Page 45 of Becoming Family

“I’d definitely use that. That sounds manly. But also a little magical. What do you think it would smell like?”

“The moon, of course. And trees. Definitely trees.”

“Trees are manly,” Hobbs agreed. “The moon is female, though. A celestial, sensual orb that controls the tides.”

“Wow. I didn’t know you were so poetic.”

“It’ll be our little secret.”

Tabitha’s laughter died down as she reached Hobbs’s shoulders, where she could actually see the separation of anterior, middle and posterior delts, like he’d just pumped some iron. She knew by his damp hair, though, that he really had just got out of the shower. She glided over the delts, trying out the Jelly Jar technique Joy had taught them, which involved rolling up the triceps, over the delts, around the scapula and over the upper traps while using both hands. The first time Tabitha had seen Joy do it she’d been fascinated; the Jelly Jar was a magic trick, sleight of hand and twist of fate, and she’d soaked it up like a child watching a magician lose a quarter behind someone’s ear.

“It feels like you have a hundred hands,” Hobbs said, which made Tabitha forget herself in a rush of adrenaline. The Jelly Jar worked!

She moved to his upper traps, which were easy to grip and roll through her fingers and thumbs. “How’s this pressure?”

“It’s all great, Tabby. You’ve got good hands.”

They both went quiet after that. There was nobody else in the house, as far as Tabitha knew, and Hobbs didn’t appear to have any pets, so the only sound came from the little speaker hooked up to her phone, which was playing spa music, something ethereal and flute heavy that transported her to another time. Talk about A Walk in the Woods at Midnight—she could be massaging Hobbs in a wooded glen in the fourteenth century and this would seem normal. She got into a flow with her movements, no longer worrying about executing the perfect Jelly Jar or neck routine, and simply listened to what Hobbs’s body was telling her through her own touch and his reactions to it. Tabitha knew when she found a sore muscle fiber based on the slight flinch to Hobbs’s back. She knew when a stroke was working by the way he sank deeper into the massage chair and loosed a contented sigh. She knew when the medial side of his scapula needed a little more attention because her elbow wanted to linger there, to keep stroking until the tissue relaxed, flattened and opened up.

This was all new for Tabitha. Usually, she was either just trying to get through her student exchanges or she was trying hard to impress Red. With Hobbs, she’d let her guard down, had merely laid her hands on him and let her touch and instincts be her guide, had melted into the experience as much as her client had, marking this as the first time anything had actually clicked for her with a human subject.

Hobbs’s forearm glided down through her palms, where Tabitha started to work on his right hand, the skin near the base of his fingers rough with calluses, a contrast to the smoothness of the center of his palm, almost delicate. Tabitha worked her thumb over the calluses and her fingertips over the palm and slowly the atmosphere changed. It seemed like the room grew quieter, even though nobody touched the volume of the music, and the air thicker, though the vents kept blowing heat at the same rate. If Tabitha had ever doubted that Hobbs carried a lot of hidden stress, buried deep from his past, covered up with his antics at the gym and constant smile, it now vanished. So much for the eyes being the mirror to the soul. Right now, Hobbs’s soul lived in his hands.

His muscles twitched the tiniest bit. She went a little deeper with the pressure, then stroked each finger and worked his wrists in circles in each direction. Hobbs’s words about his father’s death came to her in that moment.We didn’t get along.The words were nothing. Fluff. A magic trick, like the Jelly Jar. It felt like a hundred hands, when there were only two, and Hobbs’s father’s death was a lot more thannot getting along. There was so much pain there Tabitha sensed that Hobbs’s hand ached to grab on to something, to secure himself, to anchor somewhere, maybe to feel safe for once in his life.

His fingers closed just the tiniest bit over hers. Then, suddenly, Hobbs was sitting up straight.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No. I’m just...” Hobbs trailed off, still straddling the chair as he faced her. She needed to say something but words wouldn’t come. Hobbs slid off the chair and squeezed his hands in and out of fists. Tabitha expected him to tell her the massage had been horrible, but he looked down at her and said, “Sorry, Tabby. I think that’s enough massage for tonight.”

“Sure. No problem. But...just for my notes. What did I do wrong? I want to get better.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong. I promise.”

“Are you sure? Is it...was it...when everything changed?” She lowered her voice and went for it. “Did you feel that, too?”

Hobbs said nothing. Just when Tabitha started to feel foolish, started to think she had imagined everything, he nodded.

“You have a lot going on inside you,” Tabitha said, relieved she wasn’t going crazy and a little freaked that she’d sensed all that. She looked down at Hobbs’s hands and the warmth that had washed over her body came back for another slam. She realized now she probably should’ve backed off as soon as she felt all those things being unearthed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Things were going so well. We can try again if you want.” Tabitha motioned toward the chair. “Not go so deep.”

“I can’t.” Hobbs made no move toward the chair. “You didn’t do anything wrong. But I can’t do more tonight.” The room filled with the sounds of pan flutes moaning in the background, the smell of buy-one-get-one-free lilac bodywash and Hobbs’s steady gaze. Well. She’d already made half a dozen errors with this massage. Might as well add one more.

“When you said you didn’t get along with your dad—” Tabitha’s voice cut through the music “—that wasn’t really even close to the truth, was it?”

To his credit, Hobbs didn’t look away. “No,” he said.

“Is that why you’re always goofing off? Making a joke out of everything?” Tabitha felt emboldened by the atmosphere, the music, the force of whatever had rooted itself deep inside of Hobbs that had loosened and leached into her own body during their exchange. His memories, and all the feelings attached to them, had fed into her veins like osmosis. “Pretending life is one big party?”

Hobbs took a step closer to her, closing off any safe space that Tabitha might’ve kept around her perimeter. Trinity, asleep on Hobbs’s couch, didn’t even stir. “You’re so full of questions,” he said, with no trace of irritation in his voice. “Maybe I’ll answer. If you answer one of mine.”

Tabitha uncrossed her arms. “What do you want to know?” She braced herself, ready for him to ask about Afghanistan, the IED, the explosion, the moment in her life everyone wanted to pinpoint as the root of herproblems, like they could reduce everything she was now into that one incident.

“Why do you always doubt yourself?”

Tabitha stammered for a moment. Finally she said, “I don’talwaysdoubt myself.”

“You’re doing it now. I said this wasn’t your fault, that your massage was great, and I meant it. This was all me. But you doubt yourself. You do the same thing at the gym.”

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