“Fair enough,” Tristan replied, then nodded at Josiah to grab the packages.

His fingers fumbled as they opened the first one. The paper dropped to the floor and Josiah’s breath trapped in his throat as he stared down at the picture of the bird figure Tristan had given him.

The image looked aged, but classy. The bird was magnified, filling the picture, with a tint around the edge that matched the walls.

Josiah’s hands shook, his voice lost the way it used to be. Only then, he’d been scared to talk; now, he just couldn’t find the right words.

He held the framed picture under his arm as he ripped into the second gift. As he knew it would be, there was his queen, the same treatment on the picture from the first.

“I’ve been messin’ around with editing techniques. I developed these in the darkroom. Tristan thought maybe you could hang ‘em here or something. It was his idea. If you don’t like them, I can—”

“Shut up, Teo.” Josiah’s voice shook slightly.

“Mouthy,” he said huskily.

Josiah looked at Teo. “Thank you.” Then he turned to Tristan. “Thank you.” He handed the bird to Teo and the queen to Tristan, knowing he mixed them up but thinking it fit, too, before he lowered himself to his knees. “A promise is a promise.”

Tristan hissed as Josiah unbuttoned and unzipped his pants. Once he had Tristan’s long erection free, he pulled out Teo’s, too, pushing back the foreskin.

They stood close, their erections side by side. He started his tongue at the base of Teo’s, ran it to the head, and then started from the head and down to the base of Tristan’s. Both his men groaned before he proceeded to thank them with his mouth. It was Teo who finished first; his head had always been slightly more sensitive than Tristan’s. He swallowed Teo down, then did the same for Tristan.

“This is all I need,” Josiah told them. He still kneeled, nuzzling each of them between their legs.  “Having the two of you, and this place, our dream. It’s all I need. All I’ll ever want. I know I act like I expect it, like I know things will be okay, but I never really thought—”

He felt his breath get caught again, but when he felt two hands in his hair, Josiah found his voice again. “I don’t know if I ever really thought I would get it all. But I have. I have more than I ever thought I’d get.”

There was a silence. He knew it was Tristan’s hand that tightened in his hair, as he just inhaled the scent of them and the feel of them against his face.

“Hope you don’t mind that you still have to work for it, mi precioso, because we fucked up your wall.”

At that Josiah jerked his head back, and realized that they’d both leaned against the wall, the wet paint messed up and all over them.

Yeah, he had everything he wanted, and he had the ability to make these two strong men lose their heads. He had everything.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Tristan

“It must have been hard on you...realizing what your mom was doing.”

Fire ripped through Tristan’s internal organs at Elliot’s words, incinerating him with the past. “Hard?” His nails dug into his palms as he squeezed them tightly. “If that’s the only word you can come up with, we have a serious problem here.” Christ, had he really told those things to Elliot? Had he really given this person who, in the grand scheme of things was nothing to him, such an important piece of who he was?

“She sold her body to put food in my mouth. I hid in a closet and listened, even when she cried,” the words tumbled out of Tristan’s mouth before he could stop them. And still, he’d later sold himself as well. If his mom knew that, it would kill her.

“You’re right. I apologize.”

Tristan stopped walking and looked out at the never-ending sea.

Elliot did the same. “You can’t hold yourself responsible for that. It’s not your fault. It’s time to realize that.”

One, two, three, four, five. “Do not tell me how to feel.”

“I’m not telling you how to feel, I’m telling you the truth. You know it. Josiah would tell you the same thing. I’m assuming Mateo would as well.”

Hearing their names out of his mouth was enough to push Tristan over the edge. Tristan turned on Elliot, grabbed him by the collar and jerked him close. “Don’t use them. Don’t pull them into this. Ever. If you do that again, we’re done. You don’t know what it was like to hear her. You don’t understand what it was like to know what she did, and to wipe her tears. You didn’t see your mother lose herself, hide behind drugs because it was the only way to cope with having to whore herself out to raise her weak son. You don’t know what it’s like to look at the people you love every fucking day and worry that you’re going to let them down, too. To fear you won’t be enough, and that the more you love them, the more you will fail them. Like I did her.” He pushed, and Elliot stumbled back slightly.