The Masseuse Read Online Free PDF Page A

my apartment in Ybor City, right in the heart of the historic district.
    “First, it’s only eight thirty,” I told him. “Second, I had a client.”
    “First,” he replied, mirroring my tone, “your curfew’s eight. And second, I don’t like you going out to people’s houses so late at night.”
    I smiled. “My curfew hasn’t been eight since I was in middle school. I’m twenty-seven, in case you forgot.”
    “Stop growing up,” he said. “I’ve had about enough of that.”
    His voice fell at the end; we’d reached the boundary of his good mood.
    “Yes, sir.” I cleared my voice. “So what’d you do today?” I’d talked to him every day this week. It was a hard one; we’d lost my adoptive mother four years ago to breast cancer. This was their anniversary week. They would have been married thirty-six years.
    The sting was gone, though the ache remained. But as much as I missed her, I knew it was so much harder for him. She’d been his whole world.
    “I had Tuesday breakfast,” he said, and I was flooded with double-decker-pancake nostalgia, the special at Manny’s Diner where we’d spent every Tuesday morning of my youth. Cincinnati—the place I called home, thanks to my dad—felt a long way away all of a sudden.
    He sighed. “And then I went to see my girl.”
    I pulled into my parking garage and killed the engine. I couldn’t get out of my car yet; my body felt too heavy. The thought of going out on a date tonight with Randall seemed like an enormous amount of work.
    “Yeah?” I could picture my dad going to her grave with a bundle of yellow roses—her favorite—and a bottle of wine. He would sit beside her like he always did, telling her about what he’d done that day, filling her in on any new updates about me, until he ran out of things to say. Then he’d sit in the silence just because he wanted to be close to her.
    I couldn’t imagine anyone loving me the way he loved her.
    “Maybe . . . Dad, maybe you should try going out.”
    He groaned. “The guys have talked me into joining the bowling league. Can you believe that? Thirty years on the force I managed to avoid that crap, and the minute I retire, they talk me into it. Soon I’ll be fat and bald and eating donuts every morning.”
    I sincerely doubted it. My dad’s strawberry blond hair may have been a bit more blond than strawberry these days, but he still ran three miles every morning, something he had done as long as I could remember. Though he was afraid of becoming a classic cop cliché, anyone who knew him could have told you he wasn’t really going to give up the job completely. It was too much a part of who he was.
    “Good,” I said, glad he was doing something with friends. He hadn’t done much socially since Mom died. “But you know what I meant.”
    There was a pause on the line. “I had my time, Anna. Your mom, she was my sweetheart. You don’t get that twice in one life. I was lucky to get it at all.”
    My heart hurt. “I just don’t like the thought of you being lonely.”
    “I’m not lonely,” he retorted. “I’ve got Mug.”
    Mug was his Great Dane, the biggest lap dog I’d ever seen.
    “I’ll come home soon,” I told him. I’d already scheduled a follow-up with Mr. Stein next week. A month of this, and I’d definitely have the money for plane fare.
    “All right.” His tone lightened. “Mug won’t be happy, though. He’s already taken over your room. You’ll have to sleep on the couch.”
    “Love you, Dad.”
    “Love you, Anna.”
    I nearly called Randall and told him I wasn’t in the mood, but after talking to my dad, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be alone either.
    *
    I’d texted to tell him I’d be late, but when I met Randall at Pho, a Vietnamese fusion restaurant downtown, he was already waiting at the table, mouth tight with impatience. It looked like he’d already ordered and finished an appetizer when I sat down across from him.
    He looked up from his cell phone,