“Give me your hand,” Josiah said. The second Tristan did it, he recognized the shape of what Josiah laid there. The bird he’d given him.

“Give me yours, too, Teo.”

“Fuck that.”

Mateo must know as well.

“It won’t change anything. Take it.”

Tristan watched as Josiah set the queen in Mateo’s hand. Watched Mateo fist it.

“Te amo, Josiah. Ambos te amamos. No digas eso. No hagas esto.”

Josiah gave a humorless laugh. “Talking Spanish to me won’t get you out of this one. Tell me what you said when things are better. And I can’t come back until they are. You both know how hard that is for me to say. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, is to hold us together, but I can’t do that on my own. This is the only way I know how to fight for us this time, because we can’t work unless we’re all on the same page.”

One, two, three, four five. Onetwothreefourfive...

Over and over Tristan counted those same five beats, as though they were all he had. Josiah was out of sight by the time he heard Mateo cursing in Spanish beside him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Mateo

If Jay were here, he would know how to start this conversation. The thing with both Teo and Tristan was that neither of them were all that great with words. The car ride home he’d been too pissed to talk. Josiah was gone, and it was their fault. They’d fucked up. Jay didn’t ask for much, yet he and Tristan still screwed it up.

Mateo sat in the dark living room, like he had for hours. Tristan went straight to his office when they got back. Mateo knew he needed to go talk to him, knew they needed to figure this shit out. They had to find a way to fix it, but it was like someone filled his legs with cement. He couldn’t lift them. Fuck, he couldn’t move them at all.

It wasn’t just his legs, though. His whole body was weighed down. The look on Josiah’s face as he’d said he was leaving was all Mateo saw. After all this shit, after everything they’d been through, it still got fucked up.

Why the hell had Tristan tried to drag Mateo’s past into their lives again?

Why is my past so fucked up that it’s an issue?

There had to be a reason Tristan didn’t tell him the why of it, but if they weren’t in danger, what the fuck else could it be?

Mateo’s body jerked forward, sitting up straighter at the quiet groaning he heard from the other room. The sound got louder, making Mateo jump to his feet. The extra weight in his body was suddenly gone, or maybe he fucking busted his way through the cement in his body. Whatever it was, Mateo rushed down the hall, stopping when he laid a hand on the doorknob to Tristan’s office.

He pushed it open without knocking. Tristan slept in his chair, still in his goddamned suit. He twitched, moved restlessly, no, no, no, no rolling off his lips.

Mateo was struck immobile for a moment.

“One, two, three, four, five.” Shallow breath. “It doesn’t matter.” Shallow breath. “I’m not here. I fucking have to be here.” Tristan continued to mumble words, faster, louder. His head shook in his sleep, a silent “no” to go with the verbal ones.

“No!” He groaned louder this time, and with that, Mateo was moving again.

His chest was tight, painful, as he brushed his hand down the side of Tristan’s face. “Wake up, mi pieza perdida. You’re dreamin’. It’s Teo. I’m here.”

Tristan’s eyes jerked open, wide, frantic, as he looked around the room. As though he expected someone else to be here besides Mateo. He pushed to his feet, the chair slamming into the wall behind him, pacing the room. Dios, Mateo could see him fucking shaking from here.

Damn if the tightness in his chest didn’t get worse, if he didn’t somehow feel part of whatever was going on with Tristan, too. He guessed they all did that—felt each other. Josiah must have felt the tension between them as well, only he didn’t know what it was.

“Tristan.” When his lover didn’t reply, when he didn’t even look at him, Mateo said, “mi pieza perdida.”

With that, Tristan stopped moving. He watched Mateo, stared at him like he was a fucking stranger. No, maybe like he’d found an unexpected anchor.

And then Mateo lost him again. Tristan looked away. Leaned against the wall, and slid down it, sitting on the floor.

The man in front of him didn’t look like the man he knew. Tristan was strong on the outside, always so fucking sturdy on the outside, no matter what was going on inside. The only time he’d looked like this had been the first night Josiah fucked him, months ago, and even that had been different.