He’s my best friend. My brother from another mother. I think he’s in love with me. We’ve been through everything together: moving, debt, breakups, parties that ended in the hospital…

Having sex with him was weird at first, but over time I even got a taste for it. It’s not that I’m attracted to men, but with him there’s something different. Trust, chemistry, excitement… I don’t know. It’s not the same as with a woman, but it’s not bad either. It’s like a genre of its own.

The problem started when I met a girl.

We’ve been dating for two months; it’s not official, but the connection is incredible. Sex with her is different—more intense, more mine—and I feel less and less like recording with my friend. He notices. And it hurts him. He says things like, “Are you going to sleep with her again? You forgot about our business so quickly.”

Or worse:

“I don’t understand how you can be with me and her at the same time. If you like her so much, why do you keep hooking up with me?”

And that’s the problem. She’s not my girlfriend, so technically it’s not cheating, but he sees it as a betrayal. To him, if I’m with someone I care about, I shouldn’t keep having sex with them. But it’s not that black and white.

Yesterday we argued a lot. I told him I couldn’t demand exclusivity if we’re not even a couple, and he said,

“For you, it’s just sex, for me it’s not.”

That’s when I understood.

For me, it was always sex between friends (and a business). For him, it clearly wasn’t. And now everything is going to hell:

Our income is declining because we don’t record as much anymore.

Coexistence is tense; we used to laugh all the time, now she avoids looking at me.

She doesn’t know any of this (I won’t tell her).

But what I love most, It hurts because I’m losing my best friend.

I don’t want him to think I’m replacing him. I don’t want our business to ruin years of brotherhood. But I also don’t want to stop exploring my feelings with this girl. Last night he got drunk and said, “If you choose a girl you recently met over me, then you were never my brother.” How the hell do I respond to that???

Any advice? I’m between a rock and a hard place.