Jade

by Sarah Jayne Carr

  Backpedaling began. “Maybe I have the wrong—”

  “Oh. That Miles,” he replied. “You a friend of his or somethin’?”

  That Miles?

  He stood with a groan.

  I looked up.

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything.”

  “It wasn’t… isn’t.” I winced, the soreness in my shoulder rising with the angle. “I’m sorry. I just thought…”

  “Don’t make a pained face and pretend it injures you to pity my shitty upbringing.”

  “It’s not that. I have this pinched nerve thing, and my ibuprofen is out there.” I pointed to the door. “My chiropractor’s in Maui, and I’ve been craning my neck to paint.”

  “The other chick who works here?”

  “Yep.” I nodded, popping the last square of chocolate in my mouth. “So, I get to cope until she gets back.”

  “Sorry about your messed-up family. And your neck. And all the paint you’re wearing.” He glanced at my face and shirt before leaning against the wall again to slump down.

  “Sorry about your messed-up family. And that you got hit by a SUV. And for calling you a Dick Giblet.”

  “You didn’t call me a—”

  “Oh, no. I did. More than once. You just didn’t hear it.” I considered my options. “Can we start over? There’s still a wedding to get through tomorrow.”

  If seconds were tangible, the amount of time it took him to reply could’ve filled a bucket.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “I’m Jade.” I reached out to shake his hand as Duran Duran’s Come Undone introduced its tambourine beat.

  With initial reluctance, he finally mirrored my movement, his palm warm against mine with a tingle of electricity shooting up my arm. “I’m—”

  “Seth. I’ve heard around town.”

  He looked surprised. “You didn’t call me Miles.”

  “Don’t get used to it, cupcake.” The left corner of my mouth hinted at a smile.

  Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t ready to be best friends with Seth McCullough. I didn’t know whether to call him a prostidude or a dudestitute. Either way, his gigolo juggling three or more girlfriends didn’t slip my mind. At least starting over would stop us from killing each other for twenty-four hours until the wedding finally ended. I hoped.

  “So, now what?” he asked as the percussion began from Smashing Pumpkin’s Tonight Tonight.

  “We’re out of chocolate,” I tried to roll my shoulder without success and with a loud click, “but we can play paper, rock, scissors if we need to resort to cannibalism.”

  “Funny,” Seth said with a straight face.

  I reflexively glanced at the space above my desk and remembered I’d put the wall clock out front to keep it from getting splattered with paint. “What time is it?”

  He read his watch. “Almost three.”

  “Almost…” I stopped breathing and felt my cheeks cooling as the color left them. “Fuck.”

  “The neck thing, it’s really bothering you that much?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not it. We have a bigger problem.”

  “Bigger than being caged in an office? I don’t see flames and the ceiling isn’t caving.”

  “Worse. We were supposed to be at The DA at one o’clock. Annelies is gonna kill me. Maybe you, too, but Paige is persuasive. She’ll suggest I listen to her talk until my ears bleed, and then they’ll both waterboard me.”

  Not to mention the wedding…

  Not to mention dinner with my dad…

  “Calm down. It’ll be—”

  “Don’t say ‘fine.’ Because it won’t be fine unless you know how to dance ballroom.”

  “Not my area of expertise,” he replied.

  I scrunched my eyes shut for a few seconds and shook out my hands. The rising level of stress gathering and cramping through the muscle fibers of my shoulder nudged me to the brink of tears.

  Seth studied my expression. “Are… you okay?”

  “I’m good.” My face puckered like I bit into a lemon. “Old injury. Stress makes it flare up.”

  “I see that. Can I help?” he asked.

  “Help… what?” I tried to banish the throbbing into nonexistence with deep breaths. It didn’t work. “Do you have a magic treatment for cervical radiculopathy in the emotional baggage you carry around?”

  “No, and I can’t adjust you like a chiropractor. Or adjust your attitude either.”

  I forced down my snark. “Sorry. I deserve that.”

  “But I can give you a massage.”

  The song ended, leaving the room filled with a lull before linking over to Fuel’s Shimmer.

  “You?” I laughed. “Give me a massage? Right.”

  His defenses launched through the roof, translated through his standoffish body language. “Forget it, your highness. Just trying to help.”

  The crazy lobster lady wants you to listen.

  “Look. I didn’t mean for it to sound that way. In my experience, no one offers a massage therapist a massage unless they’re a massage therapist. It’s like some unwritten rule.” Or they’re Eli. “I don’t know what it is. Stage fright. Fear of judgment.”

  “Considering I’m judged every other day, what’s the difference? Besides, I can suck at something new.” He continued, “Like uppity dancing, it’s not a skill I carry around in my ‘emotional baggage’ arsenal. Just walk me through it.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Are you setting me up? You know, to strangle me?”

  “Maybe I am.” He used my words from earlier and wiped away his budding smile before it could blossom.

  “Why are you doing this?” The old habit of rattling off lists would die hard. “I was late to your appointment, I yelled at you… I don’t know how many times, I’ve called you a lot of names, I went to your house… houses, and—”

  “While you did do all those things, I pushed your buttons, too. Plus,” the comforting sincerity of what he said next was nearly tangible, “I called you a disappointing existence, which annihilates anything you could’ve done to me. Call this a peace offering.”

  I pursed my lips, unsure how to speak my hesitation in being vulnerable and surrendering control.

  “You’re right. We could sit here and count dots on the ceiling instead.” Seth looked upward and closed one eye. “One. Two. Three. Four. Is that a dot or a spider?”

  My pain bordered on a nine out of ten, and desperation screamed for something, anything to interfere with it. “Okay. But I have rules.”

  “Like?” he stretched the single syllable out.

  “There needs to be a safe word.”

  “A… Safe word?” he reiterated. “We’re still talking about massage, right?”

  “Yeah, but I know me. I’ll tell you to stop, and I won’t mean it.”

  “So… no means yes? This is starting to sound like a non-consensual gray area that’ll get me arrested.”

  “You wanna help or not? No matter how much I tell you it hurts, only let up if I say the magic word. That’s my rule.”

  “I’ll humor you, but I get to come up with the safe word.”

  I crossed my arms. “How did my rule get tarnished with your rule?”

  His dark eyes sparkled with a glint of humor. “You said it a few minutes ago, Doc. The tables have flipped.”

  “I’m going to start charging you to use my words against me, and I don’t take dimes.” I unzipped the cloth case from my massage table and braced the leg frames into place with the heel of my hand before propping it upright. “What’s the word?” After pinning my hair in a messy ponytail on top of my head, I snapped the metal face rest in place.

  He pressed the knuckles of his fists into the squishy vinyl. “How ab
out ‘Seth McCullough isn’t so bad.’”

  “I said a safe word! That’s a safe sentence!”

  “Exactly.” His eyebrows jumped up his forehead once and settled back down. “You’ll have to focus and decide if you really want me to stop. All of this solely benefits you, you know.”

  “Sure, it does.” I made a face and shivered under his stare. Silently, I promised myself his safe sentence wouldn’t pass by my lips. “Fine.”

  The Goo Goo Dolls’ Iris crooned while I slid the unzipped sweatshirt from my shoulders, feeling defenseless, exposed, and like I’d removed my armor. Next, my wedge sandals came off, reducing my height by two inches. I’d officially lowered my guard.

  I pointed to my mid-back, where the black tank top seam greeted skin. “From here up to my neck. That’s it.”

  “Got it.” Seth nodded and took off his flannel. Underneath, he wore a simple white t-shirt that clung to him enough to accentuate his muscles.

  I grabbed a cylindrical-shaped bolster from a basket to prop under the tops of my feet and laid face down on the table. After a deep breath, I adjusted my forehead against the cradle and stared through the hole at the floor. You can handle this, Jade. He probably won’t kill you.

  “What’s first, Doc?”

  Unease bled through my voice, “There’s a bottle of oil on the end table. Only use half a squirt and rub your hands together.”

  I heard him move across the room, the familiar whistle of the grapeseed oil bottle, and the friction between his palms while the scent of lavender-infused the air. So many times, I almost stopped him. All through school, I’d come to terms that bodies were bodies. A leg was a leg. A neck a neck. Shoulders were shoulders. Male and female— they all had the same muscular makeup. Zero embarrassment should’ve crawled across my skin or colored my cheeks fiercely. So, why did lying on that table, even while fully-clothed, feel dirty and wrong? As if I did something immoral. Whatever the reason, Seth was right; the tables flipped. Over and over and over. And I couldn’t tell which way was up anymore.

  I gave a concise lesson on body mechanics. “Face the side of the table and allow some of the weight from your hips to rest against its frame. Your feet should be a little more than shoulder’s width apart. Use your body for power instead of relying on your arms.”

  “I didn’t know there were so many steps to a back rub.”

  I lifted my head and seized the chance for an out. “We can stop.”

  “I wasn’t getting at that. Just saying it’s more complicated than it looks.”

  I rested my cheeks against the cushion again and fought to speak, “When you’re ready, place your palms on my back.”

  I sensed his uncertainty while I held my breath, ears ringing in the near-invisible fractions of silence between beats within the song. For the first time, I missed the sound of the wall clock’s tick in the background. There were no distractions while we played a dangerous game of Chicken. Who would buckle first?

  But neither of us backed down.

  “Soft, circular, stroking movements called effleurage come first,” I said. “It warms the tissue and does other things I won’t bore you with.”

  “What if… I get oil on your shirt?” Seth asked. “You know, the strappy things?”

  “I think the coat of paint from when you thundered in here took care of that already,” I said, tugging the bottom of the tank top to ensure my low back stayed completely covered. “The strappy things are trash after today.”

  “Oh, right,” he replied. “The paint.”

  Seconds later, the heat of his hands touched my skin— fire meeting ice. Why is breathing so hard?

  “Like this?” he asked. “I’ve given massages before, but this is… different.”

  Understatement.

  I gave a slight nod from the face cradle. “Don’t put pressure directly on my spine or punch me in the kidneys and you’ll do fine. Once the muscles are warmed up, you can knead and compress the underlying layers. That’s petrissage. More stuff I won’t bore you with.”

  Seth’s hands worked carefully, inch-by-inch over my shoulder blades and neck until every inch received an equal amount of thorough care. He listened to every direction I gave him and didn’t complain, even when I showed him how to adjust his technique.

  “So, what have you heard around town about me?” he asked as a DJ announced Radiohead’s Creep.

  My body tensed.

  “Too much?”

  It took considerable time to realize he meant the force of his hands and not the looming heaviness of the conversation. I exhaled hard and tried to relax. “No. Sorry.”

  “Don’t hold back. No one ever tells the whole story, anyway. Only the parts that make me sound like the bad guy.”

  “You’re in the mob,” I said, guiding him to use his knuckles in a linear path over my traps.

  “That’s an old one.” The heels of his palms applied pressure on the muscles between my shoulder blades without directive, which I would’ve asked of him next. “What else?”

  “You had an affair with a cheerleading coach,” I hissed through the increasing pain.

  “That old bat, Mrs. Kleinfeld?” He laughed. “Heard it a million times. Also, not true. Any others?”

  “Porn star. Drug lord. I, fuck, that hurts, can’t concentrate… remember the rest.”

  “Wow. Guess I’ve been busy,” he said.

  “Sabina said you’re a ball of damage and grief.”

  His hands stopped moving. I’d struck a nerve, which was ironic considering my position on the table.

  “I’ve heard things about you, too,” he sounded impossibly close to my ear before he repositioned and pressed the pads of his thumbs on either side of my spine, sliding upward over a complex series of knots.

  “Holy twat twister!” I lifted my head and lowered my voice, “Like what?”

  He gently guided the back of my skull down toward the face cradle with his fingertips. “Hey. Trying to give a massage here. Just stuff.”

  I was glad my face wasn’t in view because I glowered at the floor and changed the subject. “You can go harder.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t think—”

  “Positive.” My uneven breathing expressed otherwise when he complied. “Son of a titty biscuit! I can take it.”

  “I can tell by your creative use of unpredictable imagery.”

  I tried to hold back my whine and didn’t win.

  “Jesus, you’re tight,” he said.

  I squeaked, “I get that a lot when I’m on the table.”

  Then, he’d accomplished it.

  “Do you feel that?” I asked, the relentless tingle reducing in my upper arm, allowing me to relax. “Stop.”

  Seth cleared his throat. “Yeah.” He released my neck and shoulders, that heat from our broken, physical connection instantly cooling. The blunt contrast distracted me from the pins and needles creeping down my arm again.

  “Not stop-stop. I didn’t say the safe word.”

  “Safe sentence,” he corrected me in an attempt to lighten the mood.

  “I meant, where you had your fingers. Stop there. Pin me hard and don’t let up until I tell you to.”

  His hands rested on my flesh again but they didn’t move. “I’m afraid… of hurting you.”

  “This nerve’s been damaged for a long time.” When he didn’t reply, I added, “Seth, you can’t break what’s already broken.”

  From what I could tell, he hadn’t moved. “I need a minute.”

  “Um. Are you okay?” I asked. Forced to stare at the floor, I couldn’t read his eyes, see if he frowned, or study the tension in his facial muscles. All I knew was he couldn’t escape through a barricaded door. “If you want to be finished, we can—”

  “It’s…
never mind.” He gained focus on massage again.

  “Fucking skank juice!” I grunted. “Don’t forget your body. Leverage,” I redirected him. “I’ll tell you if it’s too much.”

  “Here?” he asked. “Am I doing it right?”

  The hurt bordered on nausea and invited tunnel vision, but I craved and needed it. “Stop!”

  Within fractions of a second, he obeyed.

  “I still didn’t use the safe sentence.”

  “I know, but you said stop. This whole ‘no means yes’ deal goes against everything I know.”

  I reassured him, “Safe word… sentence. One more time. Please?”

  “Are you sure? I want you to be able to walk when I’m done.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Seth’s hands worked over my neck and shoulders with my guidance, kneading at the deeper muscles.

  “Mother of nut danglers,” I whimpered. “My hands and feet are clammy.”

  “Is that good or bad?” he asked.

  “Don’t worry. It’s a good thing,” I grunted. “Now, use your elbow in that same tight spot, but go easy. I’ll squirm, but don’t let up.”

  Seth’s elbow greeted muscle and push its way down to where the nerve seared.

  “Craptastic slut muncher!” My entire body broke out in a cold sweat, and I knew I’d pass out if he maintained pressure there for too long.

  But he held steady, which is what I wanted. Needed.

  The blackout started; I had to give in. “Seth McCullough isn’t so bad!” I exclaimed loudly.

  He immediately let go. “Are you all right?”

  Before I could reply, my office door burst open. The metal handle bounced off the wall with such force, it nearly slammed shut again. If there were ever an inappropriate time for Ginuwine’s Pony to blare through the speakers… that was it.

  “Cheesus! I told you this was one of those happy endings places, Jade A’Lynn Nash!” The red-headed woman with a king-sized bouffant resembling cotton candy stared with her mouth hanging open. A freight train could’ve driven through the massive gap between her ruby-colored lips.

  “Mom!” I bolted upright and struggled to find my equilibrium.