“Honeybee,” Will drawled, his smirk as annoying as that goddamned nickname. “You had that song queued up”—he snapped his fingers—“like that. Which means it was already on your phone, on a playlist, and—oh, come on! Don’t be like that!”
Cole rolled his eyes, striding away as the idiot jogged to catch up. “Fuck off.”
“What? I’m just asking!” He slung his arm around Cole, nearly knocking him off his feet. “I just think it’s adorable that Cole Dalton is a Swifty.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don’t.” He paused, arm still around Cole’s shoulders. “Do you think Taylor Swift likes cubism?”
Cole shoved Will away, though unfortunately not into the St. Lawrence. Will just cackled with glee and fell into step with him again.
Fucking hell.
I should’ve yeeted him off the tower myself.
“Someone’sbeen a busy boy,” Lilith mused when she answered the FaceTime call.
Cole furrowed his brow. “What? Have you heard something?”
She barked an uncharacteristically loud laugh. “Darling, don’t you doomscroll? Check social media?” She paused. “Read a good old-fashioned newspaper?”
His stomach slithered down into his feet. “Please tell me we didn’t make the news.”
There was no response.
He muttered something under his breath, then pulled up his browser.
“Look up Port of Montreal Tower,” she supplied, grinning in the picture-in-picture frame.
Scowling, he did exactly that. And…
“Oh,fuckmylife…”
Lilith laughed like this truly was the funniest thing in the world. And to her, maybe it was. After all, she wouldn’t be the one fielding fifty-eleven texts and calls from Mother, not to mention slightly less from the rest of the family.
Strange Encounter at Port of Montreal Tower
Police looking for three men involved in bizarre incident
Beneath that, there were four photos. One showed Will and Justin dangling precariously over the side, and Cole pretended not to notice the familiar lurch of his heart at the sight of them.Even though he knew how it ended, his adrenaline spiked withoh shitas if he were watching it happen in real time.
The second picture showed Justin limping away from his rumpled parachute as onlookers gaped and gasped. The third—Justin pinned to the pavement beneath Will, his face contorted in agony as Will sneered at him and Cole tried to placate the gathered crowd.
The last image was a still from CCTV—Will and Cole striding toward their car. Cole didn’t like how close he was walking to Will. How protective he still felt just looking at that photo. How viscerally aware he was of how easily Will could’ve been splattered on the pavement just feet away from where they were walking.
I should be so lucky,a voice tried to say, but it sounded toothless. Probably because it was a lie and Cole knew it; as much as he wanted to backhand Will into next week, he was still relieved the clown had survived.
“Christ,” Cole muttered. “It’s only been like an hour.”
“News travels fast in today’s world, darling.”
He grunted. Then renewed horror settled in like a bad case of indigestion. Grimacing, he asked, “How long do you think it’ll take Mother to see this?”
“Well, there was a very pointed op ed this morning about how cubism is dead and anyone who thinks it should be revived needs to see themselves out of the art world.” Lilith shrugged. “So I think she’ll be preoccupied for a little while.”
Cole groaned. Yeah, Mother would be busy with that for the time being, likely taking it as a personal attack by someone who was too cowardly to call her out by name. But sooner or later, someone would bring the Montreal article to her attention. Dad, he guessed, or maybe Cole’s younger sister if she felt like stirring shit up, which she usually did. Or maybe it would come fromwhomever had written the takedown on cubism, just to see how apoplectic Mother could get.Justwhat Cole needed.
“Okay, as long as I’m not doing damage control with the family,” Cole said, “let’s focus on the bird, okay? Because we’re now up to two art thieves who’ve had their hands on the bird, only to have it shatter like cheap ceramics.”
