Something Magic

by Justine Taylor

  Everything feels brighter, sharper.

  It’s like his waking like life has finally caught up to his dream life.

  To Mack.

  He’s not sure how long they sit there like that, just staring at each other, smiling softly, letting whatever powerful force of fate or love or the universe or hell, magic for all he cares, wash over them, light them up, anchor them to each other.

  They’re jolted out of it when Mack’s phone dings with the rapid-fire blast of multiple text messages sent in quick succession. “Shit,” Mack huffs, shaking his head slightly as if trying to wake up. Caleb does the same.

  He drinks his coffee while Mack checks the texts, eyebrows growing closer together in annoyance as he reads. “It’s Maribel,” he explains, glancing up. “I have to go. I have a client waiting for me at the shop. I completely forgot about the appointment.”

  “Shit, dude, I am so sorry.”

  Mack just smiles and shrugs as they rise from their table and clear their mugs. “I’m not.”

  When they stand in line at the register to buy their books, Mack leans into his shoulder, the press of his solid heat against him both comforting and thrilling. He buys a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel and a Pre-Raphaelite art book and Caleb sure as hell buys Confessions of a Teenage Werewolf.

  Mack asks to exchange phone numbers as they stand on the sidewalk before they part ways, and Caleb has to bite his lip to keep his hands from shaking as he keys his number into Mack’s phone. He can see that Mack totally notices, but he just smiles softly and leans in close as he takes his phone back, leaving anothr chaste kiss on Caleb’ cheek, the brush of his beard and soft lips a promise aching to be fulfilled.

  7

  By the time he gets home from work the next day, Caleb’s can’t-get-Mack-out-of-his-head problem turns into a full-blown obsession. He's desperate to find out as much as he can about this miracle of a man who is starting to make him seriously believe in magic. Or at least in something.

  He doesn’t really like googling people he knows – it just feels weird – but a quick search of all of his social media accounts confirms Caleb’s suspicion that Mack isn’t the social media type, so Caleb is left no other choice for his creeping.

  He starts by searching for Triskele Tattoo, which is clearly well-regarded in the body art world. He finds several articles that name the shop as one of the best on the West coast, as well as a bunch of tattoo expos that feature Mack, Zoey, and Maribel as winners of various contests. Much to his delight, he finds a magazine article naming the Mack and Maribel Nolan as winners of the "Sexiest Tattoo Artists in America" contest. The accompanying article doesn’t really have a lot of personal information about Mack but describes him as “brilliant,” and “versatile” (I hope, Caleb says to himself with a grin and many, many sexy thoughts); also “insanely talented,” “mysterious,” “enigmatic,” “intense," "taciturn," "surly,” and “smoldering” (twice). There are a couple of photos of Mack in the shop tattooing, and one of he and Maribel taken when they were twenty-year-old apprentices.

  The real prize, though is the posed photo, clearly styled and shot by a noble humanitarian doing the Lord’s work. Hot. Damn. Mack is dressed in snug, tattered jeans and a threadbare white tank top, that fucking chest hair peeking out of the top, barbelled nipples hard under the fabric. He's fucking rippling with muscle, his tattooed arm standing out against the plain white wall he's leaning against. His thumbs are tucked into the waistband of his jeans, pulling them just low enough to reveal those rock hard abs Caleb has had the privilege of actually touching. Accidentally and then drunkenly, but still. Mack is looking straight at the camera, those goddamned eyes glittering like gold-flecked emeralds, mouth pouty and pink. He has no stubble in the photo, revealing just how sharp the cut of his jaw really is. Damn right he's smoldering, Caleb thinks, He's breathtaking.

  After saving the article and the photo to his computer (he's been imagining Mack when jacking off since they met – of course he's going to jack off to Mack's insanely hot photo), he returns to the google search results, finding a few shorter articles about Mack and the shop, and even a few tumblr posts with Mack’s magazine photo tagged “hot tattooed men” and “holy shit just fucking fuck me already” (amen to that). It’s not until the seventh page of results (when Caleb googles, he googles hard) that he sees an article that makes his stomach flip in a way that’s totally different from the way the others had.

  He almost skims over it, thinking it’s a story about a different Mack Nolan. Tragedy in the Preserve: 11 dead in suspected arson of the Nolan home. It’s the web address underneath the article title that stops him.

  The Lighthouse Cove Gazette.

  He clicks on the link, dread creeping over him. There’s a picture of the charred remains of what was clearly once a very large house, surrounded by aggrieved-looking firefighters. His eyes dance across the screen, reading so quickly that he only catches snippets: prominent environmental lawyer Veronica McTavish-Nolan and her husband, architect James Nolan amongst the victims…suspected arson…possibly targeted due to her high-profile victory in the controversial environmental and animal rights case Sierra Club v. Rocky Mountain Ranchers Association…nine other family members also perished…survived by their eldest children, seventeen-year-old twins Maribel and Mack Nolan, who were at school at the time of the blaze…recently-elected Beacon County Sheriff John Cavanaugh promises a full investigation….

  Mack is from Lighthouse Cove.

  Mack's entire family was murdered when he was a teenager, and apparently, Caleb’s father investigated the crime.

  Caleb swallows hard, a huge rush of mixed emotions swirling through him, making him dizzy. He breathes deep, forces himself to focus, to keep reading. He has to know as much as he can now. He looks again at the date on the article, figures he was ten years old at the time. He searches his memories for any recollection of the fire, but comes up empty. His mom was diagnosed when he was ten; his entire world disappeared into the fear of losing her for those two long, painful years of her illness. He doesn't remember a lot from that time other than that, so he tries not to remember it at all.

  He rereads the article, stunned anew at seeing his father’s name mentioned alongside Mack’s. His dad was at the fire. His dad investigated the fire. So surely his dad had known Mack, had probably interviewed him, maybe even was the one to tell him….

  Caleb goes cold with a sudden chill that has nothing to do with the damp breeze that floats in from the slightly-open window in his living room, the pieces of the puzzle falling into place. Mack and Maribel must have gone to Lighthouse Cove High, where his mom was an English teacher. The thought of his mom possibly knowing Mack fills his chest with an ache that’s both full of pain and hope, bringing hot tears to his eyes, and then all of sudden it clicks, the memory overwhelming him.

  That day in the station, the day after the terribly upsetting dream, his Wolf’s mournful howl echoing in his head as he watched the haunted, tortured face of the teenage boy his mother had brought in. He hasn’t thought about that day in years, but he can still remember the boy’s face with startling clarity. The face of the man he hasn’t been able to get out of his head this past week, tender with youth and not yet chiseled by time and grief. Mack’s young, tender face. Eyes pale with grief, the shine of unshed tears making them glow like sunlit jade.

  Caleb is breathing shallowly and his heart is racing. What are the chances that he would walk into a tattoo parlor a thousand miles from Lighthouse Cove and meet Mack? Mack Nolan, a student who meant enough to his mother that she comforted him at the sheriff’s station after the death of his family. Mack Nolan, whose beauty and grief had transfixed him so many years ago, confounding and confusing him even as he somehow knew, in his young bones, that this boy’s pain was his own, somehow.

  Mack Nolan, who Caleb has been enamored with since the moment he laid eyes upon him. Mack Nolan, this man he’s spent precious little time with, but for whom he feels a connection so powe
rful and true he’s fairly certain he’s in love with him.

  Well there it is. He’s been avoiding admitting it to himself, because it's insane to fall in love with someone he just met…isn't it? Have they just met? Or have they been connected somehow circling each other years, their lives connected by tragedy and by something even more powerful Caleb can sense but can’t name. And what passed between them yesterday, the uncanny and beautiful feelings of peace, of comfort, of home that had consumed him and the he know, just knows, that Mack felt too. That definitely means something, and Caleb’s pretty sure it’s love but it also feels like even more, even though he doesn't know what that even means. It's attraction, sure, the most intense attraction Caleb has ever felt, but that doesn't explain every instinct telling him that Mack is right. Telling him that Mack is his to love, to take care of, and that he’s Mack’s to love and care for too.

  Caleb steps away from his laptop for a second, badly needing to settle his emotions. He walks to the window and lights a joint and watches the rain. When it’s half-smoked, he sits down again. He scrolls to the end of the article, and is pleased to see that the Lighthouse Cove Gazette website is thorough and well-organized with several chronologically organized links to articles about the Nolan arson investigation. There’s also a link to an L.A. Times obituary for Mack’s mother, Veronica McTavish-Nolan. Caleb scans through half a dozen articles as fast as he can, thirsty for more knowledge, but still too jittery and anxious to settle down and read slowly, blue-gray smoke curling up from the joint and clouding around him.

  The official list of victims of the tragic fire that claimed the lives of several members of the Nolan family was released today… extended relatives visiting for a family reunion...delays in the arson investigation of the house fire that killed 11…Ms. McTavish-Nolan gained both acclaim and notoriety for her passionate representation of the Sierra Club and a dozen other environmental organizations in their lawsuit against the Rocky Mountain Ranchers Association for their wolf hunting practices, for which she received death threats…no accelerant found…it’s unclear why no one was able to escape the blaze…Ms. McTavish-Nolan is survived by her eldest children Mack and Maribel, and her younger brother Liam McTavish of Seattle, who has taken guardianship of the teenaged twins…public memorial service for the family…daughter Maribel asks that in lieu of flowers, mourners make a donation in the McTavish and Nolan names to Wolf Haven International…potential witness in Nolan arson case missing, investigation stalled…

  There’s also a link to an article from the sports section, dated six months before the fire; it’s about Mack, an all-star pitcher, leading the baseball team to the state championship tournament. There’s a picture too: Mack, young and sweet, smiling as he high-fives a team member. Caleb recognizes him from his memory of the grief-stricken boy in the sheriff’s station, and it breaks his heart, knowing what that happy young man will soon endure.

  He contemplates calling his dad to pick his brain about the fire and the investigation, but he doesn’t feel like explaining himself, and definitely doesn’t want to remind his father of those days during his mother’s illness.

  He uses this as justification for some minor recidivism into the law-breaking of his youth, when his ADHD and voracious intellectual curiosity got the best of him and he hacked the Beacon Hill’s sheriff department’s secure database. Well, hacked is a strong word for it. Really he just guessed his dad’s password on the second try.

  Twenty minutes later, Caleb is scrolling though a large PDF of scanned documents, photos, and interview transcripts – the entirety of the Nolan arson investigation file. He says a silent prayer to his mother, thanking her for helping his dad write a grant proposal to the Department of Homeland Security to digitize their archives. The joint smoked down to nothing now, he puts out the roach in an empty soda can and settles in to the couch to read.

  After some time, Caleb is able to piece together a frustratingly incomplete story. Mack’s parents were hosting a family reunion and had six extended family members staying with them in their large, secluded home in the middle of the Cove Forest Preserve. The investigators believed that Mack and Maribel were also expected to be in the house and may have been targeted as well, so they had 24-hour police protection until their uncle took them away to Seattle after the funerals. Like the newspaper articles said, no accelerants were found and everyone was stumped as to why no one in the family had managed to escape, especially since several of the bodies – what little was left of them – were found just inside a door or window, like they ran to the exits but were unable to make it out, even though the evidence confirmed that the doors were unlocked, and some of the windows were even open at the time of the blaze.

  The next few pages he reads make Caleb’s stomach turn with grief. Sheriff Cavanaugh, his father, brought in a witness for questioning, a mechanic with a history of assault and arson who said he had been approached by a young woman named Diana, no last name, who wanted his help starting a fire. They couldn’t reach an agreement on payment, so he didn’t help her, but she did tell him that she had detailed information about the house and its occupants because she was sleeping with the teenaged son of her target. “Crazy bitch has the poor kid thinking she’s in love with him,” the man had said.

  Caleb looks up from the screen when the transcript of his the interview starts to blur, his eyes hot with tears as the realization sinks in. Mack’s pained expression that day in the station so many years ago not only bore the grief of his family’s death, but his own heartbreak and manipulation and abuse. His guilt. He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and forces himself to continue scrolling through the file, feeling more and more like he shouldn’t be reading any of this, wishing that he could stop, wishing that he didn’t know this, wishing that it had never happened, his heart breaking again and again for Mack.

  But he reads on. The next page reports that when his father tried contacting Mack in Seattle to follow up on the witness statement, but Liam McTavish, the twins’ legal guardian, refused to allow him to speak to Mack. His father made a note to call again on Mack’s eighteenth birthday, but by then the witness, their only lead, had disappeared.

  The case remains unsolved.

  The joint finally hits Caleb full force. He’s overwhelmed and confused and wants nothing more than to hug Mack.

  He collapses onto his bed and hopes to see his Wolf in his dreams.

  When Caleb is upset, he cleans. In fact, that’s pretty much the only time he cleans, which means he mostly lives in chaos and clutter between impressive but short-lived bursts of pristine cleanliness. He knows it’s a classic method of dealing with stress – when feeling unmoored, like life is out of your control, controlling the space around you offers a semblance of comfort. It helps him think too, lets him focus on something meaningless while whatever’s really bothering him retreats to his subconscious to work itself out.

  He’s cleaned out and scrubbed his fridge, swept, swiffered, and mopped the floors, and is heading down to the basement to change his third load of laundry, but he still doesn’t know what to do about Mack. About what he knows now about Mack’s past. About how Mack is also from Lighthouse Cove. About their strange connection.

  About how’s pretty sure he’s in love with him, crazy as it may seem.

  The first time he resorted to cleaning when he was stressed was in early high school, when he had figured out he was gay and wasn’t sure how to tell his dad. He wasn’t scared or really even worried; he knew he was one of the lucky ones because his dad would have no problem accepting his sexuality. But it still seemed like a big deal – the first big, real thing they’d had to talk about since his mother’s death, and it made Caleb’s constant ache at losing her throb even harder in his chest.

  If she were still alive, he would have told her first, because he always told her everything, even the truth about his Wolf dreams. He would have told her easily, and she would have smiled and hugged him and probably would have teasingly asked if h
e had his eye on anyone, making him groan in embarrassment, and it would have been perfect. They would have told his dad together and it would be easy, no big deal at all with her there smiling at him.

  But that couldn’t happen, so Caleb had to tell his dad alone, and he was nervous. First he cleaned his room and reorganized his bookshelves, finished all of their laundry, vacuumed every vacuum-able surface he could find, and was scrubbing the grout between the kitchen counter tiles with bleach when his dad came home from work, surprising him.

  “What’s wrong?” his dad had asked immediately from the kitchen door, squaring his shoulders like he was preparing for something terrible.

  “What?” Caleb said, looking up from his tedious scrubbing. With a toothbrush. “How do you know…why do you think something’s wrong?”

  His dad sighed, the tense anxiety he seemed to be feeling more apparent as he stiffly shrugged out of his uniform jacket. “Your mom,” he said finally. “She used to clean like this when she was upset. I…I came home to her cleaning like this the day she found out about…” his voice tapered off, letting the awkward wave of his hand finish the sentence for him. When she found out about the cancer.