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Tori was keeping Scoop’d alive, thankfully. She always did. I was a much less frequent contributor. For one, my regular job at the Center for Sports Medicine kept me a lot busier than hers. She waited tables at a local restaurant. When it was crowded—which wasn’t that often—she was full-on crazy. But during the frequent down times she could fold silverware in napkins and post to social media. Plus the kinds of blog posts she specialized in were quick, typically hilarious responses to just-breaking celebrity scandals. Tori knew how to zing off a one-liner like nobody else.
We’d started blogging in our senior year of high school, an anonymous and entertaining way to offer commentary on our little world. Right from the start we’d made a good team, with her unearthing fun tidbits that intrigued readers and me profiling the people who made our school amazing. I did all my interviews by phone, and though I was pretty sure everyone in our town knew we were the ones behind our blog, it became easier to preserve our anonymity as our audience grew.
Now, seven years into it, Tori still kept the constant drumbeat of posts alive, and she’d really perfected a zingy, sassy writing style perfect for blogging. I’d gotten better over time, too, figuring out which details to feature, understanding how and when to ask the right questions to elicit a great story. I typically read a bunch online, looking for interesting leads, and then I’d follow up with an interview. You’d be surprised how many people were willing to spend an hour talking on the phone with a random blogger. I always enjoyed the conversations, capturing every element of feel-good stories about little old ladies who’d left unknown millions to local charities, five-year-olds who’d managed to dial 911 and save their dad’s life after a heart attack, or dogs who returned home after getting lost on a family vacation hundreds of miles away.
But today, I just read through Tori’s posts. She hadn’t flown to Rio yet, but she was working the hype already, posting hot pics of athletes, starting contests over “hottest abs” and “best shoulders.” So far, Chase was winning both polls.
I didn’t have a story of my own. Not yet, anyway. I needed to scoop it first. And it looked like I was going to have a lot more time to do exactly that, as his personal “on call” physical therapist. Would he want me to be available to him 24/7, all hours of the day? And night? And why did I feel excited about that prospect?
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I knocked on Chase’s door at six fifty-eight p.m. I really was my parents’ daughter. They’d raised me on the saying, “if you’re early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late. If you’re late, it’s as if you didn’t show up at all.” Slightly dorky, yes, but I couldn’t help it. They’d baked it deep into my DNA.
I’d gone for a run in the late afternoon, grabbed a salad and then taken a shower, so my hair was still slightly damp. I’d thought about blow-drying, or putting it up, but stopped myself. I wouldn’t start changing everything for Chase Carter. Every day I woke up and pulled my hair into a quick ponytail. It stayed like that until my late afternoon or early evening run, depending on my schedule with clients. Then I took my shower and let it air-dry. I wasn’t a primper, and Chase would just have to deal with that. This wasn’t a date, anyway. Even though butterflies flew around in my stomach exactly like it was.
He opened the door wearing a T-shirt and shorts, not tight but draping along the definition of his muscles. Damn the man had muscles. At five feet five inches, I wasn’t short, but he made me feel small standing next to him, like he could pick me right up, swing me over his shoulder and carry me into his bedroom.
Which was what it seemed like he was thinking of doing when he looked down at me. That heat I’d seen in his eyes earlier, it was still there as he stood in the doorway.
“Your hair’s down,” he observed as he stepped to the side to let me in. “And a little wet.” He reached out and took a strand between his fingers. “Did you go swimming?”
“No.” I gave him a slightly flustered smile, and took a step away. I didn’t know why I felt so exposed around him. “I showered after my run.”
“Thought so,” he murmured, almost to himself, and then went on to ask me questions like the athlete he was.
“What kind of a runner are you? Short course or long?”
“Distance.” I knew what he meant, even though he used swimming terminology.
“What’s your favorite race?”
“10K.” I didn’t have to think a moment about that. I’d run a marathon, once, and decided that would be my one and only. The first guy who’d run it had died at the end, anyway. Even a half marathon became a slog to me. But the 10K? That fit me just right, long enough I could push it the whole time, but short enough I could still walk to a bar and celebrate afterward with friends.
“What’s your best time?”
“45:23.”
“Did you run in college?”
“Yes.” I held up my hand, signaling to him to give me a moment after all those rapid-fire questions. And I had to tease him a little. “So, you don’t like interviews. But you don’t mind giving them?”
“I do want to get to know you.” The intensity in his aquamarine eyes made me catch my breath. As did his next question. “How do you know I don’t like giving interviews?”
“Everyone knows that.” I shrugged, averting my eyes. It wasn’t because I was trying to interview him! Besides, what I said was true. Everyone did know that he hated interviews. He’d grown famous for his swimming, of course, but his avoidance of the spotlight had played into his star status, too. Everyone wanted what they couldn’t have.
I looked around his suite and realized while all of us were staying in the same hotel near the swim center, we clearly weren’t all in the same type of room. Chase had a lavishly decked-out suite with what looked like a full kitchen and living room large enough to accommodate a massage table, already all set up.
“Would you like something to drink?” he asked, heading toward the kitchen. “Water? Pellegrino? I’ve got some sports drinks, too.”
I smiled, in spite of my nerves. It was kind of nice to not have to explain myself. I’d never been a big drinker, and after my last boyfriend’s tendency to get stumble-down drunk more nights than not, I’d cut way back. But I wouldn’t have to explain that to Chase the uber-athlete, now would I?
“I’ll have some water, thanks.” I followed him into the kitchen. He handed me a glass, then started fixing himself a whole wheat bagel with peanut butter. His short brown hair looked a bit wet. I bet it usually was. I wanted to run my hands through it.
“Want one?” he gestured to the bagel, an overflowing gooey, sticky mess.
“Thanks, I just ate.”
“So did I.” He gave me a goofy smile I couldn’t help but return.
“Hard to get enough calories?” I asked, understanding. I’d worked with athletes before, though none of his caliber. Even for top-tier athletes, his workouts were legendary, five or six hours a day of swimming over two separate sessions. He probably had to take in around 8,000 calories every day.
“Never enough,” he agreed, giving me a hungry look. Insatiable, huh? I took a sip of my water and looked down.
“Why did you become a massage therapist, too?” He gazed at me with those bright blue eyes, his head tilted slightly with curiosity. “In addition to being a physical therapist?”
“Well,” I reflected, “probably because of my mom.”
“Is she one?”
“No, she’s a nurse. But she works in this great senior facility with a lot of different physical and massage therapists and I guess I grew up understanding how much they could both help peo
ple.”
“You like to help people?”
That struck me as a strange question. I looked at him, and he shrugged, munching on the last bites of his bagel. “Not everyone does,” he clarified.
“I think it’s more…” I struggled with the right words to express something I wasn’t sure I ever had before. “So many people walk around in constant pain. My mom used to be one of them.”
Without realizing I was doing it, I started telling him all about it, how my mom had developed rheumatoid arthritis at the early age of 40 with crippling pain every morning. Eighty-five pounds overweight and sedentary, she’d had high blood pressure and faced a scary downhill slide into her future.
“So she changed.” I brightened up at the memory. I’d only been 11 at the time, but I could still remember how she’d started walking in the mornings, lifting first two-pound then five-pound weights as she hustled around before breakfast. She’d met with a nutritionist, physical and massage therapists and low and behold she’d made that illusive, long-term lasting whole-scale change.
“It’s so inspiring,” I gushed, thinking about how healthy she was now in her 50s. She and my father went biking and swimming together almost every day, enjoying life like they never had before. “Pain is so debilitating for so many people. I like doing what I can to lift it.”
“You’re a good person.” He made the statement as if it were a done deal, the final decision on the subject. I looked up and met his eyes. Not a hint of a smile, he wasn’t teasing. He really thought I was a good person.
“Um, thanks.” I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and left the kitchen. I didn’t usually start talking about myself and my family with someone I didn’t even know, let alone someone who was supposed to be my client for the next month. But all of this was new. I’d never had just one person I was working with at a time before, for an entire month. As we practically lived together in hotels.
“So, the on-call thing?” I started. “Can we talk about what you have in mind for the next month? Just working with you?”
