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“What?”Colum leaned in, excited to hear whatever it was.

“Geography.”Franco grinned.

“Carnegie?”Colum asked, eyes widening.

“Yes.”

“But what aboutQuadrupeds?”

“Not yet, but I think I know where to look!”

“What the fuck is this?”Xavier muttered in English, his accent making it sound cute.

“I think it’s code…” Annie replied slowly.

Colum glanced left, then right.Xavier and Annie were looking at him, Xavier with amused concern, Annie with amused fascination.

He turned his attention back to Franco.“Insider?”

“Isn’t it always?”Franco started, but a hand covered his mouth.

Devon leaned down, saying something in a low voice.He wasn’t actually in camera, but Colum knew Franco’s husband well enough to recognize the voice, and the shiny mixed-metal, three-band wedding ring on the hand covering Franco’s mouth—a match to the one Franco wore on his ring finger.Juliette wore hers on the middle finger of her right hand, because publicly Franco and Devon were a couple, Juliette just a good friend of theirs.

Annie leaned forward, shoulder bumping his, her eyes narrowed in concentration.“I think I know that voice,” she said, seemingly to herself.

“Franco.”Sebastian’s voice came from off-screen.“Did you interrupt the call just to chat with your bestie?”

Franco, who was still looking up at Devon, shifted his attention to the side even as Devon’s hand fell away.“No,” Franco protested.“You were taking too long.”

“You have yet to say one thing about the Oscar Wilde case,” Sebastian pointed out.

“No, no, no,” Xavier said, turning the laptop so his face was in the center of the screen.“First, you tell me what you were saying to Colum.”

Franco blinked several times, and Colum did the same, staring at Xavier.The other man had sounded both protective and possessive.

“Stolen rare books,” Franco said, still looking nonplussed.

Xavier turned to Colum, one dark brow raised.“You steal books?”

“No!”Colum insisted.

“Well, there was that one time,” Franco said.

“Oh right.But I’d hardly be counting that.”

“Colum,” Xavier barked.

“What are you on about?”Colum snapped back.

Annie’s gentle hand—that could gently pop a man’s eyeball with a thrown knife—landed on his shoulder.

“Can you, quickly, explain what books you and your friend are talking about?”

Colum nodded, then shot an accusatory glance at Xavier.“All you had to be doing was ask.”

Xavier slumped back on the couch, one arm thrown over his face.

“They get worse,” Sebastian called out from the computer speakers.“Trust me.”