Rules

You don't answer him right away. You let the whole gym wait.

Then you lift your kit bag an inch. "I came to check your pupils, Mr. Hendry. Try not to make it personal."

"You took my belt." He drops down from the cage in one easy movement, landing light as a cat. "It's personal."

The man in the cardigan steps between you before Reeve can get close. Up close he's older than he looked on fight night, sixty-something, a face like a walnut, a gravel voice.

"Primo Castagna," he says, not offering a hand. "This is my gym. You're here because the commission says so, and I respect the commission. I don't have to respect you."

"That's fair," you say. "I only need you to respect his brain."

Primo's eyes narrow. Behind him, Reeve laughs, one short surprised sound, like it got out without permission.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen." A third man glides across the mats in a navy suit with no tie, two phones in one hand, a gold watch with a green face catching the light. He's handsome in a polished, expensive way, dark curls, white teeth, a smile you can tell he practices. "Elio Dutra. I manage this disaster." He shakes your hand warmly, like you're old friends. "Dr. Ridgeway. Can I call you Ava? We're thrilled to cooperate. Whatever you need. Records, schedules, blood, my firstborn."

"His medical records," you say. "All of them, since the title fight."

"Done. I'll send the Titan file tonight." He winks at Reeve. "See? Painless."

Reeve doesn't look like he agrees with anything about this.

Primo's office is the size of a closet and covered in posters from fights that happened before you were born. Reeve sits on the edge of a battered desk with his shirt still off because, he says, "you're going to want to listen to my heart anyway, Doc, might as well make it easy."

You don't react. You've seen a thousand chests. You have never seen one quite this aggressively well-made, but that's not a medical observation, so it doesn't go in the notes.

You start with the basics. Blood pressure, good. Heart rate, low and steady, an athlete's. Lungs clear. Reflexes sharp.

He watches you the whole time. Not the way patients usually watch a doctor, nervous and trusting. He watches you like he's studying film on an opponent.

"You always this quiet?" he asks.

"Only when I'm working."

"You weren't quiet in the cage. You were real loud about my eye."

"Your eye was real loud about itself." You touch the scar on his eyebrow with a gloved fingertip, checking the healing. Clean. Neat. Whoever stitched it did beautiful work. "How's your vision on the left?"

"Perfect."

"Any blurring? Double vision?"

"Nope."

"Headaches?"

The pause is so short you'd miss it if you weren't trained to look for it.

"Nope," he says.

You take out your penlight.

He flinches. Not much. A tiny squint, eyes narrowing against the beam before you've even gotten it close. You glance up at the fluorescent tube buzzing over the desk. It's harsh, sure. But he's been squinting since you walked in. You noticed it in the cage.

"Light bother you?"

"Your face bothers me."

"Follow my finger."

He follows it. Left, right, up, down. Fast. Then you do it faster, and at the far left his eyes jump instead of glide. A tiny catch. A skip in a record.

You do it again. Same skip.

"Again?" he says. "Am I being punished?"

"You're being examined."

"Feels the same." But he follows it. And it skips.

You write it down. He leans to read your clipboard upside down, and you tilt it away.

"What'd you write?"

"That you're very good at reading upside down."

"What else."

You look at him. Really look. Close enough to see that the gray-green of his eyes has gold right around the pupil. Close enough to see the tiny muscle in his jaw jump.

"Mr. Hendry, I'm going to ask you once, and it stays in this room. Have you had headaches since the fight? Light sensitivity? Trouble sleeping, trouble concentrating, feeling foggy?"

For a second, he almost tells you. You see it, the way you see a patient almost say it's my chest, actually.

Then the grin slides back on like a mask.

"Only when I think about you," he says.

Primo, Elio and Reeve all stand in the office doorway while you lay out the rules. You keep your voice even. You've done this with angrier men.

"Until we finish baseline neuro testing and I review the full records: no head contact. No sparring. Pads, bags, cardio, grappling without strikes to the head."

Primo's eyebrows go up toward his hairline. "Ten weeks out from a title fight? You want him hitting pillows?"

"Two weeks, maybe less. If his tests come back clean, you'll get your sparring."

"And if they don't?"

"Then we talk about that when we get there."

Elio is already typing on one of his phones. "We'll make it work, Ava. Right, Reeve?"

Reeve says nothing. He's looking at you like he's trying to figure out what you know.

"Second rule. He reports symptoms to me daily. Every morning. Headache, sleep, mood, vision. Honestly."

"Every morning?" Reeve says. "You going to tuck me in too?"

"Third rule," you say, and hand him a card with your new number on it. "This is my personal cell. For emergencies only."

He turns the card over in his fingers. His knuckles are scarred. His hands are beautiful anyway.

"What counts as an emergency, Doc?"

"A real one."

"Define real."

"If you have to ask, it isn't." You pick up your bag. "Fourth rule. Caffeine cutoff at three p.m. Your sleep is part of your recovery."

The whole room looks at you like you've suggested he fight naked.

"No," Reeve says.

"Yes."

"That's not medical, that's psychological warfare."

"See you Thursday, Mr. Hendry."

You walk out through the silent gym, past the stopped heavy bags and the staring fighters, and you don't let yourself breathe out until you're in your car with the doors locked.

Your hands are shaking. Not from fear.

From the skip in his eyes. From the pause before nope.

That night you sleep in Nkem's guest room under a comforter that smells like her expensive candles, and you dream about a cage and a finger that his eyes can't follow.

At 2:07 a.m., your phone buzzes on the nightstand.

You grab it, heart slamming, already reaching for your shoes the way you do when the hospital calls.

It isn't the hospital.

It's an unknown number. One message. Then another, right under it.

doc. it's 2am and i'm in the cold plunge.

let's talk about your rules.