Gabriel pulled his shirt off over his head, and Reid could see immediately why he was in so much pain. He’d never been a big guy—he was only about five-eight, and naturally slender—but his muscle tone was practically non-existent right now.
That had to hurt. All his muscles would have been under strain just keeping him upright.
“You know, I know you lose muscle mass in space, but I’ve never seen it before,” he said, taking a step toward Gabriel. “Do you know how much you weighed before you left?”
“About a hundred and twenty-five pounds,” Gabriel said.
That meant he’dalwaysbeen a little underweight, but obviously, the pain was new.
“And now?”
“A hundred and seventeen, give or take a few ounces.” Gabriel licked his lips. “That’s a big difference, right? It doesn’t sound like much, but…”
“If it’s almost entirely muscle, yeah. That’s like…” Reid paused to do some mental math. “Seven percent of your body weight. And that’sreallyfast to lose that. You were only gone twenty-one days, right?”
“Right, yeah. I, uh… I might’ve slacked off with my exercise routine.” Gabriel shifted again, looking down at his knees. “The good news is that I’ll never do that again.”
“Hey, as long as you learned your lesson,” Reid said, not wanting to add to Gabriel’s woes by lecturing him. “And this is nothing to be ashamed of. You went tospace. And we can totally fix all of this.”
Gabriel breathed a sigh of relief, his shoulders slumping for a second before he straightened them reflexively again. “Yeah?”
“Yeah, sure. I mean… this is a little outside of my wheelhouse, but we can figure something out and have you back to normal in no time.”
Space-related muscle loss was new to him, but helping people recover after long periods of limited or no mobility was his thing. This couldn’t be all that hard, and he didn’t want Gabriel to worry.
“That’s everything I want to hear,” Gabriel said. “Well, no, what Iwantedto hear was that you were gonna wave a magic wand and take all my pain away, but that’s close enough.”
“I don’t have a magic wand, but I do have tape,” Reid said, walking over to the drawer where he kept it. “You want blue, pink, or green?”
“Would I be boring if I said blue?”
“It’s a pretty electric blue, so it won’t be boring at all. I can also offer you that color they call ‘flesh’ but isn’t really the color of anyone’s skin, ever.Thatwould be boring.”
“I’ll stick to the blue, then,” Gabriel said.
“Good choice.” Reid smiled, plucking the roll of tape from the drawer. “I do a lot of work with kids and teenagers, so the bright colors help. I think,” he said. “This will add support for your muscles. I’m also gonna give you a really basic set of strength building exercises and some diet guidelines. Are you a vegetarian?”
“No,” Gabriel said. “Bacon is the only thing that brings me true happiness, I’m not willing to give it up.”
Reid chuckled. Gabriel’s sense of humor translated into real life just fine. “Me neither. Good news is you can have basically unlimited bacon for the next twelve weeks or so. Treat yourself to a steak, get some almonds…”
“I’m allergic to almonds,” Gabriel said.
“Probably skip them, then. You need to be able to breathe to do your exercises.”
“Idoenjoy not dying of anaphylactic shock.” Gabriel nodded, leaning forward with only the slightest wince as Reid put a hand on his back. “Your hands are warm,” he commented.
“I make sure to warm them up before every patient. I hate being touched by cold hands as much as everyone else does,” Reid explained. It was a small thing, but people tended to appreciate it, so he always made sure his hands were warm before he touched anyone.
Not many people mentioned it, but Gabriel clearly didn’t miss anything.
“I’ll need some time to work out a personalized plan,” Reid added as he started applying tape to Gabriel’s back. “So I want you back here in two days, okay?”
Gabriel nodded again. “Okay, sure. Do I keep the tape on?”
“Yeah, keep it on as long as it’s not bothering you. You can still shower, it shouldn’t fall off unless you scrub it. Hot showers will help the muscle soreness, so definitely feel free to take those. And if the tape does come off and you’re nearby, you can just drop in and my assistant will re-apply it for you. She’s awesome, you’ll like her.”
“The one with the big purple glasses?” Gabriel asked.
