“Nice to meet you too,” was all I managed to eke out. This woman literally had me tongue tied.
“Do you need me to stay?” Katie asked.
“I’m good,” I muttered, and Waverly shook her head.
“I think we can manage.” She smiled. “You can take a seat over by the window while you wait.”
Katie nodded, and left us alone.
“Normally, I don’t see patients until weeks or even months after surgery, but our orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Kraft asked me to take a look at you to help determine if surgery could possibly be avoided and your injuries healed with PT alone. Dr. Kraft sent me your newest x-rays and depending on how today’s examination goes, I should be able to give him my recommendation right away.”
I nodded. “That sounds great.”
“His notes mention he’s been waiting for the swelling to go down, which is why you’re seeing me today and not sooner. Is that your understanding?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, let’s start by taking a look at that shoulder,” Waverly said, before drawing a privacy curtain. “Can I help you take your hoodie off?”
Why stop at my shirt? How about you cut me out of this fucking leg cast straddle this chair and ride my cock like a—
“Gio? Can I help you?” Waverly asked again.
“Oh, uh, yeah. Of course, sure. Sorry, these pain meds make me a little foggy,” I lied. In fact, after the first week, I rarely touched the bottle of Vicodin prescribed to me. What little pain relief they gave me was overshadowed by how itchy they made me. Itchy was bad enough under normal circumstances,but when you’re in a cast, itchy in a spot on your body that you can’t get to is pure fucking torture.
“Okay, here we go,” Waverly said, gently navigating taking off my hoodie, then partial removal of my shirt with only minimal pain. I had a tattoo of the club’s logo on my chest, so I did my best to keep it covered as she examined my shoulder. “Apparently your shoulder was so badly dislocated that it caused a labral tear. Now that you’ve had a few weeks to recover from the shoulder socket reset, Dr. Kraft would like me to help assess whether or not you’ll need surgery,” she repeated. “We’re not going to do any type of PT exercises at all today. I’m simply going to check your range of motion and perform a light examination of the injured area.”
“Whatever you say, doc.”
Waverly smiled. “I’m not sure a doctorate of physiotherapy earns me the nickname of ‘Doc.’”
“Why not? You went to medical school to learn how to do this, right?” I asked.
“Three whole years of it.”
“Well, there you go, Doc.”
“I don’t know. Doc sounds like an old timey western general practitioner to me.”
“Well, what do they call physiotherapist doctors?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think we have our own nickname.”
“How ’bout ‘Fizzy’?”
“Fizzy?”
“As in fizzy-o-therapist.”
The sound of Waverly’s laugh was like a mainlineshot directly into my veins. One dose, and I had to hear it again.
Waverly carefully examined my shoulder, her touch sending shivers up the back of my neck. “Your chart sited your injuries as accident related. Do you mind if I ask the nature of the accident?”
“I, uh, was in a car wreck,” I said. “The seatbelt popped my shoulder out of the socket.”
Waverly made eye contact with me. “Is your car’s seatbelt made out of boot treads?”
“What?”
