The Square (Shape of Love Book 2)

by JA Huss

  That earns me a confused look.

  “Because I’ve fallen in and out of love with you, Alec van den Berg, several times already in this life.”

  Danny holds his breath. Alec says, “Fair enough.”

  And I feel like telling him everything.

  So I do.

  “There used to be a time when I was infatuated with you. That came early. Like the night we first stole our first diamond.” I look down at Danny, smile at him and say, “But it wasn’t love.” Danny tilts his head. I continue. “I didn’t fall in love with you for real until after Danny left.”

  Alec nods and says. “Go on.”

  “By that time we were sleeping together. Not sex. I mean we were sleeping together. In the same bed.”

  Danny is tense beneath me. He’ll relax once he sees where I’m going.

  “And I used to think to myself… God. I cannot wait for it to be night again so I can crawl under those covers and slip my body up next to his. And he would put his arms around me or slip his fingers between my legs. But I didn’t really care what he did next because I knew we had hours and hours alone together in that bed before he’d leave me again.”

  When I glance at Alec he’s leaning forward, elbows on knees, staring down at his feet.

  “I was in love with you back then,” I say.

  “And when did that end?” Alec asks. He looks over at me. Eyes bloodshot and tired. “The first time?”

  “When I lost the baby.”

  He nods and resumes looking at his feet.

  “When I lost the baby,” I say again, this time with the intention of going on. “I lost everything. I lost my joy, I lost my hope, I lost my love. And I don’t understand why. Well, I understand parts of it. But I don’t understand why, all of a sudden, the thought of climbing into bed with you at night suddenly felt… well. It felt like nothing. I had no feelings about it at all. And that scared me. Because just a few months before it was all I thought about. I craved the night. I craved our connection.”

  I look down at Danny, who is frowning up at me.

  “I lost my love, Danny. It just disappeared one day.”

  He swallows hard now. Nodding.

  “But then I noticed Alec wasn’t coming home as much and I started to miss him. I started calling him during the day. I started thinking I’d go out. Go do things. Get back to work.”

  Alec sighs. He knows where this is headed. Because he was there.

  “And there was one night when Alec came back and took my hand, and took me to bed, much the same way he’d done many times before—and I felt it again. That old excitement. That flutter in my stomach. And I thought… OK. I’m getting better now. So for one night I fell back in love with you, Alec.”

  “And then you found out about Eliza,” he says.

  “And I fell out.”

  Alec looks at me with those same bloodshot and tired eyes and asks, “Do you love me now?”

  I nod. Because it’s true. I do. “But it was Danny who caused that love to come back.”

  “Of course it was,” Alec murmurs.

  “It was watching Danny fall in love with you, for the first time, I realize now, back on the yacht as we made our way to the Cook Islands that made me see what we had, and what I was missing, and what we could be again.”

  I look down at Danny. “You were so sad, and it wasn’t because you loved me or the idea of us. It was because you thought Alec was dead. It was because you thought you were too late. You thought you’d never get another chance to see him and tell him how you felt.”

  Danny just nods.

  “And I realized that there’s no time for regrets. There’s no time for grudges. Because life is short, and it could end instantly, at any moment. And I didn’t want to die feeling like Danny. Like I had love to give and I lost my chance. So yes, Alec van den Berg. I love you again. And I’m sorry for my betrayal. I’m sorry I hurt you. And if you can’t forgive me, I’ll understand. But either way, I want you to know… that I forgive you.”

  I want to say more. Poetic things like… this triangle we’ve been making was always precarious. Always skewed in one awkward direction one moment, then another the next.

  And it wasn’t until now that we had the chance to make all the sides equal. Make all the love equal.

  But only if we let it.

  I want to say… We control the shape of our love. We decide what it looks like. We can put all this back together again if we really want to.

  But I can’t say that. Because I’m not the glue. Danny isn’t the glue. Alec isn’t the glue.

  Our shape can’t pull itself together until we’re all on the same page.

  It’s a mutual decision that we must all make together, and I don’t know how that could possibly happen after all we’ve been through and everything that’s left to be considered.

  So I don’t say anything.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - ALEC

  Watching my hand grip the rim of the tumbler and rotate the base like a gyroscope on the side table, I make a small ‘O’ with my lips and puff out several small expulsions of air. I nod. I chew the inside of my mouth, involuntarily. There is a massive world outside this room, spinning in disorder.

  My brother is alive. My child can speak and walk and spill tea. My child’s mother and I have had eyes on each other again. Something that I thought would never again happen. Hearing the word “diamond,” I think of the diamond—the diamond—that started our journey, and it causes me to realize that I don’t know where it is. It may still be back in that destroyed house of glass in the woods. And on and on and on and on the list of untended items goes. The dangling threads that, once pulled, could unravel whatever fabric we have managed to stitch together.

  And I don’t care.

  I don’t have one moment’s worth of concern for any of it.

  And that is the most compelling evidence I have that I love them both. For someone who is obsessed with control, as I am, to allow so much probable bedlam to build and swirl without forcing my way out into the world to manacle it all down, in favor of sitting here with these two people discussing my undying commitment to them… that is the most profound declaration of love I can make.

  But I will not say that out loud. Because, in this moment, I relish the quiet. I relish the love in this place. And I don’t want to risk compromising it by giving voice to the jumble of thoughts in my head. Ach, man. I don’t know when I stopped being a cynic. This vulnerability makes it hard to not care about anything.

  “I think I may have a shower,” I say. I’d like to reach out and touch them both. Seeing them sitting there so close, I just want my hands on them. But I can’t. I don’t have control, and everyone here knows it. So I can’t just do as I like. I’m hoping a shower and a shave will restore some sense of myself to myself.

  “OK,” Danny says, stroking Christine’s hair. Something happened while I’ve been away. Danny and Christine have become each other’s. For lo these many years, I had believed that Christine and I were the duet who would survive if everything otherwise fell totally apart. How naïve.

  I am not the anchoring force in our love. They are.

  Christine and Danny are the alpha and the omega. Not me.

  I push myself out of my seat and watch them watch me. This sudden break in our action to profess our feelings for each other had been intended to bring us closer. I know this. And while it’s no one’s fault, somehow, I’m left feeling more unsure. Hayibo, man. How it’s possible that talking about my love for them both aloud, with no posturing or arrogance, would cause me to feel less secure about my standing than being shot off the side of a fokken mountain, I don’t know. But here we are.

  I nod to them and excuse myself to the loo. It’s gotten quite dark out. A sudden, quilted blackness has fallen over this part of the earth. I’ve never understood why nighttime in London feels so much more night-like to me than other places, but it does. I flip on the light in the toilet and, squinting, say aloud, “Ach, m
an. Fokken strive for ambience, you naaiers.” I don’t know who I’m talking to. I suppose whoever designed the lights. They’re far too bright. I don’t need to see everything quite so vividly now. It would be preferable for things to remain a bit hidden just yet.

  Turning off the switch, I make my way to the sink and find the toggle for the small vanity lights around the mirror. I flip it on. Much better. It creates an almost halo-like effect. Which is laughable, but I don’t laugh.

  Opening a drawer or two, I discover razor, shaving soap, and brush. As I swirl the badger hair into the bowl, watching it lather, I think about the recurring dream. The one I’ve been having these last… however long it’s been. Finding out Eliza was pregnant and Christine arriving at the house. Discovering us. Confronting us both.

  That’s not at all how it happened.

  It’s all very dramatic and romanticized, but it sure as fok ain’t reality.

  I apply the brush to my jaw and start lathering my stubbled chin.

  I remember it now as Christine just reminded me. Coming back to us, Christine and me, after my time away with Eliza. After recovering from the scrape I had been in. After finding out that Eliza was pregnant and that she wanted me to have nothing to do with her or the yet unknown and unnamed Alexandria.

  Not being shocked or sad, but somehow relieved in an odd way, knowing that she could see what I knew in my heart as well… I’m no parent. No parent anyone would want anyway. There are plenty of examples of terrible parents. One only need look around this suite to observe that. But I don’t think I’d want to add my name to a list as ignominious as that. I’m on enough ignominious lists already.

  I lift the razor and draw it down my cheek. Watching myself return, millimeter by millimeter.

  So I came back to Christine and I chose not to say anything. Nothing about Eliza or pregnancies, or anything. And I dropped back into something resembling normalcy.

  I shift sides with the razor and begin to expose the other cheek.

  And the night that Christine just mentioned—the night I drew her into the bed, and I held her close—I felt it. I felt her love for me. I felt a connection and felt that everything would be as it used to be.

  And then I woke up the next morning and told her that Eliza was going to have our child. And then I felt her love flee. I knew it was gone again.

  The razor glides down my throat.

  These last couple of years I have believed that I did that because I simply can’t let things be. I must disrupt that which is placid. It’s the only way I know how to exist. Occasionally, if I thought back on it at all, I considered that I told her because I wanted to test the strength of our bond. That sounds very much like something I might do. Oh so very ‘Alec,’ if you will.

  But those were not the real reasons. The real reason I told her was because I didn’t want to lie to her.

  I didn’t want to withhold a truth. I didn’t want her to find out some other way. Lies and deception had already driven Danny away. Greed of spirit had already fractured our lines. And I thought… Ach, man, I’ve lived my life telling untruths and manipulating reality. Let’s see what happens if I just, as they say, ‘come clean.’

  I watch the soapy water wash the hair from my face down the drain.

  And now I allow the comically undersized clothing to fall from my body onto the bathroom floor and I stare at my naked form in the mirror. I touch gently at my ribs. Not bad. Sensitive, but not impossibly so. There is no more bruising of note on my flesh. Not really. No damage that one can see on the surface. But underneath, the pain still lingers.

  I step into the elaborately tiled glass enclosure behind me and turn on the rainfall showerhead. I step back and remain standing on the outside until it reaches peak temperature. I want to feel the water scalding when it touches my skin.

  You know, back when I told her the truth, I wish Christine had made her anger known to me rather than plotting with Lars to try to murder me and take over my entire world…

  But then again… eh. I can’t really blame her. I helped mold her into who she is.

  ‘Water under the bridge,’ as they also say.

  Such an odd expression. I suppose it implies that once something is washed away, it’s gone and should be let go. But now, here, the expression causes me to think of Misty going over the side of that railing and that being the moment I knew my love for these two people was real.

  The glass inside the shower begins to fog with steam.

  It also causes me to think of what Danny said. That my going over the side of the falls was the moment he decided he truly loves me. Spawned of Christine’s hurt, and lost love, came new love. From Danny.

  Water under the bridge. Water over the falls. Water, water everywhere, I allow the words of Coleridge to play along in my thoughts as I step into the steaming, scorching rainfall. Perhaps, if I’m very lucky indeed, it will wash away everything now.

  That is a lot to expect from a shower in a suite at the Ritz-Carlton, but then again it is a very nice hotel, so—

  A tap on the glass snaps me back to the present. I wipe at the steam-frosted window to find both of them there. They look… I don’t know. Mischievous, maybe.

  Also… naked. Or, at least... she is.

  “Hey,” Christine says.

  “Hi,” I respond.

  “Hey, dude,” Danny says. “Better.” He indicates my shaved face by placing his hand along his own jawline and pointing at me.

  “Thanks.” I say.

  Then no one says anything for a moment. We all just stare at each other. I have to wipe clean the glass once more so that I can continue to see them. Finally, after I wipe it a third time, Christine is the one who asks…

  “Can we come in?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY—SIX DANNY

  Neither of us turn our heads to watch Alec disappear into the bathroom. We just sit. Holding each other. It’s everything I never knew I wanted from Christine, but these new feelings for Alec—the ones I’ve started to accept but haven’t had the chance to fully embrace yet—feel unfinished.

  For both of us.

  “We need to do something,” I say, still playing with Christine’s hair.

  “Yeah.” She sighs. “We do.”

  “We should go in there. Join him.”

  But she shakes her head. “I don’t feel like it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because this feels good.”

  Yeah, that’s the problem. But I don’t say that. Christine has been through a lot these past few years. Hell, her whole life has just been one fucked-up misadventure after another.

  “We have to make a decision. Are we three? Or are we two?”

  “Three,” she says softly. “We are three, for sure. But it all feels so impossible. He’s never going to forget that I took up with Lars. That I was the cause of all the bad things that have happened to him these past few months.”

  I kinda laugh. Not because it’s funny, just because it happens to be... ironic. Fucking irony.

  “Why are you laughing?”

  “You forgot,” I say.

  “Yeah, but…” She huffs out something that might be a laugh too. “That was a head injury.”

  I turn her in my lap so she has to look me in the eyes. “Look,” I say. “We’ve built something here and it’s about to fall apart. And this moment, right now, is the time to put it all back together.”

  “I know that. Don’t you think I know that?”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “It just feels… unimaginable. Everything feels very unimaginable right now.”

  Which makes total sense. I get it, I do. This is one fucked-up situation. But then again, the answer is so easy.

  So I make a decision. I stand up, forcing her to stand as well.

  “What are you doing?”

  I don’t answer. Just drag her jacket down her arms and toss it on to the couch.

  She smiles. Again asks, “What are you doing?”

  But she
knows what I’m doing. That’s why she’s smiling.

  “Danny?” she says, her smile turning into one of those playful smirks.

  “Shhh,” I say, lifting her t-shirt up over her head. “Stop talking.”

  She giggles a little but doesn’t object or speak again.

  I drop the shirt on the floor and take a moment to appreciate her body and the black, lacy bra she was hiding underneath the plain black t-shirt. Her stomach muscles are cut like diamonds. Hard and edgy. She has always been a diamond. Unbreakable, brilliant, and beautiful.

  And I have not had enough moments with her like this. All to myself. A quiet one between the two of us where we both know where we stand, and how we feel, and what comes next. Maybe... Maybe on our way here. On the boat. But that was something else. Fueled by something else. From somewhere else.

  Up until now it’s been adrenaline, and passion, and maybe lust.

  But that’s not how I want this night to go. So I don’t rush when I let my fingers drop to the button of her dark jeans and pop it open. I take my time dragging down the zipper. Looking into her brown-green eyes as she looks up into my blue ones.

  Then I bend down, still looking up, and pick up her foot. She places a hand on my shoulder to steady herself, still smiling as I pull off her sneaker and toss it behind me. I tap her other leg and she presents her foot. That sneaker goes behind me too. Then I grab the waistband on her jeans and drag them down her legs, getting hard as her matching black panties present themselves right in front of my face.

  She smells like the sun, and the wind, and there’s still the scent of saltwater swirling around her too. She steps out of her jeans and kicks them aside.

  I press my face up against her bare belly. My lips kiss their way up her body as I stand and place both my palms flat against her face.

  “I love you,” I say, looking down at her now.

  She gives me a sad smile but says nothing. Perhaps waiting for my kiss.

  But I don’t kiss her. I reach around her back and unclasp her bra. It falls loose in the front and when I drag it down, she brings her arms in front of her, pushing her breasts together as we let the bra slip away and fall to the floor.