Brendan's POV:
We were sitting on the sofa, huddled in our blankets. The blizzard had knocked out the power leaving the house freezing cold and eerily dark.
The only light came from the center of the coffee table where Allen's aromatic candles were flickering from the draught of the old apartment's vents.
Allen was an eternal optimist and a hopeless romantic. He would bring guys over only after the third date and work his magic in a room filled with the scent of lavender. More often than not they would fuck him and dump him, yet it never seemed to make a dent.
"This is not how I imagined life in the City," Caleb said, his deep scowl visible despite the darkness.
"Why are you always so gloomy?" Allen asked, poking Caleb in the ribs with his elbow. "This is an adventure."
"I despise cold with all my passion!" Caleb said, his arms crossed, hellbent on being upset with the weather.
Allen's belief in positive abundance was perfectly balanced by Caleb's tendency to see danger lurking in every corner, a conspiracy behind every theory and the potential for misery in any experience.
I had left community college with two best friends that were almost eachother's opposite but I loved both of them equally.
We had been living together for a month now and I was sure that without them I would never have dared move to this wildly exciting, yet utterly daunting city.
"I have an idea," I said, pulling my covers up to my chin. "Why don't we tell eachother about our first?"
"Dude, you already know far too much about Finn," Caleb said as he idly scrolled through his Instagram feed.
"Not the first guy you fucked, Caleb. I mean the first one you couldn't get out of your head, the one that became such an obsession that it physically hurt."
"Can I go first?" Allen said, enthusiastically.
"Let me guess, yours was a cutie that held your hand and sang kumbaya with you," Caleb said, playfully mocking his friend.
"Fuck you," Allen replied. He said it in such a way that it still sounded... nice.
"You wish, pretty boy."
***
Allen's POV:
Caleb could be a real dick sometimes.
Yes, I preferred to see the best in people but I was also once that awkward gay kid that didn't know what to do with his feelings.
Small towns could be supportive or not at all. Mine had Graham Young.
It didn't take long to understand what kind of creature he was. Graham didn't do drugs, nor raid his parents liquor cabinet.
He enjoyed a different type of high, he was addicted to... risk.
And, there was nothing more risky for the son of the town's pastor than to be fucking the only gay kid in class.
The day Graham found me out, I thought my life was over. My parents had cut ties with one of my uncles for having a boyfriend, so I figured that I didn't stand a chance.
The kids at school probably wouldn't have cared that much but I could hardly afford to have any gossip reach my mom and dad.
After Graham caught me looking at pictures of guys in barely any clothing, my life didn't end but it did change forever.
