He could easily walk away. Go the other direction, or sit on the bench, but he didn’t do any of those things. Tristan kept walking until he stepped up beside Josiah. He threw a quick glance at him.

“I heard you coming. I didn’t know it was you, though.”

“Would you have walked away if you had?” Tristan asked.

Josiah shook his head. “No. I just like to listen. That’s why I was surprised I didn’t hear you the other day. Mat—someone I know taught me to pay attention. To always know who’s around me.”

Tristan crossed his arms and looked at him. There were only a few reasons someone would try to teach a lesson like that. He should have adopted it himself years ago. “It’s smart. You never know.”

He watched as Josiah stuck his hand into a bag, throwing food in front of him, which the birds devoured.

“What are you doing here?” This time when Josiah spoke, he didn’t look at him.

Still, he shrugged. “I don’t know. Needed to walk, I guess.”

Josiah turned his way and smiled. “You want to feed the birds?”

The palm of Tristan’s hand tingled but he didn’t hold it out. “No. Just came to walk.”

His answer made wrinkles form on Josiah’s forehead. It hadn’t been what he wanted to hear.

But when Tristan put one foot in front of the other, walking down the walkway in front of the water, Josiah stepped in beside him.

They didn’t talk. Just walked. And somehow his thoughts weren’t as loud on that walk. Somehow, the air and ocean, or maybe even the birds, made him feel free, even if only for a little while.

Chapter Seven

Josiah

Josiah let his eyes dart toward Tristan. This was their third day walking in near silence. He’d come those first two days in a row, then a week between those visits and today. Like the other two times, Tristan refused his offer to feed the birds. He had no idea why Tristan continued to come since they hardly spoke, but he did, and Josiah found that he was glad. He always felt more alone on his morning walks, emptier. He was supposed to share this with Mateo and he never had. For these few minutes, those empty rooms that filled him again after Teo sent him away didn’t feel so bare.

“What do you do?” Josiah finally asked near the end of their third walk.

“I’m an attorney. You?” Tristan replied without looking Josiah’s way.

He closed his eyes, wondering why out of all the questions he could ask, he chose that one. “Fisherman’s Roast. I work there.”

That was the end of their conversation for that day, but on their fourth walk, a week later, Tristan asked him, “Do you go to college?”

Josiah shook his head. Don’t ask why, don’t ask why, don’t ask why. He wasn’t sure the reason he didn’t want Tristan to ask him that question. Probably since he wasn’t going because Mateo wanted him to, which he knew was stupid.

But Tristan didn’t ask. And then, he suddenly wished he had.

Tristan

August

He’d never been attracted to a man with a buzzed head before, yet multiple times Tristan found himself wanting to run a hand over Josiah’s. To feel the brush against his skin. He gritted his teeth, trying to curb some of those desires.

“Why the Warf? There are hundreds of other places to walk in the city. Some better. Why do you come here every day?” The question had plagued Tristan for a while now. Sure people loved it here, but he had a feeling Josiah had been walking this same path for a very long time.

The fact that he wanted to know made Tristan’s muscles spasm. “Forget I asked. It’s your business.”

To his surprise, Josiah said, “I don’t... I don’t mind that you ask me questions. I just won’t answer them all. There are something things that are mine, I guess. Some things that will always only belong to me.”

Tristan pressed two fingers into his wrist. One, two, three, four, five. “You remind me of myself. Especially when I was younger.”

Josiah huffed and gave a small laugh. It was the first one he’d heard from him.

“Great. Just what a guy wants to hear. I remind you of a younger version of yourself.”

He realized then what Josiah meant. So he was as attracted to Tristan as Tristan was to Josiah. Not that he couldn’t tell by the blush that often colored his cheeks, or the quick glances pointed in Tristan’s direction. Things he liked more than he should.

Josiah went on. “I mean, not that I thought these walks meant anything. I know you said it was a mistake when you asked me to go home with you, and I’m not dumb enough to think you changed your mind.”