He reached forward and gently pried my battle-worn cup free before replacing it. “Enjoy.”
“Oh, but wait! I need to pay—”
Felix put a gloved hand over the top of the cup and halted my sudden movement to grab my wallet. “Don’t worry about it.”
“But I—”
“Happy holidays,” Felix said, and his voice curled around me like a shimmery, warm blanket of color. He buried his mouth and nose into the thick scarf around his neck and returned to the booth of waiting customers.
I cocked my head and watched him go. Felix glanced back in my direction and our eyes met. He looked away, toward me again, then turned his back to fill a cup with cider.
Huh. Maybe Mr. Handsome liked my lame pickup attempt.
“SOUNDS LIKEyou were a bit of a space cadet.”
“Think of the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you, Scarlet,” I said, talking on my cell with my old roommate back in New York as I opened the door to my recently purchased house. “It was that bad.”
“Okay, well, the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me was when I was on one of those log rides at an amusement park, I was wearing a really billowy top and my bra actually broke—you know, the ones that snap in front—so when we wentwhooshdown the ramp and our picture was taken, there were my tits for the whole gift shop to see.”
“This was kind of like that.” I shut the door.
“Yeah, not even close.”
“His voice was justsoflippin’ gorgeous,” I said, sighing a little. “I’ve never heard an amber voice. It was smooth and flowed like blues music.”
Sound-to-color synesthesia. Throughout my entire life, my senses have been cross-wired so I didn’t merely hear music or voices—Isawthem too. Like fireworks. Explosions of color. And usually they followed a set pattern, like pop music was lots of pinks and purples, classical was whites and blues, and deep voices were usually vibrant reds and oranges.
Felix’s tone was deep enough to hit those powerful reds, and yet it was gentler. Warmer. A break from the mold in which sound presented itself to me.
“I made an ass out of myself,” I stated.
“Uh-huh. God forbid you meet a total hottie in a new town and get a little stuttery over him,” Scarlet replied. She had a very pink voice. Deeper than average for a woman, but still sort of like pop music in the animated way she spoke.
“A little?” I snapped. “I actually said,to his face, Hansen or Handsome.”
“In your defense, he might have actually enjoyed it.” Scarlet made a sound of exhalation, and I could imagine her standing outside the front door of the tattoo parlor in the Village she worked at, cold as hell but determined to finish her smoke.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t move here to find myself a nice country man, so we’ll just say Mr. Handsome was the one who got away.”
“Oh please,” Scarlet muttered. “What’re you gonna do, live the life of a spinster?”
“Girl, there aren’t exactly any gay bars around here for me to cruise.”
“Cruise your amber-man.”
“I don’t need to complicate my life right now. I just moved here. I’m starting a new job….”
“You leftmeand New York, New York, for Bumfuck, New Hampshire,” Scarlet interjected. “Why’d you bother flirting if you’re not going to try to tap that?”
“You’re so vulgar.”
“Just because you moved for a job doesn’t mean you can’t date,” she said. “And yeah, you’re a bit of an artsy spaz, but maybe Mr. Handsome likes cute ginger boys who wear bow ties every day of the week.”
“You’re so sweet,” I said mockingly.
“Is there a dry cleaner’s in that picturesque little blotch on the map?” Scarlet asked.
“Yeah, why?”
