Jules was not. “I’ve been training since I was seventeen, and I’ve yet to find an instructor who can teach me how to be six foot five?—”
“Why would you want to be six foot five,” Robin asked, “when you’re already perfect just the way you are?”
And just like that, everything really was okay. With Robin’s voice in his ear, saying sweet things that made him smile...
“Well, thank you,” Jules said, turning away as Sam, too, connected with Alyssa on his phone. “Sam and I are both okay, but we just had a bit of a fender bender.”
And yeah, he was lying just a teensy bit about that. With the driver’s side door completely caved in, it was likely the car was totaled. Next up on his to-do list was calling therental company. As always, he’d gotten full coverage, but dealing with the paperwork was going to be a royal pain in the ass. Oh, to have a Laronda of their very own, who would handle it all with an “I’m on it,” including a replacement car that would magically show up before they were done talking to the police.
Robin was makingoh nonoises. “Are you sure you’re okay? Whiplash can really suck?—”
“No, we weren’t in the car,” Jules reassured his husband. “Sam parked on the street across from the Ralph’s and someone in the left lane stopped short. Driver behind them veered too far to the right and hit us.”
“Oh, thank God,” Robin said. “But oh my God,seriously? Everyone in LA is in too much of a hurry.”
“Yeah,” Jules agreed.
Black Ford Expedition with darkly tinted windows.
His brain tossed up a replay of that moment. The SUV’s driver was zooming toward the intersection’s green light until they suddenly stood on their brakes. Why the hell did they stop like that? A spilled coffee? A bee or a spider? There had been nothing in the road in front of them, no reason even to slow down.
“Hey, where are you? Are you home? Are you...” Safe, Jules was gonna ask, but reality kicked back in. Thiswasan accident. Or, as Sam had put it, it was merely LA being LA. Of course Robin was safe.
So why were his spidey-senses still tingling?
“I just wrapped for the day,” Robin reported. “I’m still at the studio. It’s gonna take me a minute or two to decompress. I don’t want to drive while I’m still Todd.”
The character that Robin was currently playing was...conflictedwas a good way to put it. Jules had read the script andnasty-ass bastardwas perhaps more accurate. And whileRobin loved playing a character who wasn’t unswervingly heroic, he was one of those method actors who became the character he was playing, and it was often difficult to disengage after a full day on set.
“This job will be over soon,” Jules reminded him.
“Yay,” Robin said. “Hey, when I’m done, can we... plan to talk? I’ve been offered another role, it’s in a series, so it’s kinda long term, but I want to run it past you first, although not until this project wraps for good, if that’s okay. Todd is annoyingly distracting.”
“Of course,” Jules said. “But sweetie, that’s great. I’m so glad. I mean, we knew living in Hollywood would be an asset, so it’s not a surprise, but... Hey, can you do me a favor?”
“Yeah—oh, you and Sam probably need a ride, right?”
“Yes, but no,” Jules said. “And it’s probably nothing. I know it’s nothing, but... can you ask the studio for a car and driver to get back and forth from the set for, well, at least until you wrap for good? For some reason this accident’s made my anxiety spike, and I’d feel better if you didn’t have to drive while you’re distracted.”
“Consider it done.”
“Thank you,” Jules said, and nowthatrelief was making him feel wobbly. Jesus, he was a hot mess today. “Hey the police are finally here, I gotta go. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Boy Wonder,” Sam shouted in a Cookie Monster voice, which of course made Robin laugh.
Jules hung up his phone with hands that still wouldn’t stop shaking. God damn.
And as they went to stand in solidarity on either side of Denise as the police got out of the patrol car, Jules rolled his eyes at Sam, who said, “What? I do.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Jules: Age Seventeen
Connecticut
“I was... walking and... talking...?” Jules still couldn’t quite comprehend it. He shook his head, but then stopped because Jesus. The headache made the nausea roil, and there was nothing left in his stomach to throw up. “I was talking to the girl. The flute player, and then...”Don’t leave me don’t leave me don’t leave me...He looked at Hobbit who hadn’t left his side from the moment he’d woken up, here in Belle’s bed, in Belle’s bedroom.
At first he hadn’t known where he was, and with Hobbit wrapped around him on one side and Belle tucked in tightly on his other, he’d been confused. And nauseated. But everyone’s clothes were on—theirs and his—which was good because he hadno cluehow he’d gotten here, which was beyond strange.
