Chapter 41
VAUGHN
The sun beats down on the lawn of Cayden’s estate as if someone in heaven is of the opinion that three hundred guests in pagoda tents aren't sweating enough already.
I stand at the edge of the dance floor and watch the chaos. Waiters weave through the crowd with champagne trays. A live band plays something that distantly resembles jazz but, under the influence of too much sun and too little rehearsal, drifts toward Dixieland.
Children run between the legs of the adults. A Golden Retriever, which clearly belongs to no one and yet is everywhere at once, has just snatched a salmon canapé from a waiter’s tray.
It’s loud, chaotic, and completely uncontrollable.
I love it.
This is new. Vaughn Mercer, the man who lived in silence for thirty years, who avoided crowds like system errors, is standing at a wedding with three hundred guests and feels—what do you call it? At ease. Yes. That’s the word. I feel at ease.
I’m leaning against the wooden bar, holding a glass of whiskey I haven't touched in twenty minutes. Not because I don’t want to drink, but because I’m too busy watching Jade and Parker on the dance floor.
Parker—Cayden’s eleven-year-old, the boy with his father’s eyes—is twirling his mother in circles while Jade’s wedding dress flies around her legs and she laughs as if there weren't three hundred spectators, but only her and her son.
Cayden stands ten meters away, watching.
There is an expression on his face I wouldn't have thought possible for this man a year ago: unconditional, unfiltered happiness.
The former hockey superstar, the billionaire businessman, the man who brought down Elias Hayes, is standing at his own wedding looking like someone gifted him the universe.
Griffin clinks his tumbler against my glass. "To the groom," he shouts over the music. His tie is crooked, his hair tousled from dancing, and he looks ten years younger than the man who represents billionaires in Manhattan courts.
"He actually let them put the shackles on him," Marcel laughs, slapping me on the shoulder—referring to Cayden, who is just walking over to us. "We were taking bets. Beckett put money on him backing out at the altar."
Beckett raises his hands defensively. "After I met Jade, I withdrew my stake immediately. The woman has him handled."
Cayden joins us at the bar and grins. "I wear my shackles with pride."
We laugh. The Chester Street Society, gathered at a wooden bar at a wedding in Montreal.
Four men who drank together in college, who survived crises, who pulled each other out of abysses none of them like to talk about.
Beckett, the quiet one. Marcel, the loud one.
Griffin, the smart one. Cayden, the brave one.
And me—the invisible one who stepped out of the shadows.
Six months ago, I would have stood at this bar and felt nothing. Polite interest, perhaps. The analytical observation of a ritual that has nothing to do with me. I would have finished my drink, congratulated Cayden, and vanished before anyone noticed I was there.
Today is different. Today, I have a reason to stay.
"So, how is love treating you?" Cayden asks. He looks at me, and there’s a flash in his eyes that he hides from the others—a knowledge only the two of us share.
A phone call at two in the morning, a man on a parking garage roof, and a sentence that changed everything: Being a father isn't a talent. It's a decision.
"A gentleman enjoys in silence," I say.
Marcel snorts. "If there’s even anything to enjoy."
I turn my head and look at him. And then I can't help it—the grin comes on its own, wider than anything my face has produced in thirty years.
"If you only knew."
Beckett raises an eyebrow. Griffin sets his glass down. Marcel opens his mouth. Cayden leans back and waits with the expression of a man who knows exactly what’s coming next.
"Holy shit," Beckett says slowly. "Vaughn Mercer has a woman."
"He certainly does," Cayden says. His grin is now so wide it takes up his whole face. "Tell them."
I set my glass down on the bar. Then I turn around and look toward the tent entrance.
Riley is standing there.
She’s wearing a dark green dress—not the sequined one from the Onyx Grand, but a simple, flowing dress that hugs her body and hits exactly the right balance between elegant and sexy.
Her red hair is loose and falls over her shoulders.
She swapped her sneakers for black low-heeled shoes—a compromise we discussed for ten minutes this morning. She sees me and smiles.
She walks toward us with her head held high, the proud steps of a woman who has arrived. As she gets closer, I think of our little secret, which in about thirty seconds will no longer be one.
"Gentlemen," I say, reaching out my hand as Riley steps beside me. She takes it and interlaces her fingers with mine. "Allow me to introduce: Riley Mercer. My wife."
Silence. A second in which Marcel and Beckett simultaneously try to process the information that Vaughn Mercer—the phantom, the loner, the man without an address or ties—has a wife.
"Pleasure," Riley says, shaking Griffin’s hand. "We’ve already met."
Marcel laughs so loudly that heads turn. "Where did you get her, Mercer?"
"Las Vegas. Blackjack table number seven."
"Of course. Where else."
Beckett shakes Riley’s hand, studying her with the quiet attention of a man who speaks little but sees everything. "Vaughn never told us he had someone."
"Vaughn generally tells very little," Riley says. "Unless you’re locked in a safehouse in the desert with him for a week."
"I would very much like to hear that story," Beckett says dryly.
Cayden pushes between us and hugs Riley—not the polite hug of a stranger, but the firm, warm embrace of a man who listened on the phone at two in the morning and who knows what this woman has been through.
"I’m glad you’re here," he says softly.
"I’m glad you sent him back," Riley says.
Cayden laughs and steps back. Then he looks at me and raises his glass. I know that look. It’s the look that says: Now.
"There’s one more thing," I say.
Griffin frowns. Marcel raises an eyebrow. Beckett waits.
I place my free hand on Riley’s stomach.
"I’m going to be a father."
Everyone looks at each other for a brief moment, wondering if I’m making the joke of the century.
Then everything explodes at once. Marcel bellows something incomprehensible in French. Griffin sets his glass down so hard on the bar that whiskey sloshes over the rim. Beckett—the quiet, controlled Beckett—widens his eyes and says:
"You’re joking."
"He's not joking," Cayden says.
They descend upon me. Hugs, shoulder pats, curses meant as compliments in this context.
Griffin shakes his head, murmuring "Unbelievable" like a mantra.
Marcel raises his glass and roars "To Mercer Junior!
" across the dance floor. Beckett stands beside me, places his hand on my shoulder, and says softly, "Well done, brother. "
Chester Street. My brothers. The men who know me, who know where I come from, who never gave up on me even when I did my best to remain invisible.
Riley stands beside me, laughing at Marcel’s toast, which has now evolved into an improvised speech containing at least three languages and a dubious anecdote about Vaughn’s college days. Her hand is still in mine. Her fingers, warm and firm.
I look down at her. At the green dress, the red hair, the freckles glowing in the sun. At the belly where something is growing that is half her and half me and that will need a name in four months.
"Vaughn?" she says, looking up at me.
"Yeah?"
"You’re grinning."
"Am I?"
"It looks weird on you."
"Get used to it."
The band plays something slow. Jade and Parker are still dancing on the stage. Cayden goes to them and picks up his son. Jade leans against his shoulder. The three of them dance together, and three hundred guests watch and smile, believing this is the most beautiful moment of the day.
But I know better.
The most beautiful moment for me is right here at this bar. With Riley’s hand in mine and a future in her belly that I thought impossible for thirty years.
I raise my glass. Not to drink, but to toast. To Riley. To Cayden. To Griffin, Marcel, and Beckett. To Valentino, who isn't here but insisted on being the godfather. To Loraine and Howard, who are waiting for us in Oregon. To a child who doesn't have a name yet.
And, in a quiet corner of my mind, to Arthur and Elaine Mercer. My parents. Who will never know that their son stopped being angry. But who, I hope, know somewhere that he is okay.
That he is finally okay.
"To family," I say.
Riley raises her glass—water, not champagne, which she’s been complaining about all evening.
"To family," she says. "And to Gerald."
"Gerald is a cactus."
"Gerald is also family, sort of."
I laugh out loud.
The sun sinks over Montreal. The band plays. Three hundred people dance and drink and celebrate love in all its crazy, unplannable, beautiful forms.