Though living with two men who were allergic to grocery shopping, unloading the dishwasher, and putting the toilet seat down left a lot to be desired.
Don’t get me wrong. I loved my guys. Living together was just a lot sometimes.
The three of us were different in virtually every way, but when we’d met in high school, those differences were exactly what we’d needed at the time.
Freshman year had started out fantastic for all of us. I was one of the popular girls. Co-captain of the cheerleading squad, known for my kindness and generosity without ever having done anything that wasn’t purely self-serving. My father owned a restaurant, The Wave, which had the most incredible loaded cheese fries. And if you were with me, those cheese fries were free.
My perfect little life came crumbling down when news broke of my mom’s affair with our married Spanish teacher. I didn’t think anyone actually cared that my mom was sleeping with Mr. Ruiz, but nothing set a high school on fire like a scandal. For reasons I would never understand, I found myself burning at the stake over other people’s choices that had absolutely nothing to do with me. My friends stopped talking to me, my parents got a divorce, and my mom and Mr. Ruiz moved to Texas. Being that I was fifteen with my world falling apart, I chose to stay in the only place I felt at home: with my dad and his free cheese fries.
Cue Aaron Lanier.
High school was the fresh start he’d been waiting for after a less-than-stellar stint in middle school. His high hopes lasted approximately twelve seconds before he was labeled as the gay kid—again. Back then, Aaron was the type of guy who never truly seemed comfortable in his own skin. It didn’t help his case that he preferred khakis over basketball shorts and meticulously styled his hair every morning while the rest of the ninth-grade boys were lucky if they had showered and put on deodorant.
As I’d learned earlier that year, it didn’t take much to find yourself on the wrong side of the high school gossip train. But poor, sweet Aaron might as well have been tied to the tracks. His locker had been decorated with condoms and free HIV testing fliers on the regular, and by the end of the year, he’d been locked inside so many closets that the janitorial staff had given him his own set of keys to get out. His luck should have changed when David Scott, star defensive lineman of the football team, came out in front of the entire school by asking Aaron to homecoming.
Come on. That was the stuff high school romances were made of.
One problem. Despite a million rumors that said otherwise, Aaron wasn’t gay.
The words “I’m sorry, but I’m straight,” had barely cleared his lips before they were echoed around the entire school, leaving brave David the victim and Aaron the ultimate villain.
All too familiar with how quickly a thousand-plus students could turn on you, I dragged Aaron out of the lunchroom, horror showing on his bright-red face. He didn’t know me, but there was something to be said about having a person who understood what you were going through.
After that, the two of us became inseparable. He walked me to class every morning, ate lunch with me behind the gym every day, and did his homework with me at The Wave every afternoon. It wasn’t long before the school thought we were dating. Aaron was so grateful for the confirmation of his sexuality that we never corrected the assumptions.
On the first day of junior year, Mark Friedman entered our lives and completed our misfit throuple. He was new to school, and I nearly had a heart attack when I saw all six-foot-five of him dressed in Unabomber chic, sitting in Aaron’s spot behind the gym. I mean, it wasn’t like we had reserved seating or anything, but after two years of wearing down the grass into a patch of dirt, we liked to think we’d staked our claim.
So I took a chance and asked the giant if he was lost.
He told me to fuck off.
I told him he didn’t have to be such an asshole.
He told me to fuck off again.
Aaron jumped in and told him to shut the fuck up, but in true Aaron fashion, he tacked on a please at the end of it.
There was a beat where I was fearful for Aaron’s life, but a wide smile split Mark’s mouth. He lifted his hands in surrender, muttered an, “Easy there, killer,” and then scooted over exactly six inches.
And that was how Mark joined our group.
Compared to Aaron’s rich and pretentious parents and my say-anything single dad, Mark’s home life was rough. His father was a drunk who never left the couch, and his mother was addicted to painkillers and rarely left the bed. They survived on turmoil, arguments, and staying off social services’ radar. For a teenager with a stomach as big as his heart, Mark couldn’t get by with an empty fridge and bare cupboards. But I had free fries, which my father quickly upgraded to all-you-can-eat burgers, chicken fingers, and anything else on the menu and Aaron had a guest room where Mark stayed more often than he did his own home.
