Page 74 of Safe Hands

Lauren was there with the barista from the park café, who was apparently in no hurry to leave. Lauren had one shoulder against the doorframe, and whatever she was saying made the woman laugh and touch her arm. Then Lauren took a flyer from the stack, wrote something on the back and handed it over with a little flourish. The barista folded it into her coat pocket as if it were worth keeping.

“It’s a free trial pass,” Carly said.

“Is it? She’s been at it for ten minutes. That’s a very thorough free trial.”

“That’s just what she’s like. She’ll flirt with anyone.”

Too fast and too sharp, like someone who’d already had the argument in her head. She wished she’d shrugged instead.

“Ouch,” Beth said. “She didn’t flirt with me.”

She wasn’t hurt. She was watching Carly with the tilt of the head she used to turn on teenagers who swore blind they’d done their homework.

Carly had no intention of giving her the satisfaction. She looked away from the doors and made herself take in the rest. Jenna was still at the sign-up table in her ridiculous armband, counting forms with her tongue between her teeth. The woman with the knee had signed up. The netball girl had a flyer in her back pocket. Carly had written the risk assessments, paid for the vinyl banner and planned every minute of the day. None of that was why they’d walked in.

“We should be thankful for her flirting,” she said, lifting the bike again. “It packed this place out.”

Beth smiled into her tea and, for once, let her have the last word. Carly suspected that was because she’d already got what she came for.

23

Lauren

At 15:58, Lauren straightened the anatomical poster for the third time. It peeled back off the wall at the top corner out of pure spite.

“Fine,” she told it. “Be like that.”

She’d already changed the paper on the table twice, because the first sheet had a crease and the second had a crease she’d imagined. Her oils were lined up by size. The towels could have passed a kit inspection. Even the folding table had been wiped down, beer mat and all. It had come off Facebook Marketplace with a wobble in one leg, fixed with a coaster from the clubhouse and a prayer. Once a month, she looked at hydraulic treatment couches online like other people looked at holidays in the Maldives. Once a month, she closed the tab.

She checked the booking again, though she’d memorised it on Sunday night.

Carly. 45 mins. Wednesday, 4pm.

Notes: Left hamstring. Lower back. Not urgent.

Booked at 23:47.

Nobody who wrote not urgent at thirteen minutes to midnight meant it. People who weren’t in pain didn’t book massages from bed.

It was a booking. She’d done hundreds: footballers with calves like knotted rope, builders with shoulders like poured concrete, a retired headmistress who came fortnightly and talked exclusively about her allotment. She was good at her job. Carly had said so, out loud, in front of twenty-two people and Dean.

That was the problem. Carly had said so.

At 15:59, there was a knock.

At 16:00, the door opened.

“You’re early,” Lauren said, before her brain could intervene.

Carly checked her watch. “I’m exactly on time.”

“Which, for you, is early.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It made sense in my head.”

Carly’s mouth twitched, there and gone. She was in leggings and a gym hoodie, hair scraped back for training. Training was tonight, Lauren remembered, and decided to have opinions about that later.