CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I pulled back the curtain to my room and he entered first. He smelled like soap, and he looked so much younger without his uniform. I still couldn’t guess his age.
“I take it you got your stuff?” I pointed nervously to his outfit.
He nodded.
I clicked my tongue, not sure if he wanted me to press more, and since I was at work, the lines were slightly blurred. He was my client here, not my friend. Even at home, he’s not exactly my friend, either. This whole thing was so confusing.
“Well, 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 dimly lit 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 couldn’t believe how much of a shithead my brother was being. I knew he was here and capable of texting me back. 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 a steady clientele, even though there was a lot of local competition, with massage spas outside of each gate. Most massages were about forty bucks, some more, some less. Some sort of shady, some not. I tried my damnedest to bring her into modern times, but she still fought me along the way. I opened my phone again to check for a text from my brother. I couldn’t wait to cuss his ass out for not replying to me.
A text from my dad popped up on my screen.
Austin is okay. He’s asleep right now.
Not only is my brother ghosting me, my dad is the one to tell me that he’s fine.Fuck both of them.I shoved my phone into the pocket of my uniform. It had already been a few minutes.
“Can I come in?” I touched the heavy curtain.
“Yeah.”
He was facedown on the massage table, his head in the cradle, the white sheet resting right at his waistline. He was shirtless. Of course he was, he was here for a treatment.
“Do you remember what you liked and didn’t like last time?” I asked, out of habit, the way I started every appointment.
“Everything was fine.”
I ran my hand down his bare back. Rising goose bumps appeared in the wake of my fingertips. I shivered. I needed to turn the music up and forget that the client on the table was Kael, or I wouldn’t make it through the hour.
“Okay . . . so I’ll apply the same pressure and see where we go from there?”
He nodded.
I ran my fingertips up his back again, just like I did with every other client. My fingers were shaking, and I was almost afraid to touch him because it didn’t feel right towantto touch a client. Maybe this was a mistake. Should I see if Elodie would switch with me? I knew that realistically that wouldn’t work, and I also sort of hated the idea of her touching him. What the hell was going on with me? I was fine before he came here. We’d spent the whole morning together and I was totally fine.
I grabbed a towel and tried my best to go through the motions. The warm towel glided easily across the bottoms of his feet. He was wearing his sweats on the table again, the gray 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 really wanted to know what that reason was, I knew that he would tell me if he wanted me to know.
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 again. 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. It’s a pressure point.”
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 can use one without a scent. Will that work?”
His head nodded in the cradle.