Chapter 5: Tape

The visitors' training room was empty except for us and a humming ice machine.

I sat him on the treatment table, pulled a stool up in front of him, and opened the first-aid kit.

His hand lay in mine, palm up, with four split knuckles.

"It needs stitches," I said.

"It needs tape."

"Cillian."

"Tape. I'm not missing the third."

"You're ejected. You can't go back out."

"Then I'm sitting on the bench in a suit, watching you work."

He said it so flatly that I looked up.

He was not teasing.

I cleaned the cuts with saline, and he didn't flinch once.

"Why did you do it?" I asked.

"He put his hands on you."

"He's done that for ten years. He puts his arm around me. He steers me through doors."

"He put his hands on you when you said let go."

I had nothing to say to that.

I tore a strip of tape, and my fingers were steady, because I had taped a lot of Dario's wrists over the years.

This was different.

Cillian's hand was twice the size of mine, with thick veins across the back, and the skin was warm and rough under my thumb.

I wound the tape across his knuckles, and I felt his pulse hammering in his wrist.

It was going much faster than a man's should when he was sitting still.

I told myself that was adrenaline from the fight.

"Open your hand," I said.

He opened it.

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