Page 1 of Mr. Perfect
Ashrill sound wokeFelixfrom a deep sleep. What was it? The neighbor’s vicious peacocks shrieking in the bushes outside his window again? No, that wasn’t the right noise. By the time it sounded again, Felix was wide awake and fully aware of what had woken him.
A phone.
To most, a ringing phone in the dead of night was a bad thing. To a reporter, it was thesoundof opportunity and possibility. Would this be the story that brought them fame and notoriety? Any reporter who claimed not to want those things was full of shit. They either were lying to themselves or just everyone around them. Felixwas many things, some of them unpleasant, but self-delusional wasn’t among his attributes or flaws. He knew who he was, what he wanted, and what it took to make it happen. He didn’t lie to himself or anyone around him.
It was the only way to live.
Felix retracted his right hand from beneath his pillow. He reached for his phone butconnected with a second pillow wherehis nightstandshould’ve been.Wait a minute. He was on the wrong side of the bed. That alone wasn’t enough to induce panic, but the sleepy voice answering the phone from his normal side of the bed was.
Oh God.
The events of the eveningassailed him—oneearth-shattering, technicolorimage after the other. It wasn’thisphone ringing. Hewasn’t even sleeping inhisbed.
Fuck. Oh fuck. What have I done?
Two weeks earlier…
“He’s a sanctimonious prick, and I can’t stand him,” Felix growled into his phone as he pulled into the parking lot at work. He’d once dreamed of a grander position than the lead investigative reporter for a midsize market newspaper.Savannah Morning Newswas supposed to be the first stop on a huge adventure, but Felix was still here thirteen years later. He was happy. Scratch that. Happiness was as foreign a concept as living on Mars. Felix was content. Right?
“Of course,” Reanna, his best friend since college, said, yanking his focus back to their conversation.
“I don’t like your patronizing tone, Ree,” Felix shot back.
“I haven’t had enough coffee to deal with your bullshit, Fee.” She was the only person on the planet he’d let get away with calling him such a ridiculous name. Ree and Fee—two peas in a pod. Felix had been the poorest kid and Reanna had been the only black student in their journalism program at Emory. They attended the university on scholarships and grants, while most of the kids were there on their parents’ dimes. They never let Felix and Reanna forget it either. Felix was bitter then, and he was bitter now. Ree had fared much better than he, and deservedly so. She was the best person he knew.
“You’re the one who called me,” Felix reminded her.
“To wish you a happy birthday, not to get started on your old grievances against Jude Arrow.”
The Straight Shooter.Christ. The moniker infuriated Felix more than he should permit. “I’m not the one who spokehisname.”
Ree snorted. “I just asked if you’ve run into him since he moved to Savannah.”
“He’s living here?” Felix asked, feigning stupid. Oh, how he wished he didn’t know the back-stabbing bastard was living in Savannah. Felix didn’t believe ignorance was bliss in any situation besides this one. Knowing Jude lived here and worked for Channel Eleven only stirred up trouble he couldn’t ignore.
“This is me you’re talking to. There’s no need to pretend.” Warmth and compassion suffused Reanna’s voice. “Have you seen him?”
“No.”
It felt like he’d been holding his breath every day for six months waiting to run into Jude someplace. A small part of his brain had expected Jude to seek him out and takeanother swing at the apologies Felix had refused to accept in college. Felix didn’t need to be a smug bastard, although he was the smuggest of them all, to expect Jude to know he worked forSavannah Morning News.
It was equally unbelievable another investigative journalist, even one who specialized in another medium, hadn’t heard of theSinister in Savannahpodcast Felix had formed with his two friends, Jonah and Rocky. Hell, the trio had recently appeared in an interview for the morning show Jude’s network produced. Jude had most likely known but made no attempt to seek out Felix, and that’s what pissed him off the most. Irrationally so, since he’d told Jude on graduation day to never speak his name again, let alone talk directly to him.
Ree’s sigh was as thick as the humid June air hovering over his beloved city. Felix knew what she was going to say, or at least what she wanted to say. Holding on to his grudges seemed unhealthy to her, but they fueled Felix to push harder, kept him hungry and in fighting form. Felix never again wanted to be the butt of anyone’s jokes, or the emotional punching bag for bullies, and he refused to spend another day in poverty.
He might not be wealthy, but Felix was far removed from the always-hungry kid with the hand-me-down clothes from Goodwill. Some days it felt like his childhood was a different lifetime ago or had belonged to someone else entirely. Whenever he started to forget, Felix made himself remember by pulling out his school photo from second grade. Staring at his hollow eyes in the gaunt, dirty face would ground him.
Felix remembered getting himself ready for school as best he could without running water, food, or clean clothes. Hell, sometimes they didn’t even have electricity. Even if his mother had stayed sober long enough to buy food with her monthly stipend, it would often spoil when the power company disconnected their service for delinquent payments.
On that picture day, he’d picked his favorite shirt up off the floor and put it on, even though he’d worn it the day before and knew his classmates would tease him mercilessly. Felix had held his head high and pretended their barbs hadn’t landed.
The scrawny kid with the haunted eyes wasn’t the only thing Felix noticed when he looked at the old photo. He saw determination in the straight posture and squared shoulders. He’d wielded that fortitude like a shield, deflecting as many jabs and poisonous barbs as possible. His strategy worked. Most of the bullies had lost interest in picking on a kid who hadn’t given them the reaction they’d wanted. Todd Dartmouth was the only one who’d made it his personal mission to singlehandedly destroy Felix’s spirit, but he never could. Not on picture day in elementary school when he’d teased Felix about the shirt. Not in high school when Todd recognized the jeans Felix wore were a pair Todd’s mother had donated to Goodwill when the knees started to wear too thin. Not ever.
“I know, Ree,” Felix finally said. Because he did. There had to be healthier ways to stay hungry than clinging to the most hurtful times in his life. “Enough about me. My life is as boring as watching paint dry.”
“You and your podcast friends were interviewed onGood Morning America. You find that boring?”
“No,” Felix said. He loved every aspect of producingSinister in Savannah. As much as he loved the content, his favorite part was the brotherhood he’d formed with Rocky and Jonah.