Magic Mansion by Jordan Price (best fiction books to read .txt) 📕

Ricardo and Jia laughed, and it seemed as if Sue would too…until her chin trembled, and she gave a loud sniff. Tears welled in her eyes. Ricardo knelt beside her, took her hand, and said, “Suze? What is it?”

“I can’t stop thinking…about yesterday.”

Neither could Ricardo. But not for the same reason. “Homesick?”

“What? No. Not at all.”

“Okay….” Then Ricardo had no explanation for the tears.

“It’s the boyfriend,” Jia said. “Gotta be. Probably something he said.”

Sue squinched her eyes shut, then nodded. “Gary. His name is Gary.”

“Did he propose to you?” Jia asked.

Sue nodded again.

Maybe they were tears of joy. “And…you said yes?” Ricardo guessed.

Sue screwed up her face and shook her head no.

Ricardo supposed they hadn’t actually looked like tears of joy, only that he’d been hoping they were. One thing was for sure. He felt relieved Sue hadn’t accepted that weenie’s proposal. He sat down beside Sue and put his arm around her, and the dam broke. She mashed her forehead to his shoulder, cupped her hand below her eyes to keep from getting mascara on his leotard, and started to weep. “I told him…we’d talk about…it later.”

“Hey, c’mon,” Ricardo said. “We’re gonna be taping a challenge any minute now. Stop making your eyes puffy.”

“He’s right, you know,” Jia said. “And that was smart, what you told that guy. What was he thinking, trying to force you into making a decision like that when you’ve got this competition on your mind? Some people just don’t get it. He probably thought he was doing you a favor. Self-centered dope.”

Sue did laugh, then. A timid, wet chuckle. “He is kind of a dope.”

Jia patted her knee. “Just because someone asks you to marry them doesn’t mean you’re obligated to say yes. Women are trained to put everyone else’s happiness above their own. But you wouldn’t be doing him any favors if you went ahead with it when you didn’t really love him.”

Sue’s tears slowed as Jia warmed up to her own tirade of advice.

“Who says you need to get married, anyway? You know what I think? You need to get to know you better. Work on your career. Pick up a few hobbies. Figure out what you want out of life. And this guy, if he’s not willing to wait? Then screw ’im.”

“Screw him,” Ricardo repeated.

“Yeah,” Sue echoed. “Screw ’im.”

“Screw who?”

Kevin Kazan. Ricardo felt his heart sink at the sound of Kevin’s voice. Why couldn’t he have been the one eliminated instead of Faye? The three Magicians sitting on the edge of the fountain looked up—screw you undoubtedly hanging there at the edge of Jia’s tongue—but she contained herself, and instead they just looked.

Kevin was all bulging oiled pecs and blackletter tattoos in a strong-man costume, with a broad leather belt, leopard print shorts, and thick leather cuffs.

Ricardo’s wardrobe assistant had been wrong. There was a costume gayer than the white leotard. It just wouldn’t have fit him. And, damn it all, the black bowler they’d dug up looked good on that creep, too. Ricardo was jealous for a moment there…until John stepped out of wardrobe.

John towered over Kevin in his trademark top hat—but this one had a red band to match his red bow tie and brocade vest. The vest was fitted within an inch of its life—no doubt a few staple-gun tacks were in place to make it look as painted-on as it did, contrasting gorgeously with the flowing sleeves of the white silk shirt. His plain black slacks were tighter than he normally wore them, too, leading Ricardo’s eyes down, down, down the long stretch of his thighs. To his over-the knee black leather boots.

And his whip.

“You’re drooling,” Jia whispered.

Iain bustled into the foyer with his phone at his ear, saying, “…I know it doesn’t look as realistic, but if we used actual popcorn we’d be fending off seagulls all day….” He trailed off his phone conversation, gave the contestants each a long look and said, “Not bad. But where’s Bev?”

The door to the third wardrobe room opened, and there Bev stood, all in white, filling the doorway. The entire doorway.

They’d dressed her as a clown.

It was a Perrot clown at least, classic white-on-white, and not the comedy whiteface type that’s the subject of many a phobia. Even so…it wasn’t exactly Bev’s most flattering look. Perrot’s outfit was supposed to be elegant. Bev appeared as if she’d just wandered out in her very large pajamas.

Iain stared for a moment, and then said, “Okay, let’s go. We don’t want the big slushie melting on us.”

They trooped outside, where Iain took a second look at Sue and sent her off to the stylists to have the bags under her eyes dabbed with hemorrhoid cream. Ricardo didn’t have much attention to spare for Sue’s predicament, though. He was too busy taking in Monty in his ringmaster ensemble, all skin-tight white riding pants, shiny knee boots and high-cut red tux jacket with tails and yards and yards of gold braiding and fringed epaulets.

And the bleachers.

And the bouncy house.

And the crane at the far end of the lot with six trapezes hanging from it.

“Wow,” Bev remarked. “Is that red Kool-Aid in the swimming pool? Muriel will be so disappointed she missed it.”

A carpenter tacked a sign that read Kevin above one of the trapezes. A sound man at the top of the bleachers announced a check, and a musical note blasted from the platform that shook the palm trees. A pickup truck with a bed full of ice backed up to the red swimming pool and a bunch of assistants started shoveling it in.

“They’re not gonna make us go in there,” Jia said, looking apprehensively at the pool. “Are they?”

Ricardo suspected they were. And that once he did, his package in its white leotard would look nowhere near as impressive.

Once the shuffling and the prep were complete, the contestants lined up with Monty facing them, and the cameras rolled.

“Welcome, Magicians, to the final challenge of Circus Week. In many