I Call It Magic When I'm With You

"Hey, Jack," Alex said, approaching the boy two years his elder a little timidly, who sat at a picnic table in the farthest corner of the local park. He couldn't help but be nervous—Jack was the most attractive and (obviously) popular guy on campus, and Alex had had the biggest damn crush on him since freshman year. Which, honestly, was only a year prior, but still. Alex doesn't crush on people, so it was kind of a big deal.

Jack turned from where he was sitting, laughing, and joking with his other junior and senior friends about how terrible the opposing baseball team had been during their game the night before and the looks on the other guys' faces. He didn't know who he'd been expecting, but he wasn't necessarily disappointed or upset at what he saw.

Jack had always kind of liked Alex. Not completely in the way that Alex felt, but not the total opposite, either. He thought Alex was cute, sure, and he knew they had a few things in common—or, really, a whole lot of things—and they'd even sat together a few times to talk about their favorite bands and movies.

Today, however, it seemed like Alex was on some sort of a mission. There was a heavy blush covering his cheeks and his eyes were wide with nerves, but those weren't what had Jack's friends bursting into a fit of hysterics. No, it was the cape and top hat that did that.

Jack didn't laugh, though. Instead, a reassuring smile was sent at the younger, who seemed to relax a bit at the small gesture.

"Hey, Alex," Jack eventually responded, realizing he hadn't said anything up until that point. "What's up, buddy?"

Alex will forever swear he didn't feel a little defeated at the stupid nickname, but he cleared his throat and squared his shoulders anyway, answering, "Well, I've been learning magic lately, and I was wondering if you'd maybe, I don't know, would wanna, like, y'know... I mean, you don't have to, but I, uh..." The younger boy's confidence had slowly diminished the longer he talked, and he soon found it damn near impossible to even look Jack in the eye, whose friends were still mocking him from behind the elder's back.

It didn't take a genius to piece together what Alex had been trying to spit out, so Jack simply nodded his head, smiled again. "I'd love to. Whatcha got for me?" Before Alex could answer, though, Jack was standing and turning to his in-near-tears friends, who all stopped laughing as soon as they realized Jack was virtually glaring at them. "I'll see you guys later," was all he said, spinning on his heel and putting a hand on Alex's shoulder to turn him in the opposite direction as well.

"I, um..." Alex mumbled, head shifting to look down at Jack's hand, still curled over his shoulder as they headed off. Jack, however, took it the wrong way and sent a glance back at his friends, shrugging.

"Yeah, they're all fuckin' dicks, but I keep 'em around because... Well, I'm not even sure why I keep 'em around. I guess it's so that they don't try and kick me off the baseball team or something. They throw some pretty kick-ass parties, too. You've been to one, right?"

Alex shook his head, gaze shooting up to Jack's smiling face momentarily until their pupils locked, and then Alex couldn't hold eye contact anymore.

"Well, I'll take you to one someday, okay? They're really wicked. But what d'ya have to show me?" By that point, they'd reached another of the six empty tables, and Jack moved to sit on the top, feet planted firmly on the bench as he waited. He tried his best to look as excited as possible, and while a part of him didn't care, another bigger piece of him wanted to do something to bring up Alex's self-esteem. If watching and applauding his magic tricks helped, he'd feel pretty damn accomplished.

"I... Well, I have some card tricks, if you wanna see those..?" Alex trailed out, teeth pressing gently into his bottom lip as he reached around into his back pocket. One held his 'magic' wand as well as his cell phone while the other held a deck of 'magic' cards.

"Whatever you want to show me, I'm all ears," Jack insisted. Pausing, he shook his head and corrected himself saying, "All eyes, I guess. But, yeah, that sounds really great."

Alex grinned at that, pulling out the deck and opening it up. His hands shook and fumbled with the pack for a few moments, and he was thankful that Jack was kind enough to not rush or laugh at him. When he eventually had the pack opened up and the cards in his hand, he reached out to place the deck on the table next to Jack's leg, almost bursting into flames as his hand accidentally brushed against the elder's thigh.

"Okay, so," Alex began after another moment of composing himself. "This, as you can see, is an ordinary deck of cards," and Jack was about to comment on how the box said 'magic' in big red letters, but he stayed quiet and nodded anyway, "and now if you'll just pick a card. Don't tell me what it is, and make sure to memorize it."

The deck was spread face down in Alex's hands, who held them out to Jack. A show was made of choosing a card and being secretive about it, and the small chuckle that Alex let out had Jack smiling like a fool as well.

When Jack had nodded his approval and replaced the card in a random spot, Alex slid the cards back into their place, shuffling them quickly and being sure that they were all face down the entire time. "Okay, now," the younger boy continued, moving to the end of the table on Jack's right, "if you'd be so kind as to help me count. Eight for each stack sounds good, right?"

"Sure does," Jack agreed, sending another award-winning grin in Alex's direction.

About halfway through the deck, Alex stopped and looked up to Jack. The excitement was written clear over his face as he said, "This next card is your card." With that, the sophomore was turning the card face up and showing it to Jack, who could only sit there in astonishment.

"How did you do that?" he gasped, being completely taken off-guard. His hands automatically shot down to the cards lying abandoned on the table, flipping them all over as Alex simply laughed. Sure enough, each card was different than the rest, and Jack could practically feel his brain melting in his head as the gears powering his functions kicked into overdrive. "Seriously, Alex," he whined, "how did you do that? Did you cheat or something? That's not fair!"

"I didn't cheat," Alex insisted. "And a magician never reveals his secrets."

"They do it all the time! There are tv shows about it!" the elder argued, but Alex shook his head, smile smug.

"I'm not telling. But I have another trick, if you wanna see it?"

Jack was wary to answer, not wanting to get anymore frustrated than he already was. The only reason he nodded his agreement was because of how fucking cute Alex looked, eyes wide with hope and gorgeous smile (with those to die for dimples) on display.

"I'm now going to take this ordinary deck," Alex started, tone as mysterious as he could make it as he gathered the cards on the table and stacked them all together neatly, "and turn them all into aces!"

And while Jack was still puzzling over how the hell Alex got the correct card in a randomized deck, he could figure out how this one worked. The box had near step-by-step instructions on all sides.

Nonetheless, Jack scoffed and shook his head in disbelief. "There's no way in hell you could do that," he disagreed, and Alex shrugged, smiled up at him.

Reaching into his back pocket, Alex grabbed his wand and retracted it from its hiding place. Setting the stacked deck on the table, he waved the wand around, tapping it against seemingly random parts of the deck while Jack watched on, concentration, even though completely faux, at its highest.

When the younger boy had deemed the hand gestures to be enough, he shoved the wand back to where he'd gotten it from and picked the cards back up. Flipping them so that they were all face up and in Jack's line of vision, he spread them out and watched as Jack's eyes widened impossibly further.

"How did you do that?" he stressed, reaching for the cards again.

Alex handed them over with another shrug, answering, "Magic. I can't just tell you how it works, after all."

"Oh, yeah?" the older boy challenged, voice taking on a hint of flirtatiousness.

"Yep," Alex confirmed, the tone seeming to fly right on over his head as he took the cards back.

"Can I show you a trick now?" Jack inquired as Alex went about changing the cards back, merely rubbing at the sides as he watched the faces shift back to normal.

He froze, however, before looking back up to his crush, and nodding, mumbling an, "Of course." He attempted to hand the cards back over, but Jack shook his head.

"For my first—and only—trick, I'm going to need two things: my phone and a member of the audience. How about you, sir? Fantastic!" Jack exclaimed, not giving Alex a chance to protest before he was reaching for his cell phone, shoved in his jacket pocket. After retrieving it, he made sure that it was opened to the 'New Contact' setting before handing it over to Alex. "If you could just put your number in here," he instructed, waving his hand towards the device as the other boy stared at him in confusion.

"But... Why do you need my—"

"A magician never reveals his secrets," Jack scolded, and Alex gave a little, nervous sigh. He did as he'd been told, though, before handing the phone back.

"And now..." Jack trailed out, opening up and composing a new text to his most recently-added contact.

When Alex's phone buzzed from in the same pocket that was cradling his wand, he pulled it out, still not fully understanding what was going on. The text was from an unknown number, and he opened it up with caution.

Wanna go out sometime? it read, and Alex was still confused.

"What does it say?" Jack asked with pretend curiosity, starting to get a bit freaked out. Had he only thought Alex liked him that way?

"It says, 'Wanna go out sometime?'" Alex declared, pressing the reply button just as Jack reached out and took a gentle hold of his wrist.

"Do you?" he questioned softly as Alex looked up.

"I... I, uh... I, um..." Alex stuttered, tripping helplessly over his own words. It couldn't actually be happening. There was no way Jack—Jack Barakat—was asking him on a date. Like, a date. With Jack Barakat.

Nevertheless, he nodded, giving up completely on trying to form words.

Jack smiled at that, hopping up from the table and reaching back for the card box, handing it over to Alex. "So... I'll text you later and we can figure out things then, right? Maybe a movie tonight or something?" Another nod from Alex and he was returning the gesture. "Great. I'll see you later, Alex."

Neither of them moved, though, until Jack was swooping in to press a barely-there kiss on the younger's burning cheek. He was gone after that, probably jogging back to his friends to talk about how he just scored a date with Alex Gaskarth, 'and if you say any fucking thing rude to him I swear I'll get you kicked off the team before I kick your ass into next year, don't even fucking think about it.'

Meanwhile, Alex was still stood in shock, cards in one hand with the box in the other. The only thing he could really focus on was his thoughts, which kept replaying one, small line: magic is real.