Eight Gyms vs. The Useless Heiress The Masked 10-0 Underground Queen Just Came Downstairs novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Number Eight

I lay very still on the rug and tried to be asleep.

"I'm sleepwalking," I said into his chest.

"You're talking."

"I talk."

"Birdie." His hand didn't stop moving in my hair. "You can't be asleep. You had a whole speech ready for me on the stairs."

I sat up and pulled the blanket around me.

"I don't know what a Hush is," I said.

"It's a woman who throws a left hook from the hip with the shoulder dropped. She comes down iron stairs on the balls of her feet."

"Lots of people do."

"You did it on our kitchen stairs, the first Tuesday, while I was in the shower. You thought I couldn't hear."

I opened my mouth, and nothing came out of it.

"I was number eight," Cal said. "Hooded. The big light heavyweight, with the bad eye. You put me on the canvas in the second round."

I remembered fight eight. I remembered the left hand I'd thrown, and that it had landed exactly right.

I did not remember a face, because there had been a hood on it.

"You took the job," I said slowly, "to find me."

"No. I took the job because your father offered it, and I had no license and a rent bill." He rubbed his jaw, where the bruise had been. "I found you by accident on the Tuesday. I kept the job after that."

"For a month."

"For a month."

"You loosened every cap."

"A quarter turn, every time."

"You carried me up the stairs."

"Both flights, every day." He nodded. "I wouldn't have missed it."

I put my face in my hands.

The bottle at the press table. The pub. The porch roof. Every night I'd climbed out past his cot with my shoes in my hand, thinking I was the cleverest woman in Philadelphia.

← Chapter 12 · All chapters · Chapter 14 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend