Rain poured from the heavens as if it were preparing for the great flood. The skies had been overcast for days, and finally the dark heavy clouds had burst and let loose a deluge onto the city of Seattle, Washington. Long time inhabitants were unphased, and even found comfort in the trademark weather. But after two years living in the city, David Otto was still far less prepared than he should have been for the downpour.

His bus splashed to a stop, and he shouldered his way off, past wet coats and dripping umbrellas, and stepped out into the cold rain that immediately soaked through his hoodie, which was his only protection. He headed up the sidewalk towards his apartment building, a large grey slab raising into the blurry sky. In the lobby he stopped to shake his hood off his head when his phone rang. Fishing it out of the bag slung across his chest with wet, numb fingers, he looked at the caller ID: his brother. Without answering, he shoved it back into his bag and began the walk up to his fourth-floor apartment. The hallway he stepped out into was short, painted green and blue with no carpeting, and only had three doors on both sides, one of which was the trash receptacle.

At the last door, his keys jingled in the lock before the door swung wide, opening into a loft. The kitchen and dining area hugged the left walls, while a small living room and bedroom took up the right, everything done in muted earthy tones and exposed brick. Above the bed, a slanting skylight was obscured with rain, it's steady drumming filling the silence. It smelled faintly of rain, and the Chinese food he had for breakfast.

Dropping his bag on a table by the door, he slipped out of his shoes and placed them by the wall on a mat, next to an empty space. Going into the bathroom, he put his clothes in a hamper which held only his clothes, took the lone towel from the twin rack attached to the wall when he was done, and opened a closet which held a row of empty hangers on one side. In the kitchen he opened a cupboard which was half empty of dishes. Everywhere in the apartment there were signs that something was missing.

That someone was missing.

After eating a bowl of cereal, he washed the bowl and spoon, because no one else would, and then dried and put them away. Turning off the lights, he lay on the bed in the dark, on the side he was accustomed, and stared up at the skylight, listening to the sound of the beating rain, letting it enter his chest and mind. He hoped to sleep, but after an hour he knew that would never happen. It was hard to sleep in the apartment now. He could only manage a full night when he was truly tired, which, with work and school, was often enough.

Finally, after an hour, David got up, dressed, and left the apartment. It was still early, only a little after eight. He could wonder around for a few hours. Sometimes that helped. With a half walk, half jog, he made his way down the street, still without an umbrella, but at least in a raincoat. At the end of the block was a small coffee shop, an orange and yellow colored haven in the sea of grey, decorated with brightly colored coffee pots on the wall, scattered with bean bags, and at this time of night on a Friday, about half full. Inside was warm and dry and smelled of dark roast and sticky buns. David ordered a latte at the counter, and when he turned, he met the startled blue eyes of a young man standing just behind him, with wet blond hair brushed back from an open, honest face.

"David?" the young man said.

It took a moment for David to find his voice, and when he did: "Drew...?"

**

They sat opposite each other at a table by the window. Outside, the rain continued, pelting the glass with drops in the occasional gust of wind. Inside the bright, warm coffee shop, two takeaway cups in front of them steaming with hot liquid, David and Drew shifted awkwardly in their seats. It had only been two years since last they spoke, but something had changed. The sense of friendship they'd just begun to nurture had died, and the uneasiness between them had returned, and they seemed uncertain how to handle the one in front of them.

"So," Drew said, shifting in his seat, one hand on his thigh, the other lightly cupping his black coffee. He wore a dark green windbreaker with the logo for a local hospital on the left breast, and jeans. His blond hair was damp and brushed back from his forehead with his hand. "How have you been?" He gave a little grimace at the end, as if immediately embarrassed of what he'd said and wished he hadn't.

"Good," David said. Sitting with both hands around his cup, warming his numb fingers, he had taken off his raincoat and hung it over the back of his chair, where it dripped onto the tile floor. Underneath he wore jeans, and a light sweater. His hair, when last Drew had seen it, had been down to his chin, with black roots and bleached middles and ends. Now it was shorter, choppier, still black at the roots but with patches of red and purple and blue, in no particular pattern. "How about you?"

"Good," Drew said. "Good."

"What are you doing here?" David asked. "In Seattle, I mean. I thought you were going to be assistant coach for your old team."

"Yeah," Drew said, with a sigh down at his coffee. "That...didn't really happen. At the end of the first summer, I didn't go back. The team hated me; the old players told the new ones what I did, and no one trusted me to have their back anymore. Trust is sort of important for a coach to have."

David shifted in his seat, his gaze lowering and darting away.

"I could have built that up again, over time," Drew said, lifting his coffee with both hands to his lips for a sip. "People don't have a long memory. But I already didn't care about football. Seemed like a lot of trouble for something I didn't love. So, I took some community college courses, tried out a bunch of different things, and eventually landed on EMT."

Dark eyes brows lifted with surprise. "I would never have guessed that for you."

"Me either," Drew said with a chuckle. "But I always remembered how great the EMT's were that night with Mary, and with us. After the first class, I knew that's what I wanted to do." Finally, blue eyes looked up and smiled at David. They were clear and bright in a face that no longer seemed weighted down by darkness. "How about you? Did you go back to babysitting?"

"I did," David said. "I'm studying early childhood development. My brother said I should concentrate on school, so for the first year I did. This year, I decided to cut back on my classes, and got a job babysitting for a family."

"That's great," Drew said, sitting forward and resting both arms on the table. "How many kids do you have?"

"Four," David said, and for the first time a smile touched his lips. "Twin eight-year-old boys, another boy a year younger, and a baby girl. Well, she's more of a toddler now."

"Damn," Drew said. "That's a handful. I take it they didn't have a problem with—" He waved a finger in a circle towards David's face.

"What? The piercings?" David chuckled quietly. "They were taken aback, but..."

"But I bet the minute they saw you with the kids, all doubt melted away." Drew grinned at the surprise on David's face. "I told you, you're good at it."

David smiled, a weary, grateful smile. "Thanks."

Now it was Drew's turn to shift in his seat. His next question was obvious, but he wasn't sure how to approach it. He and David had never been that close before, and now there seemed to be even more distance between them, despite there being only a table. He cleared his throat twice before attempting. "So, uh," he began, "are you still seeing—I mean, are and the—with you and him, and—"

"Don't hurt yourself," David said with a hint of amusement.

"Shut up," Drew said, looking away as he brought his coffee cup up to hide his embarrassed face.

David's gaze dropped, his eyes growing hooded.

Drew sipped his coffee. Over the rim of the cup, he glanced at the other young man, whose face was a mask of anguish and—perhaps, Drew wasn't sure—guilt. There was more there, behind the dark eyes, emotions that Drew used to see when they were kids: weariness, loneliness, sadness. Putting his cup down, he cleared his throat and opened his mouth, but it was David who spoke.

"Do you want to get a drink?"

"We just had something to drink," Drew said, looking with some confusion at the coffee cups on the table.

"I mean," David said, getting to his feet with the light squeak of chair leg rubber on tile, "something that does the opposite of what this does. I mean, let's go get drunk."

"But we're not of age."

"I seem to remember Dana Ortiz's sixteenth birthday party where that didn't stop you. If I remember right, you threw up in her mother's prize-winning azaleas and got Dana grounded for a year, while you and your bonehead friends from the football team only got a slap on the wrist."

"That's not exactly a proud moment," Drew said, frowning at David as the young man got to his feet.

"Drunken moments never are," David said quietly, almost to himself, which made Drew's frown deepen. Swinging his rain jacket on, he asked, "Are you coming or not?"

Drew rose from his seat even as he hesitated. It was true he was off work tomorrow and could go out, but more than that, there was something about David that was troubling. He seemed impetuous, reckless even, and Drew didn't want to leave him that way. Getting to his feet, Drew sighed. "It's been a long time since I drank," he said.

"It'll come back to you," David said. "Like riding a bicycle."

"I can't ride a bicycle."

"Me either."

Drew shook his head as he turned to follow David out the door and back into the rain, which had not let up even a little. Never in a million years could he have predicted a moment like this would come, when he would go out drinking with one of the town outcasts. But, he thought as they splashed through small puddles on the sidewalk, over the last two and half years, there had been a lot of things that he could have never predicted.