“Will do. Would you like light, medium, or deep pressure?” I asked, grabbing the little bottle of oil off the cabinet shelf. The outside of the bottle was still really hot, but I knew it would be the perfect temperature when it hit his skin.
Again, no answer. Maybe he was hard of hearing. I was used to this, as well, working outside a military installation; all forms of difficulties and disabilities from war were familiar and welcome here.
“Kael?” I said his name, though I didn’t know why.
His head popped up so quickly, I thought I’d frightened him. I jumped a little myself.
“Sorry, I just wanted to know what level of pressure you wanted.”
“Any.” He didn’t sound like he knew what he wanted. Probably a first-timer. He put his head back into the cradle.
“Okay. Tell me if the pressure is too light or too firm and I’ll adjust my touch,” I told him.
I could be a little heavy-handed and most of my clients liked that, but I’d never worked on this guy before, and everyone was different.
Who knew if he’d ever come back? I’d say only four out of ten first-timers actually returned and only one or two would become regulars. We weren’t a big salon, but we had a steady clientele.
“This is peppermint oil.” I dotted the little bottle against my forefinger. “I’m going to rub some into your temples. It helps with—”
He lifted his head up, lightly shaking it. “No,” he said. His voice wasn’t harsh, but it let me know he absolutely did not want me to use peppermint oil. Okay . . .
“Okay.” I screwed the lid back on the bottle and turned the faucet. Damn it. The water. I knelt down and opened the towel warmer. Empty. Of course it was.
“Um, just a second,” I told him. He laid his head back into the cradle and I shut the warmer door a little too hard. I hoped he didn’t hear it over the music. This day was turning to shit and I was only on my second client . . .
CHAPTER FIVE
Mali was in the hallway when I pushed through the thin curtain to search for towels. “I need water. Or warm towels.”
She put her fingers to her lips to tell me to hush. “There’s no water. I have towels. Who didn’t stock?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know and didn’t really care, but I needed a towel quickly. “He’s been in my room for five minutes and I haven’t started yet.”
At that she moved faster, disappearing into the room across the hall and popping back up with a few hot towels. I grabbed them from her, shifting the steaming bundles from palm to palm to cool them off.
When I got back into the room, I waved the towel through the air one last time and rubbed it across the bottom of his bare feet. His skin was so hot to the touch that I pulled the towel away and touched the back of my hand to the top of his foot to make sure I felt correctly. I hope he isn’t sick? I couldn’t afford to get sick; that’s the last thing my mortgage payment and electricity bill needed.
Literally. The days on my dad’s Tricare were coming to an end and I couldn’t afford health insurance on my own.
His skin felt so warm. I lifted the blanket a little and realized he was still wearing his pants. That was just . . . strange. I didn’t know how I was going to rub his other leg, the one I was supposed to massage.
“Did you want me to avoid your legs altogether?” I quietly asked him.
He nodded in the cradle. I continued to run the warm towel across the bottoms of his feet, something I did to clean off any oil and dirt. The hygiene of clients varied. Some people came in wearing sandals after walking around all day. Not this guy, though. He must have showered before he came in. I appreciated that. These were the things you thought about as a massage therapist. I started on the balls of his feet, applying pressure there and moving to the arch of his left foot. There was a soft, bubbly line across the bottom of his left foot, but I couldn’t see the scar in the dark. I slid my thumb slowly along the arch and he jerked a little. I was used to timing my hour sessions perfectly, about five minutes per leg, so I took the extra time to work on his shoulders. A lot of people carried tension in their shoulders, but this guy was off the charts—his were absolutely the tightest shoulders and back I had ever worked on. I had to stop myself from making up a story about his life and why he was so stressed.
To keep my imagination at bay, I thought about Elodie again: Was she awake yet? Does she know this client? I continued, keeping his legs covered by the blanket and working on his neck, his shoulders, his back. His muscles were defined, but not bulky or hard under my moving fingers. Being near the military my whole life has taught me that someone as young as this man could easily be carrying the weight of something for a long time, whether it was a rucksack or life itself. He didn’t express enough of himself for me to make up the details the way I did with Bradley and most of the other strangers around me. There was something about this guy that kept my storytelling quiet.
His scalp was the last part I worked on. The soft pressure release usually made people moan or at least sigh, but nothing came from his lips. He didn’t make a peep. I thought maybe he’d fallen asleep. That often happened and I loved when it did. It meant I’d done a good job. When the time was up, I felt like it had just started. I usually drifted in and out of thought during a treatment—my dad, my brother, my job, my house. But there was something about working on this guy. Did I know him? I remembered nearly every face I saw, and I definitely would have remembered his. So I came up with nothing.
“Thank you. Was everything okay?” Sometimes I asked, sometimes I didn’t. This guy was so quiet that I wasn’t sure if he’d enjoyed it or not.
He kept his face in the cradle so I barely heard him when he said, “Yeah.”
Okay . . .
“Okay, well, I’m going to step out and let you get dressed. I’ll see you in the lobby when you’re finished. Take your time.”
He nodded and I left the room, pretty sure I wouldn’t be getting a tip.
CHAPTER SIX
I heard Elodie in the lobby. She was talking to Mali, who was giving her a hard time for being late.
“I don’t know if you saw my text, but I took your client—he’s dressing now,” I told my friend. It didn’t hurt to let Mali know that everything was covered, no harm done. Elodie smiled at me and tilted her head to the side. She had this thing about her where she could get away with anything.
“I’m so sorry, Karina. Thank you.” She kissed both of my cheeks. That was something I got used to the first week she moved in. I wasn’t really fond of excess touching, but with her it was hard to recoil the way I normally would.
“I couldn’t fall asleep last night. The avocado started kicking.” Her smile grew wide, but I could tell by her eyes that she wasn’t rested. I could relate. Not to the pregnancy, of course, but to the feeling of living in a constant state of tired.
Mali put her hand on Elodie’s stomach and started talking to the baby. I half expected her to ask the bump, What’s wrong, why aren’t you smiling? but Mali was soft and kind around children, even the ones who hadn’t been born yet. It made me a little uncomfortable, the way she was touching Elodie like that, but the idea of the baby kicking was exciting, so I smiled. I really was happy for my friend. It worried me that she was here alone while her family and most of her friends were across the Atlantic Ocean. She was young. So young. I wondered if she’d had the chance to tell Phillip that she thought she felt the baby move yesterday, or if he would even get to check his email today. The time zones made it so hard for them to talk as often as Elodie or anyone with a soldier in their life would want, but she was handling it with grace, as she did everything. It scared the hell out of me, though—the fact that she was going to have a baby in a few months. Sometimes I treated her as if she was a child herself.