He just nodded a fraction of an inch.

He looked completely bored.

“Thirty to the man on the right,” Denny said.

I took a slow breath of the freezing air.

My hands ached from four years of gripping a metal scaler every Saturday in Hastings.

The joints in my fingers throbbed in the cold wind, remembering every double shift.

I remembered the harsh fluorescent lights of the dental clinic and the endless rows of open mouths.

I raised the card.