Chapter 10: Pub Night

He sat on the edge of my bed for a long time, and nothing happened.

I lay with my eyes open and my hands folded on my stomach.

"Go to sleep, Birdie," he said at last.

"You're sitting on my blanket."

He moved six inches, and I felt the mattress change.

He stayed there until my breathing sounded like sleep, which it was not.

When the door closed behind him, I lay in the dark and listened to the cot creak down across my threshold.

I replayed the stairs three times.

The send-off was the following Friday, in the back room of the pub two doors from the flagship.

Forty fighters came, and every one of them had a bet running.

Dev stood on a chair with a pint. "To Eight Gyms Night! To Hush, wherever he's hiding!"

"Wherever he's hiding!" the room roared.

I raised my beer and held it up for a moment, because it would have been rude not to.

Dad sat at a table by the door with two old trainers, and Finn sat at the table beside it with his phone.

I was at the end of the long table by the wall, with a bottle of beer I could not open, and Cal next to me.

"A quarter turn," Cal said, and set the bottle in my hand with the cap already moving.

"Thank you."

"That's the job."

Across the room, Finn caught my eye and held up two fingers. Then he turned his phone toward me.