Page 78 of Double or Nothing
“Are you okay?” I whisper, pulling her tighter against me. “Sorry about the box.”
She nods and gazes up at me with big wide eyes, like a frightened deer. Her rare vulnerability reaches deep inside me.
I lean down to capture her lips with mine while we’re still hidden from view. A kiss filled with apology, longing and something more.
This isn’t part of my normal act.
My lips touch hers softly for a split second before the spotlight hits us and I reluctantly pull away. “Guess who I found!” I say into my microphone. “My lovely volunteer is hiding way up here in the rafters with Elsa.”
I hold up my hand for Elsa to fly to me on the platform, her wings glinting in the light. As soon as she went behind the curtains on stage, one of my assistants quickly carried her upstairs to the upper level of the theater. She’s been sitting on a hidden perch eating millet while patiently waiting for me to appear.
The audience whirls around in their seats to see us floating high above them, a sea of wide eyes and open mouths.
Clasping Jade’s hand in mine, I swing them both triumphantly above our heads, a grand gesture of success. The audience breaks out in spontaneous applause, a thunderous appreciation of our performance.
“Goodnight, everyone!” I shout. “I hope you’ve enjoyed the show!” The applause continues, with no sign of letting up. “Take a bow with me,” I whisper to Jade. “This is the finale.”
She smiles shakily and we bow toward the audience below us while the spotlight slowly dims into darkness, a moment frozen in time. The applause goes on for another full minute before letting up.
Once the theater goes completely black, the platform lowers, and I help Jade step off.
“Is that it?” she asks softly, still holding tight to my hand.
I laugh at her question while carefully handing off Elsa to my assistant. “What do you mean, ‘is that it’? What do you want me to do? Make you disappear for real? Saw you in half and then glue you back together?”
“No,” she says, laughing softly. “I meant, is the show over? Are we done? Do I go back to my seat now? I wasn’t sure if there is another act coming up.”
“Am I not enough for you? I’m it, babe. Sorry. The only act for tonight. The show is over.”
A disappointed expression crosses her face before she quickly hides it.
She hated it.
“I can take you to another show,” I quickly offer, trying to recover for my screwup. “If you want to go. Hell, maybe we can catch Kit’s show if it’s not already over by now. You know how he is about wanting to put the tigers to bed.” I pull out my phone to check the time.
She shakes her head. “No, you misunderstood me. I didn’t wantyourshow to end. You were fantastic! I wanted to see more. I’m sad it’s over. An hour isn’t long enough. I could watch you perform for hours.”
“You liked it then?”
“Yes, I loved it,” she replies with an enthusiastic nod, her eyes sparkling back to life again. “Except for the part with the box.”
I gently squeeze her hand. Her small hand seems so familiar in mine I’d forgotten that I was still holding onto it.
“What happened back there?” I ask, concern clouding my voice. “I’m sorry for putting you on the spot. It didn’t occur to me you might not want to come up on stage. Besides, it was my bird who picked you, not me. If you need to blame someone, blame Elsa.”
“Right,” she says. “It was a pure chance the bird flew straight to my seat and landed on my head?”
“She has excellent taste in volunteers,” I say, attempting to lighten the mood with humor.
“You’ve trained her well. How many seats is she trained to fly to? Only one?”
“It’s against the rules to ask a magician to reveal how he does his tricks. Everyone knows that.”
“But that technically isn’t a magic trick,” she points out. “It was an animal training trick. A good one, but not magic, so you can break the rules.”
“True. Okay, this one time I’ll tell you and then you can never ask me about my secrets again. Deal?”
“Deal,” she solemnly agrees.
