So... who is this Jay guy to me anyway?
Jay and I went to the same high school but we didn't know each other then exactly. I was a freshman when he was a cool, long-haired senior. Years later, when I was just leaving high school, I started a fwb relationship with his best friend and roommate at the time, Terry (the one who's now dating Davis's sister). Jay thought it was messed up that Terry was fooling around with someone so much younger, and didn't have much to do with me. In groups he would be snarky to me, but I thought that was just the way he was (not totally untrue).
The years went by and though Terry and I were no longer a thing I stayed connected with that friend group. When I started dating Davis (a childhood friend from a different state), I introduced him to everyone. Jay and Davis became particularly close. Davis is completely straight and pretty dang mono, but he indulged me in fantasies about threeways from time to time which sometimes included our friend Thea and sometimes included Jay (yeah, I've always had a thing for him)... just fantasies, nothing we even remotely considered pursuing in real life.
When all the drama went down with Davis and I, my biggest struggle was knowing I needed to leave and not being able to bring myself to do it. Davis was scarily depressed and isolated and I cared for him very deeply, how could I abandon him? In the end, it was seeing Jay's devoted friendship that gave me the confidence that someone would be there to hold Davis together even if I left.
I felt indebted to Jay, I felt this swell of gratitude that a) he had set me free, and b) he was watching over my loved one. At the same time, I felt pretty sure he hated me. After all, Terry and Davis's sister did. How can you not at least resent someone who's broken your friend when you're the one there picking up the pieces?
Over the four and a half years between then and now, Davis and I went through various cycles of staying away from each other, reconnecting, being friends, being lovers, and finally being in mutually-acknowledged love and now a relationship again. Jay was a presence that whole time. I've talked about the way he avoids eye contact sometimes and that is in fact a thing about him, but in truth I was afraid to look him in the eye myself. I felt ashamed and almost afraid of him, of what he thought of me.
That started really changing about a year ago. The four of us would hang out from time to time -- me, Davis, Jay, and Jay's gf Bonnie -- and it was clear that things were ok. We were hardly best buds, but Jay included me and was cool with me. He and Bonnie have come to see my queer cabaret group a few times, which I really appreciate because they're totally not involved in the queer scene or the theater scene otherwise. Bonnie is a cool chick, we've bonded a little.
There was one evening, not long before Davis and I decided to date again, that shifted things on a fundamental level. The four of us went to see an art show that featured some of Bonnie's work. Afterwards, we went drinking. We were playing pool and a random guy began hitting on me inappropriately. Jay was the first one to notice, he took me aside and asked me if I wanted him to take the guy outside. I thought it was absurd but touching that he would offer to beat up this guy for me. I think he was completely sincere. I told him it was fine, and just went outside and enjoyed the air with Bonnie for a few minutes to get away.
We ended up going back to our neighborhood, dropping off the car, and walking to a different bar to finish up the evening. We were all quite sloshed by this point, as you can imagine. Jay and I got to reminiscing about high school, Terry, all that old stuff. Jay alluded to us having hated each other back then. I asked him what he meant. He explained about his problem with my relationship with Terry and how he'd been mean to me because of it and had figured I'd hated him right back as a consequence, known of which I'd known. "No," I said, "I guess I was a pretty oblivious kid, but I thought you just didn't give a crap whether I lived or died, and I never hated you... I never hated you."
It was such a strange moment, each of us having our past recast like that. I carried it with me for a couple of days afterwards, mulling it over, thinking a lot about my life and all the players in it. And then there was that dream. I guess it seems silly to keep coming back to that, what does a dream really signify anyway? But, well, there are dreams you forget and dreams that stick with you, and this was one of the latter. I'm not trying to give it more prominence or significance than it deserves, but it did represent a shift for me. Fun fact: the hug in the dream, warm and mutual and reassuring, was more close physical contact than we've ever had in real life. I hugged him once after one of my shows and he was like "woah, woah"... like I've said, closed off.
Anyway, that leads us to the present day. I've thought about it more and decided not to say anything to Davis at present after all. It may be that I'm just a little giddy at having Jay be a close friend that I can laugh with and bond with after all this time. There may occasionally be a flirty tone, but that doesn't mean we're flirting per se, I do think some of it may be in my head. Every single interaction has occurred with Davis present, and he already knows very clearly that I think Jay is attractive, so there's hardly a secret here that needs revealing. Talking about it with him might just make things weird. I've been trying to learn that even though introspection and communication are both vital, overthinking and overtalking *every* single thing is not necessarily beneficial in all cases... it's a tough lesson for me.
If I have any reason to believe something more is brewing, or if I just feel the moment is right, then I'll talk to Davis about it. But whereas Ziggy was actively wooing me, trying to get me to cheat (ugh, why did I let it go on?), Jay would never do such a thing... I truly don't have anything to fear. The fact that we don't even casually touch, except in the most incidental of ways, makes me all the more certain that I'll notice in plenty of time of we're ever in the slightest danger of crossing a line.
It's been great, sharing a wavelength with Jay, realizing that we both find the same things about Davis exasperating and that we can back each other up when he's being ridiculous. He's like a metamour, which is appropriate considering that I jokingly call him and Davis "hetero boyfriends" from time to time, they spend so much time together. Davis and Bonnie had a much more confrontational "metamour" relationship to start, each felt the other was monopolizing too much of Jay's time, but they eventually came around to getting along.