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Waverly

T HURSDAY MORNING, I walked into work with what I thought would be a full schedule. What I found, instead, was that my two appointments right before lunch had canceled last minute. And we had a very strict last-minute cancelation policy which required the client to pay a fee, provided they weren’t in some kind of peril, of course. I held myself in check but the second I closed myself into my office, I did a happy little dance. I loved long lunches, especially when they were paid for.

Logging into my computer, I went through my schedule and pulled up the patient notes for the folks I was seeing today. I had a new client this morning, so I paid a little extra attention to his case.

I frowned. There wasn’t much information in his chart but the x-rays showed extensive damage relating to an ‘accident,’ but other than that, no information.

I sighed. I was going in somewhat blind, but I did love a challenge and a challenge was what I was being presented today.

* * *

Razor

“I fucking hate hospitals,” I grumbled as Katie wheeled me into the office, parking me in the ‘handicapped’ area and sitting in an open chair next to me.

“Everybody hates hospitals. It’s universal. Besides, this isn’t a hospital, it’s a medical office,” Katie replied as she checked me in via the app on my phone.

“Same fuckin’ difference,” I snapped.

“I thought you were under strict orders to be nice today?” she reminded me as she dropped my phone into her purse.

“Nice to the physical therapist and the other medical professionals, not you.”

“I’m a registered physician assistant,” Katie protested.

“Yeah, but you’re not my physician assistant.”

She pivoted to face me with a huff. “I can still wheel you out into traffic, you know?”

“You took an oath to ‘do no harm,’ remember? ”

Leaning in a little closer to me, she bit out, “My grandfather was a practicing doctor for forty-two years and he used to say his version of the Hippocratic oath was, ‘Do no harm but take no shit.’”

“Your grandfather was a proctologist?”

Katie let out a laugh that was way too loud for a medical office waiting room, garnering side-eyed looks from the room’s fellow waitees.

“If you don’t start behaving, I’m gonna punch you in your bad shoulder,” Katie hiss-pered, grabbing a magazine and flipping through the pages.

“That would probably feel better than whatever Helga the gigantic, mustachioed physical therapist is gonna do to me.”

“Helga?”

“If I don’t get a Helga, it’ll be Chet and his thirteen-step system to achieving a life of better overall wellness. Which includes a diet of raw cactus and participating in mixed martial arts cage fights three times a day.”

Katie sighed. “Your life could use some serious balancing.”

“The only thing I need to balance on is a fucking bike. Not being able to ride is driving me up a wall.”

“Shhhh. Remember, you’re not Razor here. You’re—”

“Giovanni,” a female voice called out from behind as if on cue.

Katie stood and dropped the magazine back on the table in front of us. “That’s us,” she said, before turning me around to see the woman attached to the voice .

She definitely wasn’t a Chet, and she was a good goddamn away from a Helga. In fact, she was straight up beautiful. Five-foot-five (ish) and fit as a fuckin’ fiddle. Her chocolate brown hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail, and her ice-blue eyes peered through thick, horn-rimmed glasses. She reminded me of the ‘hot nerd girl,’ in all those teen movies. The one you’re supposed to believe is plain looking just because she’s wearing glasses, but she’s clearly a total smoke show.

“Right this way,” she said with a smile.

Katie wheeled me through a set of double doors and down a long hallway, giving me ample time to study my physical therapist’s ass. Holy hell, this woman was put together.

“We’re going to hang a left here,” the hot therapist said, pointing to a plaque which read “Physiotherapy,” before leading us to a large, open area with a padded floor. The area was filled with an array of machines, contraptions, and devices, most of which were painted with bright primary colors. No doubt done so to help disguise these implements of torture.

We passed by all of these and into a corner where she squirted sanitizer on her hand and sat on a stool facing me. “Right, Giovanni, my name’s Waverly and I’ll be taking a look at your shoulder today, is that right?”

“Um, you can call me Gio. Um, people... I mean... everyone calls me Gio.”

“Well, it’s very nice to meet you, Gio. I’m sorry it had to be during these circumstances,” Waverly said.

“Nice to meet you too,” was all I managed to eke out. This woman literally had me tongue tied .

“Do you need me to stay?” Katie asked.

“I’m good,” I muttered, and Waverly shook her head.

“I think we can manage.” She smiled. “You can take a seat over by the window while you wait.”

Katie nodded, and left us alone.

“Normally, I don’t see patients until weeks or even months after surgery, but our orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Kraft asked me to take a look at you to help determine if surgery could possibly be avoided and your injuries healed with PT alone. Dr. Kraft sent me your newest x-rays and depending on how today’s examination goes, I should be able to give him my recommendation right away.”

I nodded. “That sounds great.”

“His notes mention he’s been waiting for the swelling to go down, which is why you’re seeing me today and not sooner. Is that your understanding?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, let’s start by taking a look at that shoulder,” Waverly said, before drawing a privacy curtain. “Can I help you take your hoodie off?”

Why stop at my shirt? How about you cut me out of this fucking leg cast straddle this chair and ride my cock like a—

“Gio? Can I help you?” Waverly asked again.

“Oh, uh, yeah. Of course, sure. Sorry, these pain meds make me a little foggy,” I lied. In fact, after the first week, I rarely touched the bottle of Vicodin prescribed to me. What little pain relief they gave me was overshadowed by how itchy they made me. Itchy was bad enough under normal circumstances, but when you’re in a cast, itchy in a spot on your body that you can’t get to is pure fucking torture.

“Okay, here we go,” Waverly said, gently navigating taking off my hoodie, then partial removal of my shirt with only minimal pain. I had a tattoo of the club’s logo on my chest, so I did my best to keep it covered as she examined my shoulder. “Apparently your shoulder was so badly dislocated that it caused a labral tear. Now that you’ve had a few weeks to recover from the shoulder socket reset, Dr. Kraft would like me to help assess whether or not you’ll need surgery,” she repeated. “We’re not going to do any type of PT exercises at all today. I’m simply going to check your range of motion and perform a light examination of the injured area.”

“Whatever you say, doc.”

Waverly smiled. “I’m not sure a doctorate of physiotherapy earns me the nickname of ‘Doc.’”

“Why not? You went to medical school to learn how to do this, right?” I asked.

“Three whole years of it.”

“Well, there you go, Doc.”

“I don’t know. Doc sounds like an old timey western general practitioner to me.”

“Well, what do they call physiotherapist doctors?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think we have our own nickname.”

“How ’bout ‘Fizzy’?”

“Fizzy?”

“As in fizzy-o-therapist.”

The sound of Waverly’s laugh was like a mainline shot directly into my veins. One dose, and I had to hear it again.

Waverly carefully examined my shoulder, her touch sending shivers up the back of my neck. “Your chart sited your injuries as accident related. Do you mind if I ask the nature of the accident?”

“I, uh, was in a car wreck,” I said. “The seatbelt popped my shoulder out of the socket.”

Waverly made eye contact with me. “Is your car’s seatbelt made out of boot treads?”

“What?”

“If a seat belt had caused this injury, Dr. Kraft’s initial examination photos would have shown a long seatbelt shaped contusion along your scapula, but they don’t. What they did show was a size thirteen boot imprint, leading me to believe your injuries are the result of some sort of attack.”

I let out a low huff.

“It’s okay, Gio, you can be honest with me. The more I know about your injuries, the more I can help you.”

“Okay. Alright,” I said, throwing up my good arm in surrender. “You’re right. I lied. There was no car crash. I got jumped by three guys who wanted my wallet, and one of them stomped down so hard, my shoulder was dislocated.”

Waverly placed her hand on mine. “I’m so sorry, Gio. Have you spoken to a counselor about this? I can recommend some wonderful people if you don’t have a therapist.”

“Therapy?” I laughed. “You don’t know how hard my friend Katie out there had to work just to get me to come here and see you about my fucked-up shoulder. Let a shrink near my head? No way.”

“Your, ah, girlfriend is right. When we suffer injuries, it’s important to seek medical attention as soon as possible. All types of injuries.”

“Katie isn’t my girlfriend. In fact, her brother would probably try and kill me just for you thinking she is.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s okay, Fizzy. Let’s just talk about the shoulder.”

After a few minutes of moderately fucking painful range of motion tests, and lots of ticking on her computer terminal keyboard, Waverly delivered her verdict. “If you continue to rest the shoulder, and it continues to heal like it is, I think Dr. Kraft can keep his scalpel sheathed.”

“That’s the news I wanted to hear,” I said.

“However, there’s a catch. As soon as the tear is fully healed, I want you here twice a week until you’re functioning at one hundred percent. And I’m assuming we’re gonna have leg and hip issues to deal with by then as well,” she said, pointing to my casted leg.

Seeing Waverly twice a week wasn’t going to be a problem for me. In fact, the only fucking problem I could see was having to wait until my shoulder healed enough to see her again.

* * *

Waverly

“Do you have any questions for me?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even as I helped him put on his shirt and hoodie again .

Giovanni Rossi was one of the best-looking men I’d ever seen, and I couldn’t stop my body’s reaction to him. He wore a black T-shirt, black hoodie, and dark grey sweatpants (I mean, come on, universe, why would you do that to a girl?). He’d cut the pant leg off at the knee to accommodate the cast, and I’d wanted slide my hand up from the bottom just to see what was underneath. When I helped him remove his shirt, even only seeing half of his torso, you couldn’t miss his perfectly formed chest and the veins popping out of his forearm were intoxicating. It had been a very long time since I’d felt anything like this, and it scared me a little.

And what the fuck was all that ‘girlfriend’ business? Good lord, could I have been more obvious? Hopefully he didn’t notice my low-key ask about his relationship status with the beautiful woman who brought him, because, let’s face it, I was a medical professional and would need to compartmentalize all of this if I was going to treat him.

Gio winced. “No, I’m good.”

I frowned. “Are you in pain?”

“I’m okay.”

I sighed. “Tough guy, huh?”

“I’ll take somethin’ when I get home.”

“How about we do something about it now?” I opened the refrigerator and pulled out an icepack. “Do you mind if I touch you?”

His eyes flashed with something I couldn’t quite decipher, and then he nodded.

“Let me know if this causes more pain and I’ll stop, okay? ”

He nodded again and I slid the neck of his shirt aside, placing the icepack against his shoulder.

“Jesus,” he breathed out.

“Is that hurting?”

“No, that feels amazing.”

“This is something you can do at home,” I said.

“I do, but you seem to have the magic touch.”

I chuckled. “I think it’s more accurate that you’re not doing this as often as you need to be.”

He scoffed. “Don’t talk to me like you know me.”

I bit back another laugh. I would not let him get under my skin.

I would not.

“I can give you this one to take home with you. Fifteen minutes on. Ice at least three times a day. Got it?”

“Do you make house calls?”

“You can’t afford me.”

“Name your price.”

“Six-thousand dollars an hour,” I threw out.

“I’ll pay it.”

I laughed again.

“I’m not kidding,” he said.

I frowned. “Um, what are you? Some kind of billionaire?”

“Not even close, but I can pay you to do a few house calls.”

I took a seat and leaned toward him. “Are you in some kind of danger, Gio? Do I need to call the police?”

He cocked his head. “Why the fuck would you call the police, Waverly? ”

“If you’re being threatened—”

“What’s goin’ on in your head?”

“Well, honestly? If you’re being threatened by a gang or,” I lowered my voice and whispered, “the mafia—”

He burst out laughing.

I narrowed my eyes and demanded, “What’s so funny?”

“Because I’m Italian, you go straight to mafia?”

“Um, well, um... oh, my god, I... ah. Crap, Gio, I’m so sorry—”

He leaned in. “We just call it ‘the family.’”

I gasped and then realized he was teasing me, I felt heat creep up my neck.

“I’m not in the mafia, Fizzy. I’m a mechanic.”

“Mechanics can’t be made men?”

“How many wise guys have you seen doing an oil change?”

“The only mobsters I’ve ever seen are those in the movies.”

“Well, you’ve probably seen too many of them.”

My mouth dropped open. “There is no such thing as too many mobster movies. Or anything in the three-H category.”

“Oh, yeah?”

I bobbed my head.

“I’m not sure I should ask this, but what are the three H’s?”

“Heist, Horror, and Hallmark.”

He pressed his hand to one of eye sockets. “You’ve gotta be shittin’ me.”

“No,” I breathed out. “Especially at Christmas. ”

“You watch horror movies at Christmas?”

“ No . Hallmark.”

He met my eyes. “That’s what I just said. Those things are fuckin’ terrifying.”

I couldn’t stop a snort. “Let’s get that icepack off now.”

He nodded and I gently pulled it out of his shirt.

“You ready to head out to your friend?”

“No.” He raised an eyebrow. “But you’ve got other patients, huh?”

“Actually, my next two canceled.”

Why the hell did I just say that out loud?

“Why’d they cancel?” he asked.

“Don’t know. All I know is that they did.”

“You got a man?”

“I’m not going to discuss my personal life with you.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m your therapist. It’s crossing both a professional and ethical boundary.”

He sighed. “Right. Boundaries.”

“Boundaries,” I confirmed.

“So, can we talk about it when the boundaries are removed?”

“How about we talk about it when you cross that bridge?” I tapped gently on his cast. “In at least two months or more. After we’ve rehabbed your shoulder and your leg.”

“Well, that’s not a ‘no,’” he said with a giant grin.

“It’s a no, Gio.”

“It’s a no for now,” he corrected.

“I’m not having this conversation with you. You have a long road of healing to do.”

“Watch me do it in less than those two months.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Don’t rush it. Let your body heal at the rate it needs to heal.” I raised an eyebrow. “Do I need to refer you to someone else?”

“Shit,” he hissed. “Did I just make you feel uncomfortable because that would break my heart.”

“You don’t scare me, Gio, but let’s keep this professional, okay?”

“You got it.” He grinned. “For the next eight weeks or so, we’ll keep it totally professional.”

“I’m going to take you back to your companion now.”

“Katie. My companion’s name is Katie and she’s a friend .”

“I’m going to take you back to Katie now.”

“My friend , Katie.” He narrowed his eyes. “Say it out loud.”

I sighed. “Fine. Your friend , Katie.”

“Okay, Fizzy. You do that.”

Holy crap, I was in trouble.