Page 70 of The Triangle

“What are you doing now, then?” Alec asks, almost annoyed.

I don’t answer.

“Get back here,” Christine sighs, clearly tired and spent.

I don’t answer her either. She’s not gonna listen to me. Not in the afterglow of what we just did. I just pull up my zipper and walk out into the glass-walled hamster-tube of a hallway.

“Oh, fok you, man,” Alec calls after me.

No we already did that.

I hear a thump of feet landing on the hardwood floor of the bedroom, then the soft thud of footsteps as he follows me out.

Naked.

Figures.

I turn, my gaze absently clocking all the beauty surrounding me on the other side of the glass. The small stream running beneath my feet. The choppy lake. The low-hanging mist. And I think about how exposed we are. How I hate that. How I should just grab Christine and leave right now. Get her somewhere safe. Somewhere away from Alec and all his fucking baggage that will surely come crashing down soon.

Alec grabs my upper arm, turning me towards him.

I allow this because we are gonna have this talk.

“Come on, man.”

I stare into those lying amber eyes and he recoils. Just a little. Just his head as he takes in the change of mood.

“What now?” He opts for ignorance. Figures.

I just shake my head at him. “Nope.”

“No, what?”

I realize he’s still gripping my arm. I shrug him off, getting angrier by the second.

“Danny—”

“Shut up.”

He does. Fucking miracle, that.

He stares back at me, gaze changing from satisfied to cautious as I breathe through the hot anger building up inside me.

He shrugs as I try to keep cool. “This again?”

“Meaning what?” I say. My heart is beating fast like it was, then wasn’t, and now is again. But for wholly different reasons than it was a few minutes ago.

“You’re going to run away because we had a little fun?”

“Fun? Is that what this is to you? Just another spontaneous moment of adventure?”

“Danny—” Christine is leaning against the doorjamb. Naked. “Just come back to bed. We can figure shit out tomorrow and—”

“No,” I say. “There’s nothing to figure out.” And then I look back at Alec. “You should’ve kept the sexual tension going a little longer, eh?” I mimic his stupid accent. “Then I’d still be caught up in the game and not thinking with a clear head.”

“What are you on about?”

“This,” I say, pointing my finger at him, then Christine, “isn’t happening.”