The Billionaire's Fight for Redemption Starts at Five A.M. novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Man on the Bench

Dee tells Cal who Ray is and forbids him to apologize; she wraps Cal's hands and Ray walks out.

"He's a man who trains here," Cal said. "I assume."

"His name is Ray Dutka."

Cal's face did something small and quick, and then went smooth again.

"The name is familiar."

"It should be. It was in your plea."

The mop handle slid in his hands.

Across the gym Ray sat with his one hand on his knee and stared at the floor between his boots.

He didn't look up, and he didn't leave.

He never missed a Thursday, and he wasn't going to let this man take one from him.

"I'll talk to him," Cal said, and set the mop against the ropes.

I put my hand flat on his chest and stopped him.

It was a hard chest under a thin cotton shirt, and the heat of it came straight through my palm.

I took my hand back faster than I'd put it there.

"No," I said.

"I owe him an apology."

"You owe him a lot of things. An apology that costs you nothing isn't one of them."

"That's not fair."

"You think this is about fair?"

"He walks in here every Thursday because a physical therapist told him to hit something."

"This is the one place in the city where nobody asks him how he's doing."

Cal's eyes went to the pinned sleeve.

"If you cross this floor and say you're sorry," I said, "he has to say something back."

"He has to forgive you, or tell you to go to hell, and either way he's doing your work for you."

"Then what do I do?"

"You mop."

"That's all?"

"For today, that's all. When he wants to talk to you, he'll say so. It isn't up to you and it isn't up to me."

I heard how that sounded, so I said the rest quietly.

"I'm not here to let you off, Cal. I'm only here to count the hours."

He looked at me for a long moment.

I'd seen men look at me across a ring right before they decided to stop being polite.

He didn't do that.

He picked the mop back up.

By six, Ray had done his stretches on the mat and wrapped his own hand with his teeth.

Then he started on the heavy bag.

He hit it the way he'd been told, left-right rhythm broken into a kind of lurch, the stump swinging.

Each time the bag swung back, the chain above it rang.

Cal mopped the same four boards three times.

He wasn't looking at Ray, and he was listening to every punch.

At six-fifteen the junior class came banging in, nine kids between eleven and sixteen with backpacks and sleep in their eyes.

Frank came in behind them with a box of donuts.

"Who's the suit?" the oldest of them asked me.

"A volunteer," I said.

"He's bad at it."

"I know. Take your gloves off the bench and go warm up."

Frank put the box on the desk and gave Cal one long look from his white buzz cut down to his dress shoes.

"Those are going to be ruined," he said.

"They're Italian," Cal said.

"They were Italian."

Frank went to clap the kids into a line.

At seven I took Cal into the bag room and shut the door.

The room smelled of rubber and old sweat and the lemon cleaner I used on everything.

"Sit," I said, and pointed at the stool.

"I thought I was cleaning the bathrooms."

"You will."

"First you can't touch a bag in your bare hands, and if you do, you'll tear your knuckles open on the stitching."

"Give me your hands."

He gave me his hands, palms up.

They were smooth and warm, and the nails were clean and short.

They had never carried anything heavier than a pen.

I took the long cotton wrap off its roll and looped the thumb loop over his thumb.

I wound it over the back of his hand and around the wrist, the way my father had taught me at eight.

My knuckles brushed the inside of his wrist where the pulse was.

It was going fast.

"You're nervous," I said.

"I'm cold."

"It's sixty-eight degrees in here."

"Then I'm something else."

I tugged the wrap tight, harder than I had to.

He drew a breath through his teeth, and the corner of his mouth moved.

It wasn't a smile, quite.

"That's the idea," I said. "It should hold you together."

"Does it?"

"It holds your hand together. The rest is up to you."

I finished the left and started on the right, and neither of us said anything while I worked.

Through the wall I could hear the junior class counting jumping jacks and, under it, the thud of Ray's hand on the bag.

It didn't stop once.

Then it stopped.

A sound came from the main room, a clatter of metal and a spill of water, and something heavy rolled across the floor.

I let go of Cal's wrist and opened the door.

The yellow bucket lay on its side beside the ring.

The mop was across the floor and dirty water was running to the drain.

Ray was in the doorway with his coat over his arm and his cap pulled low.

He had kicked the bucket on his way out, and he didn't stop to see where it went.

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