by JA Huss
I take a breath, look at him, step over, place my bloody palms around his fists—in effect, dirtying them up again—and say as softly as I can, “Not now, OK?”
“Not now what?” he asks with exasperation.
“I’ll get into everything. I will. I promise. I just… not now.”
“Is it just the kid? He had a kid with Eliza. So what?”
“Danny—”
“I know you a little, Christine. Y’know? I do. So, is it that her life looks like this?” He gestures around us. “That she gets to have this and we’re… where we’re at? Because we could have this too. Y’know? We could have all this shit too. I mean, to be fair, life in the Cook Islands was pretty fuckin’ plush. We could’ve just stayed there. So I’m saying, if it’s some kind of suburban-ass, tea-and-biscuits bullshit you want, we can fuckin’ have it. Just tell me and we’ll fuckin’ do it. Because we’ve been through way, way too much and paid way, way too high a price to not be a little bit happy.”
I stare into his eyes. There’s something urgent in them. Desperate. Wanting. I know that Danny loves me. I have always known. And I’ve known that he would do anything for me. But until this moment, here, now, I don’t know if I realized how much.
He did come all this way, asking almost no questions and just trusting what I was telling him. He found out that I had been with Alec, without him, for four years, and I know that hurt him, but he still let me back in. He let us both back in. The way I’ve seen him in this time that we’ve been alone together again—dark, angry, intense in a way he doesn’t show other people… there’s still so much pain inside him. And he knows he can show me that part of himself and I’ll still be here.
He trusts me. He loves me. And he came for me just now. He’s the one who followed me. Not Alec. I know that Alec van den Berg believes he has special powers. That he wields some kind of control over people. Over me. But I didn’t come for him because he’s got some magical ability to control my mind or my heart. I came for him because it was the right thing to do. And because Alec, Christine, and Danny are who we are meant to be. I can feel it as much as I can feel my heart pumping the blood that oozes from my hands. The sped-up heartbeat that reminds me that I love Danny with everything inside me and would do anything for him, and despite his best attempts to make me hate him… I love Alec the same way.
“Is that what you want, Christine? Is it? Because we can have that. We can.”
I stare into his beautiful, haunting eyes and I nod. “I do. I do think I want that.”
He claps his hands. “Fuckin’ A. Then let’s make it happen. You, me, and Alec. Yeah? Let’s make it happen.”
I don’t say anything. Just keep staring. Because… because… because that is what I want. That life I dreamed of once where I was an executive assistant or whatever and things were “normal.”
“Christine?”
That’s still what I want. Right? Me, Danny, and Alec. That’s what I want. Isn’t it?
“Christine? You, me, Alec. We’ll make a life. Somewhere. Yeah?”
Isn’t it?
“Christine?”
Isn’t it?
“Christine…?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - ALEC
Charlie came back inside, shook his head at his brothers, and all four of them exited into another room. Some telekinetic brother thing, I reckon. Now it’s just me, Eliza, and a small human with eyes that look still a bit sleepy and also strikingly familiar.
“Mummy,” the child says, “are you making tea?”
“I was.”
“Can I have some?”
Eliza continues looking at me and after a moment says, “Of course, dear.” She goes to the cupboard and takes out a delicate-looking miniature teacup and equally miniature saucer. As she pours, I approach the small human.
“Hello, little one, what’s your name?”
“Alecandra,” she says. It stops me in my tracks.
“Alexandria,” her mother chimes in. “Trust me, I’ll see to it that she learns to get all the syllables out.”
“What’s your name?” the little one asks. She’s a bit tricky to understand, but she talks quite well, I decide. I know nothing about children, but she seems bright. I’m going to decide that she is.
“My name? My name is Alec, funny enough. Alec van den Berg.”
She laughs. “That’s a silly name.”
I laugh too. “Yeah, I suppose it might be. How old are you, Alexandria?”
“Mummy? How old is I?”
“You’re two, luv,” Eliza says, setting the tea onto the table. “Two going on twenty. Now take a seat in your chair. Use both hands.”
With some effort, Alexandria scrambles up into a chair and grips her tiny cup with her chubby little fingers. She attempts to drink and manages to spill as much as she lands in her mouth. Then she pours some tea onto the teddy bear she’s still holding. The whole exercise is an adorable fokken mess.
I step to Eliza, who bristles as I approach.
“Nice kid,” I say, my voice low.
“She is.”
“Nice place,” I note, looking around.
Eliza’s eyes go cold and dead. Without taking her glare off me, she says, “Andra, dear. Go see what your uncles are up to, will you?”
“I was supposed to hopscotch with that other man.”
“That other man has to go, luv. See if Uncle Theo wants to hopscotch. You know how good he is at it.”
Alexandria giggles. “He is pretty good!” she says, with a giddy enthusiasm that I don’t think I’ve ever felt about anything. And then she finishes spilling the rest of her tea everywhere and goes.
Once she’s gone—“Why are you three still here?” Eliza asks.
“We’ve been here for five minutes.”
“That’s about seven minutes longer than you’re welcome.”
“Hey, you lot brought us here.”
“Yes, well, in the absence of a plan, I’m not sure what we were supposed to do.” She throws a dish towel down, saying, “Goddamn it, Alec.”
“Don’t blame me. I didn’t ask for you to come after me. I was figuring it out fine on my own.”
“Were you?”
I nod.
She shakes her head. “I must have gone right barmy to have agreed to assist in this.”
I take a risk and step in just a bit closer. “But you did. And I appreciate it. I truly do. I know you think I’m—”
“You can’t even begin to know what I think of you.”
“Perhaps not. But I know it ain’t nice. And regardless of what it is exactly, I know you think I’m incapable of gratitude. But I am. I’m grateful.”
“Fine. You’re welcome. Goodbye.”
“You don’t know what I’m grateful for.”
She cocks her head. “Don’t play games with me, Alec. I have four lads in the other room who would be just as ready to disappear you from the planet as I am. Stop pushing your luck.”
I put my hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not playing games. I’m trying to tell you…”
“What?” she asks, with annoyance. “What are you trying to tell me?”
I take a breath. “I’m trying to tell you that I’m grateful you stood up to me the way you did. About…” I lift my chin in the direction the little one exited. “Because you were right. I’m not a father. There’s no way I could be. I had a terrible father for a role model, and the one chance I had to prove to anyone that I could be a better example myself was when I was left in charge of Lars. And we see how that has worked out.” I close my eyes, feeling a deep sense of… something I don’t like to feel. I continue, “So, when I say ‘nice place,’ ‘nice kid,’ I mean it. It’s far better than anything I could have provided. So… thank you.”
There’s no kindness or forgiveness in her stare, but at least the dead-eyed threat of annihilation is gone. And she says, more sincerely this time, “You’re welcome.” Something almost approaching a truce feels like it could be emergi
ng when she adds, “Whatever happened to those blokes you were hiding from? The last time. The time when I told you that I was pregnant with her?”
I have to think hard to remember. “Which ones were those?”
She rolls her eyes. “The ones that you were going to have to stash us away in Japan to hide us from? The ones who stitched you up and left you burrowed away in that silly estate?”
I squint. Still trying to remember. “I don’t… I’m not sure. I honestly don’t recall which group of okes it was. But, I mean, the answer is that they’re dead. They’re all dead. Anyone who has ever posed a threat to me is gone. That’s how it works.”
She purses her lips and nods. “You mean anyone who has ever posed a threat to you or your triangle. They’re all gone. I know, because that includes me. And your daughter.”
That stings. I’ll admit it. But I can’t blame her. “Well, now, the way things are, anyone who poses a threat to you two is part of that equation. So…”
“What are you saying?” she asks. Somewhat rhetorically.
“You know what I’m saying. I’m saying that I won’t leave England until I’m sure that no one is going to come after you for helping today.”
“We can take care of ourselves.”
“I know you can. So can I. And look what happened to me.”
She grinds her teeth and pushes her hair behind her ear. “Fine. Do whatever you like. But it has nothing to do with me. Or my brothers. Or my daughter. Do you understand?”
I nod. “I do.”
“And if any part of it—and I mean any part of it—gets visited back upon me or them…” She pauses for a long time. A long, long time. I think she may be waiting for a prompt. When I don’t offer one, she finishes her thought. “I’ll kill you.”
I raise my eyebrows, press my lips together, and nod. “OK.”
“OK.”
And then we stare at each other. It’s a strange, strange thing. She’s beautiful. Beyond beautiful, in fact. And I do care for her. I always have. But she was right, back then, when she said I didn’t love her. I didn’t. I don’t. She’s impressive and I always liked how much she felt like a challenge, but when all is said and done, the only two people I love are sitting outside right now. They are the only two people I feel anything for. Truly.
Which is why I find it so very strange that if you asked me if I would be willing to lay down my life for a two-year-old person who I only just met moments ago, the answer would be yes.
Funny that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - DANNY
“Christine?” I say, feeling like I’m stuck on repeat. But she’s not answering me, and this is making me very fucking nervous. “Fucking say something or I swear to God, I’ll pick you up by your ankles, tip you upside down, and shake the words right out of you.”
She smiles. Because I used to say this to her back in that first foster home where we met. I knew she was holding a lot of shit inside and I needed to know what it was. Because I was holding shit inside too and I wanted her to need my story as much as I needed hers.
But she didn’t need anything back then.
It’s scary to meet a kid who needs nothing.
I mean she needed food, and shelter, and all that other basic crap. But she was already at that late stage of neglect where one decides they don’t need love.
I was there too. But I was fourteen and she was ten. It just felt like I should’ve been way ahead of her in the whole no-love thing, not on equal footing.
So I wanted her story and she didn’t want to give it up.
This was my threat. Gonna shake it out of you, Christine.
I never did of course. Or maybe once or twice I’d actually pick her up by her ankles and make her squeal. But I never hurt her, and I never shook any words out of her.
The story came, eventually, but she was the one who shook it out, not me.
She sighs loudly in the here and now and says, “There’s more.”
And she looks ten again. No, she looks eight. Or six. Or four. She looks like some version of Christine I never saw but always knew existed.
“Yeah, no shit,” I say, taking her hand and pulling her towards me. “I know that.” She sits down on the wall and kinda… slumps into herself. I put my arm around her shoulder, and she leans against me.
“I can’t talk about it here. I can’t stay here.” She straightens up again, turning a little so she can look me in the eyes. “I need to leave this place right now and never come back.”
I nod my head. “OK. I mean, I never figured we’d be staying so I texted our driver to come get us. He should be here in a few.”
“But I’m not sure Alec should come with us.”
“Whoa,” I say, putting up a hand. “No. We didn’t just fucking break that asshole out of a fortress to leave him behind with Eliza fucking Watson.”
“He needs to decide—”
“Fuck you,” I say. “Just fuck you, Christine. He did decide. He’s with us. These Watson assholes can do whatever the fuck they want, but he’s with us.”
She sighs again. “That’s his daughter.”
“I know that. He knows that. And if we go in there right now and say, ‘Let’s go, man. We’re out,’ he’s gonna leave with us.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Let’s go test it out.”
She deflates again. Shakes her head just a little bit. “I don’t think I can.”
“I’ll do it.”
“No,” she says. “I don’t think I can take it. I don’t think I could stand those empty seconds where he thinks about it and makes a decision.”
“He’s gonna choose us,” I say. So fucking sure of this.
“Maybe. But there’s gonna be a part of him that wonders if he should stay and I can’t deal with that right now, Danny.”
“He doesn’t love Eliza, Christine. He loves—”
“It’s not about Eliza,” Christine snaps. Rage in her voice. “It’s not about her kid either.”
“Then… what?”
“I just need to leave.”
Now it’s my turn to sigh. “Well, that’s the plan. Let’s grab Alec and go.” I see her words before she speaks them and hold up a hand to shut her up. “Fuck you. We’re not leaving him behind. He’s not here for Eliza. Or the kid. He’s here because we brought him here. I’m sure he’s got lots of questions and I’m sure his answers will be coming. But I want my fucking answers too. Right the fuck now. And if you can’t give them to me here, then we’re leaving. So get up, put on your big girl panties, and stop acting like a goddamn child.”
Footsteps on the path make us both look up. Christine tenses up so bad, I have a moment of panic that the interloper is Eliza.
But it’s not, it’s Charlie.
“Dude, I thought I told you I got this.”
He doesn’t even look at me. He only has eyes for Christine.
“You never told him, did you?” Charlie asks.
“Shut up,” Christine snaps.
“Told me what?” I say. “Did you two—”
“No,” Christine says.
But Charlie says, “Yes,” in that same moment.
And I don’t how I know they’re talking about two different things, so both these answers make perfect sense, but I do.
They didn’t do what I was asking about. Meaning they didn’t date, or fuck, or whatever.
They did something else. Something Charlie seems to want to talk about and Christine clearly doesn’t.
How much did I miss in those four empty years?
“You got something to say?” I ask Charlie. “Because now would be a really good time to fill me in.”
“Don’t you dare,” Christine seethes.
Charlie puts up his hands. A gesture that says, I won’t. But you need to.
My phone buzzes a text. I glance down at the screen and read it.
“OK,” I say, getting up and pulling Christine to her feet. She resists for a second, which is dumb—she’
s the one who wants to leave—but relents. “The driver’s here. So we’re going inside, grabbing Alec, and going somewhere else.”
I don’t wait for an answer, just tug Christine past Charlie and head back toward the house on the dark slate path. Inside it’s quiet and we find Alec and Eliza at some sort of standstill in the kitchen. Christine yanks her hand from mine, picking up her pace, and marches on through towards the front door.
I say, “Come on, Alec. The driver’s here. We’re leaving.”
And then the moment does come. The one Christine was dreading. I’m glad she’s not here to witness it, because there is a split second where Alec considers this.
It’s fair, his consideration. Because anyone, in any situation, even ones that don’t involve ex-girlfriends and secret babies, would need this split second to decide if they were staying or going.
But I get her point.
To Alec’s credit he just says, “Hundreds,” and heads after Christine without a second glance back at Eliza.
She stares at me. Glares at me. A look of hate that’s probably meant for Alec but lands with me since he’s already gone.
I just turn and follow him outside. Christine is already getting in to the back of the limo, but Alec is saying something to Russell as he walks past. “Get them somewhere safe. I’ll be in touch.”
Then it’s Russell’s turn to glare at him.
Alec doesn’t even notice. He’s already reaching for the door handle on the opposite side of the car.
I slow my steps as Russell’s eyes turn to me. “I don’t know, dude.” I say in way of explanation. “Lars, I guess.”
“I got that part, mate. thanks. But the part I don’t have quite yet is… what the fuck does he think he’s doing?”
“I have no clue,” I say, passing him by. “Just… get them somewhere safe.” But then I turn and add over my shoulder, “And tell that tiny one that I’m sorry I couldn’t stay.”
I don’t know why I say it and I’m pretty sure it was a bad idea. Pretty sure that Uncle Russell isn’t too keen that Uncle Danny has suddenly shown up out of nowhere.
