Brianna was thrilled. And when we made love that night to christen our new apartment, it was one of the sweetest nights of my life.

It was all downhill from there.

SPRING (March 2005)

“Come on, David! How many times are you going to Leave your socks on the floor!"

“They're... around... the laundry basket!"

“Well you certainly weren't a basketball player, because your aim sucks!"

Like usual, it started off as a petty argument. Whenever a couple moves from dating to cohabitation, there are ALWAYS roommate issues. I had them with Danielle and Cherys at first. I had them with the girls at

Amber's house. I had them with Kevin and Jen. And now I was having them with Brianna.

But as had been typical lately, the petty argument snowballed from there. Twenty minutes later, when Brianna was complaining about my

“emotional remoteness", I just threw my hands up and walked out the door.

Ten minutes after that, Danielle sighed and leaned against the front door of her house with Cherys.

“Another fight?"

“Don't want to talk about it," I said gruffly as I pushed my way past her and into the house, bumping my shoulder into her on accident and not apologizing for it.

Five minutes later, the phone rang and Cherys picked it up.

“Yeah, he's here," Cherys sighed. Not much more than a month had gone by and this was becoming routine. "Yeah, I'll tell him."

She hung up the phone and Cherys turned to me, “Brianna says dinner's at seven.”

I nodded silently and stared at the TV. The girls were watching Iron

Chef on the Food Network and Danielle snuggled in against my side. I was here often enough that I was actually starting to like the stupid show.

“Well, I don't want to say that fighting is a good thing," Danielle mused as she rubbed her cheek into my chest while I wrapped an arm around her.

“But it's a nice silver lining to have you here more often."

I was still stewing over the dumb argument with Brianna. It had sort of become the usual complaint. She gave 110% into our relationship, loving me with everything she had. I wasn't doing the same.

I couldn't do the same. I felt like I should be, but I wasn't. I furrowed my brow in frustration. As pretty as she was, as intelligent, and as well as she took care of me, I just didn't feel as strongly about Brianna as she did me. I didn't love her that much. I couldn't help it, the power just wasn't there.

But didn't she deserve more from me?

Still growling internally, I tried to let the tension flow out of me.

And when Cherys came around to cuddle on the other side of me, I smelled her sweet hair and just let myself soak in the idle pleasure of being with two women I did truly love, 110%, even if sex wasn't part of the equation.