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The rest of the massage was spent talking football. Mack liked the massage and the talk, but he was too keyed up about finding Sariah to truly relax or focus on anything else.
The lady finished, thanked him, gave him the spiel about standing up slowly along with a water bottle. Mack stood, downed the water, grabbed his shirt, and hurried back to the reception desk.
Tight-bun reception lady took his credit card, he signed and added a tip then he asked her for a four o’clock appointment.
“Do you know how to give up?” she asked him tightly, letting her professional demeanor slip a little bit.
“No, ma’am.”
The lady’s lips curved in what might have been a smile, but Mack didn’t want to assume too much. Then she pushed out a sigh, tapped the computer some more and did her crisp, “Follow me,” and staccato down the hallway.
Third room, same smells, sound, and bed. Mack was getting tired from flying in this morning, all the runaround today, the massages, and the soothing smells and sounds. If this wasn’t Sariah, he wouldn’t talk, he’d take a nap instead. He peeled off his shirt, the scents of different oils they’d worked into his back probably overpowered his Taylor cologne that Navy had picked out for him. In his sister’s words, “You need this smell, little bro, manly and succulent.”
Laying down on the bed, he shut his eyes and prayed for Sariah to come in. If it wasn’t her, he might give up on the last hour and just rest in his rented Cherokee until six when she should be done with school, but what if he missed her?
The tap came at the door and a female voice, “May I come in?”
The disappointment that it wasn’t Sariah rushed over him. Maybe the stern bun lady was right and he needed to stop being so persistent. A worse thought nagged at him, maybe the woman he thought was his destiny really wasn’t.
* * *
Sariah loved her schooling and her classmates and teachers. They learned and practiced on each other in the mornings, then throughout the afternoon they practiced on real people, if people came in. If not, they practiced on each other some more. It was better to work on real people because they knew each other’s aches and pains too well, and sometimes they even got tips, which was really nice.
Friday afternoon she had a break with no client from four to five. Everybody else was busy so her instructor told her to take a break and read up on techniques. She headed back to the main classroom, drank some water, and checked her phone quick.
Her eyebrows rose when she saw she had seventeen texts and many missed calls. Fear rushed through her. Had something happened? Rather than check the texts, she pressed call back on the phone call from Caleb.
“What’s up?” she asked him, clinging to the phone. They’d had a horrid scare last spring when Josh and Caleb had been in a car accident where Josh ended up in a coma.
“Mack Quinn came here,” Caleb said.
“What?” She gripped the phone even more tightly. Nothing was wrong with her family, but this news still made her stomach tumble. Mack Quinn went to her house and she missed him?
“Yeah. He stopped by and Josh gushed all over him. Why would he come here, sis?”
“I don’t know. He and I have … talked a couple of times.” Mack had come for her! Did that mean he didn’t like Scarlett Lily? She’d watched social media and Google diligently but had seen nothing indicating they were dating. Scarlett was in California finishing up a movie, so maybe they just hadn’t had the time to be together.
“Hmm. He wanted your number but when I asked why he hadn’t gotten it from Hyde he admitted he’d tried. If Hyde shut him down, I didn’t want to give him anything, you know?” He paused. “Did you want me to give it to him, sis?”
“I … I’m as confused as a baseball player at a lacrosse game.” She pushed her hair back from the right side and touched the mottled skin on her neck. Mack Quinn. She’d love to see him again, talk to him, but the thought of going somewhere with him and having someone take pictures of her, maybe see her deformity and shout how she wasn’t worthy of the charming and handsome Mack Quinn … she couldn’t take that again.
“Josh told him you lived with Teresa. I wanted you to have a head’s up.”
“Thanks,” she murmured, her thoughts bouncing all over the place, but they were all centered on Mack.
“He seems like a nice guy,” Caleb said.
“Yeah, he does.”
“Talk to you later. Be careful, sis.”
“I will. Love you.”
“You too.” Caleb disconnected.
Sariah looked through her texts and saw a bunch from Caleb, Trudy, and Mary and a few from Aunt Allie. Teresa didn’t text but she’d called. Sariah hit the call back on her number.
“Sariah, girl!” Teresa screamed excitedly into the phone.
