A Little Bite of Magic (Little Magic) Read online

  Little Magic 1:

  A LITTLE BITE OF MAGIC

  M.J. O’Shea

  www.loose-id.com

  Little Magic 1: A Little Bite of Magic

  Copyright © Month 2013 by M.J. O’Shea

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  eISBN 9781623002893

  Editor: Ann M. Curtis

  Cover Artist: Kalen O’Donnell

  Published in the United States of America

  Loose Id LLC

  PO Box 809

  San Francisco CA 94104-0809

  www.loose-id.com

  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning

  This e-book contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language and may be considered offensive to some readers. Loose Id LLC’s e-books are for sale to adults ONLY, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.

  * * * *

  DISCLAIMER: Please do not try any new sexual practice, especially those that might be found in our BDSM/fetish titles without the guidance of an experienced practitioner. Neither Loose Id LLC nor its authors will be responsible for any loss, harm, injury or death resulting from use of the information contained in any of its titles.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Loose Id Titles by M.J. O’Shea

  M.J. O’Shea

  Chapter One

  The old place needed some work. That much was certain.

  Frankie cringed at the sagging turn-of-the-century plaster walls. They’d faded over time into a color something like that of an old, worn-out sock. Not what he’d call appetizing. The floors hadn't fared much better—speckled linoleum, worn away in the corners and riddled with small, suspicious bite marks. He didn’t want to think too hard about the bite marks. Probably rats. Frankie hated rats.

  A pitted aluminum door at the threshold between the dining area and his future kitchen swung back and forth on one rusted hinge. It swayed precariously in a brisk afternoon breeze that suddenly swept through the building. Frankie gave the heavy old door a gentle push, afraid it might come off its remaining hinge completely. It would be his luck to have the behemoth fall off and land on his foot. Frankie didn’t have the time for injuries, didn’t have time for anything that could get in his way.

  There was magic to be done.

  At least the kitchen was large—perhaps a bit too large for one cook, but Frankie couldn't complain. It had cavernous ceilings—which must have been hidden in the main room by those awful mildewy acoustic tiles. Those tiles would be the first on his list of things to go. A huge pot rack hung, rusted and barely grasping the hook screwed into the ceiling nearly twenty feet above. The floor was flagstone, and the sinks deep and cast iron. The ancient beast of a stove top might have looked archaic, but it was exactly what Frankie wanted, lit from below by a wood fire for that old-world, homemade taste. He loved the brick walls and the big old wood-fired brick oven.

  The butcher-block island just needed a little (or perhaps a lot of) elbow grease, and it too would be perfect…someday.

  But it was no wonder why he’d gotten the old restaurant so cheap.

  “Isn’t it great, Dom?” Frankie turned to look at his best friend from culinary school. He didn’t need to hear Dom’s answer; his skepticism could be felt thick in the air.

  “You’re nuts, Frank. This place is a rat trap.”

  Dom had come along for moral support. Some kind of support. Frankie elbowed him in the side. “No, it’s L’Osteria di Pomodoro.” Frankie had come up with the name years ago when he’d been surfing the Net, looking for cooking-school applications and dreaming the far-off fantasy of owning his own restaurant.

  Dom snorted. “More like L’Osteria di Shithole.”

  Frankie pushed him. “Screw you. I didn’t stomp all over your dream of becoming a corporate food minion.”

  “But dude, you’ve got powers. You wouldn’t have to be a minion. You could be a corporate food god.”

  Frankie shot Dom a quick glare. “Hey! Ix-nay on the owers-pay, right? You know I wasn’t supposed to tell you about that.” Damn, he wished he hadn’t told. No one was supposed to know, family rules and all that. It wasn’t like he used his powers anyway, at least the few he'd managed to inherit.

  “But can’t you do all that woo-woo shit?” Dom made a wiggling motion with his fingers. “You want me as head chef. Hire me today,” he intoned.

  Truth was, it was harder to charm humans than most would think. They were pretty stubborn creatures. Besides, he didn’t want to go that route. Much to his family’s chagrin, Frankie had left Louisiana and his big overbearing family for the West Coast at nineteen. He didn’t plan on returning to the South, or his family, anytime soon. Making gorgeous food was the only magic Frankie was interested in.

  “I told you, I'm not doing that stuff anymore. I also told you I’m not supposed to talk about it. You never listen to me.”

  Dom snorted. He picked up a mangy old wooden spoon and dropped it back onto the butcher block. A puff of dust exploded into the air and practically danced, glimmering in the afternoon sun that streamed in from the high casement windows. “It’s not my fault you’ve got loose lips after a shot or two of Patrón.”

  Frankie sighed at the memory of the very convincing demonstration he’d given Dom of his powers. He’d acted like a flaming moron that night and had paid the price dearly with his family the next day. It really wasn’t his fault, he’d tried to reason with himself as his mother had given him the tongue-lashing of the century. Witches didn’t have a high alcohol tolerance. And as much as he tried to deny it, that’s what Frankie was and always would be.

  A witch.

  * * * *

  Chirp.

  Chirp…chirp.

  Chirp…chirp…SHNEEEPPP.

  Addison reached over and slammed his hand on his alarm until it stopped making those horrendous noises that sounded a bit like a missile siren. He didn’t need the alarm anyway. He had been awake for close to an hour already. He could have probably gotten his morning workout in, but he didn’t want to get up. He never wanted to get up. Getting up meant going to work, eating more weird food, talking to his boss and Julia and his mo—

  The loud ear-splitting squeal of the alarm was replaced by his phone, which he’d forgotten to silence the night before. The opening chords of “Carmina Burana.” Harsh and darkly portentous.

  Oh Lord, it begins already. Mother.

  “Hello?” He tried to sound like he’d been asleep. Sometimes she left him alone if he was convincing enough.

  “Addie, have you picked out a wedding venue yet? Because I saw this gorgeous park with a gazebo over by Chinatown and—”

  “Mother.” Addi
son’s head ached already, and he hadn’t even gotten to his ten o’clock mocha slump yet. “First of all, I’ve been asking you to stop calling me Addie since high school. Second of all, Julia and I are waiting until our finances are more solid.”

  That was bullshit. As far as he knew, there was no actual reason beyond total complacency that neither of them had pushed for a date. He didn't really wonder what that meant.

  “Love doesn’t wait for finances, Addie.”

  Damn. She never listened. He supposed that was part of her job description. “Mom, I’m thirty-three. I think I know what I should be doing with my own life, thanks.”

  She huffed and…wait. Was that sniffling? “I hate when you say stuff like that, Addison Albright. It makes me feel useless.”

  Sigh. It was never a good sign when she resorted to using both names. He needed a diversionary tactic. “You know that’s not true. Listen, Ma, I need to get ready for work. Can I call you tonight?”

  “Are you going to ask your editor to switch you to the sports desk?”

  It had worked. Something new to nag him about. “Mom…”

  “Okay, okay. I’ll talk to you later tonight. But ask Doug about the sports column. It’s been so lackluster lately.”

  “I will.” He had no intention of doing anything of the sort.

  Addison hung up the phone and sighed. Two sighs already, and he wasn’t even out of bed yet. Not a good sign for the day to come.

  It was time for his morning routine—fifty push-ups, a hundred sit-ups, two sets of twenty squats, then twenty-five minutes on the treadmill. He did it every morning. Exactly the same. Addison wasn’t much interested in changing his routine. He wasn’t much interested in change in general.

  After his workout, Addison took his work clothes—folded neatly over the easy chair in the corner of his bedroom the night before—and went for a shower. Exactly fifteen minutes later he'd shaved, showered, and was in the kitchen pouring his breakfast: plain cereal with milk. Toast, no jam. The same thing every single day, just the way he liked it.

  That was Addison Albright’s biggest irony.

  Addison was the food critic known as The Phantom Foodie. He swooped in, unannounced, to review a different restaurant two times a week. The restaurant only knew he’d struck once his—usually snarky—review surfaced in the paper. But he himself was the opposite of a foodie. He liked things plain, simple, and easy. Cereal, white-bread toast, coffee, tea (and none of that foofy herbal stuff), crackers with butter, and plain white rice. He ate salad because it was healthy, not because he wanted it. It should come as no surprise that he hated most of the food he was paid to review.

  It was a job, though, and he’d taken it. Choices hadn’t been thick on the ground when he’d been a new graduate with a shiny journalism degree. He’d spent a couple of years doing odd jobs before he had gotten his first real writing job. He’d grabbed it rather than spending yet another year painting trim and weeding gardens. Even if it wasn’t his dream job, he at least was writing.

  Off to work. Addison patted his stomach with a groan. The Phantom Foodie was about to strike again.

  * * * *

  Soooo…perhaps the restaurant renovation business was more involved than Frankie originally envisioned.

  It had been nearly three weeks, and they weren’t done yet. He'd never admit to Dom that he was in over his head. He'd never admit a damn thing to his parents. The project was just a bit overwhelming, that was all. He had it handled. He refused to be anything less than a success.

  Luckily, he had a good chunk of the Vallerand money to play with. His inheritance had come from his grandmother Stella, so his parents didn’t have a damn thing to say about how he spent it. Quite a lot had already been burned through with contractors, supplies, and permits. He’d had the moldering drop ceilings removed first and was glad to have been right. There was a tall vaulted ceiling above. It had been covered with years of spiderwebs and bat droppings, but with a few well-placed traps and some whispered encouragement—okay, okay, so he used his power sometimes—the wildlife had moved on, and his restaurant was creature free.

  After that, and some very extensive cleaning, he’d painted the walls a soft, warm color somewhere between a haystack and a ripe autumn pumpkin that reminded him of his grandmother Vallerand’s chateau in Avignon. Frankie had done a bit more fudging on his self-imposed rules where his magic was concerned when he’d decided he wanted a mural of grapes, flowers, and vines along the west wall. It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t paint like that, at least not with his hands. The mural looked fantastic, anyway, by the time he finished. The afternoon sun hit it just right. The walls would help transport his customers from urban San Francisco to a golden late summer’s day in Tuscany.

  Perfect.

  He’d found old, scarred maple flooring at an antique materials warehouse, some mismatched but homey tables, and filled the room with fabrics in wine, purple, and green. His last project was the kitchen—his kingdom. Even though it had looked atrocious at first sight, it had surprisingly required the least work. The oven functioned perfectly, and the rest of the mess was solved rather easily with some screws and of course more cleaning. There always seemed to be more cleaning. His kitchen passed inspection, along with the dining area, and all the required licenses had been filed and paid for. Right about then, Frankie’s stomach began to flutter. It was nearly time.

  The only thing left to do was to plan the first menu. Since he’d been revising it over and over practically since birth… Well, that just left panicking. And he had plenty of time to do that.

  * * * *

  L’Osteria opened with little fanfare and even fewer customers. Frankie had expected it—hoped for something different, but expected it all the same. His menu was a robust mushroom stew his grandmother used to make filled with herbs and wine, paired with chewy freshly baked rosemary and olive Tuscan-style bread. He had a nice selection of wines to offer and vanilla custard with blackberries for dessert. He also had a ton of leftovers by the time he closed his doors that evening. The few patrons who’d come in had raved about the fare. Frankie hoped the raves turned into recommendations. His Vallerand money would only last so long.

  * * * *

  Over the next few weeks, while Frankie experimented with soups and sandwiches, desserts, pastas, and quiches, his dining room slowly grew more crowded. The noise of happy customers rang cheerily through the doorway into his kitchen. Frankly, he was relieved. There was no way he could ever crawl back to his family in failure.

  On a rainy Wednesday, close to a month after he’d first opened his doors, Frankie finally had his first full house. His newly hired waiter, sweet but bumbly Owen, had his hands full running big earthenware bowls of potato soup back and forth from the kitchen to the diners. Frankie had baked loaves of cheddar-topped focaccia to go with it earlier, and the whole place smelled like cheese and bread and home. Exactly like he’d always wanted.

  Owen came bustling back into the kitchen with an empty tray. He nearly tripped on a raised section of flagstone but managed to right himself. Frankie made a mental note to have the flagstone fixed.

  “Three more soups, two cobblers, and the woman at table eight wants to know how much a loaf of bread is to take home.”

  “Coming right up!” Frankie turned and placed two of the individual peach cobblers on a rack in the brick oven to warm. He tried not to notice that Owen nearly tripped again but managed to save himself from disaster at the last moment. The poor guy was doing far better than when he’d first started. Truthfully, Frankie had always had a soft spot for strays, and Owen had had lost puppy written all over him.

  He removed the cobblers from the oven, topped them with a dollop of cinnamon whipped cream, and gave them to Owen, who’d just returned from delivering the soup.

  “Tell the woman on eight it’s four dollars for a loaf, and if she wants, I can bag it at the end of her meal so it’s still warm when she leaves.”

  “Yes, sir.”

&n
bsp; “Frankie,” he corrected.

  “Um, Frankie.”

  “Hey, what do you think of eggplant parm tomorrow with a chicken Caesar and chocolate almond mousse?”

  “Everything you make is good, sir.”

  “Frankie.”

  Owen cleared his throat uncomfortably.

  “How old are you, Owen?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  Owen did enough lip biting and foot shuffling to make even Frankie nervous.

  “Well, I’m twenty-five, so I’m way too young to be ‘sir’ to you. Frankie is perfectly fine.”

  “Okay.” Owen looked at the ground.

  “Hey, Owen, you’re fine. Just no more ‘sir.’ And here’s another cobbler. Didn’t you say table six wanted one to share?”

  Owen’s face blanched a bit. “Um, no. I was going to, but…”

  Oops. “I must have overheard. These walls are so thin.”

  The walls were brick, and he knew it. Pretty sure Owen knew it as well. His hapless employee took the proffered cobbler and escaped.

  * * * *

  “Are we going to meet Jim and Lacey at The Golden Orchid tonight?”

  Julia sounded hopeful, not necessarily because she wanted to do something with Addison but because she wanted to parade him around her friends like she always did. He was exactly the kind of man she’d planned on marrying someday, or so she said when they’d first met.

  “Jules, you know I get tired of eating out. I have to do it so often for work.” Even through the phone he could imagine he saw her eyes widen. He hated that fake angelic look. It made him want to cringe. “Maybe you should have another boyfriend for public appearances.”

  “Addie, that’s not fair—and don’t say boyfriend. You’re my fiancé.”

  Has she been hanging out with my mother? “Fine. Is seven okay?”

  “Yes, it's great. I’ll see you at the restaurant.”

  He rarely picked Julia up, even more rarely saw the inside of her apartment. She never ever came to his condo. He’d found an unbelievably great deal on a gorgeous place with cherry floors and a big bay window, which just happened to be a block off Castro Street. Neither Julia nor his mother approved of “that neighborhood.” He didn’t really care one way or another about what went on in his neighborhood. At least his mother and Julia left him alone more often than they would if he lived somewhere else. In his mind, that was one of the top selling points of the property.