Page 85 of The Square

CHAPTER THIRTY—SIX DANNY

Neither of usturn 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.