Eight Gyms vs. The Useless Heiress The Masked 10-0 Underground Queen Just Came Downstairs novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: The Stair Chart
Cal moves in with a laminated stair chart while Dev explains why he entered, and then asks Cal to be his cutman against Hush.
Cal Marek laminated the stairs.
By seven the next morning there was a sheet taped to the inside of the kitchen door, headed STAIR CHART in black marker.
It had two rows for the two flights of our house and a box beside each row labeled Unaided.
"Your father pays me two hundred dollars for every flight you climb on your own," Cal said.
"That's a lot to put on my legs."
"It's a lot to put on mine. I need the bonus."
"Then you should know my policy. I get carried on stairs."
"You get carried on stairs."
"And I walk on flat ground. Stairs are the only place I need help."
Cal wrote it on the chart: Policy: stairs, carried. Then he turned around and said, "Humor me. One attempt."
I started up the first flight.
On the ninth step, I stopped and held my knee. "My knee has weather."
Cal took out his phone. "It's seventy-one and sunny."
"It's local weather."
He wrote down nine steps.
On the second flight, I stopped again, halfway up, and pressed my back to the wall. "This hallway is too narrow. I can feel it on my shoulders."
Cal went down, came back with a tape measure, and held it across the hall. "Thirty-six inches. It's the same width as every hallway in Philadelphia."
"Then I can feel all of them."
He wrote that down too.
On the landing, I sat. The framed photo of Dad in 1994, belt over his shoulder, hung at my eye level.
"He's looking at me," I said.
Cal lifted the frame off its nail and turned it to face the wall.
"Now he's looking at the wall," I said.
"Now you're looking at a nail. Stand up."
"I can't. I'm looking at a nail."
He studied me for a long moment.
Then he wrote 1.5 flights on the chart.
He picked me up and carried me the rest of the way.
I put an arm around his neck, because carried people do.
His neck was warm, and he smelled like soap and the cold air from outside.
"That's one hundred dollars of bonus I missed," he said at the top.
"You get paid either way."
"I'm not talking about the money."
He put me down on my bed. I wanted to ask what he was talking about, and I didn't.
At dinner, Dad sat at the head of the table and carved the roast with his gym hands.
Finn took the seat beside me. "Ten bucks says Birdie climbs a full flight by Friday."
"I'll take that," Dad said. "Twenty."
"She won't," Cal said, and everyone looked at him. "Twenty."
Dev came in late, still in his training gear, and set a mug in front of his place.
It was black, with a white fist on one side and a word on the other: HUSH.
"Do not touch it," Dev said to the table. "It's signed."
"By who?" Finn asked.
"By nobody. It's a mug. But I'm getting the signature."
Dev has a Hush poster on his bedroom ceiling.
He believes Hush is a man, and I have been told so at length.
Dev picked up his fork and put it down again.
He wasn't smiling now.
"Dad, I entered Eight Gyms Night. I'm fighting her first."
"Her?" Dad said. "Hush is a man."
"It's a figure of speech. Dad, listen."
He turned his left hand over on the tablecloth.
A long white scar ran across the knuckles.
"It wasn't a car door," he said.
Dad put down the carving knife.
"Eight months ago I took a hooded fight in the Cellar for the roof money."
Dev looked at his scar.
"One guy broke my hand on purpose. Stahl's best man. He picked the spot and waited for the right round."
Dad gave the Long Sigh. It started in his shoulders and came out slowly.
"I lost the title shot over that hand," Dev said. "Whoever beats Hush on Eight Gyms Night gets a fight with that guy. So I'm beating Hush."
I picked up my fork and found something to look at on my plate.
"Dad's too soft to stop a fight," Dev said. "Cal, you've cut guys who kept fighting with an eye gone. Be in my corner."
Cal didn't answer right away.
He looked at Dev, and then he looked across the table at me.
"Yes," he said, still looking at me.
"Great," Dev said. "And after I win, I'm taking her hood off in front of the whole Cellar."
I reached for the water bottle by my plate and found the cap already turned.
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