4. Is This Really Legit?
IS THIS REALLY LEGIT?
MARY KATE
The inside of Groundswell Coffee is always five degrees warmer than my memories of it.
I step in, and the storm door thumps shut behind me, the glass rattling in its frame.
Outside, it’s the color of wet cement, a sky so low you could reach up and wring it out.
Inside, every surface sweats with condensation: windows blurred to a watercolor of tail lights and trudging boots, even the sugar caddies on the tables beaded with damp.
The place smells like scorched coffee and something faintly medicinal—maybe the wood polish, maybe the aftershave of the wiry barista with the knuckle tattoos.
I spot Kayleigh in a back corner, wedged into a pair of mismatched chairs that look like they were salvaged from the curb.
She’s all legs and elbows, the tips of her blonde hair darkening where the drizzle got through her hood.
She’s pulled it into a bun so haphazard that it looks intentional.
She clocks me the instant I enter, raising her mug in a mock salute, a damp ring already spreading under it on the table.
I push past a couple of grad students fighting over a MacBook charger, weaving through the forest of knees and duffels, and drop into the chair across from her.
“Hey, stranger,” Kayleigh says, eyes crinkling. Her cheeks are flushed, eyeliner perfect. “I was beginning to think you got excommunicated from the land of the living.”
I fumble with my scarf, peeling it off in sticky coils, and smile as best I can.
“Sorry. My phone’s been on some kind of weird battery death spiral.
Plus, the apartment is…” I glance away, because the apartment is not a happy topic right now.
“Let’s just say I went by to get something, and Stella was there with her boyfriend. In the nude.”
Kayleigh laughs, sharp and bright. “Please tell me it’s the skinny one. The yoga instructor.”
“God, no. The tattoo artist. He brought his equipment too.”
She snorts. “That’s so Stella. You know she’s seeing two guys, right? The other week, I came out of my room, and she was there with the skinny dude. How the hell did we get such a awkward living arrangement?” my friend giggles.
I reach into my tote for a napkin, come up with a wadded Italian worksheet instead, and try to mop the dew from my face. “I know, but it’s more than just awkward. It’s downright X-rated even at 6 a.m. sometimes. OMG, I’m a disaster,” I say as I scrutinize the damp worksheet.
“You’re a work in progress,” Kayleigh corrects.
“Besides, I’m only here because you said you had hot gossip.
So spill it, girlfriend. Is it something that Stella can’t know about?
Are you seeing one of her boyfriends? I haven’t seen you in ages, come to think of it.
It’s because you moved home temporarily, right? ”
I nod. “Yes, for the time being, to help take care of my stepdad. It’s more that—well, it’s something I need advice on.”
Kayleigh leans in, her gaze sharpening. She’s always been the kind of friend who can switch from sitcom banter to full therapist mode in a single sentence. “Is this about your mom?” she asks, voice lowering.
I shake my head. “No, she’s in California now. Still texting me about her juice cleanse, still pretending she’s going to come back before summer.”
Kayleigh makes a sympathetic face, then signals to the barista with her empty cup. “Do you want anything? The guy at the register thinks I’m cute. I can get you a free refill.”
“I’ll get it. I need to move or I’ll lose circulation.” I stand, knees knocking the table, and thread my way to the counter.
The barista with the tattoos leans forward, all attitude. “What can I get for you?”
I want to say something new, something Italian and frothy, but default to old habits. “Drip, just black. Thanks”
He nods, pours, slides the cup across to me.
I drop a dollar in the tip jar and stare at the tattoo on his forearm: a flayed anatomical heart, hyper-realistic.
I think of Kent, of the steady thud of his pulse under my fingers, the way his hands looked splayed on the white duvet.
A shiver runs through me, colder than the outside air.
Back at the table, Kayleigh has commandeered a second chair for her legs. “So,” she says, “what’s this about? Did you finally break down and buy a vibrator, or are you—wait, no, don’t tell me. You started drinking at work.”
I almost spit my coffee. “Jesus, no. Neither of those things.”
Kayleigh grins. “Then what? You’re about to burst.”
I take a long sip, let the bitterness coat my mouth. My voice drops to a whisper. “It’s Kent.”
She sits up, all playfulness gone. “Who?”
“My stepdad, Kent Robinson.”
Kayleigh thinks hard. “The doctor, right? He’s not—oh god, he’s not, like, dying, is he?”
“No,” I say quickly. “But he has this thing. A condition. Testicular lithiasis.” I say it the way Kent said it, like a fact, a diagnosis from a chart.
Kayleigh’s face is blank, eyebrows raised to maximum altitude. “What the fuck is that?”
“It’s like kidney stones, but in the…” I glance around, lower my voice further. “You know. In the balls.”
Kayleigh lets that hang in the air for a beat. Then, in a stage whisper: “There are ball stones?”
I nod, fighting the urge to laugh or cry or do both at once. “It’s allegedly not that rare, and lots of guys have it. But most men are asymptomatic. Unfortunately for my stepdad, he’s not most men so it’s really painful, and the only treatment is, um—manual massage.”
My pretty friend’s mouth drops open, and she stares at me as if I’ve just confessed to harvesting human organs. “You’re shitting me.”
“I wish,” I say. “But it’s a real thing. Kent showed me the Mayo Clinic article.”
Kayleigh recovers with a gulp of her latte. “So, what? Doctors have to, like, have to squeeze his balls until the rocks break apart?”
I nod. “Basically. Or help massage them out.”
She closes her eyes, pinches the bridge of her nose, and takes a breath. “Mary Kate, are you telling me you’re massaging your stepdad’s nutsack? For medical reasons?”
I flush so hard I can feel the heat in my hairline. “Not yet. But—I said I would. Tonight.”
The table is silent. Kayleigh puts her cup down a little too hard, coffee slopping over the edge.
“Let me get this straight,” she says. “Your stepdad, who is, not to be weird, a hottie physician, asks you—his stepdaughter—to give him a ball massage? And your mom is in California, just chill with this arrangement?”
“It’s not like that,” I say, too fast. “He’s my stepdad, not my real dad.
And he’s in so much pain, Kayleigh. He said he can barely sleep some nights because of the ache.
It’s not sexual, it’s, like, physical therapy.
Besides, Kent said he could get a nurse, but he doesn’t like the thought of someone he doesn’t know touching him there. ”
Kayleigh guffaws.
“And his stepdaughter is a better choice?”
I shrug. “I guess.”
Kayleigh’s eyes narrow. “You’re the only one he wants, you mean. Don’t be naive, girlfriend.”
I take a breath, let it out slow. The coffee is suddenly sour in my mouth. “It’s not like that,” I repeat, but the phrase sounds less convincing this time.
Kayleigh leans back in her chair, folding her arms over her chest. “No seriously, there’s something fishy about this scenario. But are you okay with this, MK? I mean, seriously. You don’t have to do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”
“I know.” I stare at the cup, watch a bead of condensation slide down its side. “But I owe him, Kay. Kent paid for my tuition, my apartment, everything. He gave Jeannine and me a real home. It’s the least I can do.”
She is quiet for a long moment, then says: “Did he tell you how to do it?”
I shake my head, face burning. “Not yet. He said he would show me the technique. There’s a special way to do it, or you could, like, cause permanent damage.”
Kayleigh whistles low. “Wow. Just wow.”
Then my friend leans in again, her voice a soft, and almost gentle. “Are you nervous?”
I nod, and my hair falls into my face. “Terrified. What if I fuck it up and hurt him somehow?”
She shrugs. “You’re not going to break his balls, Mary Kate. Literally or figuratively. You’re the most careful person I know, and you’re gentle.”
A lump rises in my throat, and I have to swallow twice to get words out. “Thanks.”
Kayleigh reaches across the table, puts her hand over mine. Her fingers are warm and reassuring. “Just be careful,” she says. “And if you ever feel weird about it, you call me. I’ll come get you.”
I nod, then squeeze her hand back. “You’re the best.”
She grins, color flooding her cheeks again. “You know it.”
We sit in comfortable silence for a while, watching the people outside slip and slide on the frozen sidewalk, their coats pulled tight against the wind. The world looks so simple from this side of the glass, like nothing bad can reach us in here.
Finally, Kayleigh breaks the spell. “So, are you gonna use oil, or lube or—?”
I shrug. “I have no idea. Kent said lotion, maybe, but nothing was super clear.”
She makes a face. “Probably for the best. I think lavender ball stones would haunt my dreams.”
I laugh, real and loud, and for a second it feels like I’m floating above my life, just watching two girls talk about nothing, everything.
But then the weight settles back in. I stare at the Italian worksheet, the blurry ink, and think about what’s waiting for me back at the mansion.
The massage table, the closed door, the sound of Kent’s voice growling my name.
I’m not sure what scares me more: that I want to help, or that I want something else.
Kayleigh can read my thoughts, and cuts right to it: “Seriously, MK, do you want to do this? Like, do you really want to?”
I hug my arms to my chest, partly to fight the cold, partly to hide the tremble in my hands. “It’s not about wanting. It’s about helping. I can do it, so I should.”