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“There you are.”
Wells came sauntering down the hallway, his hands in his pockets. His grin easy, he angled in beside me. “His Majesty asked me to see what the holdup was with you.”
My eyes narrowed. “Dorian asked that?”
“Nah, Wolf.” Wells scrubbed into his hair, my brow twitching up. “Guy’s on hundred today about these fucking rules. Wanted to make sure you didn’t get lost on your way back.”
Oh, dear God. I growled. “What the fuck is his problem?”
“Don’t know, but it’s probably us, Thatcher and me,” Wells stated, chuckling. “I guess you break a thing or two in your buddy’s house, and he gets some kind of way.”
Apparently.
Wells glanced at the artwork. “Wolf probably should have assumed this would hold you up, though.” He grinned, folding his arms. “He’s an artist just like you, and this shit is so sweet.”
He was right about that. I studied the angles. “I didn’t know he was into this kind of stuff. Well, this kind of art.”
“This one looks like his pop’s actually.” Wells hiked an arm against the wall, staring up. He pointed at a corner of the piece. “His dad’s name is on this one. Ramses Mallick.”
Leaning in, I did see the R and M bent into the work. “He likes to work with metals?” I recalled Ares saying his dad was an artist.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, putting his fingers to his lips. He waved. “Wolf will kill me, but his dad keeps the good stuff in his home studio. Come on. We’ll take a quick peek. Wolf won’t even notice.”
I didn’t know how I felt about that. Especially since Ares was acting crazy right now.
The artist in me was intrigued, though, so I did follow the tall football player farther into the house. We didn’t go far, just navigating a couple halls. On the way, Wells was smart and texted Ares the toilet was backed up. He wanted to give Ares an excuse so he didn’t freak out and come looking for us.
Wells’s cover was that he was currently helping me plunge it, and Ares apparently didn’t want to fuck with that. He just barked at him to hurry the hell up, and the tone of the text was just as aggressive as hearing him say it.
“He’s straight trippin’ right now,” Wells said when we arrived at the art studio’s door. There was a lock on it, I guess, a finger pad above the knob.
I pointed at it. “Why’s there a lock?”
Wells waved that off. “Ramses put it on when we were kids. We kept messing around in there.”
“Uh, should we be going in there now, then?” It was one thing to take a peek, but if Ares’s dad minded…
Again, Wells passed that off, and my brow jumped when he keyed in the code. The lock clicked, and he pushed the door open. He waggled his eyebrows. “It’s fine. Wolf would care more than Ramses. His dad’s so busy he like never works in here anymore, and Wolf’s more protective over everything than he is. I think the lock is still on just because Ramses hasn’t gotten around to taking it off. We’re obviously not kids anymore.”
Still, this felt kind of weird. I hesitated. “Why do you know the code?”
“Thatcher.” Wells smirked. “He cracked it for us one day. Wolf wanted to get in there. Says it gives him inspiration or some shit.” He stepped inside. “Come in. I know you’re curious.”
He left me before I could protest, and I groaned because I was curious. I strode inside, and let’s just say the goods around didn’t disappoint.
Especially when Wells clicked on the lights.
Large sculptures covered pretty much all available surface area, all metal and all… gorgeous. Ares’s dad had turned a regular office into a museum, the place a treasure trove of both big and small pieces. For the most part, they were all metal, but there were painted canvases as well.
My jaw dropped. “Holy shit.”
“Right?” Wells propped his back against a wall. He jutted his chin forward. “Check out the tower.”
I pivoted and didn’t need to ask what he meant.
Whoa.
A piece the height of the ceiling faced a large window, a step stool by it. It had all these cool sweeping angles, like a tree in a forest of metal, and I got why he called it the tower. The ceiling in here was at least fourteen feet.
