Page 32 of The Triangle

The half a second it takes for these words to form in my head as some cloudy moment of self-realization brings instant clarity. An idea of how to handle him has me raising a single finger to my lips.

“Shhhhh,” I hiss.

He tilts his head, confused. Not the reaction he was expecting.

Christine is still sleeping. Her familiar light snore feels like home to me. My eyes dart to her, then back at Alec. He raises his chin, a sort of half nod of understanding, and stands up.

When I don’t move he shrugs with his hands. What the fuck, bru? that’s what he’s asking me.

I give him the same half nod back and he understands.

The shorthand gestures we developed while we were global diamond thieves comes rushing back. And even though I’m using it to get him the fuck out of this bedroom—get him the fuck away from Christine—I think we both have the same nostalgic feeling coursing in our hot blood for days gone by. Jobs that were done and done well. A whole other life than the ones we’re living separately now.

He leaves the bedroom without comment and I’m left here, in bed with the only girl I ever wanted to be in bed with.

We could be us, back then, in this moment.

In the Cristal Suite at the Le Place d’Armes Hotel in Luxembourg City. Still drunk on adrenaline from yesterday’s job well done. Breakfast would be waiting in the dining room. A full spread of eggs, and bacon, and pastries laid out on the table. And carafes of bad European coffee.

I smile, thinking about the coffee. I was always complaining about the coffee. No matter where we were, no matter what everyone told me about the fuckin’ beans, or the machine that made it, or the barista who mixed everything together… American coffee was the one thing I always missed. And you could tell them you wanted an American coffee, but it never mattered. It was always just the same dark, bitter European shit with fat-free milk mixed in.

Fucking Europe.

I kinda miss the bad coffee.

No, that’s not it.

I kinda miss… us.

Get your shit together, Fortnight. You’ve got Brasil waiting on a delivery.

That’s enough to get me moving. I slowly, gently, lift myself out of the bed Christine and I are sharing. I don’t want her to see him. Ever, if I can help it. I want this conversation with Alec to happen downstairs in the garage. I want it to be over with before she wakes up. Before she realizes we’re back together again.

I don’t want the word us, as it pertains to our long-ago triangle, to ever enter her mind.

I grab yesterday’s jeans off the floor and step out of the bedroom, closing the door behind me.

Alec’s eyes are wandering over the contents of my apartment—perhaps wondering there’s anything of value to steal from me—realizing there isn’t.

But then they land on the silver box and as I step into my jeans and pull them on, I feel him hold his breath as he takes a few steps over to the couch and picks it up. Turning it around in his hand. Single fingertip tracing the etched triangle on the top. His sidelong glare over his shoulder says more than words ever could.

What the fuck are you doing with this?

I point to the door, head that direction—grabbing my leather off the back of the chair as I pass—and open it. It’s my turn to glare at him over my shoulder. He’s still holding the box. Still standing in the same spot.

But our silent conversation holds. And he turns, walks over to me—past me—through the door, and I follow him out as I shoulder into my jacket, zippers jingling in the silent, gray, pre-dawn morning.

His expensive shoes tap on the metal stairs, my bare feet silent and cold as I follow him down to the floor of the garage.

“OK,” he says, turning to face me. “Explain.”

He’s holding up the silver box. Whatever’s happening with Christine is not what he’s referring to. Everything in the present gets sidelined to all the shit from the past. Because I am not supposed to have this diamond.

“I don’t owe you an explanation.”

“I think you do, bru. Because this was…” He doesn’t finish.

I smile. “Fuckin’ sucks, doesn’t it? Realizing you were betrayed and you didn’t even know it. That the betrayal happened behind your back. Kind of a gut-clenching wake up call, right, bru?” I mimic his stupid accent. Badly. Never could get those vowels to sound authentic.