Usually in yoga class, I’m able to clear my head, focusing all my energy on mindfulness, performing each pose with strength, precision, and perfect form. But today, monkey-mind has got the best of me. I’m all over the place, struggling, my balance off, thoroughly distracted.

Just before we close each two-hour long session of ‘hot yoga’ in a quiet, naturally lit room with the temperature turned up to well-past ninety degrees, Kendall Vincent—our instructor—allows us to choose our own pose, doing the most difficult one in our repertoire. He can do amazing things, but my best so far is a pose called The Peacock. Usually I can nail perfect form, holding it for about two minutes before my core muscles revolt, screaming for me to release them from their agony. That’s half the joy of yoga, the pain. Learning to listen to it, experience it, really feel it and interpret it, is all part of the practice leading to physical and mental growth.

Today it’s all pain and no growth. I barely get my legs off the ground as I balance all my weight on wrists and palms pressed flat against the mat, before every muscle in my body screams in protest. My mind slips to the conversation with Dillon last night—the idea that he’s still carrying a torch for someone else after so many years, and the fact that he’s unwilling or unable to give us a chance because he’s afraid.

We’re all afraid. It’s the human condition. I’ve been afraid since I was four years old. I lived in mortal fear every day of my life until I was seventeen and joined the Navy. After the way I grew up, the battlefield felt normal. It never bothered me dropping into a hot zone as long as I didn’t have to shoot back. That wasn’t my job. My job was to save lives, not take them. War is not my thing. They’re pointless and wasteful. I wanted to mitigate the waste.

Thinking about Dillon, it occurs to me he’s wasting so much precious time; it’s all coming from a place of fear and regret.

My body gives, collapsing on the mat in a trembling heap. I held on less than thirty, wobbly seconds. Pitiful.

“Okay everybody,” Kendall says, still holding his One Handed Tree pose, barely showing a tremor. On the scale of mental and physical difficulty, that one is as tough as it gets.

“As soon as you like, assume the Lotus. Concentrate on regulating your breathing and calming yourself. Let’s mediate for a few minutes on the person in your life you’re most grateful for.”

I relax, pulling my legs into position, straightening my back. I fill my lungs with air and then exhale completely, repeating the cycle over and again until I feel the angst draining from my fingers and toes. I think about my sister Kathi and how much she’s done for me. She and Griff opened their home when I got out of the Navy a few months back. Before that they applied for a position with the local EMS on my behalf. I was still on-board a battleship in the Mediterranean. I could hardly get an email out, much less manage job applications.

I’d only been on the job a few days when I met Dillon. Seeing him for the first time was like catching a lightning bolt. I’d never seen a more beautiful, truly joyous looking man in my life. All it took was that big, wide grin of his and the heat of it melted me into a puddle in the scorched, soggy grass of Nikki Rippon’s back yard.

I didn’t even want to go to that fourth of July thing. But something made me. And there he was. Dillon.

I’d like to feel grateful for Dillon, but today it’s difficult. Somehow, I doubt he’d return the gratitude. Mind-bending sex doesn’t always make for the solid basis of a relationship. He’s still meditating on the one that got away.

“Hey, you okay?” Kendall asks, approaching me after class as I roll up my mat and pull my t-shirt over my shoulders. “You seemed a little distracted.”

Obviously. I nod, not arguing. “My head’s a muddle,” I admit. “It’ll pass. Boyfriend issues.”

Kendall smiles knowingly. “Yeah, been there,” he says.

With Gil Steele? That seems impossible to believe. They’re perfect together. It occurs to me that as Gil’s partner, he may have some insight into Gil’s best friend.

“Dillon is a challenge,” I say feeling oddly comfortable discussing personal issues with Kendall. “He runs hot and cold. I never know where I stand. I think he’d be happy just being left alone to play Xbox for the rest of his life and not worry about real stuff. He’s fine as long as I don’t push him. When I do, he shuts down.”

Kendall settles cross-legged on the floor, relaxing in front of me; it encourages me to do the same.

“I don’t know Dillon really well,” he says. “I know him casually, through Gil mostly. He and Gil go way back.”

“I know,” I say, settling down. “Kids and high school and all that. Best friends since diapers.”

Kendall nods, then adds, “And the Marine Corps. They were together two years, some of it in Afghanistan. They went through some shit together over there. I think it was pretty tough on them—you know, being gay, and closeted, and getting shot at all at the same time.”

What? Dillon didn’t say anything… Oh. Gil.

It’s Gil he was talking about last night.

“The thing that Gil always says about Dillon is that he’s stuck,” Kendall adds. “Maybe if you come at it from another direction, you’ll see he either needs a little help getting unstuck, or he doesn’t want to unstick.”

Stuck is the right word. Stuck on his best friend who he sees every single day. Stuck on a guy who is so obviously happy in a committed relationship with someone else. Stuck on a man who is second only to Fox Lee for uber-confident, ‘Fuck you, I’m out, proud, and can still kick your ass and lock you in handcuffs.’

Dillon has just enough of that kind of cockiness to be adorable, but not so much that it rocks my own confidence.

If Gil Steele is the kind of guy Dillon wants, I am wasting my time. I can’t compete, and I don’t even want to.

“What?” Kendall asks me.

“What?” I reply.

He furrows his brow, smiling a little. “Something’s spinning around in there. What is it?”

I shrug, shaking my head. The question I want to ask is way too personal.

“Go ahead,” Kendall urges.

What do I have to lose? I barely know these people.

“What’s it like?” I ask. “Coming home to Gil every day? Always having someone else around? Does it get tedious with a guy like that, so alpha-male, who’s got so many friends and so much family around. Who’s so high-profile? Do you ever feel like you’re playing second fiddle, or maybe third?”

Before I even finish my sentence, Kendall is wagging his head at me. “Never. Not ever,” he says. “He comes home to me, and we take care of each other. All the rest of it, his obligations, his job, they’re just the trappings that make life interesting. But our life, that’s just us, together, at home. There’s nothing better in the world.”

There’s not a shred of doubt or posturing in his tone. He believes every word he’s said.

“Keep one thing in mind, Jack,” Kendall advises, rising from his spot on the floor. “Some people’s role in the world is to play melody, and some people’s job is to carry the backbeat. Both parts are just as important to the orchestra. Pick your part. You don’t strike me as a front man. Gil… Dillon… Nikki Rippon, they’re front men. Guy’s like you and me, and even Fox for all his panache, we’re the ones who keep the whole thing running like clockwork. Without us, all the pretty music just falls apart.”

I grin, suppressing a small laugh. “That’s some deep wisdom,” I observe. “You figure that out all on your own?”

Kendal smiles down on me, shaking his head. “Nope,” he admits. “I read it somewhere. But it made a lot of sense. When I stopped trying to compete for first chair and started working on harmony’s and rhythm, I found it a lot easier to keep everything together. It works. Try it.”

“We’ll see,” I say rising, grabbing my mat and water bottle. “I guess I just need to figure out if I’m trying to play with a guy who wants to be a solo act.”

Kendall smiles again. “Nobody wants to play solo,” he assures me, patting me on the back. “It’s way too much work and there’s nobody to enjoy the music with.”

That much I already know.

Back at home, I find Griff in the kitchen with a whole, freshly plucked chicken, a bundle of herbs just cut from the garden, a bowl full of sugar snap peas, and six ears of corn, ready for shucking.

“I hope you’re staying for dinner,” she says. “I’m making baked chicken, and it’s going to be incredible.”

The fresh herbs already smell marvelous and she hasn’t even gotten started.

“I’m staying,” I say.

She peers up at me. “You seem mopey. Trouble in paradise?”

I shrug. “Something like that.”

“What kind of trouble?”

I turn toward the voice who posed the question. Kathi has joined us, her face flush from work outside, smelling ever so slightly of goat shit. She’s barefoot, which means her Wellington’s are parked just outside the front door, probably encased in mud and god only knows what else. I’d rather patch up a guy with shrapnel wounds to the brain than take care of livestock, but whatever. My sister loves her critters.

“Nothing,” I hedge, feeling awkward about rolling out the problems in my love life to my sister and her wife.

“Bullshit,” Kathi says, coming past me, reaching for a glass. “I can tell when you’re lying. And you’re lying.”

Kathi is almost twenty years older than me. We have the same father (who was a mean-spirited, brutal motherfucker if ever there was one,) but different mothers. Her mother died, and our father remarried a younger woman, my mother, Millie. They had me, and then he passed away right after I joined the Navy. My mother lives in Florida with her boyfriend who’s only a few years older than I am. It’s weird, like all the way around.

Luckily, Kathi and I get along great. We both had a similar, rough upbringing and so we just get one another. I’m closer to her than I am my own mother, who wasn’t altogether thrilled when I told her that I’m gay. Her response was, ‘Well, at least you’re not a murderer. I guess it could be worse. I’m glad your father didn’t live to hear this.’ She implied she thought Kathi was a bad influence on me, which would have been hilarious if it weren’t so ignorant and mean.

Mother and I have been a little estranged ever since. Kathi took me under her wing. She’s never been anything except the best kind of family a guy could ask for; she and Griff both.

Kathi pours herself a glass of water from the Britta on the counter, then shoves a hand on her hip, staring at me.

“Tell me,” she insists.

There’s no way out of this. When Big Sister gets her mitts on my scruff, I have no choice but to fold.

“Dillon’s still in love with his ex from like ten years ago,” I say slowl, crossing my arms over my chest in the only defensive move I can muster. “And I found out today that the ex in question is Gil Steele, Dillon’s best friend since forever. I’m pretty sure I’m just spinning my wheels with him. I can’t compete with Gil.”

Kathi steps back giving me a hard look. “Gil Steele is getting married,” she says. “I’ve known Kendall Vincent a long time. He’s not the kind of guy who would do that lightly. If Dillon’s hanging on to hopes for Gil, he’s delusional.”

Griff washes her hands in the sink, then dries them with a towel hanging by the stove. She pulls down three cups, starting a fresh pot of coffee, watching it drip while Kathi and I go through the whole thing, from beginning to end.

“Well, I’m not thrilled with the idea of Dillon Manning,” Kathi finally confesses. “I haven’t said anything because you seemed happy. But the truth is, you started seeing him so soon after you got here, and you haven’t given yourself a chance to meet anyone else.”

“What’s your problem with Dillon?” I ask as Griff places a steaming, fragrant cup of coffee down in front of me, then takes a seat beside me at the kitchen table. “He’s awesome, mostly.”

“With him individually, nothing really,” Kathi says. “Despite everything, he’s made something of himself. But there are a thousand fish in the sea, and most of those don’t come from moonshiners, drug dealers, or mountain holler… trash. Dillon’s fine, but his family is a train wreck. From his daddy, Cullen, who’s been in and out of jail most of his adult life, to his Uncle Charlie, who raised him, who everybody says still makes moonshine, to his baby sister and her drug dealer husband. The family is the Beverly Hillbillies meets Deliverance.”

What is she talking about? I didn’t even know Dillon had any family around here. He never talks about them. He’s never introduced me to them. He’s been over here to dinner with Kathi and Griff a half-dozen times because I wanted him to get to know my family.

Jesus, if I needed any more proof he’s not serious about a relationship, that’s it, right there.

“I had no idea,” I admit. “And it’s not like I care a lot about who his family is, but I didn’t even know about them. I guess he never wanted me to.”

Kathi drops her hand, circling fingers snugly around my arm.

“A thousand fish in the sea, Jack,” she repeats. “Don’t settle for someone who makes you crazy.”