“No problem.” Megan’s nose wrinkled in disgust as she moved cat-like, stalking and pouncing, intent on her invisible quarry.
Could she really smell it? Kira didn’t smell a thing.
They worked well together, anticipating each other’s movements. They’d done this together before, she was sure. Many times. It was not a comforting thought. Gwynne Abernathy was so much more Megan’s type than Kira would ever be. They shared an imaginary world that Kira wasn’t cut out to believe in. Yet she couldn’t look away.
“This is so much faster than doing this by myself,” Gwynne observed.
Megan started to hyperventilate. “It would be even faster if you would—”
“I know, I’ve got it.” Gwynne smacked her palms together an inch away from Svetlana’s face, startling her enough to make her jump, but probably intended for the hitchhiker, maybe to dislodge it. She pulled on their invisible quarry with the imaginary rope they had tied it up with, cautiously changing the angle this way and that, as if she really were trying to pull an oddly shaped object out of Svetlana’s body without snagging it on a vital organ. “Got it.” Gwynne raised it in her hands triumphantly, like an offering made to the sky. As her hands floated down, Kira could almost see their victim dissolve and drift away on the wind.
Megan stumbled forward and collapsed with her head on Gwynne’s shoulder.
Was she okay? Kira started forward, then halted. Gwynne knew her better than she did. Megan might not welcome her butting in, especially since she didn’t understand what was going on.
Gwynne patted Megan on the back. “You okay?” she asked, echoing Kira’s thoughts, her tone more gentle than Kira had heard her use with anyone else, even the puking Svetlana.
“Tired. It’s been a while.” Megan freed herself from Gwynne’s arms and turned to Svetlana. “How do you feel?”
Svetlana looked dazed, but it was nothing like the scary blankness she’d sported earlier. “Better. Thanks.”
Patrick knelt at Svetlana’s side and wrapped her in his arms, shutting out everyone else.
“I’ll get everyone something to drink.” Kira excused herself and headed for the hotel, where she kept all sorts of drinks and snacks for the construction crew. The sun was starting to go down and they could probably use a few flashlights, too.
She only got a few yards out of earshot of the others before Megan caught up with her and fell into step beside her on the rough, narrow path.
“I’m glad Svetlana’s better. I was worried about her,” Kira said, her skin prickling from Megan’s nearness.
“You got more wackiness than you were counting on, didn’t you?” Megan said. “I don’t know what possessed you to call me instead of an ambulance, but I’m grateful that you did.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure either. But you might want to watch it with your use of the word possessed. I’ve seen you in action now.”
Megan came to a stop so Kira stopped too, and turned to see what was wrong.
“Did I freak you out?” Megan searched her eyes for her reaction.
“Of course not.”
“I thought you might not want to talk to me after what happened last night.”
Kira puzzled over what to say to that. She’d worried that now that the crisis with Svetlana was over, Megan might remember that kiss. It was why she’d been in such a hurry to escape to the hotel for drinks and flashlights. Hadn’t worked too well, actually, since here Megan was, bringing it up. What was she supposed to say? Would the truth make things worse?
The truth was, that kiss had not lasted nearly long enough. And when a kiss was that perfect, you couldn’t just turn your back on it and say okay, one kiss was all I wanted.
She could still taste Megan’s lips, still feel her softness and her eagerness and the heat of her body, but it wasn’t enough. There was so much more she wanted to know. Like what made her laugh, and what did she think about when she lay awake late at night, and was she as opinionated about other things as she was about where she should build her spa? And yeah, normal getting-to-know-you kinds of questions would be nice, too, like…oh, who cared?
She stared into Megan’s fathomless eyes and knew she was lost. Her heart fell off a cliff and into a canyon she couldn’t climb back out of.
Kira rubbed the back of her neck. “Yeah, about that…”
What the hell. If she did make things worse, she’d find a way to fix it. So she told her the truth. “I still want to talk to you. Of course I still want to talk to you. More than talk to you.” Her heart hammered. “I know this might not make you happy, but I haven’t given up on you.”
“Um…that might not be such a good idea.”
“Yeah, I was afraid of that.” But it didn’t change how she felt.
***
The next morning, Kira was out running on a quiet, sparsely traveled road past miles of cornfields when against her better judgment, she reached into the zippered back pocket of her running shorts for her phone and hit speed dial for the number she already—God help her—knew by heart. If she was lucky, Megan would be busy and not answer, and not check her call log, and Kira could hang up and finish her run and pretend this moment of insanity had never happened.
“Hello?”
Kira cautiously moved her thumb away from its position hovering above the button that would end the call. “How’s Svetlana doing?”
“Much better. I was just going to call you.”
“You were?” Maybe things weren’t going to be as awkward as she thought. Megan actually sounded like she wasn’t mad at her.
“Svetlana wants to thank you for helping her out instead of having her arrested for trespassing, and I thought maybe we could all get together for dinner. Tonight. Our treat. Well, hers, really. We decided you’d be more likely to say yes if I was the one who called you.”
Wow. Really?
“So, um…” Megan said into the awkward silence. “We’re still friends, right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Friends have dinner together, right?”
Well, actually, friends who were trying not to kiss each other again were usually better off not seeing each other at all for a few weeks. But hey, she could probably use a little more agony in her life right now.
“Sounds fantastic,” Kira managed.
Chapter Ten
Kira snacked from the complimentary basket of still-warm, freshly fried shrimp chips, dipping them into Piper Thai Restaurant’s famous peanut sauce while she waited for Patrick, Svetlana and Megan to decide what to order. She pushed the basket of chips in Megan’s direction and Megan passed it around the table. Kira opened her menu again, closed it, and sat back and studied the ornate décor, wondering idly if she’d ever have the chance to design a room that called for red and gold drapes.
Megan’s hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail. She’d wondered in the past why Megan never put her hair up, but now it was killing her to imagine what it would take to convince her to allow her to pull off that rubber band—or what it would take to convince her to let her weave her fingers through her hair until it was as disheveled as it must look first thing in the morning before she was fully awake.
But she knew where she stood. Megan had told her that kiss had been a mistake. That she didn’t date clients. And Kira didn’t want to pressure her to violate her ethics.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t hoping there was a way around them.
“How’s business?” Kira asked Patrick, trying to make conversation and stop thinking about Megan’s hair.
“Same old story,” Patrick replied. “Women prefer a female therapist; men prefer a female therapist.”
“That leaves what? Horses?” Kira said.
“Believe it or not, horses do get massages.”
Kira blinked in surprise. “But can they pay?”
Svetlana looked up from her menu. “It’s big bucks.”
Patrick poked her with his elbow. “Don’t get any ideas, honey. I’m not doing horses.”<
br />
“Patrick hopes for male athletes,” Svetlana said. “Sports massage.”
“That’s my marketing focus,” Patrick explained. “When they see results, male athletes can overcome their paranoia that they might get turned on by a man’s touch.”
“Especially when they don’t believe woman is strong enough to massage their big, tough muscles,” Svetlana added.
“That’s because they haven’t met my strong, tough wife.” Patrick squeezed Svetlana’s biceps and she preened, making a muscle against his hand.
Megan didn’t have biceps like that. She was strong, but it was a stealth strength that took you by surprise, and Kira loved that.
“What about advertising in the gay paper? I see ads for male massage therapists in there all the time,” Kira said.
Patrick patted his wife’s arm and let her go. “It’s not a bad idea, but you may have noticed the guys have to say ‘non-sexual massage’ in their ads. That’s insulting. What other health care provider has to put that in their ads?”
“Patrick’s a little sensitive on the subject,” Svetlana said. “He’s organizing campaign to convince phone company not to list escort services under ‘massage’ in phone book.”
“Do people still use phone books?” Kira said.
“They’re not even escort services,” Megan complained. “They don’t escort people.”
“Bastards,” Patrick said. “Scaring the shit out of idealistic young women who graduate from massage school eager to love and heal the world. I don’t want Svetlana to ever have to listen to some moron ask her to finish him off. It makes me sick.”
“I agree.” Kira had felt more angry than afraid when she overheard Megan on the phone with that guy, but now the reality of what she faced was starting to sink in. Sweet, fragile, trusting Megan. Who somehow was tougher than she looked, tough enough to not feel threatened by those creeps, tough enough to try to educate them instead of hanging up on them. “Is there any way I can help? Talk to the Chamber of Commerce? I know a lot of businesspeople in the state.”
“Fantastic,” Patrick said as their waitress arrived to take their order. “We’ll talk.”
“Has Megan given you a massage yet?” Svetlana asked Kira as Patrick told the waitress what he wanted.
“No, she hasn’t.” Kira looked pointedly at Megan. So it wasn’t only Shayna and company who assumed that being friends with a massage therapist came with perks, and didn’t believe her when she insisted it wasn’t like that. First of all, what they really meant was dating a massage therapist came with perks—and she and Megan were unfortunately not dating. And second of all, it wasn’t a massage she wanted from Megan, not anymore. She couldn’t care less about getting a massage. All she cared about was getting a chance to taste her lips again. If she could officially quit as a client, she would.
“Why you don’t do this?” Svetlana scolded, looking back and forth between Kira and Megan.
“You know I have, Svetlana, you were there,” Megan protested.
Svetlana was at the Race to the Beach? Kira recognized Patrick—he was the one who gave her that my-daughter’s-too-good-for-you look when she asked Megan out—but she didn’t remember seeing Svetlana.
And suddenly Kira realized what Svetlana had really meant: That in her opinion, Megan had not given her a massage—not one that counted, anyway—and maybe this was her way of telling her she saw no reason why Megan couldn’t date her.
Not that it mattered what anyone else thought. All that mattered was what Megan thought. End of story.
“She’s very good,” Svetlana singsonged.
Kira snapped her napkin out of its tortured origami. “I won’t let her.”
Svetlana’s eyes twinkled. She obviously knew exactly what that meant.
“I haven’t offered,” Megan muttered.
“You do massage?” asked the petite Asian waitress jotting down Patrick’s order.
Megan nodded.
“It pinches when I do this.” The waitress tucked her order pad in her apron and raised her arm to demonstrate, pointing to her shoulder with frighteningly long fingernails painted hot pink with pale pink plumerias. “Right here. Do you think massage would help?”
Megan pushed back her chair, stood up, and reached for the woman’s shoulder. “May I?”
She nodded, and Megan pushed her thumbs into the joint, exploring. It was amazing how quick perfect strangers were to throw themselves at Megan’s mercy. First Shayna at the club; now this. What was it about her that made total strangers open up to her and ask her for help?
“Ow.” The waitress craned her neck to see what was happening.
“That hurts, huh?” Megan continued her exploration, inching her fingers across her upper back.
“Medial deltoid?” Svetlana suggested.
“Could be thoracic outlet,” Patrick said. “Test her neck.”
“Her neck is fine,” Svetlana argued. “Hold your neck normally, miss.”
“Don’t look at what Megan’s doing. Look straight ahead,” Patrick said.
The waitress complied.
“See?” Svetlana said. “Neck is aligned correctly.”
“You can’t tell just by looking.” Patrick snagged Svetlana’s fork and used it to gesture at the waitress. “Miss, are you having any pain in your forearms? Hands?”
Megan raised her hands in the air and stepped back. “Would you let me do this, please?”
Patrick and Svetlana exchanged guilty looks. Svetlana reclaimed her fork and playfully ran the tines down his bare arm, murmuring something in Russian that—judging from the expression on Patrick’s face—meant she was seriously considering continuing down other parts of his body.
Kira tuned them out and watched Megan, who had placed her hands on the waitress’s shoulder again. Megan’s eyes were lowered in concentration, her fingers moving almost imperceptibly, pressing.
“The doctor told me I have bursitis,” said the waitress.
“Thoracic outlet,” Patrick muttered, for some unfathomable reason not completely distracted by his wife. “They think everything is bursitis.”
“What’s thoracic outlet?” the waitress asked.
“Oops.” Patrick covered his mouth.
Svetlana laughed at his look of chagrin. Over what, Kira had no idea. She looked to Megan for a clue as to what he’d said wrong.
“Practicing medicine without a license again, Patrick?” Megan teased.
“Oh, fine,” Patrick grumbled. “Let me rephrase that. I feel some tightness in your shoulder…”
Megan smirked. “Do you now? From all the way over there?”
The waitress glanced around as if she were having second thoughts about getting involved with these crazy people. “The doctor told me to stop carrying plates above my head,” she said, clearly trying to bring the conversation back onto familiar ground.
“Did that help?” Megan asked, returning to full customer service mode.
“How can I stop if I never started?”
“It’s certainly possible that you have bursitis,” Megan said, “and if you do there’s not much you can do except rest, but—”
“Ow, ow, ow.”
“Sorry.” Megan rubbed soothingly at the spot.
The waitress looked over her shoulder again, forgetting her instructions to not turn her head. “What was that?”
“That’s what’s making your shoulder hurt,” Megan said.
“But that doesn’t hurt my shoulder—it hurts my back.”
“Hold on.” Megan braced herself with one hand on the front of the woman’s shoulder and pressed into the spot again, hard.
“Don’t hurt yourself, Megan,” warned Svetlana.
Megan ignored her. “If I press hard enough with my thumb, you’ll feel the pain shoot into your shoulder.”
The waitress gasped.
“Feel it?”
She nodded.
“Don’t waste your time rubbing your shoulder. Rub here instead. You have trigger
points in your rotator cuff. Right here.” Megan touched the spot on the shoulder blade where she’d been pressing. “Massage will definitely help.”
“But it is necessary to tell your massage therapist where the problem is,” Svetlana added. “Because practitioner who only does relaxation massage will not understand how to help.”
Megan dug a business card out of her purse. “Supraspinatus,” she said, writing it down on the back of her card.
“Thanks.” The waitress rotated her shoulder experimentally. “It feels much better.”
“I’m glad.”
She examined Megan’s card and slipped it into her apron pocket before casting an anxious glance in the direction of the kitchen. “I’ll take the rest of your orders now. And if there’s anything you need, let me know. I mean it.”
They ordered quickly and their waitress dashed off. Kira suspected there was going to be a big smiley face drawn on their bill. She angled her head toward Megan. “This happens to you all the time, doesn’t it? People tell you their medical problems.”
Svetlana answered for her. “All the time.”
Kira frowned, annoyed at the intrusion. No, that was unfair of her. It was only natural that Svetlana would know about Megan’s life. They were friends. They’d known each other for a long time before Kira came on the scene. But still, it made her jealous. She wanted to be the resident expert on all things Megan. She wanted to know her past, and her parents’ names, and her favorite pizza topping, and the color of her sheets, and whether she secretly preferred jazz to that spacey massage music. She wanted to know everything.
Megan picked up her water glass. “Sometimes I think I have a sign above my head that says ‘Good Listener.’”
She was right about that—there was something in her face that was incredibly open and friendly. No wonder people came to her with their problems. You could see in her wide-set eyes and in her gentle way of interacting that she genuinely cared.
Patrick cleared his throat and Kira glanced at him, disoriented. Had she missed part of the conversation? Svetlana swatted him.
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