EPILOGUE
AXEL
ONE MONTH LATER
For two decades, I played the devil’s game.
The bets were placed. The wheel kept spinning. But the numbers weren’t mine.
Plans and flames. Smoke and ash. Losses and wins.
I was the walking example of Akrotiri and Pompeii, preserved on the day my world erupted. Loved by a fabulous family and tortured by old ghosts. Frozen in the fire.
Not even the house edge saved me. Nothing did.
Until those killer green eyes landed on me.
“Next one represents …” Maddox trails off, scribbling his prediction for the song on a napkin: Tessa and me.
The whole family is at Café L’Ambroisie for the dueling pianos show.
This is our most casual restaurant, open to the public and members alike.
The atmosphere is classic New Orleans with a burnt orange and industrial wood ceiling, aged brick walls, polished concrete floor, turquoise and brass accents.
It’s eclectic, always packed, and a lot of fun.
We’ve been practically inseparable since Zara and I returned—all of us healing from the stress of our time apart—and this is a great place to unwind while still on the property.
We’re testing Cash’s theory that the pianists have some sort of voodoo magic where the songs have eerie relevance to whatever is happening in our booth.
Ryker fully backs him. Remy is convinced.
Maddox and I call bullshit. Jax refuses to pick a side because it would be unfair to the magic—whatever the fuck that means.
And the girls are amused in that way that conveys how they’ll talk about how ridiculous we are later.
According to Maddox, that’s fine because they’ll rave about how sexy we are too.
That is the sanest rationale we’re dealing with tonight.
Case in point: Since there could be a bug in the booth for the sole purpose of fooling us with off-putting musical selections, thereby rendering speaking too risky, we’re writing our predictions down.
Of course, we also switched from our traditional owners’ table to a round booth on the other side of the stage.
It’s a testament to how well life is going these days that this is our most pressing matter. While I’d usually tell them how asinine it is, I’m going with it because Zara has a belly full of Creole cooking, a smile on her face, and she knows this is where she belongs.
Cash began with something that would apply to Ryker and Mercy since Ryker was his ally. The celebration when “Brown Eyed Girl” was played was relentless. And, yes, Mercy has brown eyes, but so do most people in the restaurant. She was the one who pointed that out.
Remy picked the next one, and since the five-year-old had a one-track mind about his dessert, he said, “Ice cream.”
The musicians belted out “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” a minute later. The table was divided regarding relevance because the test was tainted since Remy had spoken the prompt.
Logic.
So, as the opening notes of “Dancing Queen” begin, Cash whoops. “How about that?”
Zara plucks a cherry out of her marasca fizz and shakes her head, in full-on goading mode. “I don’t see the correlation. Tessa isn’t known for dancing.”
“The girl in the song is also seventeen,” Tessa tacks on, adding fuel. “And I am not.”
Cash shoos that away. “Only the title has to apply.”
“Rules keep getting looser, brother.” Jax must be willing to take a side if it irritates Cash.
But Maddox hedges, struggling with where to land. “She is a fucking queen.” After Mercy swats at him, he quickly amends that statement. “Freaking queen.” Then, with a wink at his wife, he adjusts again. “Or a freaky one.”
Ryker rolls his dice—the ones he has engraved with his lucky numbers, ensuring he never loses. “And no one dances more than Maddox.”
“Uncle Maddox dances bunches,” Remy submits between bites of his ice cream.
Mercy kisses Remy’s head but sighs at the rest of us, as if she can’t handle one more word of this. “You can’t convince me. It’s confirmation bias.” She reaches over her son and taps her husband’s forehead. “You are looking for reasons to make what you already believe true.”
“Fine.” Cash shoves a napkin and pen across the table to her. “You pick the next one.”
A smug expression veils her face as she scrawls her test: What it feels like to have a baby.
Cash appears immediately scorned, his hand flying out in protest. “You picked something that none of us can relate to. That’s cheating.”
“You don’t need to relate to it,” I contend, breaking into this absurd squabble. “The musicians do.”
Mercy perks up with that small victory.
And Zara bites back a grin. “Your word rules, Papa Axe.”
“That’s right, Cash.” Jax lingers there, dragging his finger around the rim of his blue cocktail and making everyone wait for his imminent razzing. “But we could request one about rejection since that’s relatable for you here.”
“One fucking time,” Cash snaps. “And after tonight, it will be irrefutable that it had nothing to do with me.”
His outrage has the table devolving into laughter until the lead pianist breaks in on the microphone, drawing our attention that way.
“Let’s try something a little different. Who knows this beat?”
The drummer kicks up a steady rhythm with clanking cymbals, and a few moments later, both pianos come in. The crowd lets out hoots and hollers of excitement, right along with Cash.
“ ‘Push It!’ ,” he belts out with a celebratory fist in the air, which has the entire restaurant in hysterics.
And Mercy shrieks, “No fucking way.”
“Freaking.” Maddox swats her. “Jeez, Merce. A bun in the oven and a mouth like a trucker.”
“Salt-N-Pepa to the rescue.” Ryker chuckles, tipping his glass to Cash as he simultaneously reaches past Remy to rub his wife’s barely there baby bump.
This builds Cash’s confidence into a looming tower. He points at her with conviction. “Say this witchcraft isn’t happening now. I dare you. Even I know you’re gonna have to push that thing out.”
“Must we be so graphic?” Tessa’s eyes flutter into the back of her head. “She’s got months until we have to focus on her pushing that thing out.”
“Who knew you’d be so squeamish?” Mercy chides before bopping to the beat and mouthing the lyrics, to which Jax offers backup.
“At least I don’t refer to the peanut as a thing,” Tessa volleys, knocking back her martini as a symbolic middle finger—in jest.
Tessa and Zara have been determined to shower Mercy with the love she missed in her first pregnancy. We’ve all doted on the expectant mother. And Ryker. The man is beside himself with excitement.
Zara stretches to speak low into my ear. “Work your magic, all-powerful Atlas.”
“I have no idea what you mean, my conniving Thorn,” I whisper back, but she ignores me and grabs a napkin to take her turn.
Axel and Zara, falling in love.
Cash glances at what she wrote while swigging his Belgian beer. “Nice. But if they nail this, we’re calling it.”
Always an instigator, as lawyers tend to be, Mercy shrugs. “I don’t agree to those terms unless it’s indisputable.”
Jax bobs his head. “Stay strong, Merce.”
“This”—Cash flips his hand between the two of them—“is confirmation bias. Right, Rem?”
“Right,” Remy sings.
When we all gape at the speed of that reply, Maddox fills us in.
“Part of Cash’s homeschool class is teaching Remy to always agree with him.”
Mercy is aghast, but the rest of us howl, and the next song begins.
As the first chords hit our ears, I glance at the pianist closest to us.
“Nah, not that one,” she announces into the mic, which receives mixed murmurs from the audience.
“That was ‘Hit Me with Your Best Shot,’ ” Cash huffs, “which is perfect.”
Mercy’s eyes are wide, her lips rolled in.
Maddox beams at my wife. “Nailed it, didn’t they, Slugger?”
Zara can’t stop laughing. “Doesn’t count if they didn’t play it.”
The notes move smoothly into the unmistakable rolling intro of “I Will Survive,” and I slant my head.
The pianist winks at—well, who can say what she’s winking at?—with a giggle into the microphone. “Not that one either. Where will we land?”
The crowd accepts this as a part of their playful rhetoric, but Cash tilts the neck of his beer at me in accusation. “We all know what that was, and anything about survival is more than fitting for you two. How the fuck—hell—are you doing that?”
“Doing what?” I smirk and sip my cognac as Zara buries her face in my chest.
Cash is about to lose it. Maddox is impressed. Ryker is hovering somewhere between intrigued and outraged. Jax is undone. A myriad of theories, rebuttals, and claims are spewed while I cozy up with my wife and fiddle with my watch.
The other pianist interrupts us, his fingers dancing over some familiar chords. “I see the issue. It’s Saturday night. And what time is it?”
“Nine o’clock!” a chorus of voices shouts as he starts to play “Piano Man.”
Zara’s hand smacks over her mouth, her eyes instantly brimming with emotion. She grabs my thigh, as if to convey how much she wants to hear them sing this, and then she looks at Cash. “You win. You freaking win. This is … perfect.”
Cash is victorious, but beneath his celebration, there’s a question as to what has Zara so choked up.
The rest of the family is wondering the same, but as the crowd chants the lyrics and the soulful melody of a harmonica resounds, it’s Tessa who softens and asks, “Do we want to know why?”
I’m not interested in sharing about how we mended ourselves to the tune of Für Elise in Singapore, so I leave it to my stunning wife.
Zara shakes her head. “It’s just a reminder of how Axel showed up for me.” Her eyes connect with Tessa’s. “Love in action.”
Adjusting one of my new cuff links—which are composed of minted gold coins and were a gift from my thoughtful wife—I kiss her hair and tug her closer. And like my family does, they enhance that love-in-action sentiment tenfold by simply being here.