So why did it feel like one?
Gabe breatheda sigh of relief when he spotted a stack of white towels on the shelf in the first aid room. He grabbed one to cover Paige with while he worked on her, because her hot-pink cover-up didn’t hide a whole lot.
He motioned to the table. “Lay on your stomach. We’ll work on your back first.”
She slid onto the table and handed him her crutches. As she carefully rolled to her stomach, he caught a glimpse of the scar on her hip. He’d tried to break up the scar tissue on Monday through her yoga pants, but the AISTM tool was more effective on bare skin.
“Actually, I think I should work on your scars before rolling you out.” Instead of covering her with the towel, he tucked it into the edge of her swimsuit so he wouldn’t get massage cream on her clothing. “We need to break up the scar tissue, surrounding your scars, so it doesn’t hamper your healing. I’ll try to be gentle, but I’ll have touse a fair amount of pressure to break it up. So this will likely be painful.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d worked on a patient who needed to undress to an extent for him to do AISTM, dry needling, or cupping, but because of his attraction to Paige, it felt different.
Knock it off. She’s just like any other patient.
When Paige winced and sucked in a sharp breath, he searched for something to distract them both. “So, what do you do when you aren’t lounging around in rehab centers?”
“Lounging around?” She gave a short laugh that sounded like a snort. “I guess that’s technically what I did, but it certainly wasn’t by choice.” She looked at him over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. “Pre-lounge era, I was an elementary school teacher.”
“Was?”Gabe noted her use of the past tense. “Don’t you plan on returning to teaching after you’re healed?”
“Yes.” She drew out the word with a lengthy sigh.
“You don’t sound sure about that.”
“I want to teach again. I’m just not sure I want to do it in Seattle.”
“Seattle?” He vaguely remembered seeing the name of a Seattle hospital in her file but hadn’t given it much thought.
“That’s where I went to college, and I’ve lived there ever since. But I’m not sure I want to go back to the city.”
“You considering getting a teaching job here then?”
“I’m thinking about it, but small towns have fewer students, so there isn’t as big of a demand for teachers.”
“That makes it difficult, doesn’t it?” He shifted the conversation. “You’re looking at six months of PT. If you do end up returning to Seattle, we’ll have to find you a therapist there.” For some ridiculous reason that thought depressed him.
“Six months? I knew I’d have to do therapy for a while, but I didn’t realize it would take so long.”
“You can’t rush rehabilitation without causing further damage.”
“I know. I’m just impatient.” She sucked in another deep breath as he scraped at the knotted muscles.
“Sorry, I know this hurts.”
“It’s okay.” She slowly let out her next breath through her nose. “I’m just being dramatic.”
But Gabe knew that wasn’t the case. AISTM scraping often brought his patients to tears. Paige was tolerating the worst part of PT better than most.
They continued to talk about their jobs and compared city life to small town living as he scraped and massaged the scar on her hip. Then he worked on her shoulder. He enjoyed getting to know his patients while he worked on them, and Paige Young was no exception.
Nine hours later, Gabe scrubbed a hand over his face as he got on the freeway headed home. It had been a long day.
Feeling guilty that he hadn’t spent much time with his mom and sister over the past two weeks while getting the new office set up, he pressed the button for the speaker phone on his steering wheel.
“Call Mom.”
“Hi, Gabe.” His sister’s voice came through his car speakers after three rings.
“Hey, Grace, how was your day?”
