diff --git a/pageserver/src/tenant/block_io.rs b/pageserver/src/tenant/block_io.rs
index cbbdc0ce32..831f2c0744 100644
--- a/pageserver/src/tenant/block_io.rs
+++ b/pageserver/src/tenant/block_io.rs
@@ -154,7 +154,7 @@ impl FileBlockReader<VirtualFile> {
     }
 
     /// Read a page from the underlying file into given buffer.
-    fn fill_buffer(&self, buf: &mut [u8], blkno: u32) -> Result<(), std::io::Error> {
+    async fn fill_buffer(&self, buf: &mut [u8], blkno: u32) -> Result<(), std::io::Error> {
         assert!(buf.len() == PAGE_SZ);
         self.file.read_exact_at(buf, blkno as u64 * PAGE_SZ as u64)
     }
@@ -178,7 +178,7 @@ impl FileBlockReader<VirtualFile> {
                 ReadBufResult::Found(guard) => break Ok(guard.into()),
                 ReadBufResult::NotFound(mut write_guard) => {
                     // Read the page from disk into the buffer
-                    self.fill_buffer(write_guard.deref_mut(), blknum)?;
+                    self.fill_buffer(write_guard.deref_mut(), blknum).await?;
                     write_guard.mark_valid();
 
                     // Swap for read lock