Tristan looked down on him and smiled. “Only you. Him or I, we would never do something like that for ourselves. We have always been content just surviving before you. You make us want to live.”
Warmth spread through Josiah’s chest. “I think we all taught each other how to live, just in different ways.”
Tristan nodded. “Maybe. This weekend, I’d like us all to go back to the beach house. I want to discuss something with you both.”
Hearing the intensity in Tristan’s voice, Josiah nodded. Talk. Tristan wanted to talk. That was big.
“What are you guys whisperin’ about?”
“You,” Josiah said as Tristan said, “Him.”
Mateo laughed, shook his head, and snapped a picture of them. When he tried to walk away again, Josiah grabbed his hand. “You’re being strange.” It wasn’t that he didn’t like it, but it was different.
“I’m tryin’ to be like you. Tryin’ to be happy.” He looked at Tristan. “You need to do that, too.”
Teo turned and led the way again. Josiah and Tristan followed him. They went off the path they usually took. It took a few minutes for Josiah to see where they were going, but when he saw the mural in the distance, he realized. It was the wall Mateo had taken a picture of months and months before. The one with the weathered hand and the battered heart inside of it. It was the picture Josiah had entered in the contest, only it was different now. Three hearts rested in the hand, two other hands reaching out for it.
“Teo? When?” Josiah couldn’t get his full question out, but his answer was fairly obvious. The paint was pretty new.
“Don’t matter. When I first saw it, I thought it was my heart. Or maybe it was yours, Jay, and my hand was the fucked-up hand tryin’ to protect it. Now, though, now that I have you both, I know it’s all our hearts, and fuck...all our hands, too, cuz we take turns protecting each other. It’s what we do. It’s what you do when you love someone.”
Before either Josiah or Tristan could reply, Mateo turned and snapped a picture of the wall. Then another one. Next to it, the single heart still sat there, intact and alone, and he thought maybe they were a before and after.
Out of all of them, Mateo had probably seen the most and done the worst, yet he had this beautiful soul, the very thing that first attracted Josiah to him. He didn’t always make the right choices or do the right thing, but his heart was always in the right place. It was why Josiah loved him so much.
Josiah studied the painting, noticing the shape the three hands made. “Full circle,” he whispered. “The hands, they make a circle. It’s what I decided to name the coffeehouse, Full Circle, because it’s what we need to be. It’s what we are when we’re together.”
“It’s beautiful,” Tristan said, and Josiah knew he meant the painting and the name...Full Circle.
Tristan reached out his right arm and pulled Mateo close, then with his left he grabbed Josiah. The huddled together in their full circle and held each other.
When they finally broke apart minutes later, they latched hands, the three of them. They walked back toward the growing crowd of people, walking around the Wharf—the ex-gangster, the broken lawyer, and Josiah, the man who looked at the world and saw how beautiful it could be, and wanted nothing more than to share that beauty with the men beside him.
They walked down busy streets and didn’t let go. It didn’t matter that people looked at the three of them together. Tristan’s job was no longer an issue, and he wondered if at this point, Tristan would have let it be if he still worked for the state.
They had breakfast and scoped out new buildings for Full Circle.
None of the things they still had to work through weighed them down, and none of the things from the past, either.
It was perfect.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Tristan
“What time did Mateo say he would be back again?” Tristan took a sip of his wine, watching as Josiah stirred the potato soup he made.
“Six.” Josiah looked at the clock. “I’ll call him.”
The clock only read 6:10, but nerves twisted uneasily in Tristan’s stomach, and he wasn’t sure why.
He didn’t take his eyes off Josiah as he called Mateo. Waited. Hung up and tried again. “You know how he is with his phone. He hates talking on it. He’s probably on his way.” Josiah didn’t sound as convincing as Tristan thought he probably tried to sound. They both knew that even though Mateo wasn’t a phone person, he would pick up when they called.
Tristan downed the rest of the wine in his glass. It wasn’t as though Mateo was incredibly late, so he wasn’t sure why he felt so on edge, but he was, and he learned to trust his instincts over the years.