"La Vie Boheme" Mimi called, laughing loudly as Benny left disgusted by the "inappropriate" behaviour of her friends. Looking around the room she noticed me, finally alone, practising my guitar. Approaching me from behind, Mimi called "excuse me, did I do something wrong? I get invited then ignored all night long.

I looked back into Mimi's chocolate brown eyes and sighed, there was nothing I wanted more then a chance to be with this girl, but it could never happen. I'd already lost one love and I couldn't bear to be the cause of the loss of another, or have her watch me fade away either. "I'm sorry, I've been trying" I said, ignoring the disbelief that was now showing plainly on her face. "I've just got a few problems at the moment, and I can't bear to put you through that as well."

Just then there was a loud beeping sound, and both of reached into their pockets and pulled out a tablet. "AZT break" she said, probably in response to the look of surprise on me face.

"You too?"

Mimi smiled weakly and nodded. This confirmation scared me more then anything I'd ever experienced before. Even when I'd found out the I was positive I wasn't this scared, Mimi was only nineteen years old. Even April and I were older then that when we found out we were positive. I can still remember the day April and I met…

It was during a performance of my song ( I say song because I only really wrote one good one). I can't really say it was the ideal gig. But it was the start of two really great things. One of those was the signing of my one hit wonder song. The other was my relationship with April. Before her I was your typical young guy, taking girls out, sleeping with them, maybe even dating them. But the second commitment was mentioned I bolted like the wind.

There was something special about the girl whose gorgeous green eyes were gazing up at me. Her smile was what really hooked me though (maybe that was why I couldn't take my mind off Mimi). It was one of those warm charming smiles that made your eyes drawn to it.

We didn't really talk much that night, despite our spending the night together. For the evening it seemed as if she was going to be like any other girl, I'd spend a night with her, then never see her again. But during the night something must have happened to change me. For the next few years she was all I thought about. It's quite ironic that Mark is now telling me that I need to get out of the house. He used to bug me to see him once in a while. I wasn't the best friend to him at the time, even then he needed support through the roller coaster that was his relationship with Maureen.

Before April had come into the equation I had been that support. There had been one night that when we'd known Maureen was cheating on Mark (despite how much she hurt him, we would always be great friends). We'd just been surprised by Collin's coming out and while Benny (he was still our 'friend' at the time) chased him around offering his 'support' (and convincing him that he was straight (and you thought we only hated Benny because of the rent)) Mark and I were trying to convince ourselves that we didn't have that homophobia that was innate in most straight guys.

"It's not like it bothers me" Mark said, after half an hour of complete awkward silence.

"No, we're completely cool with it." I grunted in reply. Another half hour of shocked silence then; "well at least Collins' boy is a lot nicer then Muffy."

"I think her name is Alison"

I rolled my eyes and shrugged "whatever"

"You know… the only reason I feel weird about this is because I don't understand the attraction"

"Yeh, I mean how does it work…"

The only weird thing about what happened next was we weren't drunk. Our lips met and before we knew it we were all over each other. Only a few moments into our kiss I found Mark opening his mouth to allow my entry. I surprised myself by accepting and soon enough we were all over each other.

Mark definitely wasn't the best kisser, nor was I entirely turned on by kissing a male, even my best friend. Something was drawing my lips to his though, there was some magnetic force that was keeping me on top of him.

We kissed for what felt like a few minutes (but when we looked at the clock turned out to be three hours) before the magnetic forces finally released us. We pulled apart and sat up on the couch, Mark pushing his glasses back on and me fixing my hair. Our third awkward silence for the afternoon was followed by Mark saying; "no. I still don't see it".

After that neither of us even thought about being homophobic again. That's not to say we didn't make out again…