Page 36 of New Orleans Rush

“I gave you all my extra cash. I know things are tight, but this can’t wait. Can you spot me…I don’t know, a few hundred? Those vet bills are always insane, and I’ll make it up with my next busking gig. I’m just hoping he doesn’t need surgery.”

“Yeah. Of course. Whatever you need.” It was the same answer Huxley had given him when Axel had wanted to attend last year’s Vegas magic conference. Huxley had finally saved some cash and hadn’t decided if he’d use it to fix a small section of the theater or be selfish and buy himself a much-needed new couch. In the end, he’d sent Axel to the conference. The only thing Huxley hated more than looking at his rundown theater was failing his brothers.

“I’ll text you the info and leave an envelope on my kitchen counter.” Huxley mentally added another poker game to his roster. One veterinarian visit meant he’d no longer be able to pay for the construction work early, but he’d still make it all work. If surgery was needed, it would hit hard.

He walked toward his theater, needing…something. Hope. The possibility that his life wouldn’t always revolve around the stage and family and keeping his head above water. A moment with his father usually helped.

Lights glossed the wet streets. Dark puddles splashed under his sluggish steps as drunk tourists strolled by. Music faded in and out of doors. He stopped outside the Marlow Theater and studied the scaffolding crisscrossing the exterior. His sigh hung in the humid air as he dragged a hand down his face.

Then a loud curse came from the side of his building.

Frowning, he skirted the construction material and peered into the dark alley. Another curse sounded. Snapping his attention higher, he caught sight of shoes as someone slipped into his second-story window.

“Goddamn it.” Just what he needed tonight.

He’d had a squatter before. One homeless man who’d snuck in after Axel had left the backdoor open. The bum had been apologetic and vacated with little cajoling. A painless event. Judging by the curse and shoes, this particular trespasser was female. That didn’t mean she was harmless.

He unlocked the door and stalked inside. He rummaged around the tools by the front door and found a sturdy wrench, in case a group had trespassed. He also found renewed anger.

He didn’t need this headache. He was tired and drained.

Heartsick for someone he couldn’t have.

Jaw locked, he paused by the poster on the foyer wall, the first one his father had hung. It showed his father in a top hat, his cape fanning out to the side. Marvelous Max Marlow was scrawled at the top. Along the right, where the interior of his cape created a dark background, was his tagline, Believe in the Impossible.

Huxley had believed once. He’d thought he could run this theater and support his family with as much panache as his father. He’d thought his shows would wow crowds.

The truth was depressingly stark.

Had he failed because he’d stopped believing? Or had he stopped believing because he had failed? A chicken and egg conundrum, the endless sort that could lead a man to insanity. If he asked Beatrice, he was sure she’d tell him he’d stopped believing. That fate only unfolded favorably for those who smiled and saw partly sunny days. If that were true, then he was his own roadblock. The wrench felt heavy in his dangling hand, but his shoulders suddenly lightened.

Could it be that simple? Could reordering his mind change his fate? He assumed his poker nights would be an unclimbable divide, that their timing was wrong, as timing often was.

Unless he believed.

This could be a delay, not an end. A pause in an inevitable romance. Yes, his heart said, thudding its rapid reply. “Yes,” he whispered to the empty room.

He would believe in them. In the impossible, if that’s what they were.

He was sure his father would approve.

A loud thunk broke his epiphany. He was raring to tear out of there and find Beatrice, ask her if she’d wait for him and turn their impossible into the possible. First, he had a squatter to contend with.

14

Candy. Bea was sure candy would cure what ailed her. It had prompted her late-night excursion, resulting in a scratched forearm when sneaking back into the theater.

She dumped her spoils by her makeshift mattress—old costumes heaped into a pile on the prop room floor. She’d taken to sleeping by her art project, hoping inspiration would strike. For ten days, she’d woken in the middle of the night, fingers itching to paint a new self-portrait square, but all recent efforts had resembled out-of-focus frames. She’d lost her light. And she knew why.

She’d lost her muse.

No matter her forced smiles, or the goofing around she did with his brothers, something in her had tarnished upon learning Huxley gambled. I can’t expose myself to gambling again, she’d told herself. I refuse to paint the self-portrait of a pathetic woman who falls for a man like her father. But Huxley did seem trustworthy, his sweet gestures showing as much: caring for her the night she’d keyed his car, taking her to lunch, helping her conquer her stage fright, kissing her into oblivion, helping her land a job. Still, she kept her distance.

Gambling and its fallout had upended Bea’s life once. It had now stolen something else from her: a man who’d zigzagged her heart.

Her creative drought had returned, worse than after she’d learned her father had squandered her savings. Or maybe the two were linked. A building snowball of bets and losses.

Sitting cross-legged, she ate a handful of Pop Rocks and chased it with a mouthful of cola. Fireworks exploded in her mouth and belly, her intended goal—a simulation of being around Huxley. She hoped it would power her creativity and banish her drizzly thoughts. Her two-by-fours were lined up against the wall, teasing her with unreachable inspiration.