Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 38249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 191(@200wpm)___ 153(@250wpm)___ 127(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 191(@200wpm)___ 153(@250wpm)___ 127(@300wpm)
I roll my eyes, but secretly file the comment away as flirting. I'll check with Liz later to get her opinion. God knows, I need it.
I've been here three months, and my track record for interpreting the banter from the guys is abysmal. Sometimes, when they're extra chatty, what they mean is, "I'm thinking about sleeping with you." Sometimes, it's, "I forgot your name, so I'm just going to be overly friendly and hope you don't notice." And sometimes, they mean, "I'm about to ask you to tape my inner thigh, and I need to make it less weird before your face is inches from my sweaty junk."
I can't tell the difference.
The only thing I know for sure is that Trent is always nice to me, he always requests me for PT, and I always say yes.
In my head, that means we're going to have babies soon. Obviously. In his mind, it probably means nothing.
Liz can tell me. She's smart like that.
"Where's the pain today?" I ask, trying to sound like someone who did not just write "Mrs. Danica Kirk" in four different fonts in her notes app.
For the record, I didn't. Today.
He tilts his head to look at me, those green eyes doing ridiculous things to my womb. "Upper back like usual. It's not bad, though. It just feels tight."
I put on my Serious Medical Professional voice. "Scale of one to ten?"
"Ten, if you're doing the massage," he fires back.
I laugh, which he probably expects, but I'm in that space again where I don't know if he's flirting or if he's just trying to stay on my good side. I do know that I'm already blushing, though, which is totally unfair. He's always unflappable, and my face is a permanent shade of stop-sign-red around him.
It seriously clashes with the traffic-cone-orange scrubs.
I warm up my hands and start in, using just enough pressure to impress him. Trent is built like a boulder, but the muscles in his back move under my hands like something alive. I knead between his shoulder blades, and he groans—loud, unfiltered, possibly obscene.
"Fucking hell, Dani. You're a miracle worker," he grunts in that raspy voice that I want to hear while he's naked and on top of me.
"I know," I say, and for a second, I let myself imagine what it would be like if this weren't just my job. If I were massaging him as his girlfriend instead of as his physical therapist. If maybe, just maybe, there was a world where I didn't have to settle for being his glorified masseuse. Maybe I could be the girl who gets the guy for once.
It's a nice thought. I tuck it away for later.
"Can I ask you something?" he says after a minute, voice muffled by the table.
I brace myself. "As long as it's not about my fudge recipe. That's a family secret." That's a lie. I got it off the internet, but I'm pretty sure I skipped at least two full steps.
He laughs, then sobers. "Do you like working here?"
The question isn't at all what I was expecting, and it catches me off guard. "What do you mean?"
He shifts a little, resting his chin on his arms. "You always look like you're about to make a run for it. Like, if someone left the door open, you'd be gone."
I blink. Is it that obvious? "I have a complicated relationship with authority," I say carefully. It sounds better than the truth…which is that I panic a little every time I have to talk to him.
He makes a noise that's halfway between a laugh and a sigh. "You're good at what you do, Sunshine. Best PT we've ever had. Most people just want to get through the day without pissing off Coach. You actually listen."
I keep kneading, but there's a warmth spreading in my chest that's not from the heating pad stretched across his midback. "Thank you," I say softly. "That means a lot."
He turns, just enough to see my face. "Seriously. I don't trust most people with my body, but I trust you."
My brain helpfully supplies about fifteen different ways to interpret that, most of them X-rated.
I clear my throat. "You're not so bad yourself, Kirk."
He grins at me, and the room suddenly feels a little less like a sweaty sauna and a lot more like Christmas. Huh, maybe that's what I need to get into the spirit. A healthy dose of hockey hunk.
As he turns to place his face back in the hole, I notice that it's a weird shade of pink. Not cute, I'm embarrassed pink like mine. More like, I just ran five laps with an elephant sitting on my chest, pink. His ears are splotchy. His neck is splotchy.
The splotches are…spreading?
He blinks.
And then coughs.
And coughs again.
And I, brilliant, unflappable, trained professional that I am, freeze like someone just threatened to show pages of my middle school diary on a Jumbotron.