“I’m not fishing for tuna, man.”
“All fish are tuna to the muscles. It’s anatomy.”
Thompson almost smiles. He passes me on his way toward the locker room and knocks my shoulder. “He’s ready for you. Merry Christmas, Marchetti.”
“Merry Christmas, Thommo. Catch a big one.”
“Gonna catch five,” he calls back to me, still walking away.
The hallway goes quiet. In the treatment room, I can hear Brooks resetting the table, the rustle of paper, the click of a tablet being set back on the counter. I stand in the hallway for a second longer than I need to. The box in my bag presses against my hip through the fabric.
Brooks is wiping down the table when I walk in. There’s a track running low from his phone on the counter, a bassline and no vocals, and when he looks up the smile that’d been on his face a second ago goes somewhere. His mouth settles, his shoulders square. He’s wearing the navy polo with the crest and dark jeans and the pen in his breast pocket’s the cheap facility-issue one with the logo printed crooked.
I know because I’ve been in this room three times a week for months now and notice everything. Not because I am paying extra attention to everything about him. That would be unprofessional.
“Marchetti.”
“Brooks.”
“On the table.”
I pull my shirt over my head and hop up. He runs the assessment the way he’s run every assessment for the last three months, top to bottom with no unnecessary words, which is also the problem.
“Arm out.”
I raise my arm. He watches it move, head tilted, the line between his eyebrows doing the thing it does when he’s concentrating.
“Hold there.” He presses two fingers along the one side, light, then firmer. His breath lands cool on my neck when he leans in. “Tell me when it’s restricted.”
Zay moves my arm back and I feel the pull. “When.”
He notes it. Switches to the other side. His hands are warm. They’re always warm. I have no idea where he keeps the warmthin those hands when the rest of him is this cold to me. It’s been fourteen weeks of sessions and the rest of him never gets the memo.
“Range is improved. Eight degrees since two weeks ago.”
“You hear that, shoulder? Good job.”
“Are you talking to your shoulder, Marchetti?”
“We have a relationship. It’s been a journey. I owe it some positive reinforcement.”
“You’ve been doing the accessory work.”
“I’ve been a model patient. I’ve been doing it at home. I’ve been doing it in hotel rooms. I did it yesterday in the ice bath, which in retrospect maybe not the best choice to try to work my shoulder while my balls shrivel up.” I see the twitch of his mouth. One corner, barely. Gone before it starts. He kills it every time and every time I want to chase it.
But he moves on. “Great. Keep doing what you’re doing.”
He works my arm through positions I couldn’t hold in September. He’s pulling my arm back and I can’t help but move with him.
“Don’t help me.”
“I’m not helping you.”
“You’re helping me.”
“I am passively receiving your expertise.”
“Marchetti.” Flat. His thumb presses the joint and my shoulder opens further than it did three weeks ago and the only tell is the quarter-beat pause in his breathing.
