Mateo spent a lot of time with Tristan’s mom. He didn’t know what they did or what they talked about, but he knew his mom loved Mateo. He knew that as much as she made him feel better, he did the same for her.
And he hadn’t been able to get out of that drug run. Tristan and Josiah had hated letting him do it, but they couldn’t be indebted to anyone from Mateo’s old life. Doing that run had been the only way out of it all.
The case had been closed on the coffeehouse fire. They didn’t have evidence on Josiah. They had enough other things to worry about in the city that it got pushed to the sidelines.
They’d done some research when they got back. Tristan managed to get ahold of his contact in New York again, only to discover the man had run instead of going after Javier. He’d realized what the man was capable of, and hadn’t wanted a part of it. They could only assume whoever Javier had killed had been Ricky’s man.
Tristan’s hands were still clean. Mateo’s weren’t, in his mind, but he was able to live with it better now. Maybe that was both a good and bad thing, but all Tristan knew was that their lover was happy and felt as though he’d done what he was supposed to do: be their guardian angel.
Tristan leaned forward in his office chair. They were back in their home now, the one they’d lived in from the beginning, and he picked up his phone.
“Now I know how you used to feel when I called you all the time. Your obsession with me is getting a bit much, Tristan.”
Despite the laughter in Ben’s tone, Tristan knew he was hurting. Everything had gone off without a hitch when it came to Javier’s murder. They had been lucky lately, maybe for the first time in all their lives. Still, he knew Ben was hurting. And not only because of Tristan, either.
“Full Circle opens next week. Why don’t you come to town? You can see the coffeehouse, and we can discuss my proposition.”
Tristan didn’t go back to work at the prosecutor’s office. He realized in the past few months that he really did like what he did, though; he had just been going about it the wrong way.
He hadn’t helped his mom growing up, but he could help people now—the right kind of people. He wanted to open a private practice, and he wanted Ben to move to California and work with him. He wasn’t sure if he would get the man to agree, though.
“Stop pitying me. And it would never work out and you know it. I would try to fuck you, and then I’d have your men to deal with.”
Tristan shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t. You’re too good a man for that.”
Ben sighed. “I just... I have a lot going on inside my head. You don’t want to see me like this, Tris. I don’t want you to see me like this. I’m going to the club every night. I’m fucking my way through New York. Maybe soon I won’t have a choice but to go to San Francisco, because there won’t be anyone left.”
There was a lot more going on in Ben’s head than Tristan knew. Maybe he would never know. Yes, Ben was his friend, but maybe he didn’t know the man as well as he thought.
“I’m here for you. If you need me, I am always here.”
Ben laughed. “Stop sounding so put together. It doesn’t suit you.”
They spoke for a few more minutes before getting off the phone. Tristan left the office and made his way to their bedroom. Mateo stood at one of the dressers, in pants and nothing else. There were some of his photos on the walls, and others he wanted to enter into more contests since he’d won the one Josiah entered for him, sitting on the flat space in front of him.
“Jay’s in the shower. He’ll be out in a minute.” Mateo turned to him. Tristan walked over and ran a hand down his chest.
“It’s strange seeing you without them.” He had a few tattoos remaining, but the gang tattoos were gone.
“I don’t look as hard without them. I need to get more ink.”
Tristan shrugged. “They are fucking sexy.”
He then felt Josiah step up to them. They sandwiched each other.
Josiah was naked, Tristan in only sweats, so their upper bodies were all skin-to-skin.
“Mm, are you sure we gotta go?” Mateo asked.
“No,” Tristan said as he kissed one of them, then the other.
“Yes. God, I don’t want to, but yes,” Josiah said.
But still they didn’t move, the three of them holding each other. They had to go finish up some final work at Full Circle before it opened.
For the first time in his life, Tristan wondered if everything really did happen for a reason. The owner of Fisherman’s Roast had wanted to sell. They had wanted to buy, so they remodeled it, and now it would be Full Circle.