Page 88 of Tell Me What You Want, Or Leave Me

I hear a constant and annoying sound.

Goddamned alarm clock!

I try to move to turn it off, but I can’t. I’m so tired!

Noise. Voices. What a racket.

Someone calls me. Eric calls me.

I try to open my eyes. I can’t. Darkness.

I don’t know how much time passes until I hear the alarm again.

This time I can open my eyes, and I blink. I move my neck very carefully and sigh. My head hurts. What did I drink? When I open my eyes, I see a television anchored to the wall. Where am I? Someone is holding my hand, and I see Eric’s head leaning on it.

What’s going on?

Like a flash, everything rushes back: Race. Curve number fifteen. Flying over my motorcycle. I sigh.

Mother of God, I must have given myself a beating. I breathe. My body hurts, but I don’t care about that. I just want to make sure Eric’s OK. I know him, and I’m sure he’s depressed and scared.

I look at his blond hair. He doesn’t move, but when I gesture with my hand, he quickly raises his head and looks at me. I feel like my heart just stopped beating.

“Hello, handsome.”

Eric sits up and comes closer to me. “Sweetheart, how are you?”

His eyes are red, terribly red.

“What happened to you, my love?” I ask.

And then he does something that leaves me completely speechless: his face, his beautiful face, tenses, and he sobs.

“Don’t you ever scare me like that again, understand?”

I want to hug him and console him. I pull on him and make him hold me. Tears come rolling down my face when I realize how desperately he responds and how much he’s crying. My Iceman—my serious, grumpy, and stubborn German—cries like a baby in my arms while I caress and kiss him.

We’re like that for a few minutes until his breathing stabilizes, and he pulls back.

“I’m sorry, my love. Forgive me,” he says, embarrassed.

I’ve never been so in love with him.

“There’s nothing to forgive, baby.”

“I was so scared...I...”

“You’re human, and we humans have feelings, my love.”

He moves his head and tries to smile and ends up giving me a kiss on the tip of my nose.

“What happened?”

He pushes the hair off my face and tries to explain.

“There was an accident. You flew off the motorcycle, lost consciousness, and didn’t regain it until we got to the hospital. That scared me to death, Jude.”

“Darling...”

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