“My turn.”
He shot up and burst through the belly of the ship, appearing on the far side of it a microsecond later. The ship began to list, and it was obvious that El Magnifico had damaged whatever it was that enabled the thing to defy gravity. Returning to the underside of the craft, he placed his hands against the hull and heaved, throwing the lumbering vessel out of Earth’s atmosphere to tumble helplessly through the depths of space. Even from my position far above the city streets, I could hear the populace below shouting their savior’s name. The whole world loved him, but it was me to whom he came back. I could feel the grin that stretched my face as he landed back inside the ruin of my condo.
“Welcome back, El Magnifico.”
He smiled at me before reaching down and lifting me up in his arms in a humiliating princess-carry pose. “It’s good to be back,” he murmured. Our lips met, and I instantly forgot about the irritating way he was holding me.
“I still can’t believe that it was us having sex that returned you back to normal.” I chuckled, shaking my head in amusement. Then my brain caught up. “You just kissed me!” He quirked an eyebrow as he glanced down at me, continuing to hold me effortlessly aloft. “I thought intimate contact stole your powers.”
El Magnifico shrugged his massive shoulders, the rock-hard muscles moving enticingly beneath the Spandex material of his costume. “Well, I don’t really know for sure, but—”
“Wait!” I shouted. “I’ve got it.” I grabbed his face between my hands. “It was the spinach!”
He winced. “Steve—”
“No, hear me out,” I pleaded, warming to my topic. El Magnifico’s gaze reflected his unease, but he did as I asked. “Like I said, the spinach is what did it. While intimacy made you weak in the past, after eating spinach, which made you even more helpless, having sex brought your powers back. So, in a sense, spinach made what was once your Kryptonite into your strength.”
“Kryptonite?” He sighed and shook his head. “Come on, Steve, you know that’s just comic book fluff.”
“I don’t care. If that’s what it takes for us to be together, I swear that I will make you eat your spinach with every damn meal from now on. And then you’ll need me to help you save the day.”
The amazing, unstoppable, unflappable, omnipotent El Magnifico sputtered and protested like a little kid at the thought of having to eat his vegetables. “Ugh, whatever. But I still refuse to let you endanger yourself!”
“Hmm, we’ll see.”
Grinning, I lowered my head and planted a kiss on his lips that was guaranteed to bring even a superhero to his knees. And all the while, the catch phrase of a certain one-eyed sailor played jauntily in my head.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PEARL LOVE has been writing since she was a kid, but it was the pretty boys who frolic around in her head who finally convinced her to pursue it seriously. She’s a Midwest transplant who currently thrives in the hustle and bustle of the nation’s capital. A jack of many genres, she enjoys just about any type of story, so long as in the end, the boy gets the boy. Pearl is the proud mommy of two bunny rabbits and a ridiculously large stash of yarn and knitting needles.
You can contact Pearl at [email protected]. Visit her web site at http://pearllovebooks.com/; Facebook: Pearl Love ([email protected]); Twitter: pearllovebooks; and LiveJournal: http://www.livejournal.com/pearl_love.
Act One
THE Santa Ana had blown through and then exited stage left, leaving the sky a smogless Technicolor blue. The bright sun didn’t match Garret’s mood as he trudged down the dirty sidewalk. It wasn’t so much that he hated his job—because although selling shoes to tourists might provide only a modest paycheck, it was a rich source of material—but his life just wasn’t following the script.
Once upon a time, when he was an idealistic kid in a backwater Illinois town, he’d had it all planned out. He would move to Hollywood and, after a few years of hard work and gumption, impress the studio heads with his imagination and wit. Sure, they would be a little hesitant at first, but soon they’d be clamoring for his scripts, and the A-list actors would be calling their agents, demanding a part in the next Garret Souders film. One of those actors would be so overcome with Garret’s skills that he would bravely out himself at a premiere, announcing to the world that he was proud to have Garret Souders as his boyfriend.
Garret, now thirty-one, adjusted the messenger bag on his shoulder and scowled at a tour bus as it lumbered by. The only ones clamoring for him were ladies from Little Rock or Kyoto or Melbourne, wanting to know whether he could find them this style in a size seven. And the last guy who had considered him a boyfriend was Tom, who had worked at the cookie shop next door to Garret’s shoe store until moving back to Redmond a year and a half ago. Garret’s life had clearly gone off script, and he’d been relegated to only a supporting role.
He turned onto Hollywood Boulevard, skirted a clot of tourists who were busily snapping pictures of the names in the sidewalk, and headed toward the open-air shopping mall. It was mid-afternoon and the crowds were thick. Adults and children posed for pictures with Marilyn Monroe and Betty Boop, with Darth Vader and Spider-Man, with Spongebob, Dora, and Batman. Garret’s favorite costumed character looked a little forlorn, standing by the curb all by himself, his emerald-colored cape hanging dejectedly. He perked up a bit when Garret waved at him. He flashed a whitened and orthodontically correct smile and waved a gloved hand back. “I’m seeing a lot of Shoe Starz bags in people’s hands today,” Nourish-Man yelled.
“Buy one get one half price sale this week. Need a couple of new pairs?”
Nourish-Man lifted one foot, attired in a bright green knee-high boot with fringe down the back. “Only if you carry these.”
Garret laughed. “Sorry. We’re fresh out.” With another wave, he turned and entered the mall. He squeezed around a group of Russians who were, inexplicably, taking photos of the escalators. As he rose slowly to the second floor, he wondered where Nourish-Man got his boots—and the rest of his costume, for that matter. Was there a superhero supply store somewhere in LA? Or did the guy spend his evenings at home, sewing together brightly colored Spandex?
The store was packed. “Can you clock in now? Please?” asked Brittani as soon as she caught sight of Garret. Her dyed-blonde hair was escaping its ponytail.
“I’ll end up with overtime if I do,” Garret warned her.
“Fine. Just… help!”
He knew it was mean, but he couldn’t help a little smile at his manager’s distress. She was several years younger than he was, and seemed to resent the fact that he had a B.A. while she was still taking business classes at the community college. She enjoyed bossing him around, making him rearrange shelves that didn’t need it, or forcing him to climb the rickety ladder to hang signs.
There was none of that this afternoon, at least. As soon as Garret emerged from the back room, still pinning his name tag in place, he was besieged by customers. He didn’t mind, not even when they were cranky. At least the time went by faster when he was busy.
He ended up with only a fifteen-minute break instead of the half hour he was due. That would give him barely enough time to wolf a sandwich and gulp a Coke, but a desperate Brittani promised him an extra hour on his time card in exchange. She even gave him a brief smile when he agreed.
The back room was crowded with boxes and smelled like leather and rubber, so Garret took his break on the walkway outside. He chewed his ham on sourdough and leaned over the railing. If he angled his head just right he could look through the mall entranceway and catch a glimpse of Nourish-Man. Sometimes the superhero posed for photos, but mostly he stood and waited as people passed him by in favor of Captain America, Superman, and Iron Man.
Not for the first time, Garret wondered why the guy had chosen such an obscure character to portray. The Nourish-Man cartoon had only lasted a season or two back in the late eighties, maybe three dozen badly drawn episodes of a guy in green and orange wh
o admonished children to eat healthily so they would grow up strong like him. Garret used to watch the series now and then, but even his eight-year-old self—seated in front of the TV on a Saturday morning and munching on a Pop-Tart—had realized the cartoon was only a thinly disguised message to eat more broccoli.
Now, Garret took one last look at Nourish-Man before wadding up his paper lunch sack and tossing it in a nearby trashcan. The guy certainly looked the part of a superhero. He filled out his costume very well with what Garret was fairly certain were real, hard muscles—not padding. His carrot-colored tights stretched nicely over a magnificent ass and impressive package—assuming that wasn’t padding either. Most of his face was obscured by his mask, but a square jaw, cleft chin, and plump lips were left uncovered, as were his flashing brown eyes.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Garret said out loud, startling a woman with a baby stroller. Here he was with his sad little life, reduced to mooning over third-rate costumed characters. He turned and headed back into Shoe Starz to finish his shift.
The store was supposed to close at nine, but it was nearly nine thirty before Garret ushered out the last customer and helped Brittani roll down the metal grate over the entrance. With a total of five employees working as quickly as possible, it still took another hour to close out the registers and put the store back into some semblance of order. At least he wouldn’t have to work the pre-opening shift, unloading the morning shipments and restocking the shelves. But at eleven o’clock he was due to report to his second job, so he only had time to run down the street to Starbucks for a venti latte and a scone.
The evening was chilly and the coffee helped warm him as he turned back up Hollywood Boulevard. Nourish-Man and his colleagues were long gone, along with the tourists. Instead, club kids in short skirts and too much eye makeup screeched at one another and tried—with minimal success—to look cool. None of them spared Garret a glance. He brushed the crumbs off his jacket and entered the parking structure.
Rob was waiting impatiently for him in the little booth near the entrance. “You’re late,” he said accusingly, shrugging out of the reflective vest and handing it to Garret.
“Only a minute or two. It was a busy night at Shoe Starz.”
Rob didn’t care, but then, he was probably worried about being on time to his second job as a gas station attendant. Garret had to put down his cardboard cup and messenger bag in order to slip the vest on, and Rob was already gone by the time Garret settled himself in the plastic chair inside the booth.
Garret worked twenty hours a week in the garage. He tended to blame this job for his lack of a social life, because it was always past three when he staggered home, and he was too exhausted to do anything but collapse into bed. But between the garage and the shoe store, he earned enough for a decent studio apartment nearby—no need for a roommate or a car. Besides, the traffic out of the garage was very light after midnight, which meant he had plenty of time to sit and peck away at his laptop. It was, in fact, the closest to paid writing he’d accomplished since arriving in California.
Tonight he worked on a script he’d begun a few weeks earlier, a romance-adventure of the sort that would once have starred Michael Douglas or Harrison Ford. This one involved a lonely shoe salesman—write what you know, right?—who was accidentally drawn into a caper involving a priceless stolen statue, mobsters, and a Great Dane named Susie. The love interest was a curvy and slightly ditzy blonde who was trained as an art conservator and had an allergy to dogs. Reese Witherspoon, Garret thought optimistically, or maybe Drew Barrymore. Actually, if Garret had his way, the love interest would be tall and muscular—if God was really good, Alexander Skarsgård—but he’d always figured he would attain commercial success before pushing the envelope with gay themes.
The script was going slowly. The problem with writing romance was that he’d experienced damn little of it. There had been Tom the cookie shop employee, and before that—briefly but blissfully—Derek the college roommate, and that was it, other than a few dinner-and-a-movie dates, some occasional groping at parties and clubs, and a depressingly large number of assignations with Garret’s right hand. Hardly the stuff of Oscar nominations.
Three a.m. rolled around. Garret had managed some of the dialog in the part where the bad guys discover Reese/Drew/Alexander and the protagonist hiding in a closet due to a noisy sneezing fit, but to Garret the scene was feeling more Disneyesque than Spielbergian, and it was almost with relief that he slammed his computer shut.
“Whassup?” grunted Heriberto as he waited for the ceremonial handing over of the vest. The vest looked silly on him; Heriberto was probably six foot six and well over three hundred pounds. It was a bit of a mystery to Garret how the guy even fit comfortably in the attendant’s booth, but he had exactly the hulking presence that proved desirable in the predawn hours. Garret was tall too—six and change—but hardly intimidating-looking, although he liked to imagine he could pull off an impressively steely glare.
“Slow night,” Garret replied. “I called the cops on a Lexus full of drunks, though. They almost took out the gate arm.”
Heriberto had a spark of fire in his eyes. His sister had been killed by a drunk driver, and he felt immense satisfaction when justice was served to that breed. In fact, he kept urging Garret to write scripts about terrible things happening to people who were DUI, but Garret wasn’t convinced that the populace as a whole shared his coworker’s enthusiasm for the genre.
Even the club kids had headed home. Aside from Garret and a few passing motorists, the only signs of life were some homeless people huddled in a souvenir shop doorway. Garret dropped a few loose coins in one guy’s paper cup, earning a “Thanks” and a gap-toothed smile. Sometimes he wondered if the street people had come to Hollywood for the same reason he did, seeking fame and fortune, before they were dragged down by poverty, drugs, and mental illness. He would attempt a script about it but it had already been done, and nobody was exactly begging for a remake of Down and Out in Beverly Hills.
Garret’s feet felt heavy and his messenger bag was dragging his shoulder down. Visions of his comfy bed danced in front of his eyes. He turned left onto Whitley, groggily picturing the navy-and-gold comforter his mother had sent him for his last birthday and the goose-down pillow he’d splurged on at Bed Bath & Beyond. That was a better image than packing his pathetic belongings into his two suitcases and dragging his sorry ass back to Bartonville. His mother had recently retired from Limestone High School. “You can stay in your old bedroom while you get your teaching credentials,” she’d said to him a hundred times. “I’ll just move my quilting supplies into the living room.”
He was down on the pavement before he even realized someone was attacking him.
Two someones, as it turned out. Jumpy guys in thick jackets and baseball caps. Garret couldn’t make out the details of their faces in the darkness, and in any case he had to roll away quickly to avoid the shorter assailant’s kicking foot. “Hand it over, dude!” the taller guy demanded. He held something in one hand. Garret caught the quick glint of metal before the shorter man’s second kick connected with his ribs.
Garret grunted, pulled the laptop closer to his body, and tried to shout for help. But the short guy kicked him hard in the belly, expelling all the air from Garret’s lungs, while the taller one crouched over him, raised his weapon, and brought it down in an arc.
Garret waited for the end credits to run. He wouldn’t get an obit in Variety, and even posthumous fame would elude him when these thugs made off with his computer—which contained all the scripts he’d foolishly never gotten around to backing up.
But then there was a blur of movement. The taller attacker oofed and went flying back onto his ass, his weapon clattering loudly against the sidewalk. Garret tried to scramble out of the way but he still hadn’t caught his breath, and it felt like he had shards of glass jammed in his ribcage. He couldn’t see who the newcomer was, only that he seemed to be pretty heavily built. And holy cr
ap! Was that a cape his rescuer was wearing?
Whatever, the new guy was handy with his fists. In a flurry of movements, he punched one attacker, swung around and socked the one who was just stumbling to his feet, and then spun again and hit the first one. That guy punched him back but got thumped in the face in return. Something crunched and someone yelped.
“Go, go!” one of the robbers shouted urgently. He took off, his compatriot hard at his heels.
“Are you okay?” asked a familiar voice.
Garret squinted up at the figure bent over him. “Um… maybe,” he replied cautiously.
“Need an ambulance?”
Garret didn’t have medical insurance. “No. I’ll be fine.”
His savior held out a hand and Garret took it gratefully, using it to lever himself painfully upward. He still had his messenger bag, but the contents were making ominous rattling sounds. “How the hell—” he began.
“I think you should sit down. There’s a 24-hour coffee shop two blocks away, if you think you can make it.”
“My… my apartment’s just up that way,” Garret replied weakly. He really did feel like he needed a seat.
“Okay. I’ll walk you home.” The man offered his muscular arm the way a Victorian gentleman might offer his arm to a lady. Garret ignored him, but when he took a step and his knees wobbled, he decided it was better to promenade than to fall flat on his face. He grasped the Spandex-clad bicep.
“Nourish-Man?” he said in a near whisper as they made their way down the sidewalk. He felt a little faint and wondered if he’d banged his head.
“Yep. Sorry, I don’t know your name. It’s probably not Cute Shoe Guy, is it?”
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