“This is Josiah’s room. Do you really have to go through his shit?”

“No.”

Motherfucker. They both knew he didn’t have to but he could.

Having him look under the pillows on their bed, and the drawers in their bedside table, and the closets. It fucking killed him.

“Hey,” he gritted out when the bastard opened the drawers on one of the dressers.

The hand on his back stopped Mateo from stepping forward. The officer looked Mateo’s way.

“Problem? This your boyfriend’s stuff or something?” He had a sneer in his voice.

There was a huge fucking problem. The man shouldn’t have to look through other people’s shit—just Mateo’s. And yeah, it was definitely his boyfriends’ things. Both of them.

Josiah squeezed his side.

“No. Nothin’s wrong,” Mateo managed to get out.

“Was your breakfast good?” he asked next, and this time Josiah grabbed Mateo’s wrist, keeping him from going over there. That didn’t stop the pain in his chest and the ache in his body from being so tense.

Mateo couldn’t get a reply out, and the two men finished what they came for and left not long later.

Mateo leaned against the back of the couch as Josiah closed the door. They both waited. He didn’t know what Jay waited for, but he didn’t have it in him to speak. Soon, Josiah said, “That wasn’t so bad.”

No, this wasn’t Josiah’s fault, but that still didn’t keep him for saying, “Not for you. You didn’t just have to watch a cop and your PO going through other people’s shit because of what you did. He didn’t have to do that, but he did it to be an asshole, and there’s nothing I can do about it. We had to pretend Tristan was a guest eatin’ breakfast here. It’s wrong.” They were his. He hated that he couldn’t claim them. Hated that if he did it could hurt the men he loved. Because it would. Problems at work would hurt Tristan, and when something hurt Tristan, it would hurt Jay along with him.

Josiah reached for him but Mateo shook his head. “It’s not you. It’s not your fault, but...I just need some space.”

Mateo pressed a kiss to Josiah’s forehead, grabbed his camera, and walked out the door.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Josiah

Josiah tried to call Tristan but didn’t get an answer. It didn’t surprise him. He’d told them both he had meetings most of the day, which was why he’d been able to go in late. Still, he’d hoped to be able to touch base with him after what went down this morning.

The only thing that tied Josiah in knots about the whole thing as much as Mateo’s pain had been Tristan’s anger. Both emotions had darkened the eyes of his lovers when they’d walked away from him today.

They were almost done with the coffeehouse. He and Teo were supposed to go work on some things today, but that obviously wasn’t happening now. Josiah’s pulse kept twitching, though. He didn’t feel like sitting around in the apartment alone, so he grabbed his stuff and headed to Rhonda’s.

He knocked, used his key, and then stuck his head inside. “It’s Josiah,” he called out.

“Hey! Come in,” Rhonda replied. He did, and saw her sitting on the couch, a mess of yarn on her lap and two needles. “Isabel has been trying to teach me how to knit. Mateo says I’m shit at it. I have to admit, I agree with him.”

As Josiah got closer, he noticed she had the yarn all tied up around one of the hooks, in a way he was almost positive it shouldn’t be. There were a few knots and lumps in the blanket or whatever it was she attempted to make.

“He didn’t say that.” Josiah sat beside her.

“He did, too. But that’s one of the reasons I love him. He doesn’t sugarcoat things for me, and him saying that just makes me determined to master it.”

That made Josiah smile. He could see Teo being the one who was a straight shooter with her. “He finds ways to motivate even when he doesn’t realize he’s doing it.”

“He does. But you all do that. The thing about you three crazy men is that none of you realize it.” Rhonda raised a brow in a challenge. “You all rave about each other, but none of you seem to know what a mirror is to see those same qualities in yourselves. Shame I never met men like you. All the guys I knew were assholes.”

A laugh tumbled out of Josiah’s mouth. Man, he loved this woman. He’d like to think his mom would have been like her. But at least he had her. “We’re screwed up in different ways, though,” Josiah told her, but Rhonda was already shaking her head.