Axel Mercer

you had already seen the photographs.

Angela had posted the first six before the professional gallery was even fully delivered.

The caption had been harmless enough.

Twenty-five looks good on me. 🤍 Thank you to my favorite person for surviving this with me.

The photographs beneath it were harder to dismiss.

Angela standing alone beneath golden evening light had clearly been the original purpose of the birthday shoot. Cream-colored dress. Professionally styled white-blond hair falling over one shoulder. Delicate jewelry catching against her throat.

Then Axel appeared.

In one photograph, Angela was laughing with both hands pressed against his chest while he looked down at her.

In another, his arm curved around her waist from behind, her head resting beneath his jaw.

One had captured their foreheads nearly touching.

Another showed them walking through tall grass hand in hand, Angela looking back toward him while Axel smiled in a way that had once belonged almost exclusively to you.

The comments had noticed too.

Is this a hard launch?

FINALLY.

You two look perfect together.

That last one belongs on a save-the-date.

Angela had liked every comment.

She had replied to the last one with three crying-laughing emojis.

Axel had not commented at all.

By the time you reached his apartment, the images were still sitting like hot glass beneath their ribs.

The door was unlocked.

Low music drifted from Axel’s living room, threaded beneath the hum of his computer and Angela’s bright laughter. The apartment smelled faintly of cold coffee, takeout, and the cedar-toned candle Axel only remembered to light when someone else was already there.

Angela sat sideways in his desk chair wearing the oversized purple-and-gold LSU sweater she had stolen from him months ago. One bare knee was tucked beneath her as she leaned toward the wide monitor.

Axel stood behind her with one hand braced against the back of the chair, black beanie pushed higher on his messy dark-and-blond hair. The editing software had been closed. The photographer’s gallery filled the screen instead.

Another photograph glowed across it.

Angela stood between Axel’s knees on an old wooden fence rail, one of his hands resting at her hip while she held his face between both palms. Their expressions were soft. Familiar. Intimate enough that the image did not look accidental.

“It’s my favorite,” Angela said, smiling up at him. “You don’t look annoyed in this one.”

“I wasn’t annoyed.”

“You complained for the first twenty minutes.”

“Because I was told I was carrying equipment. Nobody mentioned getting dragged into half the shoot.”

Angela laughed, reaching back to catch the sleeve of his black shirt.

“You survived.”

“Barely.”

Pixel sat on the edge of the sofa, tail flicking once as his attention shifted toward the doorway.

Axel followed the cat’s stare.

His expression changed when he noticed you.

Not guilt.

Surprise first. Then the faint tension of someone realizing a difficult conversation had arrived before he was prepared to tolerate it.

“Hey.”

Angela turned in the chair, still wrapped in Axel’s old LSU sweater.

“Oh, hey.” Her smile remained easy, almost relieved. “You saw the pictures, right? They came out so good.”

Axel’s gaze lingered on you’s face before shifting briefly toward the image on the monitor.

He knew.

Perhaps not the full shape of the problem, but enough to straighten and fold his arms.

“The photographer told us how to pose,” he said before you had asked anything. “Angela was uncomfortable doing the whole thing alone, so I stepped in for a few.”

“A few?” Angela glanced toward the gallery counter near the bottom of the screen. “There are like forty of us.”

“Because you kept asking for more.”

“They were cute.”

She said it without calculation.

Without shame.

As though the photographs had not already convinced half her social media that Axel had finally chosen the woman everyone assumed he should have been with all along.

Axel exhaled through his nose.

“Look, I already know what this probably looks like.” His jaw tightened. “But it wasn’t an engagement shoot. It was Angela’s birthday. She wanted professional pictures, and I helped her out.”

Behind him, the monitor changed automatically to the next image.

Angela’s arms were looped around his neck.

Axel’s hands rested securely at her waist.

Their noses nearly touched beneath a wash of sunset gold.

Angela looked back at the screen and winced lightly.

“Okay, that one does look a little couple-y.”

Axel gave her a flat look.

“A little?”

She laughed again, but it faded when neither Axel nor you joined her.

“I didn’t mean anything by posting them,” she said softly. “I was excited. It was my birthday shoot.”

Axel’s eyes returned to you.

His voice sharpened before the argument had even properly begun.

“Nothing happened. So can we please not turn this into something it wasn’t?”