Magic of Love

by Jerry Cole

  “Magic of Love”

  M/M Gay Romance

  Jerry Cole

  © 2016

  Jerry Cole

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is intended for Adults (ages 18+) only. The contents may be offensive to some readers. It may contain graphic language, explicit sexual content, and adult situations. May contain scenes of unprotected sex. Please do not read this book if you are offended by content as mentioned above or if you are under the age of 18.

  Please educate yourself on safe sex practices before making potentially life-changing decisions about sex in real life. If you’re not sure where to start, see here: http://www.jerrycoleauthor.com/safe-sex-resources/.

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner & are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Products or brand names mentioned are trademarks of their respective holders or companies. The cover uses licensed images & are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are simply models.

  Edition v1.00 (2017.09.18)

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  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Authors Note

  Books by Jerry Cole

  Chapter One

  The solitary blue house stood at the very heart of town. The houses around had been knocked over to make way for green spaces, but the family had refused to participate in the town’s “make our home greener” project. If it weren’t for its current occupant, the home would always be covered with graffiti and flanked by loitering, angry kids.

  Everything changed when someone noticed that the town’s very own Jackie Mack, beloved magician and all-around local treasure, had been struggling with his keys in the middle of the night after he had come back from a performance in some no-doubt big time city. No one knew who Jackie Mack was, exactly, but it made sense that the most expensive home in town would be sold to its only local celebrity.

  Mark looked at the house from the passenger seat of his aunt’s car. He had heard the explanation plenty of times, but the house still struck him as creepy. His aunt’s own two-story colonial put him on edge. Southern towns may have been charming, but the constant sense of dread that he felt all the time easily overshadowed how impressed he was by the architecture.

  “Mark?”

  He turned to look at his aunt. Her long, perfectly manicured fingernails tapped on the wheel as she waited for him to get out of her BMW.

  “Sorry,” he replied. “Just gathering my courage. This place looks haunted.”

  Rosa rolled her eyes. “Didn’t think you were superstitious. Look, if you changed your mind, then we can—”

  “No, sorry,” he said. “I haven’t changed my mind. I know you’re busy. Thank you for the ride.”

  He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, trying hard not to inhale the excess powder on her skin.

  “Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” Mark replied before he stepped out of the car and started to make his way toward the house.

  Mark knocked quietly on the door, wondering if he hoped that whomever was inside couldn’t hear him. He half-expected the door to open by itself. At the very least, he expected a maid in a housekeeping uniform to greet him, ask to take his coat, and then take him to some sort of study.

  What he didn’t expect was a man in a mask to answer the door. It was a theater mask, with holes for his eyes and his nose, originally white but obviously painted a shiny metallic silver. His eyelids, which should have been visible, were covered by black make-up. The only thing that Mark was able to discern was his eye color, a deep rich brown against the white of his eyes. His hair was covered by a baseball cap, which made his costume incongruous, in Mark’s opinion.

  The man in the mask nodded and stepped aside, not saying anything.

  “Uh, hello? I have an interview at two thirty,” Mark said, looking down at his folder. He had brought his resume and his references, but there was a chance that he had left all his courage at home.

  The man in the mask nodded and extended his arm toward the hallway, as if to invite him in.

  Mark took a step forward and looked around. The man looked at him, nodded and walked ahead of him. Mark hesitated for a second before he decided to follow him. Whatever he had in store had to be better than standing by himself in the creepy darkened hallway.

  They ended up in the dining room. Mark thought it looked like something out of a horror movie set in Victorian times, with old portraits covering almost the entirety of the wall. An oversized rectangular dining room table, which seated at least twelve people, sat in the middle of the room. The man in the mask pulled out a tall brown chair for himself and gestured for Mark to sit down.

  They looked at each other for a few seconds before the masked man broke the silence.

  “You’re here for the job.”

  His voice was slow and he was modulating it somehow, though Mark wasn’t sure exactly what he was doing.

  “Yes,” Mark said. He didn’t want the job anymore, not really, but this was interesting. It was the most interesting thing that had happened to him since he had moved into his Aunt Rosa’s place down the street.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  “My interviewer?”

  The man in the mask looked at him for a second, straightening up before he spoke again. “You’re not from here, are you?”

  “Nope,” Mark replied. “I just moved here like three days ago.”

  “But why would anyone—”

  Mark laughed. “Move here? Yeah, good question. I didn’t really have a choice. It was this or homelessness and I’m not about that life.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed. “Do you have experience doing work like this?”

 
; “Yes. My parents flipped houses while I was growing up and I seem to have a knack for it. I’m good at all sorts of handyman and repair jobs. I can also make killer pancakes.”

  The man waved his hand in front of his face. “I already have a cook.”

  “Of course you do,” Mark mumbled.

  The interviewer looked at him for a few seconds before he cocked his head. “You really don’t know who I am? And you’re willing to sign a pretty iron-clad NDA?”

  “Should I know who you are? And sure, an NDA is not a problem at all.”

  “Okay,” the man said, taking off his baseball cap to reveal a full head of dirty blond hair before running his fingers through it. “So you’d live here, which obviously means that you wouldn’t have to pay for rent, you’d get breakfast and dinner provided for you but no lunches, and then you’d get a weekly stipend. Of course, you wouldn’t have to pay for any bills while you’re here, and I can probably get you some travel perks or something, if you want them. You’d have all Sundays off and you’d only have to work half a day on Saturday.”

  Mark nodded, trying his best not to salivate. He loved his aunt for taking him in, but living with her was difficult. Living in this town was difficult. He cleared his throat before speaking. “How much is the weekly stipend?”

  The man scribbled a note on a scrap of paper before he showed it to him.

  Mark smiled at him. “When can I start?”

  “I’m so sorry about all that,” Mark’s new employer said, showing Mark his new bedroom. After signing what felt like an unreasonable amount of paperwork and dragging all of his belongings to the creepy place a few houses down, Mark didn’t want apologies. He just wanted to go to sleep in the biggest bed he had ever seen.

  “It’s okay,” Mark said. “I’d heard that the person who lived here was—”

  “A lunatic?”

  “Eccentric,” Mark replied, smiling at him. “Are you sure this is my room? I’d think a place like this would have service rooms.”

  “It does, but no one else lives here, so I don’t see why you’d have to live on a different floor,” the man replied. Mark wasn’t watching him; he was still looking around the bedroom. That was probably the reason that he had to do a double take when he looked up to see his employer standing up at the threshold.

  He had taken off his mask and was watching Mark curiously, his eyes shining. His eyes and nose were painted with a big stripe of black, but Mark could tell that he was a good-looking man even under the dim lighting. Clean-shaven, strong jaw and a straight narrow nose with a small bump in the middle. A little stubble, too, though not too much. Darker than his hair.

  He was probably around Mark’s age. Rich bastard.

  Mark looked away, scolding himself. This was the person that had given him work after not doing anything for half a decade. He couldn’t afford the fact that he was into his hot new boss interfere with that. There was also the fact that his new employer was clearly somewhat unwell.

  Mark’s eyes met his for a second before he walked over and stuck his hand out. “Jon McIntyre,” he said. Mark shook his hand, noting both his strong grip and his long, calloused fingers.

  “I am, again, very sorry about all that,” Jon said. “Trust me, I felt like an idiot.”

  Mark smiled at him. “I thought it was funny.”

  “That makes one of us,” Jon said, leaning back on the doorframe and crossing his arms over his chest. It was the first time that Mark noticed just how tall he was. “It’s really important that people don’t learn my identity, okay? This is the only place I ever get any, you know, solace. It’s the reason I don’t want to sell this place—”

  “Are you like a criminal or something?”

  “No,” Jon replied, laughing. “I’m an entertainer. A magician.”

  “A musician?”

  “No, a magician,” Jon replied, rolling his eyes. “And kind of a big deal in this town. They would never leave me alone if they knew. But I also prefer conducting my business myself so—”

  “Hey, masks and stuff, whatever,” Mark replied. “You do you.”

  “Yes,” Jon said. “Well, thank you for not thinking I’m crazy.”

  Mark bit his lower lip before he spoke quietly. “Didn’t say that.”

  Jon laughed before looking at his watch. “Dinner is served at eight on the dot every day, but you don’t have to eat with me.”

  “In the creepy—”

  “Dining room? Yes. In the creepy dining room,” he replied. “That’s the first room I want you to work on, by the way. But we can talk about it tomorrow, over breakfast. Which is served at nine-thirty.”

  Mark tried not to smile. “I kind of feel like I’m living in a twentieth century novel right now.”

  Jon shook his head and shrugged. “I need structure. Anyway, good night.”

  “Good night,” Mark said. He watched Jon walk out of the bedroom and close the door softly behind him before he laid down in his new bed and wondered what he had gotten himself into.

  Chapter Two

  Jon looked at the calendar on his phone before he looked down at his food. Every weekend from October through January was fully booked. September was maddeningly empty. He wanted to get back to work as quickly as possible, but both his psychologist and his publicist had advised him that taking a month off after his loss was the least he could do. He wouldn’t want his wholesome entertainer for the whole family image tainted, according to his publicist. His psychologist seemed a little more concerned about whether he would be able to handle performing in front of a crowd in such a vulnerable state.

  He had told her to fuck off, but he had still taken her advice.

  He looked up when he heard someone coming into the room. Mark’s hair was wet. He had obviously just gotten out of the shower. He was wearing jeans and had three hangers in his hand. And he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

  Jon watched him, trying to focus on his face instead of his abs. They were distracting. He obviously worked out a lot. Jon had never felt a twinge of jealousy like the one he did then, but he shrugged it off. Things had been weird for a few months. He was still discovering a whole range of emotions he didn’t even realize he had possessed before.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Mark said. “I spent a lot of time deciding what the dress code was.”

  Jon watched him, an amused smile on his face. “So you decided that the dress code was not having to wear a shirt?”

  “Actually, I was hoping you could tell me,” Mark said and started to show him the shirts he had with him. “I have a black button up, a regular white t-shirt and this black V-neck thing.”

  Jon chuckled. “I don’t care what you wear. Just make sure you’re comfortable. You’re going to get dirty, you know? I don’t have a uniform for you or anything.”

  “Oh, okay,” Mark replied. “I — damn, I think I may have been overthinking it a bit.”

  “Maybe a little,” Jon replied, smirking. Mark put the hangers on a chair before picking up the white t-shirt and putting it on. “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes,” Mark said. “What’s on the menu today?”

  “Croissants stuffed with brie and blueberries,” Jon replied.

  “That sounds awesome,” Mark replied, sitting down at the table and looking at his plate. “I meant for like, work, though.”

  “Oh, right,” Jon said. “Honestly, I just need you to, like, change the house.”

  Mark looked down at his plate, his fork still hovering in the air. “You need me to change the house?”

  Jon pinched his nose and exhaled through his mouth before he spoke again. He knew how foolish it would sound, but at least Mark seemed to have a sense of humor. There was also the fact that he really seemed to need the job. His eyes had shone when he said it was a live-in position. Jon had done his homework, too. He knew that Mark was Rosa Petersen’s nephew. He had checked on his references, too. He was, by all accounts, a hardworking and sociable man who had just stopped working for five years. The
issue was that nobody seemed to know why.

  Still, the fact that he was a drifter and not a local more than made up for his employment gap.

  “Yes,” Jon said. “I can’t sell the house. I have to live here. But it looks like the set of a seventies horror movie. My mother was, you know, particular. She really liked the house the way it was.”

  Mark didn’t say anything, looking around as he chewed on his breakfast.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  Jon swallowed. “Sure.”

  “Why didn’t you hire an interior decorator? I’m just—”

  “I just wanted one person,” Jon replied. “I don’t — I have a hard time dealing with a lot of people. Social anxiety and all that kind of stuff. Didn’t want someone else telling me how to change it. I just need you to do repairs at first, modernize things, move them around. I just can’t be here with it, like, you know, this. And before you ask, I was going to do it myself, but it’s… difficult. I don’t have the knowhow.”

  Or the emotional strength, he thought, not saying anything.

  “Gotcha,” Mark. “So basically, make it less Miss Havisham and more Jon McIntyre?”

  “Yes,” he replied, smiling. “Exactly.”

  Mark looked him up and down for a second, which made Jon look intently as his plate. There was something about the way Mark looked at him ever since he had taken his mask off. Kind of an amused curiosity, but there was also something else there, too. Jon couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

  Mark took a sip of his coffee before he looked back up at him. “So what’s that like? Sparkly? Theatrical?”

  Jon looked at him for a second, raising his eyebrows and looking around the room before he sighed deeply. He could feel the muscles in his back tighten before he spoke. “Honestly, I have no fucking idea.”

  Jon tried to steady the chair that Mark was standing on. Mark was tall enough and had insisted that he didn’t need a ladder to start taking the paintings down. That had worked, kind of, until one of them had fallen right on his head, kicking up dust and dirt everywhere.