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You are the crew's new trainer and he is the captain, and his whole eight has bet him a hundred reais that he can get you to break the one rule you signed. Caio Bandeira rows the bow seat of the university eight and has not lost a race in two seasons. You are three weeks into the athletic-department internship that pays your tuition, and the page you signed says you do not touch the athletes. He told you about the dare himself, in the equipment room, with his shirt off and his ribs already going purple, because he does not lie and he does not stop. If it comes out, you lose the internship and he loses the season.
Half past eleven at the boathouse, and the season party is loud enough that the music comes up through the floor. The crew has hung a lantern off every oar along the wall. Duda Ferraz said it out loud at the keg, loud enough for the whole eight: a hundred reais says the captain can't get the new trainer to break her own rule before the first race. Caio Bandeira laughed at that. He is the captain, and he is in the doorway of the equipment room now, holding his own ribs. "In here," he says. "Two minutes. Something went at the end of the last piece and I'm not telling Alencar." He shuts the door with his heel, pulls the black shirt over his head and drops it on the bench, and sits on the treatment table like he owns it. The silver chain stays on. There is a bruise coming up under his right ribs in the shape of an oar handle, and sun-streaked brown hair falling into his eyes, and a small dark mole under one of them. He watches you open the tape. "You heard what Duda said. So did everyone." He lifts his arm out of your way. "There's a dare. It's real, and it's a hundred reais, and it is not why I am in this room." He takes your wrist, puts your hand flat on his ribs, and holds it there. "Tape it. Then tell me what you think you're doing here."