Chapter 5: Massage Practice
The afterimage of him in the steamy bathroom clung to Debbie’s mind for days, a private film reel she couldn’t shut off. She found herself orchestrating her movements around the house, timing her kitchen visits to possibly coincide with his, then chastising herself for the ridiculous, girlish behavior. She was a grown woman. A mother. She had lines, however faint they now seemed.
The Saturday sun was a merciless, brassy coin in a cloudless sky. Heat shimmered above the overgrown lawn. Kneeling in the vegetable patch, Debbie attacked the soil around her tomatoes with a small trowel, the physical labor a welcome penance. Dirt crusted under her nails. Sweat traced a cool path down her spine, soaking into the waistband of her old cotton shorts.
The back screen door slammed.
“Wow. It’s an oven out here.”
She didn’t need to look up. Her skin prickled, recognizing his voice like a change in barometric pressure.
Matt descended the creaking steps, holding two glasses of iced tea. He was wearing loose athletic shorts and nothing else. The sight was a punch to the solar plexus. His torso was on full display, the modest hair across his chest dark with a light sheen of perspiration, that trail leading down, disappearing into his waistband. The memory from the bathroom flooded back, vivid and unbidden.
“Thought you could use a coolant,” he said, bending to place a glass beside her. The scent of him—sun-warmed skin, clean cotton, the faint, sharp note of his deodorant—was immediate and overwhelming.
“You’re a lifesaver,” she said, her voice thankfully steady. She took a long drink, the cold liquid doing nothing to douse the heat inside her.
“This jungle needs taming,” he observed, hands on his hips as he surveyed the yard. “That oak branch is about to take out a window. And the lawn… yeah. Want some help? I’ve got a couple free hours.”
The offer was simple, neighborly. The old Debbie, the one from two months ago, would have politely refused, not wanting to impose. The new Debbie, the one whose hands remembered the weight of a warm towel and whose dreams had recently taken a distinctly un-maternal turn, heard herself say, “That would be incredible, Matt. Really.”
A genuine, easy smile broke across his face. “Cool. I’ll grab the gear.”
He moved with an efficient, unthinking grace. He hauled the ancient push mower from the shed, its engine coughing to life with a riotous roar that shattered the afternoon’s stillness. Debbie tried to focus on her weeding, but her attention was pulled, magnetically, to the rhythm of his work.
He pushed the mower in long, straight lines, the muscles in his back and shoulders rolling beneath smooth skin. Sweat glistened in the hollow of his spine, darkening the fabric of his shorts. He’d put in earbuds, his head nodding slightly to a beat only he could hear, completely in his own world. A world where his body was just a useful tool, not a object of paralyzing scrutiny.
Debbie stood, wiping her hands on her thighs, pretending to assess the rosemary bush. She watched him over the tops of the sunflowers. The powerful shift of his thighs. The way he absently swiped an arm across his forehead. It was ordinary. It was agonizing.
After an hour, the lawn was a striped carpet of cut grass, the smell green and sharp in the air. He killed the mower, and the sudden quiet felt loud.
“Now for the rogue branch,” he said, pulling a handsaw from the shed.
“Be careful,” she called out, the maternal instinct kicking in automatically.
He gave her a thumbs-up. He climbed the oak with a confident, simian ease that made her heart stutter. Perched in the crook of the tree, he sawed at the thick limb. With each pull of the blade, his abdomen clenched, the defined lines of his core becoming stark. A drop of sweat fell from his chin, landing in the dust near her feet.
The branch gave way with a crack, falling harmlessly into the open part of the yard.
“Timber!” he shouted, grinning down at her.
He shimmied down, landing with a soft thud on the grass. He was breathing harder now, his chest rising and falling. He was radiant, glowing with expended energy, utterly alive in his physicality. He grabbed the hem of his shorts to wipe his face, and for a fleeting second, the fabric rode up, exposing the sharp cut of his hip bone, a teasing glimpse of the low-slung waistband of his briefs.
Debbie’s mouth went dry.