Page 31 of The Triangle

I don’t know if I ever have before.

Kak.

As he stumbles away shouting, “Fuck! What the fuck is happening?” I go over to him, my hands up.

“Fok, bru! Are you all right?”

When I reach him and kneel down to see how badly I bliksemed him, the memory of my dad kneeling down to me is once again called into my mind. But Danny, of course, is not crying. Unlike me, I don’t think Daniel Ryan Fortnight has ever cried once in his life.

No. He is definitely not prone to tears. But he is prone to vengeance. He rears back and slams his forearm between my legs and right into my ballas.

The searing, burning, vomit-inducing pain I feel right up into my stomach drives me into a rage and a clear, white heat takes me over as I grab him by the hair and slam his already broken face into the wood-planked floor.

Somewhere, a long, long way off, I hear the sound of Christine screaming. Not in fear. Never in fear. But in anger. I think I feel her on my back, but it’s all quite muddy. I do know that Danny has now grabbed my wrist and twisted it backward in a manner that my wrist is not intended to be bent.

The three of us are now tangled together at odd and violent angles. Struggling and pulling and pushing. Arms and legs entwined, slick blood and—even though it’s winter out—wet, sticky sweat making us slide off one another as we collide, and grunt, and fight, and strain.

And I’m sure that it means there’s probably something about me that’s not quite right—even more so than I’m already aware of—but my already hardened cock gets even harder.

But I know I will find no release tonight.

Because tonight will not end in reconciliation and understanding.

Just like the urgent need that had been building between me and Christine for years, this fracturing apart of all three of us was building right alongside it. Cloaked in the shadows, but no less needy and emergent.

Once this battle is over, tonight will be the last night all three of us are together.

How long that separation will last is hard to predict at present.

But somewhere inside I want to believe that it won’t be forever.

NOW

The recollection of the event plays in my mind over and over again.

Being obsessive is something I’m dead proud of about myself. It keeps me sharp, it keeps me focused, and it ensures that I don’t miss anything. Which, given the danger of both my responsibilities and my hobbies, is most valuable.

I’m replaying the memory for the fiftieth time when a sound causes me to shake my head a tiny bit and bring myself back to the present.

It’s the sound of Danny moaning as he stirs in bed, rolling his arm away from Christine and propping himself to a sit. His eyes flutter open and then he blinks to try to—I assume—understand what it is he sees.

Which is me, sitting in the chair across the room, watching them sleep.

“Morning, bru. Good to see you, man.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - DANNY

He’s the same and altogether different. Still golden. Still arrogant. Still somewhere he’s not supposed to be. Which, in this case, is my fuckin’ bedroom.

I know what he expects of me.

Danny is all temper.

Danny is all muscle.

Danny is the one who hits first and thinks later.

But he doesn’t know me anymore. He never knew me.