“Later.” Another short reply from Tristan.
He jumped when he felt Tristan pushing his sweatshirt up. Wanted to tell him he could do it himself, but couldn’t.
The sweatshirt was gone.
Then his shirt.
Shoes.
Socks.
Pants.
Underwear.
Oh God, what’s wrong with me. I can’t even take care of myself. Can’t undress myself. Shame ballooned inside him. I’m sorry, he tried to say again, but the words wouldn’t come out. He was a mess, such a mess. The knowledge made the cold inside him multiply.
Glass shower doors opened. Tristan pushed him inside, the warm water like fire on his skin. Still, his thoughts overpowered the burn. Weak, weak, weak. I’m even weaker than I’ve ever been...
Tristan stood outside the shower, his arm on Josiah. Words were still lost in his head, so he tried to let the heat warm him. Tristan turned it off after what felt like only a few minutes, but because of his pruned hands, and the cooling temperature, he knew it had to be longer.
A white, thick towel was wrapped around him. Josiah sank into it.
“Tris—tan...”
He shook his head. “Tomorrow.”
The word was issued as a command Josiah felt compelled to follow. He went with Tristan to another room.
“I’ll be back with clothes.”
He watched as Tristan walked away, his dark suit wet and molding to his body. Josiah’s heart sped up.
“You’re...you’re wet, too.” The words were like peanut butter in his mouth.
“I won’t be for long.”
And then the towel was gone, a flannel shirt placed in his hand. It clicked in his mind that he was naked in front of Tristan. Had been for a while now. He waited for the embarrassment but instead started to warm up faster, hotter, from the inside out.
He wanted that, he realized. Wanted Tristan.
Josiah met his eyes, hoping to see the same thing reflected there, but they were dark—closed off. He let his eyes wander down, landing on the thick bulge in Tristan’s pants. Tristan wanted him, too.
“It’s not going to happen. Get dressed,” Tristan told him.
The desire deflated as his fingers fumbled with the buttons on the shirt. He didn’t look at Tristan as he took the matching pants and slid them on as well.
“Thank you. I don’t know,” he shook his head. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
For the first time since they got there, Tristan’s features seemed to soften, if only the slightest bit. “Not tonight, Josiah. I can’t talk about it tonight.” He took a step backward, then another. “Get into bed. Go to sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Josiah watched the door close. Memorized the sound of the click. Fought to keep himself from following. If that’s what Tristan needed, he’d find a way to make himself stay away.
***
Josiah woke up, warm and in a bed unlike any he’d ever slept in. The sheets caressed his skin, comforting and safe. The mattress molded to his body like a hug. He drowned in the clothes he wore because he was so much smaller than Tristan. The man was muscular, though in a different way than Mateo had been. Teo was longer, leaner, but cut and defined. Tristan wasn’t overly bulky, that was for sure. And he was taller than Josiah as well, but Tristan’s bone structure was larger, too. His shoulders wider, something he hadn’t realized until he’d been in Tristan’s arms the night before.
Fragmented, blurred memories of the night before became spotted vision in his mind.
Tristan undressing him, putting him in the shower, giving him clothes.
His stomach cramped with memories of sitting on that bench. Letting the rain drown him, hoping it really could.
Acid burned through him, making him want to vomit. But then he thought of Teo, and how Teo always puked. He fought it, trying to vanquish thoughts of Mateo from his mind. Trying to shove the love he felt for him so deep that it couldn’t claw its way to the surface again.
He loved Teo. He always would. But he was letting that love kill him, letting it make him weak. Sure, he had a job, and Elliot, and even Tristan as a friend, but he was dead, and using Teo’s love, Teo leaving him, for an excuse.
No matter how things had gone down between them, he knew it had been real. At least some of the time it had been real, and what they shared had been too beautiful for Josiah to continue suffocating on memories of it.
He and Mateo didn’t deserve that. Not after all they’d been to each other. And Josiah alone didn’t deserve it, either.
A determined fire blazed inside him—something he hadn’t felt since he told Teo he didn’t want to have to be taken care of anymore. Stronger even than the feeling he’d had then.
