He put on his work uniform of black slacks and a white shirt—which was pretty fucked up if you asked him. Why in the hell did a dishwasher need to wear a white shirt?

Anyway, once he was dressed, Mateo hopped on another bus to make it to his PO. When he got there, he went through the routine, pissing in a cup while some chick watched him, before meeting with his PO. He answered the same bullshit questions as he did every week before he left and walked to work.

Work was work. He got food and dirty water all over his clothes as he washed dishes for people whose meal cost more than he could ever afford. But considering he was twenty-eight years old and this was the first real job he’d had, it wasn’t like he could shoot much higher.

By the time he got off, he was in a shitty mood that didn’t get much better when he walked up to his hotel room to see Tristan waiting outside the door. He hated the fact that the first thing he noticed was the way Tristan’s suit stretched across his firm body. That he knew what was underneath the suit, and liked it. That the man was everything Mateo wasn’t, everything Mateo never thought he’d want, yet he couldn’t stop his eyes from taking him in. From seeing the dark look on his face from over Josiah’s shoulder when he’d been taking him.

“What do you want?” He turned from Tristan and unlocked the door to his room.

“For my car to still be outside when I come back out?”

He fumbled his key, not expecting the joke or the smirk on his own face. “Sorry about that, pretty boy. I’m only stayin’ here till they finish building my house on your side of town.”

Tristan followed him inside. “I wasn’t thinking—”

“No. Don’t do that bullshit. It’s true. You’re not the type to apologize for something like that.”

Tristan quirked a brow at him. “You think you know all about the kind of man I am?”

Mateo let his eyes roam Tristan again. “I know enough. I smell like dishwater. What do you want?”

“You’re jerking him around. I know you don’t mean to but you are. I fucked him while he laid on top of you, and you can’t bring yourself to come to dinner?”

Damn, he respected Tristan. Respected that he just came out and said what was on his mind without sugar-coating. Not many people did that. “You can’t tell me you want me there. Blame it on me. Jay’s used to me fucking up.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wished he could take them back. Still, he didn’t.

Tristan stepped closer to him. “Do I strike you as the kind of man who does something if he doesn’t want to?”

Those words hung in the air between them, heavy and suffocating because they were true for Mateo, too. Dios, did he want to be there with them. To somehow belong with Josiah. And in a way, with Tristan, too.

“But I’m also not the kind of man who wants someone there who doesn’t want to be. It’s dinner. Nothing more. I’ll pull my car around front and wait fifteen minutes. If you’re not out there, I’ll assume you don’t want to be. That you’re done with Josiah.”

If anyone else would’ve talked to him like that, he’d have knocked them out—or worse. But even though his hands clenched, even though his whole body was strung so tight he thought it would shatter, electricity thrummed through him, too. Because that? Having someone else take control like that, not in the way his dad or Javier had had control over him, but in a way that was commanding, yet gave him a choice, too, made his pulse go erratic. Made blood rush through him, quick and hot.

It released some of the pressure inside him to always know what to do.

Before Tristan got the door fully closed, Mateo was already on his way to the shower. Fourteen minutes later, he slipped silently into the passenger seat of Tristan’s car.

Chapter Fourteen

Tristan

Tristan tried not to let himself think about what he was doing. That in itself was a rarity, but he didn’t know what else to do.

He and Mateo were quiet the whole way to his house. It wasn’t until he killed the engine and made the move to get out of the car that Mateo’s hand came down on his wrist.

“Are you sure this isn’t fucking stupid? That I’m not going to hurt him?” Mateo asked, kicking Tristan’s respect for the man up another notch. He never stopped worrying about Josiah. Had anyone in Tristan’s life ever cared about him that much? The answer to that was easy: Josiah did. The same way he did with Mateo, too.

“I’m one hundred percent sure what we’re doing is stupid, but I’m not sure if it’s right or wrong. As far as hurting him goes...we run the risk either way, don’t we?”