“I don’t need gloves. The wraps are—”
“The wraps are for support. The gloves are so you don’t shatter every bone in your hand before we do our shoot for the BBC.” He waggled the glove. “In.”
Barnaby slid his hand in. Lex pulled the Velcro snug around his wrist, then did the other one, pressing the padding flat across Barnaby’s knuckles and checking the fit with his thumb. Thegloves were too big. They made Barnaby’s wrists look narrow, like a boy in his father’s boxing kit.
“You look adorable,” Lex said and meant it with all his heart.
“I will end you, Murphy.”
“That’s right. Hold on to that anger, and let it all out on the bag.”
They worked the bags for twenty minutes. Lex fed him the combinations one at a time. Jab, cross, jab-cross, jab-cross-hook, and Barnaby committed to each one, throwing his whole body behind each punch. His technique was rough. His timing was off. He telegraphed his cross by dropping his shoulder, and his hook came in wide every time. But he listened, he adjusted, and he didn’t complain.
Darius wandered over after the first ten minutes. He leaned against the wall with his arms crossed and watched Barnaby throw a combination that was six beats too slow but mechanically correct.
“He your project, then?”
“King’s Trust filming,” Lex said. “BBC cameras in two weeks. He needs to not look like a complete civilian.”
“He looks all right.” Darius tilted his head. “Quick learner. Shit power, though.”
“He weighs twelve stone wet. He’s not going to be knocking anyone out.”
“Fair.” Darius peeled himself off the wall and walked over to Barnaby, who had stopped to adjust his wraps. “Oi. Horse boy!”
Barnaby straightened. His hair was damp at the temples and his T-shirt was dark with sweat across the chest. He extended his wrapped hand with the manners of a man meeting someone at a drinks reception rather than a man dripping sweat onto rubber matting. “Barnaby.”
“Darius.” They shook. “Lex talks about you all the time. Like, all the time. It’s annoying.”
“I can imagine.”
“He showed us the video of you falling off a horse into a lake.”
“Of course he did.”
“It was very funny.”
“I’m glad my near-death experience provided you with entertainment.”
Darius grinned. Lex watched Barnaby register the grin and recalibrate in real time, his formal register dropping a notch as he clocked that Darius was testing him, not mocking him. The shift was tiny, a fraction of looseness in his shoulders, the beginning of a dry smile.
Mick appeared next, towelling sweat from the back of his neck and holding a protein shaker the colour of radioactive waste. He looked Barnaby up and down. “You’re taller than I expected.”
“I’m five-eleven.”
“Lex said you were small.”
“Lex says a great many things that don’t survive contact with reality.”
Mick snorted into his shaker. Barnaby caught Lex’s eye, and the corner of his mouth pulled in the way that meant he was pleased with himself and wanted Lex to know it.
They moved to the pads. Lex held them up, shoulder-height, and called the shots. Jab. Jab-cross. Jab-cross-hook. Barnaby hit them with increasing confidence, his gloves snapping against the leather, his feet shuffling forward and back in the stance Lex had drilled into him. His rhythm was still uneven, but the effort was there, and by the third round his breathing was ragged and his ears were pink, which was Lex’s gauge for Barnaby’s level of exertion.
Coach Malik moved in closer. He’d been circling the gym floor for the past ten minutes, doing his rounds. Lex had seen him clock Barnaby within thirty seconds of their arrival. Now hewas standing six feet behind Barnaby with his arms folded and his eyes narrowed.
Barnaby threw a cross. His back foot dragged.
“Get your fucking knees up, boy.” Malik’s voice cut across the gym floor like a ref’s whistle. “You’re flat-footed. Keep your knees bent. Stay on the balls. Every time that back foot goes flat, you lose your rotation, and if you lose your rotation you’re throwing arm punches, and arm punches don’t hurt anyone. Again.”
