiah...” He was right. Tristan knew he was right, but couldn’t find the words to fix it. Could he tell Josiah what he’d done? Could he stand for Josiah to know that about him?