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“Okay, okay.” Sunny didn’t see as much of a problem with her own situation. She had no idea what was going on with her and Callahan and she really didn’t want to categorize it, one way or the other. They were consenting adults. They had a great time. What was wrong with that? “Rhett can use your room,” Sunny said. “You’ll just have to go home to sleep Christmas Eve. Unless you want to be on the couch. Everything else is rented out.”
Constance finished up Humphrey’s other paw, then rose carefully to her feet. Humphrey didn’t move a muscle. They were all jelly and he was nothing but a happy puddle. “Perfect. Thank you. In the meantime, I’ll try to work Rhett’s leg again. Before I spring a whole-body massage on him on Christmas Eve.”
“Good plan. And yes, I still need your help. Sean and I had a deal that didn’t involve sex and I’m assuming that’s still a go.”
Constance shook her head. Her face had gotten slimmer over the weeks at Semper Fit and she seemed sterner now when she gave Sunny that classic, disapproving look. “Be careful, baby sister. You’re playing with fire.”
Stanzi stood outside the office, holding up a small jar.
Despite the fact she’d pretty much avoided him for a week, Rhett smiled. She wore a pair of black leggings, a T-shirt only one size too big rather than three and had her hair up in that little ponytail. Her bangs had grown past her eyes and were pulled back with a small barrette. Up close, Rhett could see that the barrette was metal, with a small, plastic cat on it, like a little girl might wear.
He laughed to himself.Who dresses you?
“Your limp has gotten worse all week.” She nodded toward his leg.
Rhett raised his eyebrows at her. “Hi. How are you?”
“Oh, I mean. Hey.” Stanzi smiled, then bit down on her lower lip. “I’ve been a little busy this week. But I made it for Combat class tonight.”
“You’ve been to the gym,” Rhett said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Just not to my class.”
Stanzi rolled the jar she’d brought around and around in her palms. She looked up toward the ceiling, then parted her lips to speak.
“What you got there?” Rhett let her off the hook and nodded to the jar. Watching her squirm was fun, but no need to push it. He didn’t want her mad at him before Combat.
“I want to try this on your leg. It’s great for pain relief. Before I try it on clients, I want you to be my guinea pig.”
Rhett took the jar, which had a graphic of a leafy plant on the label. He read the ingredients. “Cannabidiol extract?” He smiled. “You trying to get me high, Stanzi?”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course not. It’s nonpsychoactive. There’s no THC in this. The compounds in here disrupt pain signaling in the body. It works really well. Sit down.” She motioned to his desk chair. “It’s perfectly legal.”
Rhett narrowed his eyes, leery of tricks. But logically, that made no sense. She was asking for his help. He’d be a jerk not to accept some free work in exchange for being a guinea pig, right? “Go ahead.” He sank into his office chair. “I don’t care what you use on this damn leg.” He motioned to the door and she pushed it closed.
Stanzi unscrewed the cap and dipped her pinky into the cream. “I should have an applicator, but this is my own personal jar. I don’t use it on other clients.”
“Will you quit going out of your way to be professional and just help my stupid leg?” He waited for that suppressed smile to play around her lips before he leaned back and closed his eyes, allowing the full power of her magical cream and magical hands and whatever magical thing she had going on to work its will. It didn’t matter whether she had cannabidiol or Love Potion No. 9 in that jar, if Stanzi was going to rub it on him, he was going to feel good. He still remembered the last massage she’d given him. Dreamed about it sometimes.
“You’ve got a lot of scar tissue here.” Her hands were right over the leg wound. She rested there a moment, then told him to take a deep breath. On the exhale, she sank in with her fingertips. Slowly, she worked around the scar, moving in short strokes forward and back, and side to side. “Feels okay?”
Rhett opened his eyes and saw she watched his hands and face for signs of pain, rather than watching his leg. Just like when she tested Duke’s firing sequence, she took sight out of the equation. “Hurts, but in a good way.”
“That’s what we want.” She worked her fingers awhile longer, and the pain slowly eased. “When you’re hurt,” she explained, “your body rushes to fix the damage. It doesn’t care how the new fibers get laid down to patch the wound. It throws them down any which way, which is why scar tissue is so lumpy. It’s kind of like, if you’re putting out a fire, you don’t care if you get water all over the walls. You’ll throw buckets around if it puts out the flames, and you don’t care what kind of mess it makes.”
Stanzi grasped his calf and leaned back, putting him into traction. “We’ll stretch the quad when you stand up. Keep in mind, you may actually feel worse after this, at least at first. But a change is good. Eventually, you should feel a bit better.”
Rhett met her gaze, stifling the urge to reach out and fix the hair that had fallen out of her cat barrette. “There was an explosion.” He spoke without really deciding to. The sound of his own voice surprised him as much as it showed on her face. “Rockets were launched at our firebase. We raced for the bunker when the sirens went off. I had to make sure all my men made it inside. Just three of us were left outside when they hit. One missed us, the other hit close by. My leg took a hit before I dragged myself into the bunker. I thought Devon and Masters made it in, but I was wrong. They took hits, too, but not in their legs.”
He waited for her to say what everyone else said. What was it Katrina had said, over and over again?You can’t blame yourself that you didn’t die, too. That’s a classic mistake.
Rhett had always wanted to say,You’re a classic mistake, but had never been able to bring himself to be that mean to someone he was sleeping with.
Stanzi was quiet awhile as she released his calf and ran her hands back up and over his quads, this time using only the flat of her palms in long, smooth strokes. This part of the massage didn’t hurt-so-good. It just felt good. “Was one of them Angie’s husband?”
“Devon.” Rhett watched her hands work. She had long, slender fingers and clean nails filed down smooth, past the tips. Perfect for her job. Perfect to wrap around a barbell. He stopped short of thinking about a few other things they’d be perfect for. “He had good dance moves and a big, stupid grin.”
“Was Masters a good dancer, too?”
“No.” Rhett wondered when the last time was anyone had asked about Scott Masters. He’d been single and didn’t have much to say about his parents. His death seemed to have gone mostly unnoticed back home. “He was terrible. But he made everyone laugh being terrible.”
