Our apartment was livable. We had a bed, a couch, and a couple of TVs. We were doing it. But something always felt missing.

“I don’t get it. Aren’t comic books supposed to be about action and superheroes?” I asked.

“Not every comic,” Nick explained.

“The main character doesn’t even have powers,” I added.

It took us a while to decide what to do with the extra room. I wanted a gym. Nick wanted an office. We agreed: if Nick got the office, I’d get to pick out our first couch for the living room. Terrible deal. In the end, I didn’t have enough taste to pick a sofa without Nick choosing it for me. Either way, the extra room became his office.

I never understood what Nick used it for until that day. I’d always see him working on something in there, but he’d hide it if I walked in.

He was working on a comic book.

I’m not sure why he unveiled it the same day we had friends over, but I was glad he finally let me in.

“He doesn’t... it’s not... never mind,” Nick said, taking the comic from my hands and closing it.

“Wait, babe—Nick,” I said, grabbing his shoulders. “It looks cool. It does. But you know I’m not a book guy. I’m a Meat Head, remember?”

“You hate when I call you that,” he grinned.

“It’s okay when I say it. But Nick, it’s good. I’m sure everyone will want to read Runaways,” I said.

“But is it good enough?” he asked, looking away even as I kept him from moving.

He’d written and drawn a comic based on our lives. I couldn’t see why anyone else would care about our story—until I read it on those black-and-white pages. But Nick was self-conscious. I let him go so he could put the book away.

“I thought you wanted to own a comic shop, not make comics?” I asked.

“I changed my mind.”

“And you think Lance will sell this?”

“I hope he will,” Nick said.

I walked around the desk and hugged him from behind.

It was raining cats and dogs outside, the kind of downpour that made the whole apartment feel like a cave. The natural gloom mixed well with the low ambient light of the room. Had we not invited guests over, I would’ve fucked Nick on his desk just to cheer him up.

A year and a half had gone by, and I still hadn’t seen or talked to my family. I wondered if they thought about me anymore. Did they think I was dead? It helped that Nick and I finally had friends, but I couldn’t help but wonder.

“I thought you said our baseball team sucks,” Nick asked as we left the office to join everyone else in the living room.

“It does. But it’s our team,” I answered.

The Seattle Mariners were probably one of the worst baseball teams in America. By 2002, they had yet to win—or even play in—a World Series. But the Seahawks weren’t playing, so what else was I supposed to watch?

“I always wanted to play baseball in high school, but my dad pushed me to play football,” I told Nick as we walked behind the long four-seater couch.

“They’re alive,” Dill Weed remarked.

I sat at the end of the couch, and Nick sat in my lap because I made him. Beside us was Dill Weed, the neighborhood weed guy. Next to him was Paula and her girlfriend of the week—whose name I still hadn’t learned.

“So, what was so special you two had to talk in private?” Dill asked.

“Something private,” I said.

“Can we get another round of drinks?” Paula asked.

Most of our friends were older than us, but somehow Nick and I were the most mature.

Nick got up to hit the kitchen while I stayed seated.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

“They just started, but it’s already a bloodbath,” Dill Weed explained.

When Nick returned with a round of drinks, he tried to avoid sitting in my lap again, but I caught him by the waist and pulled him down.

“You know what’s going on?” I asked him.

“I know sports,” he said.

“You know sports as well as I know comics,” I joked.

Dill Weed was right. But that was alright since everyone expected the game to be bad. Nick and I hardly paid attention to the screen while we made out. Paula and her soon-to-be ex-girlfriend fought in the kitchen, and Dill Weed was the odd man out. Of course, he was too high to care.