I pushed through the curtain in the lobby to find Kael walking around the small space, almost pacing. There were only a few chairs in the lobby, but between them and the front desk, they took up so much space. I watched him walk back and forth before I pushed all the way through the curtain.
“Hey?” I greeted Kael, my stomach tied in a knot.
“Hey.”
We stood there, standing in the thick smell of incense and the dim lights in the room. The old PC tower on the floor hummed between us.
“Is everything okay?” As I asked, it dawned on me that he might be there for a reason.
“Yeah, yeah. I came to get a massage, actually.” He held up his hands.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Is that okay?” His voice was soft, an unsure question.
I nodded and brought my hand up to my mouth. I didn’t know why I was smiling, but I was and I couldn’t stop.
I PULLED BACK THE CURTAIN TO MY ROOM.
“I’ll give you two minutes or so to undress and I’ll be back,” I told him.
Kael stood by the table with his arms crossed. His sweats hung on his hips and his skin glowed in the candlelight. I couldn’t remember the last time I liked looking at someone as much as I did Kael. It fascinated me. He fascinated me. I didn’t know what it was about him, but he got more attractive every time I looked at him.
I moved out into the dark hallway and took a deep breath. I told myself that it wouldn’t be weird. I did this all day, every day. He was just a regular client, a stranger really. I barely knew him and on top of that, I had already given him a massage. I pulled my phone from my pocket to see if Austin had called me back yet. Nothing. I texted my dad. Anything to distract myself.
I could hear Mali talking to her husband down the hall. Something about extending a hot stone promotion we had going this month. She was always trying to come up with new promotions and semi-free marketing for their small business. It was impressive to watch her keep this place full of steady clientele, even though there were parlors on every nearly every block outside of each gate. Most were about thirty bucks, some more, some less. Some shady, some not.
A text from my dad popped up on my screen.
Austin is okay. He’s asleep right now.
I shoved my phone into the pocket of my uniform. It had to have been two minutes. If not longer.
“Can I come in?” I touched the curtain.
“Yeah.”
He was face down on the massage table, his head in the cradle, the white sheet resting right at his waistline.
“Do you remember what you liked and didn’t like last time?” I asked, mostly just for my own consumption.
“Everything was good.”
“Okay, so I’ll apply the same pressure and see where we go from there?” I asked him. He nodded.
I grabbed the towel and went through the motions. The warm towel glided easily across the bottoms of his feet. He was wearing his sweats on the table again, the black fabric peeking out of the bottom of the white sheet. I almost pushed them up a little so I could rub his ankles more thoroughly, but something told me not to. He was wearing the pants for a reason and though I could admit to myself that I was dying to know what that reason was, I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable or cross any boundaries.
I pressed my thumb into the pad of flesh right under the line of his toes and he groaned. I eased up and his tense body relaxed. He rolled his ankle to get rid of the feeling. It was a sore spot for a lot of people.
“Sorry. It usually releases tension.”
I walked back around to the top of the table where his head was and reached for my oils.
“No peppermint, right?” I asked him.
“No, thanks. I hate the smell.”
Okay then.
“I’ll use one without a smell. Will that work?”
His head nodded in the cradle.
I rubbed the warm oil between my hands and started at the base of his neck. The cords of his muscles were thick around his neckline and down his shoulders. In a way, he looked like someone built to fight, to protect, but sometimes he seemed so boyish, silly even, someone who should be kept out of harm’s way.
“Elodie is here,” I told him. He stayed quiet as I moved my hands across his soft skin. His shoulders held a little less tension than yesterday. Holy shit, it had literally only been a day since he came in for Elodie!
“I met her in training for my therapist license. She had just gotten here from France after researching programs for military spouses.”
I remember how thick her beautiful accent used to feel to me. “She was so determined and was taking the first day so seriously. I was drawn to her almost immediately.” I explained.
He laughed a little. His shoulders danced with slight amusement.
“Phillip’s as nice as I think he is, yeah?” I asked Kael while we were on the subject. He stayed quiet for a few seconds.
“He’s a good guy.”
“Promise? Because he brought her here from another country with no family and no friends here. I worry about her.”
“He’s a good guy,” he said again.
I needed to stop grilling him and just do my job. I kept thinking about more and more to say to him. But he didn’t come here to talk to me. He came here to get a treatment for his aching body.
I moved down his back and up his arms, settling into my normal groove. I did the same thing most treatments, medium pressure, a little more oil than most therapists use. The song playing was an older Beyoncé song and I let the music fill the quiet air until about twenty minutes later, when I asked him to roll onto his back.
He closed his eyes when he turned over and I took the liberty of studying his face. His sharp jawline, the light stubble under his chin. He took a deep breath when I tucked my hands under his back and raked them up his skin, pressing and stretching the muscles in his back.
I opened my mouth to ask Kael about shopping tonight. Then closed it.
Seconds later, I almost asked him what sounded good for dinner. Then I almost told him that I loved the song that was playing and in my head I was telling him how Mali let me have my own music playing in my room. Something about him just made me want to speak. Almost.
I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
I sighed.
I couldn’t chit and chat to him the whole time he was on my table. It was unprofessional. I repeated that to myself a few times.
I checked the time. Only two minutes had gone by since I’d had him roll over. Fuck my life. I wanted to tell him that time was going so slow. Or ask him if he could smell the caramel cake candle I’d had burning since I opened.
“Everything good?” I asked finally.
He nodded. “How’s your brother?” His question surprised me.
“I thought he’d have come to my house as soon as he arrived to town, but I guess not,” I said. “He’s asleep at my dad’s now. I still haven’t gotten to talk to him alone. It’s so frustrating. We used to be so close.”
Kael kept his eyes closed. I was kneading my closed fists down his shoulders and arms. His eyes clenched shut.
“Sorry I’m talking so much. I seem to do that a lot.” I laughed but it sounded so fake. Probably because it was.
Kael’s eyes opened for a second and he leaned his head up, forcing eye contact. “It’s fine. I don’t mind it.”
I looked away and he laid his head back down. “Thanks, I think,” I teased and my stomach flipped when his face broke into the biggest smile I had seen on him yet.
I WAS WAITING FOR KAEL when I got Elodie’s text with the Buzzfeed link. She was the queen of “Is It Your Fault You’re Single?” quizzes, and “Are Women Taking Over the Self-Employme
nt Industry?” articles. This one was “25 Things You Need To Know About Target” I was one click away from finding out something new about Pringles and Tide PODS, or maybe how to spot the quickest checkout line, when Kael appeared in the lobby.
“Hi,” I said. “Hope everything was okay.”
“Yeah, thanks,” he answered. I rang him up and handed over the credit card slip to sign. I’d never felt anxious seeing a client scribble his name across that little black line before, so this was new. And, of course, Kael wasn’t giving anything up, which left room for me to fill in the blanks. First I wondered if he’d come back for another massage. Then it was, What’s going to happen after he stops crashing on my couch?
He left me a twelve dollar tip on a forty-five dollar massage. It was more than generous. Certainly it was more than I usually got. I felt a little weird about it, like he was giving me charity or something. Or paying for my time, which I guess he was. But I did need the money, so I took it with a smile. Ok, the smile was mostly forced, but he couldn’t tell. At least, I didn’t think he could.
I thought about how I had talked through half of his massage. It probably didn’t make for the most relaxing experience.
“Sorry I talked so—”
Kael cut me off before I could finish. “No,” he said, and offered me a friendly shrug of his shoulders. “It’s cool.”
I was learning him, but I still couldn’t tell whether he was lying or not. Wouldn’t he be at least a little annoyed by all my nervous chatter? Ok, he asked me a question or two, but I was the one who talked about my shifts and how my brother was causing me major stress over his second arrest. I almost spent the next few minutes talking about my brother and how I was worried about him, but for once, I didn’t want this to be about Austin. Maybe I wanted to seem more mature than I was, or maybe I wanted to protect Austin from a stranger’s opinion. Whatever the reason, I moved on to something else.
“What color should I paint the walls in here?” I had asked him.
“What color do you want to paint them?” he’d answered.