Chapter 9: Hold Still, Champion

Molly was awake when Troy came in, sitting up on the couch with every lamp on.

She jumped to her feet.

"You're bleeding."

"I'm not."

"Your eyebrow is bleeding."

He touched it.

His fingers came away red.

He had not even felt the cut.

"Sit," Molly said.

"I'm fine."

"Sit down, Troy, or I'll tell the whole building you bled on the carpet."

He sat.

She came back from the bathroom with a bowl of warm water, a cloth and a first aid kit he had not known he owned.

She knelt on the couch beside him and tipped his chin up with two fingers.

Her touch was careful and cool.

"Hold still, champion."

"Don't call me that."

"You won, didn't you?"

He put the envelope on the coffee table and said nothing.

Molly stared at the fat stack of bills through the paper opening.

"That's a lot of money."

"Fifteen thousand. It's half."

"Half of what?"

He told her.

He told her all of it, the fight, the new number, the man with the scar, the champion on Saturday.

When he reached the part about working the floor if he lost, her hand stopped on his face.

"You bet yourself."

"Nobody takes you while I'm standing here."

"You didn't ask me."

"If I had asked, you would have said no."

"Obviously I would have said no!" Molly's voice cracked. "It's my father's debt, Troy. I'm the one who owes it."

"You don't owe them anything. Neither does anyone else in that apartment."

She stared at him.

Then she picked up the cloth again, and wiped the blood off his cheekbone with small angry strokes.

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