I can always tell how bad the training block is by how much I want to cancel my recovery massage. If my body is trashed enough, even the idea of an hour of soft music, eucalyptus air, and being kneaded into a human puddle sounds like medieval torture. Today, after a week of two-a-days and weights and the kind of dry land circuits that make D1 athletes question their life choices, my traps and glutes are basically titanium cables with skin on top. I’m half-dreading, half-desperate for what’s about to happen. Which is why I’m five minutes late, double-parked outside the wellness spa in my chlorine-soaked sweats, clutching an old Hydroflask and a protein bar like talismans.
The inside of the spa is exactly what you’d expect: lots of blonde wood, indoor plants, and that humming silence you only get from places with no clocks or children. I limp to the reception desk, and give the front-desk woman my name. She’s new, or at least I haven’t seen her before, and she’s got the same LA look everyone in this part of town seems to master: glowing skin, perfect nails, eyebrows that could slice through glass.
“Hi, Caleb. Welcome back!” She blinks at her screen, and her smile tightens just enough for me to notice. Her eyes flick from the monitor to me, then back again. “So, your scheduled therapist had to call out this afternoon. jBut we can still fit you in if you’re okay with someone new?”
The hope in her voice is almost aggressive. At this point, I’m so stiff I can’t even manage my usual fake-casual shoulder shrug. “Yeah, that’s fine. No worries.”
She gives me a tiny bow and slides over a waiver form, which I sign without reading. The pen nearly snaps in my grip. “You’ll be with Miles today,” she says. “He’s one of our newer therapists but super experienced. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
She quickly vanishes down the hall. I grab a seat, realize sitting is a mistake, and stand up again. The spa’s playlist is some kind of Zen windchime mix, but the walls are so thin I can hear every syllable of the couple in the next waiting room. They’re arguing in that high-stakes, quiet way that tells you they’re likely about to break up for the second time this week. I drain half my water bottle and stare at a random, overly cheerful poster about the “mind-body connection.”
A door clicks behind me and I turn, mostly out of habit. The first thing I see are hands: large, squared-off, and several shades darker than the spa’s towels, attached to arms that look like they’ve been poured into the sleeves of a black polo. The man wearing them is taller than me, at least 6’3”, with deep brown skin, and a neat jawline of facial hair. He moves with a controlled patience, like he’s aware he could snap the furniture but doesn’t see the point. His expression is what I’d call neutral, but his eyes have the quality of someone who is already three steps into whatever he’s thinking, like he’s filed me away before I’ve said a word.
“Caleb?” he says, in a voice that’s low but not unfriendly.
If my usual therapist was the massage equivalent of a gentle golden retriever, this guy is more Doberman: calm, elegant, absolutely unbothered by my presence.
“That’s me,” I say, raising my high slightly while trying to sound normal. He offers a hand. It’s huge and warm. My own grip is still shaky from yesterday’s workout.
“Miles,” he says. “Sorry for the short notice.”
He doesn’t ask if I’ve ever done this before, which is nice because I’ve been here enough that the receptionist once tried to upsell me on a punch card. Instead, he glances down at my hoodie, which says USC SWIMMING & DIVING in faded letters, and then back at me.
“Long week?” he asks, and the way he says it, I know he’s seen worse.
I huff and try to play it off. “Isn’t it always?”
He nods. “Give me a heads-up if anything’s changed since your last intake.” He gestures down the hallway. “Follow me, and we’ll get started.”
His walk is even more deliberate than his handshake, and he keeps a polite distance ahead of me. I can’t help but watch the way his shoulders move under the thin polo, the fabric barely keeping up. I start to feel like a perv, but he’s so physically present it’s impossible not to stare. The room he leads me to has a lamp glowing near the massage table and a small side table set up with neatly arranged towels, oils, and what looks like a metal water bottle. The air smells like something citrusy, which is a relief because the eucalyptus in here is usually so strong I feel like I’m in a koala’s wet dream.
Miles points me toward a bench and closes the door behind us, then hands me a folded sheet. “You know the drill,” he says. “You can strip to whatever’s comfortable and get under the sheet, face down. I’ll give you a minute.”
I hesitate, holding the sheet like it’s evidence.
He leaves, and the click of the door feels final. I stare at the table, then at the sheet, then at myself.
I go through the familiar routine: shoes, socks, shorts, shirt, all folded onto the little bench in the corner. For the first time, I pause before taking off my briefs. There’s no reason to be weird about it; I’ve had friends see me naked, even teammates grab-ass and towel-whip like it’s a contact sport, but nothing about this feels like that. It feels more like a ritual, like I’m giving him my body in a way.
I slip under the sheet, face pressed to the doughnut headrest, arms at my sides. The room is quiet, but I can hear my own pulse in the foam.
The mat beneath me is heated, a slow warmth seeping into my lower back. I’m hyper-aware of every sore muscle, every square inch of skin. Even though I know this is just a massage, my heart starts hammering against my ribs like I’m on the blocks waiting for the start signal.
There’s a gentle knock, and Miles re-enters. “All good?”
“Yep,” I say, my voice muffled by the table.
He asks if there are any specific areas I’d like him to focus on.
“My right shoulder’s been grinding since last practice. And maybe my lower back if there’s time.”
He pours oil into his hands and rubs them together. The slick, wet friction is the only sound in the room. He starts at my shoulders, using only his fingertips at first, tracing the ridges of my upper back. The heat of his palms through the thin layer of oil is intense, and I realize instantly that he’s very, very good. Like, next-level good. He finds the first knot and presses in with his thumb, and I involuntarily wince.
He doesn’t apologize, but I can hear a smile in his voice: “Sorry. That’s about as gentle as I get.”
“Honestly, I’d rather it hurt now than in the pool tomorrow,” I say, my attempt at banter, but my words taper off as he digs into the base of my neck with a precision that makes me want to whimper. My focus narrows to the starbursts of pain and relief chasing each other through my muscles. Time dissolves, and the only thing that’s real is the pressure of his hands.
Miles works methodically, like he’s reading a map of every injury and micro-tear I’ve ever accumulated. He checks in a couple of times, adjusting pressure when I ask, but mostly he just works in silence. At one point, when he moves to my lower back and then to the deep tissue of my glutes, he warns me: “Tell me if this gets to be too much, yeah?” I murmur my assent, because the only thing I can focus on is not drooling through the headrest.
His hands are a paradox: so large they dwarf my shoulder blades, but so careful that I never feel overpowered. When he does a pass along my hamstrings, he braces my leg with one hand and works down to my calf with the other, and I’m aware, in a totally nonprofessional way, that he’s probably the only person alive who could out-squat my entire relay team.
I catch myself wondering what he looks like with his shirt off, and immediately try to refocus on the playlist overhead. The problem is, Miles is the playlist now, and he’s all I can hear.
As he works, I can feel the structure of him, the shift of muscle in his forearms when he adjusts his angle, the solid weight of his chest as he leans over me to apply more pressure. It’s all controlled strength, a disciplined power I remember from the way his polo stretched across his shoulders in the lobby. He has to be incredibly strong to make this feel so precise.
He finds another tight spot and the world reduces to pain and pleasure and the throb of blood behind my eyes. He kneads my shoulders in slow, concentric circles, thumbs pressing hard enough to flatten a baseball. Each time I flinch, he adjusts, but never too much. The heat of his palms seeps into the muscles, and for the first time in weeks, I feel myself unclench.
After what feels like forever and no time at all, he gently lifts the edge of the sheet. “I’ll need to do your quads next,” he says, “so I’m going to adjust the sheet.”