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"Be right there," Jordan called, and there was a brief pause before he opened the door. When he was who it was, he blinked in surprise; Melvin hadn't talked to him in quite some time. "Hey," he said. "Nice to see you. What's up?"

His room was visibly less tidy than usual; a tarp still hung across the section of the far wall that was being repaired, and some things had been moved around. A bathrobe and a shirt lay over the back of the couch, and there was a laptop on the coffee table beside a scatter of books.

"Uh, sure. Let me grab my shoes real quick," Jordan said, and padded back into the room to retrieve his boots from their spot under the coat hooks. Melvin seemed tense and nervous. Possibly not a good sign for whatever he wanted to ask or talk about, but Jordan wasn't going to make assumptions about that until he found out what was up.

He was stepping out the door shortly, and closed it behind him but left it unlocked. "Anywhere or anything particular?" he asked as they started down the hall.

Jordan followed Melvin's lead, waiting for the other man to gather his thoughts enough to start the conversation. It seemed a little odd for Melvin to be so nervous about something; the man was blunt and straightforward to a fault -- except when asked to speak about something personal and private. So perhaps Melvin wanted to talk about something personal. If that was the case, Jordan wasn't about to derail him with small talk, especially when he knew that Melvin disdained pointless niceties.

The path angled downward toward the beach, and Melvin organized his thoughts enough to ask his question. Jordan's eyebrows jumped. This was not an avenue of conversation he'd expected to be addressing with Melvin. He wasn't sure if he was flattered that Melvin thought enough of him to ask his advice about it or faintly insulted to be considered the person to consult about messy relationships. "I'm not entirely sure we'd be considered a normal start to a poly relationship," he answered, a little dryly. "Harrison and I had slept together a couple of times and were edging toward making it a thing, so we weren't really a couple yet, as such, and Rep was deeply closeted but got too jealous about us to contain it, and that was what got us onto the path that ended up with agreeing that we'd give it a try as all three of us rather than leaving anyone out of it." He added, after a moment, "There were also Joy cookies involved in the working-it-out process."

Jordan tucked his hands in his pockets and listened as Melvin explained his situation. Jane and Doris? I know there's at least one Jane around here but I haven't met a Doris. Maybe she's new - But the thought was derailed as Melvin went on to refer to both of them as he, and the situation and the people involved became uncomfortably clear. He suppressed a pained groan. Should he play along and pretend he didn't know who Melvin was talking about, or should he just address it straightforwardly?

"That's not a particularly good start," he said after a moment. "If you're going to be dating more than one person, everybody involved should be aware of the others and okay with it. It requires openness, honesty, and a lot of communication." He gave Melvin a flat look. "Are these two guys both thinking it's an open relationship?"

Jordan took one hand out of his pocket and rubbed it across his eyes, his eyebrows pinching wearily. "Okay, dude. One, you are terrible at concealing people's identities. Two, if that's how it is, Jan's cheating, plain and simple. If you weren't aware that it was in any way serious beforehand, you're not entirely at fault for sleeping with him anyway, but you still should've made sure that it was okay with everyone involved before going ahead with it if you care about not cheating."

He dropped his hand to his side and looked at Melvin. "If you're having to keep what you're doing together a secret, it's not a good relationship."

"If you thought Horace wasn't going to be upset about it when you did it, then the blame is on Jan for giving you the wrong impression," Jordan said, as patiently as he could. "But now that you know that he really, really would be, if you do it again, you're cheating, regardless of what Rin thinks about it." He sighed. "You can't just leave him out of this, especially since he feels so strongly and you know that he feels really strongly about it. Pretty sure you already know that, since you asked me instead of either asking him or just going ahead with what you're doing."

If Horace found out about this ... Jordan didn't know whether to hope for that or to hope that it stayed a secret. Horace would be furious at Melvin, but the discovery that Jan was cheating on him had the potential to send him into a dangerous downward spiral. But if Jan was the kind of guy who'd cheat without remorse, it was probably only a matter of time before it did come out. Maybe the guy could pull it off for a while, but in a community this small and this gossipy, someone would see or hear something, and it would all disintegrate.

"If you're going to use fake names, use ones that aren't almost the same as the names you're trying to conceal," Jordan advised, quirking an eyebrow at Melvin.

He sighed. "Sorry, dude. I know you're a decent person. You know as well as I do that your conscience wouldn't let you keep it up, not when you know it's going to hurt someone you consider a friend. It's not worth destroying the friendship and their relationship." His lips pressed into a thin line. If Jan was willing to lie and cheat like that, the relationship might already be a time bomb. But if Melvin was directly involved in the implosion, it would be worse.