Overview

A magician and a mortician walk into a bar...

All the magic went out of professional magician Beto Saladino’s life with the death of his husband. Five years later, he’s forty-two, cynical, and resigned to facing cold, hard reality all alone.

Oh, and, apparently he’s also losing his mind.

Why else would he be on a blind date, dressed in tux and sitting on a stool in Hollywood’s Magic Castle waiting for a stranger?

But when a beautiful young man with wonder in his eyes steps through the secret door, Beto is bewitched. The man’s unrestrained joy in things Beto had long ago stopped noticing starts to illuminate the dark places in Beto’s heart.

And for the first time in a long time, Beto thinks...maybe. Maybe it’s time to start believing again.

This short story originally appeared in the Heart2Heart Charity anthology.