Page 63 of Mr. Perfect

“Hey,” Felix croaked, wanting to comfort Jude. This felt like an okay place to live.

Jude cried harder while cradling Felix against his chest and gently rocking him back and forth. After a few moments, Jude took a shaky breath and wiped his forearm over his face. “What happened?”

“Kaboom!” Felix croaked.

“I heard the explosion, then saw the inferno when I pulled into the parking lot. At first, I thought you were inside the car.” Jude sucked in a shaky breath. “I thought I’d lost you.”

Emergency sirens blared in the distance. Help was on the way, but Felix couldn’t care about his car or even his injuries when Jude looked so distraught.

“I was so relieved when I saw you lying on the pavement until I noticed how still you were.”

“Stunned,” Felix rasped out.

Jude nodded. “I’ve never been so grateful to see someone get to their knees and vomit. There were times I wished I could puke. Remember the party we went to where they served mixed drinks that tasted like cherry Kool-Aid? I have never been so sick in my life.” Jude spoke rapidly, his words tripping and stumbling faster as his composure slipped. “Well, there was this one time when my entire family got the flu. I was six and—”

Felix pressed his hand to Jude’s lips, silencing him. He’d never seen this silver-tongued devil babble and ramble. That more than the tears made Felix realize how rattled Jude was and how deeply he cared. Maybe it wasn’t fourteen years too late.

“Kiss me.” Felix’s voice sounded awful and not at all sexy.

Felix felt Jude’s lips trembling beneath his hand, then the soft flesh stretched into a smile he wanted to see, to taste.

Lowering his hand, Felix said, “Kiss me.” This time he sounded like he only smoked one pack a day instead of three.

“Talking sounds painful. I have a bottle of water in the car. Let me go get it for you,” Jude said.

“Kiss,” Felix demanded, sounding like a toddler on the verge of a tantrum.

Jude ran the back of his hand over Felix’s cheek. “There will be plenty of time for kisses later. Besides, you just puked.”

Time.Felix’s eyes burned as he recalled Marla’s dire warning. “A wise woman recently reminded me that time is not limitless. I could have internal bleeding. Do you really want to waste time arguing with me when you could be kissing me? No tongue,” he offered as a compromise.

Anguish washed over Jude’s face as the encroaching sirens grew louder. It sounded like every available unit was converging on them.

“Don’t say that, Felix. I just got you back.”

“Who says you got me back?”

Jude’s mouth tilted upward on one side. “This does.” He gently pressed his lips to Felix’s, and for those few blissful seconds, the chaos quieted and the pain ebbed. The only sound Felix heard was his own heartbeat. His brain shut down every sensory neuron except for the one computing how good this kiss felt.

Jude broke their connection and stared down at him.

“Maybe it’s not too late.”

Jude grinned. “I’d prefer to hear you say that when you’re not in shock.”

Felix would’ve tried to argue with Jude, but the cavalry had arrived. Two patrol cars were the first on the scene. The officers had to assess the situation before allowing the firefighters and EMTs on site. Firemen went to work putting out the blaze, while Jude waved a male and a female paramedic over to start evaluating Felix’s injuries. Their nametags read Barns and Nobel. Felix would’ve thought their names were cute if not for his discomfort.

“I’m just a little scraped up,” he told them.

“Oh, honey,” Nobel said, shaking her head. “You’re more than a little scraped up. It’s not quite as bad as the road rash you see on motorcycle crash victims, but it’s close enough. Does anything else hurt?”

“My head, but it was already hurting before I bounced it off the asphalt.”

Barns shone his penlight in Felix’s eyes. “I don’t think you have a concussion, but you need to have it checked out.”

“I’ll go to the hospital tomorrow if—”

“You’ll go now,” Jude said firmly.