He’d said it with such artless surprise, too; said it like he could hardly bring himself to believe that Will wasn’t just another mouth-breathing, stupid son of a bitch who’d happily throw away someone else’s life if it meant keeping his own feet out of the fire. Like Will hadn’t planned out every damn second of that encounter as best he could, rolling with the literal punches and doing what he had to so their team knew tocome after them. And then—ha, then!—he’d come back for Cole, picked him up and carried him down the damn stairs, and the man had the gall to be shocked by it.
Well, fuck him. Fuck him, fuck this, fuck?—
“I didn’t figure you for the type to pout so theatrically.”
Will rolled his eyes before glancing back at Vanessa, who joined him on the covered porch of the little duplex in Hoboken she owned under a pseudonym. “I’m not pouting,” he snapped.
“Moping, then.”
“I’m not?—”
“Will.” She crossed her arms and sighed. “Please. I know a mope when I see one.” She reached out and patted his shoulder. “Cole’s going to be all right, you know. I’m almost positive it’s just a sprain. He’s icing and taking ibuprofen, and he’ll feel better in no time.”
“Good for him,” Will snarked.
Vanessa nodded. “Ah. That’s what I thought.”
The hell she thought anything. Then again… “What?”
“That he managed to do something to upset you.” She shook her head. “You wear your heart on your sleeve, it’s one of the things that makes you fun to work with, but Cole is an expert at masking his emotions. The thing is, he always masks them the same way—with blankness. The fact that I can tell that he’s unhappy right now says a lot about his state of mind, and he wouldn’t be unhappy like that if he were the injured party.” She cast her eyes toward the street for a moment. “Some of us are much better at taking damage than handling the repercussions of dealing it to those we care for.”
Care for. Right.
“It’s just a business arrangement, Nessie.”
“And now you’re insulting my intelligence, wonderful. This—” She indicated the side of her own neck. “Isn’t screaming ‘business arrangement’ to me, Will.”
Oh, right. The hickeys. “He thought I was going to leave him behind,” Will said finally. “He was genuinely surprised I went back for him. Like I would ever leave someone like that, even if it was someone I didn’t like as well as I like Cole.”
Vanessa shrugged. “You can’t tell me you’re surprised by that reaction.”
Uh, yeah, he could and he was.
“After all,” she went on, “Cole is a dying breed in the art crime world—a lone wolf. Almost every job he’s ever pulled off that we know about, he’s done by himself. Sure, he might hire out for a single, very specific aspect of the heist, but never anything involved in the actual execution. He’s got just the unique skillset and background to make this sort of independence possible, which makes him veryunderqualified to know what it means to work well with others.”
Will shifted on his feet as he took in what Vanessa was saying. She… fine, she had a point. “Lot of insight for a woman who says she doesn’t like him.”
“Oh, I definitely don’t like him,” Vanessa replied. “God, are you kidding me? He’s more straightlaced than my corset collection, he’s got abysmally conservative taste in clothes, and he really ought to put his mother in her place more often. That woman is impossible to listen to without a drink in hand. But I’ve always understood him.” She nodded toward the door. “And right now he’s probably one part embarrassed, one part ashamed, and one part dumb horny bastard. If you have any mercy in your heart, you’ll go put him out of his misery.”
The worst part was, Will got it. He didn’t need to have Vanessa explain Cole’s emotional hangups to him; he knew the man was wholly repressed when it came to relying on anyone other than himself. He’d just hoped, after the whirlwind of this past week, that he’d made himself into the exception. The factthat he hadn’t… that wasn’t on Cole. That was Will’s assumption coming back to bite him.
If you find yourself in a hole, stop diggin’.
“Good choice,” Vanessa said as he pushed off the front rail of the porch and turned toward the door. “After you kiss and make up, please let him know that you better have the next step figured out before morning, because I’ve got a spa appointment at ten that I absolutely refuse to miss. Capiche?”
Will tipped an imaginary hat to her. “Capiche, boss.”
“Please. Like anyone is the boss of you.”
That was the crux of it all, Will reflected as he headed inside. None of them were inclined to take orders. Even the best teams had fractures, weaknesses in camaraderie and skillset that made coordinating jobs a challenge. Those were challenges that were often overcome, but for someone who wasn’t used to it, it must have seemed daunting. And adding on all the people they had at the end there… hell, it had been tough for Will. Trusting that many people to have their backs must have been almost impossible for Cole.
Will entered the living room braced for a conversation he was sure was going to be as painful as pulling teeth, but slowed down when he realized Cole was on the phone. “I see,” he was saying. “Mm. And she thinks he’s genuine?” There was a pause. “All right, we can work with that. No, I can make the call.” He glanced over at Will and, after a second, moved his hurt leg off the couch and onto the footrest in front of it to make space for him to sit. Will did so and waited with as much patience as he could muster for the conversation with Desiree—because it had to be Desiree—to be over.
“I’ll let you know,” Cole finally said, then ended the call. They stared at each other long enough that it became awkward before Will took the first step.
“Does Desiree need some help with Cheyenne?”
Cole shook his head. “She could handle Cheyenne by herself with one arm tied behind her back, even if Cheyenne wasn’t dealing with a concussion right now.”
