6. Kodi
CHAPTER 6
One of my favorite things about Tuft Swallow is how walkable it is. As Brian and I head to his office from the Crowbar, I’m able to enjoy it even more than usual, because my knee isn’t twingeing painfully with every other step.
Brian walks slowly enough to accommodate my shorter stride, and I get the impression he’s used to adjusting his presence to make all of his patients feel more comfortable. It’s something I’ve never witnessed any man do before. Dr. Cratchet doesn’t have enough empathy or awareness of other people to even listen to them most of the time, never mind actually adjust his own body language or demeanor to accommodate them.
Of course, I’ve seen Lily change the way she acts around guys to make them feel stronger or smarter, just like I’d seen many of our friends from high school adjust their personalities to accommodate their boyfriends and later, husbands. But to see the way Brian alters his stride to match mine, or weave closer to me in anticipation of a young boy passing us on his bicycle or Mr. and Mrs. Johnson walking by on the sidewalk, is something else.
It reminds me of the way we used to all be mindful of each other during warm-ups in softball. Whether we were running laps or practicing outfield plays, we were all constantly aware of where each other were. It made us a good team, and practicing our awareness became just as important as drilling pitches or swings or anything else.
“Do you play any sports?” I ask him as we walk towards the corner of Main and Oak Street.
“Not sports, no. I’ve done martial arts my whole life, though.”
“Really?” I imagine him in a white karate uniform with a black belt, and get stuck on wondering whether or not he has chest hair that would peek out of his gi. I quickly push away the thought before it can lead somewhere dangerous. “You know there’s an MMA gym that just opened up a few months ago. You should join!”
“Here in town?” He looks surprised. “This, uh… doesn’t seem like the kind of place to have an actual fighting gym.”
“What, you don’t think Mr. and Mrs. Woodcock can hold their own? Their son is the chief of police, you know. And he had to have gotten his muscles from somewhere.”
Brian raises one eyebrow. And I gotta say, never in a million years would I have thought one eyebrow lift could be sexy enough to distract me from the thought of our jacked police chief, but somehow that one movement wipes thoughts of all other men from my brain.
Not that I was ever particularly interested in any of the ones in this town, but just about every girl I went to school with had their first sexual awakening when Officer Woodcock came into our homeroom to talk to us about D.A.R.E. I’m pretty sure no one in that class absorbed anything he said about marijuana or ketamine. There wasn’t a dry eye among Tuft Swallow’s eligible when he and his high school sweetheart Delilah got back together earlier this year.
Then I remember that Brian had a boyfriend. For all I know, he might be just as interested in meeting our muscled police chief as all the girls in Mrs. Sanderson’s sixth grade class. And very much un-interested in me.
Why are you even thinking of him that way? You’re seeing him for a chiro appointment, not a date. Oh, and to spy on him for your boss.
Not that I have any actual intentions to spy on Brian. What would that even entail? Snooping through his booking software? Sneaking a bug into his table?
I snort at the thought of me dodging lasers, Mission Impossible-style, and planting a tiny microphone on the underside of a paper-covered headrest. Brian shakes his head at me.
“Alright, apparently there’s some sort of inside joke I’m missing about Chief Woodcock.” He looks away for a moment, then shakes his head. “Other than the unfortunate name. And I thought ‘Brian Gosling’ was bad.”
“No relation, I hear?”
“No. No relation. Which is good, because if I ever meet him…” A smirk spreads across his lips, and I swear I see his tongue dart out and lick them for a moment. Then we meet eyes, and both of us freeze in place as we realize what we’ve been talking about.
And then we both burst out laughing.
“Okay, okay,” I gasp out, clutching a stitch in my side. We’ve stopped at the corner of Oak and Elm, and his practice is right there on the tree-shaded street neighboring the town square. His face is beet-red, but unlike earlier today when The Nosy Pecker’s rumors came up in conversation, he doesn’t look angry or upset. Only good-naturedly embarrassed, as if he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Tell me, Dr. Gosling, since it’s come up. Are you actually gay, or are the Tit Peepers full of it?”
His face becomes more serious as he wipes a happy tear from the corner of his eye. “You aren’t just taking what the paper says at face value?”
I shake my head. “Of course not. Not about that. First of all, it isn’t any of their business, and second…” I trail off, wary of spilling too much of my own history to the man mere hours after meeting him, but something about the way he tilts his head curiously as I answer him has me opening up.
“I played softball in high school; you might have already guessed. That’s how I hurt my knee in the first place.” I take a breath, and he nods. “Well, kids are dumb and mean, and don’t know how to handle girls in sports apparently, so. Freshman year, there was a pretty popular rumor that I was a lesbian. And I mean, there were a few girls on the team who were, and it wasn’t a problem or anything, because like, live your life, right? But, I wasn’t. I’m straight, I just wasn’t interested in dating anyone in high school.”
His face is unreadable as he studies me. “So what happened?”
I shrug. “Well, you know how high school is. The harder I denied the rumors, the more the bullies doubled-down. So I just ignored them. I didn’t date any guys, though, so most people just assumed the rumors were true. Half of them still do, probably. And it’s dumb. What do they know? What gives them the right to assume anything about anybody, you know? Just because I haven’t met somebody yet that I want to–” I stop abruptly, realizing who I’m talking to. And realizing just how much I’m revealing about myself in the process. I clear my throat, and twist my hands uncomfortably. “Anyway. My sex life or preferences are none of their fucking business. Neither is yours. You don’t have to tell me, either, of course, but it’s just you were talking about Ryan Gosling, and–”
“I’m bi,” he says simply. I blink.
Oh? I ignore the sleeping panther in my loins that raises its head at his declaration. Simmer down, kitty.
“Alright then!” I silently vow to give Lily a resounding told-you-so tonight at practice. “See? What do people know?”
“They know that my boyfriend dumped me last night.” Brian starts walking toward his office again, but this time his small steps seem more defeated than considerate.
“They also know that you enjoy puns.” I catch up to him, trying to cheer him up. “And you’d be surprised how far that gets you in Tuft Swallow. I bet you’ll fit in better than you think right now. The Tit Peepers are annoying and crazy and inconsiderate at times, but they’re not all bad.”
“Just like the kids you went to high school with?”
I grimace. “Okay. Point taken.”
We cross the street in silence, finally arriving at his front porch, where the That’s Good Crack! sign hangs from the wooden railing. Over the years that the building has sat unoccupied, the gardens that used to bloom with daffodils in the spring and hydrangeas in the summer have wilted considerably. More browns than pinks and blues spring from the weedy beds and the grass could use a good mow. Half hidden among the sad shrubs is a scraggly, white goat munching at the weeds.
“Is that… what I think it is?”
“Winston!” I walk right up to the ruminant and scold our de facto town mascot for trespassing.
“Winston?” Brian looks at me incredulously. “Did you just call him Winston?”
“Yeah, he’s the Mayor. I wonder if his dad’s around…”
I sweep the block for any signs of the grumpy mountain man out and about on a late lunch break, but I don’t see him anywhere. Then I turn back to the goat. “Winston, where’s your Hot Daddy? Did he let you out of your pen again?”
“Okay, you’re going to need to explain this to me.”
I lift my head, uncertain of what exactly Brian needs explained. Winston baas. “Um… we have a town goat named Winston? He’s the mayor, and he’s eating your grass.”
“Yeah, I got that!” He lifts his arms in frustration, then shakes his head as if he can’t actually believe what he’s saying. “Who the heck is his ‘Hot Daddy’?”
“No one really knows his name, actually.” I give Winston a pet, and shrug my shoulders. “He’s harmless. I’m sure he’ll move on soon enough.
“The goat, or his–” Brian shakes his head and rummages in his pockets for his keys. “Nevermind.” As he walks up the porch stairs and unlocks the door, giving Winston a wide clearance, he mumbles something about Tuft Swallow and its ridiculous inhabitants. “Go on in. Just give me a second to wipe down the table.”
A wall seems to have been erected between us in the few feet between the sidewalk and the threshold, but I have a feeling it has little to do with Winston or our earlier conversation. Just like how his hands had felt warmly neutral when he’d adjusted my knee in Dr. Cratchet’s office this morning, Brian’s demeanor has completely shifted. Instead of his joking or more pensive attitude, he now has an air of polite courtesy. The laughing, smiling, and–dare I say flirty?--man who had walked me down Oak Street was gone. In his place is a stoic professional.
He closes the door behind me as I follow him inside and passes through an archway to the right, through which I can see a drop table and a yoga ball, along with a few bookshelves piled with things I recall seeing back at my physical therapist’s office: resistance bands, spiked mats and balls for pain relief, and rolls of kinesiology tape. He grabs a tub of alcohol wipes from one of the shelves and wipes down the facerest of the drop table before covering it over with a u-shaped pillowcase that he pulls from a tidy pile of folded linens in the corner. Then he turns around to face me and plops down onto the yoga ball like a chair.
“Would you walk for me, please?”
“Huh?” I blink. “Don’t you want me to lie down on the table?”
“Nope.”
He stares at me expectantly, and when I don’t move, he makes a sweeping gesture with his hand, telling me to get on with it.
Warily, I walk through the archway, down the length of the small room and back as if it’s a runway–only not nearly so graceful or sexy as that. I’m imminently aware of his unblinking eyes assessing me, which only increases my self-consciousness about the length of my dress and the gait of my walk. I try to remind myself of all the things I learned those years ago in physical therapy, to tuck my tailbone in and keep my toes pointed forward and rock heel-to-toe and?—
“Relax. You don’t need to be nervous. Nervous walkers are stiff walkers, and stiff walkers hurt themselves. Let yourself wiggle.”
“Wiggle?” I snort, but try to relax my tailbone and shoulders. I feel my hips resume their natural sway, and I stop noticing where my toes are pointing so much.
“Much better. Women are meant to be a little wiggly.”
“What do you mean by that?” I stop immediately, facing him and putting my hand on my hip. “That’s sexist.”
“No.” He grins. “It’s biology. Look at your posture right now.”
I look down at myself, and see that I’ve posted my weight on one hip and thrust out the other as I scolded him. It is, I realize, a rather wiggly stance.
I straighten, evening out my pelvis and put both of my hands on my hips. “You made me do that on purpose.”
“I swear I didn’t. Now, turn around.”
“Like, in a circle?”
“Yes. Slowly, please.”
I twirl awkwardly, shifting my weight from one foot to the other on the foam mats that he’s placed on the floor. My feet sink as I do so, exaggerating every movement of my hips and knees and making me feel silly. Injury or no, I know I’m more graceful than this. But between the squishy floor and feeling like I’m under a microscope I seem to have lost all my poise.
“Stay there.”
I freeze, with my butt facing him. I hear the yoga ball squeak a little as he gets up and approaches behind me. For a long moment, neither he nor I move, and I wonder if he’s maybe just so quiet that he was able to disappear without me knowing it.
“May I?” He says, and his mouth is so close that I can feel the warm air leave his lips and brush past the curve of my neck below my ear. I don’t know what he’s asking permission for, but my pulse begins to race, and suddenly it doesn’t matter what he intends to do. I know I want it. I nod, and brace myself for him to shove his fingers into a pressure point again.
Instead, he just lightly places his hands on my hips, applying gentle pressure down on one side, and then the other. He moves the flat of his hand to the small of my back, crawling his knuckles up my vertebrae until he reaches my rib cage, then presses slightly on either side. “Does any of that hurt?”
“No,” I breathe.
“Good. Relax.” He brushes my shoulder as he says it, and I feel him step away as I exhale. “Face up on the table, please.”
“Face…up?” Once again, any expectations I have of what a chiropractic appointment is supposed to be fly out the window. “You’re not going to like, crack my back or press on my spine with my face in the pillow?”
His lips tilt in a half-smile, and that impeccable professionalism drops for a fraction of a second. His voice is husky when it leaves his lips. “Would you like me to push your face into the pillow?”
I blush, and that pesky panther that stirred earlier in my stomach lifts its head again. He laughs.
“Not today, Kodi. We’re just going to focus on your knee for now. You’ve definitely been favoring it for a few years, huh?”
“Uh, yeah. Can you tell?” I lower myself onto the drop table and lay face-up, like he said. My skirt flutters around my thighs, and I curse myself for not wearing cropped pants and a button-down like I do every other day for work. Why did tomorrow have to be laundry day?
Despite his little joke about shoving my face into the table (which, of course, I can’t stop thinking about), Brian seems totally absorbed in his work, and unphased by the length of my skirt. Not that it’s super short or anything. It hits mid-calf when I’m standing. But of course, it rides up when I’m seated or lying prone on my back in front of Dr. Hottie.
He reaches for my ankle and gives it a quarter turn to either side. I feel a slight twinge in my bad knee. “Oof.”
“That hurts?”
“Just, uh, a little twinge. Not like, bad.” I say eloquently. Jesus, Kodi, he’s a doctor. Would you act like this in front of your boss?
Oh shit. My boss. I’m supposed to be gathering intel or something while I’m here for him. Or at least, trying to come up with some kind of lie that I can tell him in place of intel so he doesn’t fire me for using my afternoon off to flirt with the competition.
“Okay. I was worried about that. This isn’t going to be pleasant.”
“What isn’t going to-ohJesusMaryJosephHChristthesonofFUUUUUUCK!” Every thought other than GAH leaves my head in a rush as Dr. Gosling pushes the pad of his thumb one inch from the spot he’d fingered earlier that morning. My whole torso heaves upright involuntarily as I reach to push the cause of the pain away as quickly as possible.
He doesn’t move. “Relax. You’re tensing.”
“No fuck I’m tensing! That fucking hurts!”
“Lay back down. Five more seconds.”
“Aaaaggghhhh…” Slowly, I curl my spine back onto the table, my leg twitching in Brian’s hold the entire time. While not as blindingly painful as the first five seconds were, the last few stretch uncomfortably onward all the same. Then he releases the pressure, and I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Good. Now one more.”
“Wha–”
Gooooooooood dammit!
I clench my mouth shut on another stream of curses as he presses his thumb into my thigh again, half an inch closer to my knee this time. I’m breathing heavily like I’m about to go into labor, every muscle clenching in reaction to the white-hot knife piercing my patella. Through the slits between my squinted eyelids, I see Brian lift his other hand and poke my nose.
“Boop,” he says, a cheesy, toothy grin splitting his face as he once again releases his hold on my leg.
“Are you fucking enjoying this right now??”
“It’s my favorite thing.” He palpates the muscles around my knee gently, just stretching it with the palms of his hands this time instead of jabbing into my very soul with his thumb of death. It actually feels nice after the torture he just doled out. “Gotta get through the hurt before you can feel better.”
“You’re just taking out your anger towards the town on my poor leg,” I argue. I glare at him, and he pushes the pad of his thumb into another spot on my thigh. I prepare myself to see stars again, but this particular nerve bundle doesn’t seem to be as bad as the others. It doesn’t feel good, but it’s not sending me into a sailor-mouth spelling bee, either. “So that’s all the crap that’s stuck in my fascia, then?”
“Among other things. It’s a place where your muscle’s been tensing to compensate for the weakness of your ligament. You know how your mom used to tell you not to make ugly faces, cause they’ll get stuck that way?”
I wince as he moves his thumb to another tender spot. “Yeah.”
“Well, she wasn’t right about your face, but your muscles will definitely get locked up if they tense for too long. And the best way to get them to let go is–” he moves his finger to a spot an inch above and to the right of my kneecap on the inside of my thigh and presses.
I let out a wordless cry.
“Oh yeah. They’re angry alright.” He wiggles his finger a little, and the way my muscles throb in response is strangely soothing after the white-hot stab of pain. Only red-hot.
He moves his fingers again and I place my hand on his shoulder.
“Can you just give me a minute?” I pant, and he scoots away on his yoga ball to give me space to breathe.
“Sure. I gotta move to the other side anyway.”
“The other side?” I squeak. He nods cheerfully.
“Yep. That side may be the one with the injury, but this leg is the one that’s been compensating for it all these years. Ready?”
I’m not.