Maybe it was an accident that first time, Knox sliding on the wet leaves and Charlie catching him, holding him up while they both laughed hysterically at something that would no longer seem funny in the morning.
But everything was funny in the dead of night, running through the rain and the darkness with the only people in the world who could be trusted, the only ones who really knew you. Everything was easy then, too, and that was why it almost made sense when their lips touched, the two of them standing there isolated by the night, just a brief second that could be laughed away in the morning.
But when dawn came neither of them were laughing.
Knox threw himself into getting the girl, and Charlie kept his distance, but there was no arguing that the second time was accidental, because that time there was no tripping, no excuse, just Knox standing there in the doorway and then shutting the door behind him as he crossed the room and captured Charlie�s face in his hands.
The third time was the last time, because then there was Neil, and Charlie was gone, and Knox was left alone in a place where the nighttime had once been a time of laughter, but wasn�t anymore.
Now when he woke in the mornings his pillow was smudged with tears, and he never quite knew who he had been crying for.