I woke up to the warm scent of vanilla coconut in my nose. Reaching out, my arm stopped, and felt around. I opened my eyes to stare at Cin’s imprint on the bed’s top cover.

Last night really had happened; it hadn’t just been an incredible dream.

I gazed, stunned, at the indentations there, tracing them softly with my finger.

My gaze went to the hallway as my ears peeled for sound, but there was nothing. No liquid surge of the bathroom sink, no sporadic drumming of the shower.

Mustering myself out of bed, I walked down the hall. The bathroom door was wide open. I stood there on the cool hardwood floor for a moment, as it dawned on me.

Cin had left. And, what was my preferred MO for girls I slept with, felt off.

At the sound of footsteps, I saw Owen passing by with a curt nod.

“Whatever happened to the girls?” I called after him.

“They must have called a taxi,” Owen called back from a room downstairs.

I went downstairs, found him with the fridge door in hand, staring at its dismal contents with a similarly dismal expression. “We’re overdue for a trip to the grocery store.”

“Far overdue,” I agreed, going to stand beside him.

He made no comment, only let the fridge door fall closed.

“So, about Cin,” I said.

His jaw tightened.

“You get dibs now, it’s fine. You and she hooked up last night. I get it.”

Despite my brother saying all but ‘you won’, I couldn’t seem to feel as good about it as I thought I would.

“I don’t know,” I told him.

He glanced at me. “You don’t know?”

I shrugged. “Wanna go out to Mel’s Diner? I’m starved and don’t know how much of a grocery trip I can stand.”

--

Half an hour later, we were both in considerably better spirits as we munched on the first of our two breakfast specials.

“So, about Cin,” Owen said out of a mouthful of bacon.

“About Cin,” I said. “I can see you really like her.”

Owen studied my face, saying nothing. That was my brother for you, always playing the martyr. Problem was, I wasn’t going to let him do it this time.

“I don’t want you to have to just throw away anything you had with her.”

“What exactly are you trying to say?” Owen asked me. “I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Just that the other night, all of us hanging out, I liked that.”

“I did too.” Owen’s smile was wistful before it dropped. “But still doesn’t change the situation.”

I shrugged. “If you can’t handle me and Cin being together, then that’s on you. We agreed to let the best man win. But judging from the fact that I woke up alone this morning, I don’t necessarily think that’s the case. Who knows, you may still have a shot.”

Owen’s fork had stopped mid-air, then, suddenly, he stabbed it into a stray fry. “You’re seriously ok with that?”

“No,” I admitted, my fork prongs digging into my own fry, “But, I don’t know, this feels different with her. Like I might really have something with her, and you might too. And I can see how happy she makes you. I don’t want you to lose all that on account of me.”

“I just don’t see how that would work,” he said, sounding skeptical.

I shrugged and popped another fry into my mouth. “We’ll just have to wait and see I guess.”

As the day progressed, my head was nowhere near where it should have been.

It was full of a parade of desperate Cin-related thoughts, I had to take a walk in the creek behind our house just to clear my head.

And yet, even as I passed by craning evergreens, invisible yet noisy frogs, and the odd gnarly walnut, I made no headway at all.

I liked Cin. I really liked her and wanted to call her up right then and invite her to my next fight, or just a dinner tonight, or both.

And yet, dialing Cin up, my finger stuck, hovering over the final digit.

My ex’s pert, elfin face flashed in my head, pout-scowling the expert way only she knew how, “You spend so much time with him, Jake.”

It had been the beginning of the end for her and me, and the beginning of several months of almost complete silence between Owen and me. There’d been other factors leading up to our brotherly split, but the result was the same: me being stuck with someone who was totally unsuitable that had tried to come between Owen and me.

I clenched my Nokia uncomfortably tight. At first, I’d really liked Amelia too. Sweetness incarnate, with cherry pie lips and steaming mocha eyes, I’d really thought I’d hit the jackpot with her. And then I’d just jumped right into a relationship with her and then all hell had broken loose.

I slid the phone into my pocket. This was new ground for me.

Beside the massive stump of a maple tree, its several-pointed leaves flutteringly benignly, my fingers drummed against the smooth paper of its bark, my gaze going to a spot further down.

There, carved into the tree, still there after all this time, were the initials: JOP. Our initials – Jake and Owen Powers. With the second knuckle on my pointer finger, I rubbed along the indentation, nodding in understanding.

My brother had always been the most important thing in my life. He was my twin, my other half, my carbon copy. We’d been through thick and thin together, and I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize our relationship. And if that meant that we walked away from the girl we obviously both cared about, then so be it.

Still, though, I thought there had to be another solution. But would Owen and Cin go for it?

It seemed fitting, in a twisted way. Where everyone else had gone left, we’d gone diagonal and off the track completely. Getting into fighting, then going into the military, then, finally, boxing. Our choices had never made sense to anyone but ourselves, as if only those in our world had the eyes to see where the stones fell in place. Maybe that was what this was too, an impossibly perfect possibility for the two of us. One love, one girl.

And yet, again, this was new ground for us. Dangerous new ground. New ground that could give way under our feet at any minute, taking the two of us with it. Things with Cin were still tentative at best. She seemed to have even less an idea of what was going on than we did.

Getting in too deep too fast would just lead to heartbreak for all involved. Better to play it cool for now, not text Cin how my fingers were already itching toward my phone for me to. Better to see how things between Owen and her progressed, if they progressed, and then go from there.

Owen and I couldn’t afford anything else to come between us.

Although, part of me sensed that neither could I afford anything to come between me and Cin.