Florian eyes the massage table. His body is tense, his muscles tight where they shouldn’t be.
“I give excellent massages,” I assure him.
Florian shoots me another alarmed look.
He approaches the table with trepidation, then he flings himself onto the massage table, putting his face in the little cradle.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, his voice muffled. “I am okay.”
“Do you like the Blizzards? Do you like Boston?”
“It is so, so.”
“Well, give it more time. You’ll love it! Have you been to the North End yet? And the harbor is amazing. A lot of the guys live in Seaport. What about you?”
“I live in a hotel.”
“Oh. Well, hotels are nice!”
“Yes. I will not always live in a hotel.”
“That makes sense.”
“It is satisfactory for now.”
I come close to him, and he closes his eyes.
Huh.
Okay, he’s definitely acting strangely. But then he’s a defenseman, and maybe strong and silent is his thing, like he’s pretending to be a 1990s Colin Firth on ice, and not the 2010s version who wears bright clothes and sings on a Grecian island.
I was bound to meet someone at the Blizzards I don’t get along with. That’s only math. And probability. All the things that they taught in that mandatory statistics course until I was certain I was way more interested in massage therapy than anything else, and I quit before I got my degree.
The massage room is amazingly awesome. It looks like a spa, which maybe is what happens when the owner of the team is Japanese and remodels the entire arena. The stone walls are a tasteful gray, and eucalyptus leaves are everywhere.
“I’ll start withyour back,” I say.
He tenses, and I grimace. He’s not supposed to look more uncomfortable than when he entered the room.
I touch his back, and his body tenses more.
Huh.
“You must miss Germany,” I say. “I’ve never been, but I heard it has castles. That’s so cool.”
“Some castles,” he says.
“Well, we don’t have those. Though who knows, maybe in a thousand years, fancy houses will be referred to as castles!”
“Maybe.”
I continue my massage. I work my thumbs along his spine and press into the knots between his shoulder blades. His skin is warm under the oil.
His back is tense, his shoulder blades are tense, his neck is tense. I frown. He hasn’t been injured recently.
“Have you had a massage before?” I ask.
