“Did you eat dinner?” The last time Josiah cooked for them, he realized, was the night Mateo didn’t come home.

“I’m not hungry.” Josiah turned and pressed a kiss to Tristan’s neck. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” The words had never come more easily than they did in this moment. He wasn’t sure why, but they were almost like a compulsion he suddenly couldn’t hold back. “I love you,” he said again.

“I know.” Josiah smiled and walked away. Tristan leaned against the oversized window, watching different lights flash. He stayed when he heard the shower turn on. Stayed when it went off. Stayed when Josiah didn’t come back out to him.

The only time he moved was when he bent to sit on the floor. Even when he heard the front door open, he stayed. Looked outside the same way Josiah had as he said, “We need him. I don’t know who I am without him anymore.” Had he ever? “I don’t know who I am without you both. I can’t lose that.”

“It’s us.” Mateo stood next to him. “He’ll always give us what we need. It’s what he wants, it’s who he is. What the fuck are we doin’ to give him what he needs?”

Mateo was right.

“Stand up. Let’s go get him.”

Tristan stood, making his way through the dark apartment with Mateo. Their bedroom door was closed. Mateo pushed it open, walked inside, and Tristan closed it behind them.

Josiah lay in bed, looking up when they walked into the room. “What’s wrong?” There was a fear in his voice that sliced Tristan open. They didn’t need anything else to be wrong.

And they needed Tristan to be strong. In the past, Tristan kept quiet. Sex he could do well, as long as it was him doing the fucking. But when it came to emotions, he let them lead the way.

He couldn’t do that this time.

As if he could sense something major, Josiah sat up, his legs hanging over the side of the bed.

It was as if he held some kind of power, pulling both Mateo and Tristan to him. They both went in unison, slowly to Josiah. Mateo ran a hand through his hair, over and over. Tristan would never tire of seeing that. It wasn’t enough, though. He needed more.

“We need you,” Tristan said. The words were everything to him, all he had, and that enabled him not to struggle with them.

Kneeling in front of him, Tristan wrapped his arms around Josiah’s waist, but it was Mateo who spoke.

“The most important thing for me has always been to be what you need, Jay. Did I fuck that up somehow? How did we lose you? It’s always been you. You’ve always been the strong one. Did we kill that part’a you?”

Mateo’s fear left his lips and traveled into Tristan. What if they stifled his light?

“Show us,” Tristan said against Josiah’s bare chest. “Months ago, I asked you both to show me how to give myself to you... Now I need you to show us, both of us, how to be what you need.”

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Mateo

Tristan was right. They needed to give Josiah something to believe in. He always gave that to them, but when did they give it to Jay?

Josiah wrapped his arms around Tristan, and looked up at Mateo. “I trust you both more than anything in my world. You know that. I know you’ll do whatever you can to protect me, Teo—to protect us—and I know Tristan will always give us whatever we need, but...”

When he trailed off, Mateo went to his knees as well, both he and Tristan kneeling for Josiah because they were his. They would do anything for him. The moon shone through the window, shedding enough light for Mateo to see a shy smile creep on Josiah’s face. It was his favorite fucking smile.

But then Jay sobered, leaned over and clicked on the light, and said, “I need you both to trust me, too.”

Mateo’s muscles crystalized. “What the fuck do you mean? You know I trust you.”

Another smile spread across Josiah’s face, so full of fucking heart that Mateo grabbed hold of him, needing to touch him. “What’s been going on with you both? Why was I waking up alone in bed? Why did you have silent conversations with your eyes that I wasn’t a part of? Why did I feel like you both were losing each other and I didn’t know the reason? Why did it cause me to start to lose you, and not know why?”

Mateo felt Tristan tense up beside him. “That was me. I kept things to myself, hid them from you both. Mateo found out by accident and—”

“And you should have told me. When it caused problems between you, you should have told me.”

“You don’t want to know that shit, Jay. It’s because I want to protect you.” More than anything. His life would only be worth it, he would only make right his wrongs, if he protected these two men.