Living together in the same apartment, sharing the same bed, was a serious commitment for Triston, Darrell, and Bobby. No one made an advance, touched or grabbed unless it was expected and usually communicated before it was done. They weren’t there for the sex. They weren’t in a monogamous relationship, it was something else, a friendship. They could talk all night long but they were also comfortable with awkward silences. Each of them was in the bed for his own reason.
For Darrell it was sobriety, dependency, and preoccupation, the little annoyances and distractions that made him fill his day with something else. It had gotten bad two years before he moved in with them. He had his own apartment in that section of town that sounded like a bachelor’s neighborhood.
Drinking on the weekends became drinking every night until he had a collection of bottles in the cupboards of his kitchen instead of dishes, along the counters, and windowsills.
Sometimes they had a utility by holding candles but afterwards, after he decided to detox, go to AA and quit, well they were a reminder. He hated the sound they made, bottle against bottle, grinding as he carried them by the brown paper bag full, two or three in each hand to the dumpster where he set them to the side. They were gone the next day, collected by one of the city’s many homeless, someone had hit the mother load. He could smile about that minimal good that came from his habit, his indulgence, no his suffering.
When you drink for the good times is one thing but when you drink for silence that’s something else entirely different, he thought. He had been a functional alcoholic, no one ever caught on to his self-abuse. He’d sober up in the first few hours of work, drink a couple coffees until he felt ready for his afternoon meetings. How could no one have known?
Maybe they didn’t want to know. Or maybe, just maybe, people are more self-absorbed than he thought and no one could identify his problem, least of all his mother. He didn’t tell her how bad it had gotten, just that he had decided to give it up and he was going to A.A. She just smiled at him, hugged him.
But even sobriety was his new secret, especially why. He didn’t want to relive those moments alone, sitting in the bathtub, on his back, and other impaired judgments including sex. He had gotten lucky. But he considered his best luck to be when he met Triston through a dating website.
They had exchanged emails, IM messages, exchanged numbers, and gotten together for coffee. It was over two black coffees that he confessed that he was looking for friends and not lovers. Triston invited him to the apartment he already shared with Bobby. The cabinets were bare, there were condiment packets in the refrigerator.
They talked for hours on the couch until Bobby came home, then they talked for another hour before he realized how late it had gotten. When they invited him to stay the night he thought to refuse, to dismiss them and leave, but then he thought about his long walk home and his empty bed.
Sometimes, he reasoned, you can trust someone. Triston was someone that if ever he felt a spiritual connection it would be with him. Talking was easy. He could imagine not talking to him for years, meeting up with him, and finding the same comfort.
That first night was awkward. He worried about where his hands and feet ended up. He worried about who was touching him and where. There was just enough space between them. He fantasized about cuddling together. He wanted to hold someone. Bobby was more his type but he thought Triston would have been the most open to it. But he couldn’t bring himself to say anything that first night.
It came out over breakfast when they recognized he didn’t seem to have slept well. Triston forced the conversation because he said he was worried about Darrell not returning. It was one of those conversations no one wanted to have and yet it benefited everyone. It was cathartic.
After that conversation he couldn’t imagine spending another night alone and he didn’t want either of them to leave.
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