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Aracelli snorted. “I think that’s everyone.”
I shrugged. “I think I get into a lot of fights with random people, too. That’s what happened when he called me Crazy Train. I was in the parking lot of our apartment building, and some guy dropped a dog off. Just sort of threw him out of the car and expected him to survive or die. So, I had my friend look up his address since I was able to get the license plate. Anyway, I showed up to his house, and then I started yelling at him, and my synesthesia kicked in and I just love that velvety soft feeling when I yell. Like, I just love it.”
They both blinked at me. “What do you mean by that ‘velvety soft feeling?’”
“Well,” I said, “with my synesthesia, I have multiple feelings at once. Like when you yell, you’re just mad. With me, when I yell, I can get this sort of feeling where I feel like I’m running my fingers over this velvety soft blanket. And I like it… so I kind of just yell for the fun of it.”
“So, you just sort of see the world differently than us?” she asked.
“Essentially.” I shrugged. “It’s hard to explain. Like right now, when you are talking to me, I see colors associated with different sounds. Or letters.”
“What about the letter A?” Cory asked.
“Green. But not that grass green that most people think of when they think of green. Like a deep, forest green. Like the color of a Christmas tree’s pine needles,” I explained.
“What else?” Aracelli asked. “What about when you touch something? Like velvet? Do you associate it with yelling?”
“Not really. When I touch something, like this table, I taste lemon,” I expounded. “Or that chair over there, the leather one? I taste popcorn.”
“That’s really interesting,” Cory said. “I could ask you this all day. It’s fascinating.”
“Cory is a neurologist to be,” Aracelli said. “Right now, she’s finishing up her last year of medical school.”
“Gotcha,” I nodded. “My sister, Val, is currently working on her first year as a baby doc. She’s currently the ER’s peon. Which is hilarious, because her fiancé is her attending.”
“That’s interesting. How did the hospital like that?” Aracelli asked. “I just ask because I know when I had feelings for my attending, that shit was way frowned upon.”
I looked at the two of them. “Are all of you doctors?”
I mean, I knew Hoyt was. But hearing that Aracelli had gone through the process with an attending, and Cory was currently in medical school… Jesus, that had to be some crazy ass student loans.
“We all are,” Cory said as she reached for a piece of bread that’d been leftover on her plate. “Mom, Dad, all of the siblings. Nash is the odd duck in the family. He went to medical school, but never finished.”
“Ahh,” I nodded. “That’s because he found NASCAR.”
“He’d already found racing,” Cory admitted. “Dad had to keep him incentivized. And allowing him to race was it. If he only knew that by doing that, he would be allowing him to be ‘seen,’ he wouldn’t have done it. Because the moment Nash was eighteen, he checked out. Sure, he went to medical school while racing, but it was kind of an appeasement thing so Dad didn’t stop talking to him.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “What’s the big deal about being a doctor?”
“The whole family has their medical license. Uncle Fred is a pediatrician. Grandma June is a fetal specialist…” she started naming off all of their faults. Or accomplishments depending on how you looked at it. And I ignored her and continued to stare at the man who was looking increasingly more uncomfortable the more time that passed.
“Interesting,” I said when I stopped tasting red hots. Cory was definitely spicy, that was for sure. “Those are great accomplishments.”
I hoped that the comment fit what she’d finished off with, but my eyes wouldn’t leave Nash.
“That’s…” she started, but I tuned her out.
He looked even more uncomfortable.
If that were even possible.
I left in the middle of Cory’s explanation and headed straight for Nash.
“…Tuesday is going to be bad. You need someone staying with you,” I walked up just in time to hear Hoyt say.
“That’s not going to…” Nash started to say but trailed off when I maneuvered myself right between the three of them. “Yes?”
I looked at him, caught him by the front of his button-down shirt, then yanked him to me.
Surprised, he came willingly.
And, taking more advantage of his surprise, I kissed the hell out of him.
My knees went weak, but before I could collapse, or melt into a puddle of goo, Nash caught me around the waist with one muscular forearm, pulled me into his body, and deepened the kiss.
When he pulled away finally, my knees had definitely gone out, and I was being held up by nothing but his strength.
