Page 93 of The Triangle

“You got a problem with what we did?”

“Knowing what it means? What it represents? I have a big problem with it, yes. I would have given you anything you wanted, Danny. You just had to ask.”

Just my fucking luck. I don’t want to talk about my feelings for him so I bring up diamonds. And I want to talk about diamonds—specifically that diamond—even less than I do my feelings. Hell, maybe they’re the same thing.

So… choices. Choices.

I guess feelings win the day.

“You know that day in the gym?”

He smiles. “One of the best days of my life.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Mine too.” And that’s not even a lie. Not today, not last week when he was the last thing on my mind. Not even when the whole fucking thing blew up and the three of us fell apart.

Well, the two of us, I guess.

“Go on,” he says.

BEFORE

“You there,” the kid in the ring says. He slithers through the ropes like a snake. Sleek with sweat that glistens on his perfect physique of a body. Tanned in a way he shouldn’t be. And even though he’s only said two words to me, there’s no way to miss his… foreignness.

He doesn’t belong here.

“You mind, bru?”

“What?”

“Hand me my shirt, yeah?”

I look down at the pile of clothes at my feet. The blue blazer with the embroidered private school emblem. The expensive shoes. Then I reach down and pick up the white shirt, thrusting it at him.

“Thank you…”

“Danny,” I say. He smiles at me. Which just makes me squint. “You live around here?”

“What do you think?”

“You have a beef with Curtis or something?” I ask.

The kid looks over his shoulder at Curtis, who has been helped to his feet by a few of the other guys. “Is that his name?” And then he smiles at me. “No. I just wandered in and felt like beating the shit out of someone. He was just the first one who said yes to my offer.”

“Oh,” I say. “Cool.” Because I’ve had days like that myself.

“Alec,” he says, shouldering into his shirt and extending one bloody hand in my direction.

NOW

I’m not really a hand-shaker, but I shook. Our hands touched and he was hot. Blood trickled down his knuckles. And when I pulled away some of it was on me.

It wasn’t the way he looked. Not really. I mean, he was—is—a very nice-looking guy. But it wasn’t his looks. Or his stupid accent. Or that he didn’t belong. Or the fact that Curtis just got his ass kicked because he was the first person who took him up on an offer for an ass-kicking.

“It was the blood,” I say.

“What?” Alec laughs.

“That day at the gym. You had blood on your hand. And when we shook some of it got on me.”