Prologue

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’d 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’d fuck his beautiful ass and ghost 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’d left community college with two best friends who were almost eachother’s opposite, but I loved both of them equally. We’d been living together for a month now, and I was sure that without them I’d 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 each other 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.”