Chapter Twenty-One
Barnaby’s hands were a problem. Kneeling on the rubber matting of the locker room at Malik’s Gym in Barking, with Barnaby’s left hand resting palm-down across his own, this became immediately apparent, particularly when he took in its stark contrast to his own.
His fingers were long and narrow, the knuckles fine-boned, the tendons visible beneath skin that had never been anywhere near a heavy bag.
They were the hands of a man who held reins and champagne flutes and, on several memorable recent occasions, Lex’s cock, when the slender elegance of them had made his length look positively obscene.
Lex unrolled the first strip of hand wrap and pressed the loop over Barnaby’s thumb.
“Make a fist for me.”
Barnaby made a fist. It was a terrible fist. His thumb tucked inside his fingers, which was the fastest way to break it, and his wrist cocked at an angle that would have folded on first contact with anything harder than a sofa cushion.
“No.” Lex tapped the knuckle of Barnaby’s thumb. “Thumb outside. Always outside. You tuck it in, otherwise you’ll snap it on the first punch you throw.”
Barnaby adjusted his hand. Lex wrapped the cotton strip across his knuckles, pulling it snug, then looped it between each finger, spreading the protection across the fine bones of his hand.
He worked methodically, the way his coach had taught him when he was fourteen: three passes across the knuckles, figure-eights between the fingers, two wraps around the wrist for stability.
“This is a safe place, Barns.” He fed the wrap around Barnaby’s wrist and pulled it taut. “I’ve told all the lads. Anyone who takes the piss ends up face down on the mat.”
Barnaby looked around the locker room. It was not Chester Square.
The benches were scuffed pine. The lockers were dented metal, most of them missing their doors, and the ones that still had them were held shut with padlocks or electrical tape.
A motivational poster on the far wall read PAIN IS TEMPORARY, GLORY IS FOREVER.
It had been defaced by a drawing of a cock and hairy balls.
The air smelled of rubber and Deep Heat and the particular musk of sweaty men.
Barnaby was wearing gym clothes. Lex had lent him a pair of shorts and a plain black T-shirt, both of which were too big on him and sat wrong on his lean frame. The shorts hung past his knees and the T-shirt bagged at his shoulders. He looked like a teenager who’d borrowed his older brother’s kit.
Lex finished the left hand and reached for the right. He cradled Barnaby’s fingers in his palm, and his thumb swept along the ridge of his knuckles in a slow pass that had nothing to do with hand-wrapping and everything to do with the fact that Barnaby’s breathing had gone shallow.
“You’ll be fine.” He kept his voice low.
“Just remember: when you make contact, keep your wrist straight. Locked. The force goes through the first two knuckles, here and here.” He pressed his thumb against the knuckles of Barnaby’s index and middle fingers.
“You punch with the flat of these. Not the bottom three. You angle wrong, you’ll fracture your fifth metacarpal, and then you’ll be explaining to your physio why the Marquess of Ashworth broke his hand punching a bag in Barking. ”
“A boxer’s fracture,” Barnaby said. “I’ve read about them.”
“Course you have.”
“I’ve also watched your training footage. Extensively. I know the mechanics of a jab, a cross, a hook, and an uppercut. I understand the kinetic chain from the foot through the hip to the shoulder.”
“Knowing the kinetic chain and throwing a punch that doesn’t look like you’re swatting a fly are two very different things, Barns.” Lex wound the wrap between Barnaby’s fingers, careful and firm. “We’re going to start with the bags. Some pad work. Nothing that punches back.”
Barnaby’s chin came up. His grey eyes narrowed, and the temperature in the locker room dropped by several degrees.
“I’m a world-class athlete, Lex.”
“Yes, you are.” Lex tied off the wrap and held Barnaby’s hands in both of his, turning them over, checking the tension.
“You ride horses fast. You have them jump obstacles. You make them dance.” He looked up and met Barnaby’s gaze.
“That kind of athleticism doesn’t prepare you for a fist to your beautiful face, Barns. ”
He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Barnaby’s temple. Quick, soft, the kind of kiss you gave a child before sending them into the deep end of the pool.
Barnaby wiped it off with the back of his wrapped hand. Then he punched Lex in the shoulder. It connected with genuine force. Lex’s head rocked back, and the sting burned through his deltoid. His grin spread before he could stop it.
“Cute,” he said.
Barnaby’s ears went pink. He stood, shoved past Lex’s knees, and walked out of the locker room with a rigid spine.
? ? ?
The gym floor was half-full when they came through.
The youth session had cleared out and the evening crowd hadn’t arrived yet, which left the regulars: Darius on the speed bag, Mick doing cable flies, and Coach Malik himself on the far side, arms folded, watching a pair of lightweights spar in the ring.
Barnaby stopped two paces inside the door and took it in.
The gym had a particular quality at this hour, the late afternoon light cutting through the high windows in dusty shafts, catching the chalk dust from the climbing ropes and the fine mist of sweat that hung permanently in the air.
The heavy bags swayed on their chains from whoever had been working them last. Grime’s “Shut Up” was playing from Darius’s Bluetooth speaker at a volume that made conversation impossible.
“Right.” Lex clapped him on the shoulder and steered him toward the bags. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Barnaby’s first punch was dreadful. His hips didn’t turn, his shoulder didn’t follow, and the bag barely moved.
It was the punch of a man who had spent his entire athletic career communicating force through his seat bones rather than his fists.
He looked at the bag with the same expression he’d given the self-service checkout in Tokyo: offended bewilderment that it hadn’t responded to his expectations.
“Again,” Lex said. “Turn your hips this time. The power comes from the floor.”
Barnaby turned his hips. The second punch was marginally better, in the same way that an E was marginally better than a U in your A-levels. The bag swung an inch. Barnaby shook out his hand inside the wrap.
“You’re pushing. Don’t push. Snap it. Quick out, quick back.” Lex demonstrated, a short, sharp jab that cracked against the leather and sent the bag rocking. “Like that. You want to hit through the bag, not at it.”
Barnaby reset his stance. He adjusted his feet the way Lex had shown him, shoulder-width, left foot forward, weight on the balls of his feet. He threw the jab again.
This time it connected. The bag swung properly for the first time, and the sound was right: a clean pop rather than a dull thud. Barnaby looked at his fist, then at Lex. “Ow,” he said.
Lex wanted to shove him against the breezeblock wall right there, yank those shorts down, and get in him. Forget Malik. Forget the lads on the speed bags. He just wanted Barnaby bent forward with his wrapped hands braced on the wall.
To make sure he didn’t follow through on this thought, Lex crossed the gym floor to the equipment shelf and dug through the bin of communal gloves until he found a pair of twelves that didn’t smell like they’d been marinating in someone’s gym bag since 2019.
He brought them back and held one open. “Put your hand in.”
“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. The gloves 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.”