I stare hard at Jay, eyes narrowing as he looks innocently up into my gaze from the bed. "Are you boning my brother?"

He hesitates in slight. "I'm boning you."

"Jay!" I yelp, disappointed and mildly annoyed.

"What, Matt?" His voice matches my loud tone and he sits up to lock eyes with me. "You're his goddamn BROTHER. You shouldn't even be with him."

"You know I can't do anything about that," I say softly, offended. "And plus - that doesn't matter."

He remains silent and looks away.

"So you are sleeping with him," My words fall flat.

Silence.

"Wow Jay, aren't you a fucking stand-up guy," I laugh bitterly.

His eyes snap back. "Hey - before you go shitting on me, remember what you're doing here," He pauses. "You're cheating on him too."

I falter; oh yeah.

"So don't go running to him," He continues warningly. "Bitching your pretty little ass off over how unfaithful he is when you're just as bad. Cheating on each other! You two are a mess."

"Oh, fuck off, Jay," I snap and issue a sigh, sinking into a chair and rubbing my face. "You're in it just as bad as we are. You're involved too."

"I know," He sighs and lies back on the bed. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know," I moan.

He looks at me carefully. "You love him, or you wouldn't be here right now, yelling at me."

I pause. "If I love him, I would never have gotten involved with you in the first place."

"I suppose," He comments lightly and then dismisses the thought, growing more solemn. "Do you love him?"

I stare at him and nod.

Jay hesitates. "He says your name when we do it."

I smile.

He returns it, albeit somewhat sadly, and turns his head to look away again.

I know that he's hurt. "What about you?"

"What about me?" He counters easily, probably wishing he wasn't the one that had to be involved in all of our shit. His eyes stare out the far window but absorb nothing. He's too busy thinking.

"Do you love him?"

My words hang in the air and I listen closely as they dissipate into the past; he makes no answer. "Do you love me?" I try again, eyes searching as his body lies motionless on the hotel sheets.

He's slow to answer and his voice comes as a whisper. "That doesn't matter."

"It matters to me."

"I'm not the one with the problems, Matt," He scratches his bare stomach idly and my eyes fixate. "I'm not the one with the relationship. I'm just kind of the third wheel, picking up the trash when all is said and done."

"You do," I whisper.

He smiles faintly and serves me with a brief glance. "I do."

"I'm sorry, Jay," I tell him with a desperate need to ease the pain he must be feeling. "I don't know what I'm doing."

He waves his hand at me, dismissing my apology. "Oh, shut up. I knew what I was getting myself into on the first night I spent with you. And I took Jeff up on his offer knowing full well what that entailed, too. I knew it would end up like this one way or another," He pauses in afterthought. "I made my own bed and now I'm laying in it, so just shut up."

"I didn't mean for any of this to happen…"

He shoots me a warning glance and I fall silent on the thought. After a moment of respective silence, I pipe up again. "You're a killer lay."

He grins.

Quiet sets in again. "Jeff was here tonight, huh?"

"Yeah," He replies me vaguely, disaffected.

"Yeah," I confirm. "I could smell you all over him. It was kind of nice; like the two people I love most were in rolled into one body."

He glances at me, eyes serious. "Don't even go there right now, Matt. Seriously; I'm not fucking kidding."

My face can only register confusion.

"It's you and Jeff," He begins to explain. "You and Jeff and there is no me, okay?"

"But - "

"Okay?" He reasserts loudly.

My protest dies and I comply. "Okay."

"You need to learn to simplify," He tells me as he returns to that generalized, quiet tone of voice that I can't read. "Sometimes the truth isn't always the best way to handle a situation, and you have to make some sacrifices."

I feel my throat drying up. He's right, of course. It's not my place to love him, and certainly not my place to tell him that if I did - which I do, to some extent. To several extents, actually. But I need to be fixing things with Jeff; I need to be with Jeff.

"So does that mean we're done?" I ask hesitantly.

He remains quiet, contemplative. "I don't know what to do about Jeff."

I sigh, wringing my hands as he avoids my question. If he said it was done, I would never come back, but I don't think I could walk out forever on my own. I like him too much. Love him too much. "Are you gonna tell him?" My question is meek, as my thoughts are elsewhere.

"Tell him what?" He smiles, cocking his head. "I'm not doing your dirty work for you, buddy. If you want him to know that we've been fucking then you can tell him. I don't suppose he'd mind, since he's been doing it too, but just the same."

I groan, sinking deep into the chair and heaving a huge sigh. "When did this get so fucked up?"

"I don't know, man," He empathizes. "But now's a good time to fix it."

My eyes drop to the floor. "I can't fix it."

"Why not?"

I bite my lip. "Because I don't think I could stop this thing that you and I have even if I wanted to."

Jay rolls onto his stomach and stares hard at me. "What thing? We don't have a thing. I thought this was just established."

That stung, and I don't bother to hide it.

"Oh, goddamn it Matt," He sighs and gets up, kneeling down and pulling me into his arms. "Remember how we weren't supposed to get attached?"

"You did. Why is it okay for you and wrong for me?" I ask from the crook of his neck. He's so big and warm and strong; he just encompasses my whole body and makes me feel so safe. Jeff makes me feel like a protector; Jay makes me feel protected.

He chuckles, rubbing my back. "Because I don't have anyone to come home to. You're supposed to be in love with your brother, you incestuous cocksucker!"

I snort back laughter and pull away to look him in the eyes. "So what do I do?"

His hands rub my arms and then rest on my knees as he nods to the door. "He only comes to me because he can tell that your mind is elsewhere. You go and you tell him that he's your man and you forget about me, okay? I'm not worth losing what the two of you share."

As I walk out the door, I feel the weight of regret bearing down on me. If he only knew.

On to Triangle Pt 2 of 3