I blow out a breath. “Wow, so your parents are?—”
“Uptight?” she finishes for me. “Let’s just say they’ve come a long way. They were loving parents—don’t get me wrong; they were just hung up on some major expectations. It’s not what I would do if I had kids, but they did what they thought was best for my brother and me, and I can appreciate that now.”
“Mmm,” I hum, wiping a hand on my napkin. “I get that. We’re always trying to do our best, even if we don’t always get it right.”
We fall into a comfortable silence as we chew our food in tandem. Her tongue darts out to lick away the salt from her lips, and my brain falls straight into the gutter, wondering if she’d do the same with my cum on them.
Oh, no. It’s been way too long since I’ve gotten laid. That’s all this is.
I clear my throat and pick up my sandwich again. “Uh, what’s going on with your chips?”
“What do you mean?”
Nodding at her plate, I say, “It looks like you’re eating only the folded ones. You have a vendetta against the flat ones or something?”
She laughs sheepishly. “No. The folded ones tastebetter.”
Frowning, I scan them again. “How do they taste better?”
“Okay, so technically they don’ttastebetter,” she says, her cheeks going pink, “but theyfeelbetter.”
“Feel better?”
“Yeah. In my mouth.”
My lungs seize up and I choke on… nothing. I literally choke on the air in response to those words—“in my mouth”—coming from her lips. I’m doing a piss-poor job of keeping my inner-Neanderthal on a leash today.Get it together, Greer.
I inhale deeply and reset, forcing my attention back to her.
“It’s silly,” she says. “It’s a sensory thing.”
“It’s not silly,” I say. “I think it’s cute, actually.”
“Cute?” She scrunches her nose, which I find, well,cute.
“Yeah. It’s kinda like how I have to eat M&M’s in a specific color order.”
“And what’s the order?”
“It’s not necessarily a specific pattern every time, but if I start with red, then yellow, then blue, I have to continue the pattern the same way until they’re all gone.”
“Hmm.”
“What?”
She shrugs. “Nothing. Humans are weird sometimes.”
“I’d rather be weird than boring.”
She raises her bottle of water. “I’ll toast to that.”
12
Claire
Now that Iknow I can leave the clinic, I’m enjoying my job a hell of a lot more. The freedom to wander the property and make new discoveries has made all the difference. And Asher assured me I wouldn’t have to participate in any more field day games on such short notice. Though, if I’m being honest, I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would.
Who knew seeing Asher all sweaty and competitive would be a perk of the job? Speaking of sweat, I’ve been spending an awful lot of time with the state-of-the-art cycling bikes. I can join any classes or events at the gym as long as they’re not fully booked, so I’ve been taking advantage. My radio has only gone off once during a spin class. I was drenched in sweat and in my workout clothes when I rushed to the patient, an archery instructor who had gotten nicked by an arrow. She passed out at the sight of blood, but the wound on her shoulder was easy to treat with a liquid topical skin adhesive. After a glass of orange juice, she was mostly good as new, though I urged her to take the rest of the day off.
