The world swam back into focus, not slowly, but in a series of sharp, painful jolts. The first was the calm, authoritative voice of a paramedic kneeling beside me. The second was the gentle but firm pressure of his hands assessing my broken wrist, a pain so exquisite it was almost a pure, clean thing. The third was the silence.
The venomous buzz of the crowd had ceased. Julian’s booming denunciations had died in his throat. The security guards had melted back into the polished walls. The entire, cavernous foyer of the Met Gala, a space built for noise and glamour, was holding its breath. And at the center of that vacuum stood Tristan Cole.
He moved with an unnerving economy of motion, his presence sucking all the air out of Julian and Mia’s meticulously staged drama. Julian, who moments
