Tristan stopped walking and grabbed Josiah’s arm. His skin was warm to the touch, sending that same warmth up Tristan’s arm. Immediately he pulled his hand back. “It wouldn’t make you dumb to wonder, but the truth is, though I enjoy our walks, that’s all they’ll ever be.” The words bounced around inside him, ricocheting around as though they waited for him to grab them back. It would never happen, though damn he wanted to. He craved a night of skin-to-skin, because fucking someone was the only way he let himself get close to anyone.

“I get it. And, it’s better, anyway. I know that.”

Tristan almost asked why, but instead started walking again. “Good. I’ll never push you to talk about anything you don’t want. People are always trying to take things from someone that they don’t want to give. That’s not me.”

“Okay.” Josiah scratched his arm before looking over. “So, we’ll just talk, and if one of us asks something the other doesn’t want to answer, we don’t.”

Light red colored his cheeks. Tristan couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or not. He found himself nodding.

He hadn’t been lying when he said Josiah reminded him of himself. Quiet, private. He wondered if there were as many stories inside Josiah as there were in him.

Josiah pushed a hand into his worn blue jeans before tossing some food for the birds with his other.

In those ways, they were the same. But in most ways, they were incredibly different. He wondered why he continued to come back, but knew he would.

Josiah

September

“How old are you?” Josiah asked Tristan on walk number... he couldn’t even remember anymore. It got harder to count because of the week’s Tristan would show up multiple times.

“Why do you ask?”

Josiah shrugged. “I don’t know. Is this a veto?”

“No, it’s not. I’m thirty-one.”

Wow...young. In some ways he wasn’t shocked. Tristan had smooth skin, a muscled body, and, when he did smile, he looked young. Not young young, but as though he wasn’t too much older than Josiah. But then the suits, the career, sometimes the tiredness Josiah saw in his eyes, made him think older.

“Do you have family around here?”

Tristan tensed a little beside him, and Josiah knew what the answer would be before he said it.

“Veto.” Tristan took a deep breath. “School. Why didn’t you go? It’s not that I think college is for everyone, but you often ask me what it was like. There’s interest in your eyes. Curiosity.”

Josiah’s mouth went dry, making it hard to open it. “You’d think I was crazy if I told you.”

“Try me.”

He took a few deep breaths. He could do this, right? He could talk about Mateo without really saying anything?

“Someone... someone wanted me to. I don’t think he ever planned to do it for himself, but he wanted it for me. It made me believe things that weren’t true.” Josiah bit his lip, thought about Mateo and how all those things made him believe so much that Teo loved him.

And he had to have. A part of Josiah knew that, but like so many things in his life, Mateo’s love had gone away.

“You’re right. I do think that’s crazy.”

A laugh jumped out of Josiah’s mouth. He whipped his head toward Tristan as though he could somehow explain how Josiah could be laughing—laughing after he was thinking about Teo not loving him.

Tristan stopped them with a hand on Josiah’s shoulder. It was warm, and even though the air around them was as well, Josiah craved it. Wanted to nuzzle himself into the heat of another person.

“Don’t let people have that kind of power over you. I’ve seen what power does. When people love so much they put someone else above themselves. Or equal to themselves. All it does is hand power to them. Keep that for yourself. No one else deserves it.”

Josiah opened his mouth, not expecting the words that came out. “Love equals power? So, you’ll never love because you never want to hand over the power?” The thought made Josiah kind of sad. It was so...cynical, and so true.

Tristan sighed, making his reply obvious. “Veto.”

Tristan

October

Cool, fall air drifted over him, the sky gray and hazy.

Josiah trembled, burying his hands in his pockets. He had his hood up, the morning air colder than it had been yet. The pocket edges were frayed. A little hole had ripped in the arm, the black faded from what no doubt had been hundreds of washes.

“We can go. The weather’s getting cooler.”