“Does it ever stop raining around here?” I wondered to myself. The three weeks I’ve lived in Washington, it hasn’t stopped raining yet. Maybe this is a bad sign, like when it rains before a wedding. Bad luck is the last thing I need now. I’ve been in the foster system since I was about eight - too old to be adopted and I misbehaved too much to ever find a foster family willing to put up with me for more then a month. So here I was, on my 18th birthday and getting moved again.

We pulled up to an old Victorian home, which served as a halfway house for orphaned teens who had reached the legal age. It was a typical place - bikes everywhere, messy yard. I couldn’t expect much from these people. We all went in - me and the social workers. We had a chat at the kitchen table. I wasn’t paying attention. It was the same old, same old.

“Don’t run away. Obey the rules. Make this easy on yourself.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard what sounded like thunder, but it was just about eight other young men. They all filtered into the kitchen, searching for food. By the look of some of them, they never stopped eating. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw one more coming down the stairs. He was tall and built like an athlete, hopefully a swimmer. It would have been a shame to cover his body up with some stupid uniform. He had longish, dark brown hair, and deep brown eyes to match; I was already mentally undressing him when he walked over to me and stuck his hand out.

“Hey, I’m James. We’re going to be sharing a room,” he said.

“I’m Erik,” I answered breathlessly. Jeez, I must be smitten, he only shook my hand and it took my breath away. He grabbed one of my bags and headed up the stairs. I snatched up everything else I had with me and followed. Our room was at the back of the house - small with angled ceilings and not a lot of furniture. There were two twin beds and one dresser was all that fit in the tiny space. But that was fine, this situation was only temporary.

“That’s my bed. That’s yours. I cleared out the drawers on the left side for your clothes. Meal times are 8am, noon and 6pm. The only chores we really have are keeping the rooms clean and doing our own laundry. So it’s a pretty sweet deal here,” he said.

“Thanks for the rundown.” I replied shyly. Damn, I needed to get over this shyness if I were to have any hope of getting any action before I left. His eyes lingered on me too long for him to be hetero, but he still hadn’t given me any solid proof he was gay, or at the very least, bi. I started to unpack my clothes and shoved them in the dresser, very aware his big brown eyes were following my every move.

“I like your hair,” he said suddenly. I didn’t need to look in the mirror to know he was just saying that to start up a conversation, because I looked like shit. My dirty blonde hair was all over the place and greasy from lack of showering over the past week. He was into me; he had to be. He was pretty handsome, but I knew I was