Sexual attraction was a potent feeling. When he added in his love for Josiah, and his...Craving? Respect? Need? for Mateo, he wondered how they’d made it this long without falling into bed together again.

A couple weeks went by, and every night that Mateo wasn’t at work he had dinner with them. Each night Josiah asked him to stay. Offered the spare room. But Mateo always said no. And Tristan always found himself sad at the thought of Mateo going back to that small hotel room alone. The house felt quieter, calmer without him, and it suddenly felt a little lonelier, too. It was on one of those nights, as he and Josiah sat at the table, that his lover asked, “You like having him here, don’t you?”

Yes, danced on his tongue, yet still Tristan struggled pushing admissions like that from his mouth. Instead of replying, he grabbed Josiah’s chair and pulled it closer, until their legs touched. “It’s been entirely too long since I’ve kissed you.”

Josiah let Tristan take his lips. Let Tristan’s tongue take over his mouth. Josiah released a deep-throated moan like he so often did when Tristan kissed him.

Tristan’s cock hardened, but part of him wanted to just keep kissing, too. He loved the feel of Josiah’s lips against his. Loved the tentative strength in which his mouth moved against Tristan’s.

It was Josiah who pulled away first. “It’s okay,” he said. Before Tristan could ask him what he meant, he continued. “It’s okay to tell me how you feel, Tristan. After all this time, I know you love me. I know you want me. I wish you could say it. Eventually I’ll need to hear it, but right now, I know that you can’t.”

Guilt and self-hatred swallowed him whole. How fucking hard was it to say how he felt? Tristan was a smart man. He knew admitting something didn’t make it more real than feeling it, yet knowing something didn’t always change the emotions behind it.

It was Josiah who broke the silence. “And I also know that you like having him here. And that doesn’t change how much I know you want me, just like my loving him doesn’t change how I feel about you. That makes it doubly hard for you, doesn’t it? You wanting both of us?”

Tristan’s mouth clamped closed. He definitely wasn’t in the mood to do this. Not that he ever was, but Josiah voicing his thoughts felt like him taking the reins, taking control over Tristan’s world.

They also created a truth he couldn’t sweep under the rug. Yes, he loved Josiah, and yes he wanted Mateo. He really did like having Mateo here, and Josiah knew it. And after all these years, he still needed Josiah to feel for him. To open up to things that Tristan could never do himself.

His phone rang, and more guilt churned in his gut because it meant he didn’t have to respond to what Josiah had said.

Josiah leaned away as Tristan pulled his cell from his pocket, his heart stopping when his mom’s number showed on the screen. “Is everything okay?” he asked.

“Of course it is, Tristan. Isabel isn’t feeling well, though. I want to get her some of that soup she likes from Durango’s, but...”

But she couldn’t, because she didn’t leave the house. Because years before, she’d decided she loved Oliver so much she had to see him again despite everything he’d done to her. He’d given her drugs that night, like he always did. Used her and sent her away, where she’d been attacked afterward.

“I’ll get it. I’ll be there within an hour.”

“Tristan...I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I know I’m a burden on you.”

“No.” He shook his head. He failed her, not the other way around. “You’re not. I’ll be right there.” He ended the call. When he did, he noticed Josiah stood at the sink. He hadn’t even noticed the other man walk away.

Tristan went to him, wrapping his arms around him from behind. “I’m sorry.”

“I know.” He didn’t say it was okay, and Tristan knew it wasn’t. “I want to meet her, Tristan. I deserve to meet her sometime.”

Tristan nodded against Josiah’s neck. “You will. I...I promise.” He needed to do that for Josiah. For his mom. And maybe for himself, too.

It didn’t take long for Tristan to get to Durango’s. He ordered two bowls of the soup, to-go. He’d been there enough that even though he was probably one of the only people who came for to-go orders, they did it with a smile.

As he walked out the door, soup in hand, his phone rang again. Even without answering, he knew who it would be.

“Hello?”

“Isabel fell asleep. I’m tired all of a sudden, Tristan. So tired... You don’t have to come tonight. We’ll be okay until morning.”