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Chapter 23: A Massage Worth $75

Chapter 23: A Massage Worth $75

The attendant led him down a hallway and left him at a door with a small brass number on it. The door looked surprisingly new, considering the rest of the place. And the hallway smelled faintly of eucalyptus.

Drew and Jenna had already peeled off toward their own rooms, their voices trailing behind him until the carpet ate the sound.

The recovery area was a different building from the gym floor. No clanging plates, no bad music, just muffled quiet and soft amber light and a faint mineral smell drifting off unseen steam vents.

Seventy-five dollars felt insane twenty minutes ago. It felt less insane now if it meant his body stopped feeling like it had survived a small war.

He changed to a plain towel, climbed onto the cradle massage table, adjusted the face cradle twice before it sat right enough to fit his face comfortably, and let his eyes close. His mind went straight back to Jenna. The assessment. Incomplete. Consent required.

There had to be a way to get an answer without explaining what the question actually was. He searched for the possible hypothetical reasons for only a moment.

The door opened before he got anywhere with that.

"Hi there." The masseurs voice called out. Surprisingly calm and pretty, but oddly familiar.

"I’ll be your massage therapist today."

A moment passed.

"My name is..."

Wait.

He knew the voice before she finished the sentence. His eyes opened. He turned his head, slow, already half-certain and hoping he was wrong.

He wasn’t wrong.

Rose stood just inside the door with a clipboard against her chest, and for a second neither of them moved.

Her expression got there before her voice did, professional courtesy sliding straight into disbelief. Her eyes went to the room, then him, then the towel, then him again.

"You."

"...What are you doing here?" His voice came out sharper than he met to.

"Me? I work here." She returned. "What’re you doing here?!"

"I came here with Jenna and Drew."

"Who the hell is that?"

Right. She didn’t know them.

"You’re fucking following me." A beat. "I just sent you the address. You’re telling me you’re already here?"

"I didn’t pick the room, Rose."

Her eyes narrowed. Then her arms crossed. "Hentai."

It didn’t hit nearly as hard as it had the first time. If anything, he found it almost amusing now.

She noticed him not reacting the way she expected. Her brows furrowed. Which, annoyingly, looked good on her.

"You really expect me to believe this is a coincidence?"

"I paid seventy-five dollars. I’d at least like the massage."

"I’m not going to touch you, you damn pervert."

Adrian narrowed his eyes. "Oh. Should I tell your supervisor you’re willing to treat a paying customer like this?"

That landed. Her jaw tightened, annoyed because he wasn’t wrong. Her phone buzzed against the clipboard. She glanced down, silenced it fast and reflexive, set the clipboard aside.

He noticed. He didn’t ask.

"Son of a... Turn over. Face down." A pause, eyes cutting to him. "One condition. Don’t make this weird."

"Wasn’t planning to."

"Shut up."

Adrian settled into the table’s rhythm as Rose’s hands landed on his shoulders, brisk, professional, a timer chirping somewhere off to the side. Forty-five minutes. That was how long it apparently took for seventy-five dollars to disappear.

The first real press of pressure found a knot buried under his shoulder blade. It let go all at once.

The sound that came out of him wasn’t something he’d voted on.

Mmh.

His eyes opened. Rose’s hands stopped.

A beat of silence. Then she smacked the back of his head, lightly, but with intent.

"Why do you always have to be such a pervert?"

He stared straight into the padded hole of the face cradle. "That wasn’t intentional."

"That’s what they all say."

He let his forehead sink back into the cushion, deciding he was never making a sound in this room again as long as he lived.

Rose snorted quietly and went back to work, her hands finding the same spot. Softer this time, like she’d figured out exactly where it hurt.

"You’re tense everywhere," she said eventually.

"I carried furniture up three flights of stairs yesterday."

"That’s not an excuse. That’s just more reasons."

He exhaled on purpose, slow, and her hands eased up a fraction, like she was rewarding him for it.

A moment passed. Then.

"Rose..."

"What."

"Can I ask you something?"

"No."

He turned his head enough to look at her. She didn’t look interested in negotiating. Her hands kept working like the conversation was already over.

"It’s actually important."

"I don’t care."

He shifted like he might get up. Her hand landed flat against his shoulder, pressing him back down harder than he expected.

"Stay still."

"You’re the one who said no."

"And you’re the one who paid for a massage. Lie down."

A beat of silence, long enough that he assumed the topic was closed. Then she sighed. "Fine. What’s the question."

"It’s personal."

Her hands slowed. "That doesn’t sound friendly." A pause, dry. "Don’t start with the hentai thing again, freshman."

"I’m not. I have an ex too."

Something shifted in her expression. Not dramatic, just a small drop in her shoulders, her hands slowing another fraction.

"What does that have to do with me?"

"I’m going through a breakup. Recent one." He muttered. "I just wanted to know what happened with Daniel."

Her hands stopped completely. "Why do you care?"

"Because I know what it’s like when something ends badly."

She looked away, toward the wall. "How recent."

"Some days ago."

That pulled her attention back fully. "Days?"

"Days."

"And you’re already here." She added as she inspected him as though she was searching for jest. "Getting a massage."

"Didn’t exactly plan for the day to go like this."

She let out something that wanted to be a laugh, and the last of the tension between them eased off a degree.

She looked at him, then bit her lip. Actually bit it, before looking away and keeping the rest short. "Daniel cheated..."

"Oh. That’s..."

A longer pause. "...Cheated with my roommate."

He let that sit. Christ.

"I don’t want sympathy," she added, fast, heading him off.

"Wasn’t going to give you any." A beat. "Sounds like it sucked, though."

That almost cracked a smile before she caught it and put her hands back to work. "How long were you together?"

Three years. Most of high school and the start of college. She made it clear, without saying so directly, that Daniel hadn’t suddenly turned into someone terrible. He’d been complicated the whole way through.

"So what happened with yours."

He stared at the ceiling tile above the face cradle. First time he’d said any of this out loud.

"Um." He took in a breath. "She met someone else. Two years. We were supposed to start university together in a couple weeks. Then she picked someone else."

"She told you herself?"

"Yup."

Her hands slowed. "Fuck.... Why?"

"No idea. One day we’re planning move-in day. Next thing I know she’s already decided and I wasn’t part of it." He kept his voice level. That was probably what made it land harder. "Two years, apparently, wasn’t enough."

Rose looked at him a long moment. Something shifted. Recognition, the kind that came from having lived a version of it herself.

"You’re a freshman who got his heart broken," she said, quieter than anything before it.

He huffed something close to a laugh. "Yeah."

"I’m sorry."

Not a word he’d expected from her. Not today, anyway.

"Me too."

Neither of them tried to make it a joke. The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It just sat there.

Her phone buzzed again. She ignored it once, then checked it the second time.

"Who is it?"

"Why?"

"You checked it twice."

She looked at the screen. "My sister."

"Your sister?"

"Yes. My sister." A sideways look. "Don’t sound so surprised I have one."

"Just picturing whoever raised two of you."

"Careful."

He smiled.

"I’m Kidding."

She put the phone away, hands returning to his shoulders, and the conversation faded back into quiet.

He realized he’d just told a stranger things he hadn’t planned on telling anyone today. He didn’t regret it. That surprised him more than saying it had.

The timer chirped, cutting through the calm at the worst possible moment. Her hand left his shoulder, silenced it.

A moment later, it came back.

"Not done," she said.

He turned his head back into the cradle and shut his eyes, deciding not to examine that decision too closely.

Her hands moved slower now. Less clinical than they’d started, though neither of them commented on it.

She paused somewhere along his shoulder blade, just slightly too long. The kind of pause that meant nothing on its own and everything if either of them looked at it directly.

Neither did. Atleast he thought he didn’t.

Then, he felt her soft palms drift lower.

It’s just a normal massage. That didn’t help.