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

took everything he had, but Ricardo forced himself to focus on his hoops. He juggled them dangerously high, no longer needing to make it look difficult, because it was difficult—and then he palmed the modern silver dollars from his jeans pocket (no mean feat, given how tight they were) and flipped them into the crowd, declaring, “Hey, where’s Eisenhower?”

The over-sixty choreographer and the vocal coach had thought that joke was a scream. The under-thirty stylist didn’t get it. Unfortunately, a majority of Ricardo’s current crowd was in agreement with her.

The airhorn sounded again, and the audience rotated. Or did it? They were supposed to, but when Ricardo scanned, he saw that the crowds were definitely thicker around John and Kevin. Their acts were so good, their personalities so magnetic, they were keeping the spectators from Ricardo and Jia. Ricardo poured everything he could into his performance, tossing the hoops high, focusing on his patter, smiling so hard his face hurt (although he was battling a sinking feeling that he was not nearly as clever in designing his act as he’d thought he was) and doing his damnedest to draw the crowd away from John, away from Kevin, and over to himself.

Ricardo juggled and palmed and bantered for all he was worth, and the airhorn sounded for the third time. He focused in on specific members of his final crowd—definitely fewer in number than the other end of the boardwalk—and poured his heart into forging some kind of connection with each of them.

When the final airhorn sounded to signal the end of the challenge, and Ricardo caught his five hoops and then attempted to catch his breath, he realized…he was standing with his weight all on one hip. And his elbows turned in.

He kept his posture exactly as it was and tilted his chin up defiantly as applause rippled through the audience. If the crowd didn’t love him for his real self…then what good was winning, anyway?

Monty was talking now, praising the audience, but Ricardo took the opportunity to thank his final group of spectators personally, shaking hands, making eye contact, connecting. The public seemed more eager to meet him now that he was a TV star than they had back when he was working the small-club circuit, when he’d emerge into the cocktail lounge in his offstage garb to vague looks and the question, “Hey, aren’t you that guy?”

No, everyone knew exactly who he was now, and men and women alike seemed eager to shake his hand. He thanked anyone who would listen for coming, and thanked them again when they told him he was their favorite and they hoped he’d win. Maybe it would be enough, winning over this final crowd, if the other votes were split between Jia and Kevin and John. Of all the magicians, Ricardo was the most approachable, and since there was nothing that said he couldn’t keep on schmoozing after the final airhorn blast, then he planned to work his every last advantage to the max.

“You have to beat Kevin,” a middle-aged woman said, how funny. And, “I can’t believe I get to meet you in person,” a younger woman gushed. “You look even better than on TV.” Ricardo gave her hand an extra squeeze, even though Iain was descending upon him, probably to tell him to knock it off. As he took a step back from the crowd and gave them a parting wave, he caught the eye of one of the men, who frowned and said, “Where’s Sue?”

Iain grabbed him by the elbow hard, and hauled him off the boardwalk himself. “Come on, Mr. Magnificent, there’s no time for you to diddle each and every one of them personally.”

“Shut up,” Ricardo said, but only half-heartedly—because Iain wouldn’t be Iain if he wasn’t acting like the world’s most insulting dweeb. Instead what troubled Ricardo was the thought that no matter what he did or said, no matter how hard he worked or how well he performed, Magic Mansion’s viewers saw him as one thing, and one thing only: half a couple, without Sue.

An assistant handed Ricardo a towel, and he blotted his sweat carefully so as not to smear off his makeup in a huge swath down the center of his face. There were still handhelds wandering past, after all. Jia, Kevin and John were already there, sheltered from the milling boardwalk crowd by a wall of divider screens, cooling down. Chairs stood ready for the talent, but nobody sat. They were too keyed up. They all gulped water like they were dying of thirst, though, and Jia was making actual use of her big gold prop fan.

Ricardo’s knees shook. These last few days had been a roller coaster ride—his first real on-air magic performance, his first chance to show the viewers what he actually was, beyond being the guy who’d bled into the wand pond or crawled through the bounce castle the fastest. His first chance to demonstrate what his actual passion was all about. And now, for good or ill, he’d done it. He’d actually performed. On wobbly legs, he made his way past a pair of assistants and a handheld, and there, finally, stood John. Except “John” was the tender-eyed man who held him in that narrow bed each night as he drifted off to sleep. This striking magician in the burgundy ascot was none other than Professor Topaz.

Although Professor Topaz wasn’t exactly known for the smile he was currently shining on Ricardo.

“I can’t believe that tux,” Ricardo said, and his roller-coaster sensation slowed as he decided that if he did lose to John, it wouldn’t be such a terrible thing after all. Because as Jia had said when she stood to be eliminated, there was no shame in losing to the best. “You were amazing out there.”

“Was I?” John replied. “I don’t know how I managed. As usual, ‘someone’ was doing his very best to distract me.”

“No way.”

“Oh, yes. How could I help but stare?” John swept off his