Fighting Silence (29 page)

“How much money did you make?” Quarry asked Till when we made it to the dingy locker room after the fight.

“He didn’t make anything,” Slate answered. “But I made six hundred bucks.” He waggled his eyebrows.

“You didn’t make
anything?
”

“Nope. I don’t get money until I make more than what Slate pays me every month.”

“Well, that blows!” Quarry exclaimed.

Slate began cutting the tape off Till’s hands. “All right, so I talked to a few of the promoters before the fight. I got you set up for three more four-round fights. Once every thirty days. Hundred and fifty bucks per round. You good with that?”

“Yeah. Definitely,” Till answered quickly.

“After that, we can move up to six-rounders and hopefully get you in the ring with some decent opponents with a larger purse.”

“What happened to that possible fight in New York you mentioned the other day?”

“Well, he was willing to take a chance on you as long as I did a fucking meet and greet before the fight. I hung up on him.” Slate paused uncomfortably. “Listen, I’m sorry about that bullshit on the way to the ring. This is part of the reason I always hesitated to come back as a trainer. Eventually, the novelty of me being back in the business will wear off and people won’t even notice I’m there anymore, but for the next few months, I worry that it might just be the way things go.”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind,” Till answered. “Really. It doesn’t bother me. You forget that I’m a Slate Andrews fan too. Well, I was . . . until you almost killed me by forcing me around the track in jeans.” He gave Slate a one-sided smile I recognized as genuine.

“So, when does Till get to the big money? I refuse to believe that Erica has a bodyguard and you made six hundred bucks a fight,” Quarry asked, hopping up onto the table next to Till.

Slate laughed, shaking his head. “I guess that all depends on who he fights. Who he beats. Who he
loses
to. I’m gonna do my job and get him the fights. The rest is up to Till.”

“So, he gets paid per round? What about if he knocks someone out?” Flint asked from the corner.

“Promoters want a good show so they can sell tickets. Knockouts are nice, but what keeps people happy is feeling like they got their money’s worth. So the opening fights get paid per round. After that, you get paid based on your contract that’s negotiated in advance. Win or lose. Decision or TKO, it doesn’t matter at that point. The established fighter makes majority of the money, and the opponent makes significantly less.”

“Wait . . . what?” Flint stepped closer. “Even if he wins, he still gets paid less money? Shouldn’t the loser make significantly less?”

“It doesn’t work like that. See, the goal is to become the champ. It’s not just the prestige. There are a lot of zeros on the back of that belt that keep people in that ring.”

Till tilted his head in confusion. “Why’d you retire when you had the title, then? You must have been making a ton of money as the six-time defending world champion. Why not stick with it until you lost?”

Slate shrugged. “I guess I was just done.”

Till barked a laugh, and Slate’s eyes turned serious.

“I remember when I won my first pro fight. It was pretty much exactly like things happened for you tonight. I was so pumped up as I walked out of that arena, but then, when I got home, I hit a low. I sat and stared at that envelope full of cash for hours. I was afraid to even touch it. I was convinced that it was all I’d get. For several months, I just let them stack up in a drawer. The promise of money is what drove me in the sport.

“The point is I’ve been where you are, so I know exactly how ridiculous this statement is going to sound. But I hope that, one day, you will understand that money is only as important as what it gives you. I’m not talking about sports cars or big houses. I’m talking about peace of mind. When I walked away from boxing, I turned down a rematch that would have earned me over sixty million.”

“Holy shit!” I heard myself cuss, and it was joined by similar sentiments from everyone in the room.

“For me, money lost its value the day I met Erica. It couldn’t buy me time with her. I had more than enough to live comfortably, and that was all I ever really wanted. So I quit. The incentive was no longer worth the sacrifice.”

We were all silent for several seconds before the room erupted in chaos.

“You turned down sixty million dollars for a girl!”

“You have got to be kidding!”

“No way! What is wrong with you?”

“Sixty million
dollars
or pesos
?”

Slate just laughed.

“You should never tell that story again,” Till informed him, making Slate laugh even louder.

“Worst story ever!” Flint declared. “You know what lesson I learned from that story? Till needs to break up with Eliza—stat.”

“Hey!” I objected.

“Yeah. I agree.” Quarry jumped off the table and faced Till. “If you had sixty million, you could hire her to sleep with you.”

Till slapped a hand over his mouth, but his laugh was no less muffled.

My mouth gaped open before I shouted, “I am
not
a hooker!”

“Of course not!” Flint rubbed my shoulder soothingly before he added, “We’d still expect you to cook for us. Hookers don’t cook.” He winked.

“How the hell do you know what hookers do?” I bit back.

The whole room was rolling with laughter at this point, and I couldn’t help but join them.

Till made his way over and wrapped me in his arms. “Okay. Okay. Nobody’s getting rid of Eliza. I can make sixty million
and
keep her.” He continued to laugh even as he kissed the top of my head.

“Gee. Thanks.”

And that was the way we worked. We picked on each other relentlessly and laughed unabashedly. They fought. I refereed. It was perfect, really.

We were a family.

One year later . . .

“THE SILENCER IS IN THE house!” I heard called as I walked into the gym.

Quarry laughed as he took off toward the before-school program he had long since grown to love.

I had quickly become a small-time big deal around the gym.

With over seven fights under my belt, I was making my way up the ladder. The fights were getting larger, and I was loving it. By the end of the first year, I had banked over fifteen grand on top of what Slate paid me weekly. I’d dropped it all in a savings account and refused to touch it. I had never felt more stable and secure in my life. Just knowing it was there calmed the anxiety I hadn’t even known I was harboring.

Eliza was finishing up her last semester in college and had started looking for accounting positions. She said that she was excited about getting a
real
job, but I knew she was dreading spending her days poring over numbers instead of sketchpads. After a civil case with Derrick Bailey paid off her student loans, I refused to allow her to take out anymore. I was in it forever with Eliza, and the last thing I wanted was to start it out with a load of debt.

God, we fought about money, but not like most couples. It was never because we didn’t have enough or one was spending too much. It was always about who got to pay the bills. I was making decent money and hell-bent on taking care of her the way I had always dreamed about. And well, Eliza didn’t like feeling like a freeloader being taken care of. I loved those fights. Her nipples would get all hard as I yelled about how much I loved providing for her. Then she would stomp her foot and declare that she wanted to split the bills. Which caused my cock to get hard . . . which caused her eyes to heat as they drifted down to my pants . . . which caused me get so hot that I was
forced
to remove my shirt . . . which caused her to lick her lips . . . which caused me to rush forward and fuck her on the closest horizontal surface I could find. Really, it was a vicious cycle.

“Page, get in here!” Slate yelled from his office.

“What’s up?” I asked, settling into the chair across from his desk.

“You and Quarry go to the doctor yesterday?”

“Yeah. I’m good. He’s not sure why it comes and goes sometimes. I tested at around seventy percent still.”

“And what about Quarry?”

“He’s still sitting at eighty percent. No real change.”

“That’s good fucking news.” He stood up, walked to the door, and pushed it shut before drawing the shades that covered his large, glass windows into the gym.

My curiosity grew, because up until that moment, I hadn’t known that those shades were even functional.

“All right. Now, there’s something else I need to talk to you about.” He sat on the corner of the desk. “Clay Page has been calling the gym looking for you. Pretty much every day, we get a collect call from the prison.”

“Fuck him,” flew from my mouth.

“Right. Well, I’ve been keeping Quarry off phone duty. I don’t want to put him in a position of having to hang up on his own dad if he happened to call.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Well, just so you know, I’ll be contacting the prison to put a halt to that shit. I run a business. I don’t need inmates blowing up my phones.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more.” I pushed to my feet, ready to work off some steam.

“Where you going? Sit back down, I’m not done yet.”

“Please tell me there’s not more,” I huffed, flopping back down onto the chair.

“Change of plans on your fight this weekend. Summers got hurt and they can’t find anyone to replace him on such short notice. Your fight got dropped from the card.”

“Son of a bitch!” I boomed, jumping to my feet. “That was a big fight.” I started to pace. “Are we rescheduling?”

“Nope.” He smiled in amusement.

“Why the hell not?”

“You’re too busy.” His smile grew.

“Um, no. No. I’m not. That was twenty-five grand. I’m pretty sure my schedule is wide-ass open.”

“I got you a new fight for Saturday night,” he announced, and I suddenly understood the smile.

“With who?”

“Oh, you know . . . some guy you’ve probably never heard of named Larry Lacy.”

“Shut the fuck up!” I breathed, taking a giant step toward him. “Former heavyweight champ Larry Lacy?”

“Oh, so you have heard of him.” He joked as I started to bounce on my toes. “Well, don’t get too excited. It’s not a pay-per-view or anything. This tiny, unknown network is actually televising it. Shit. I can’t even remember the name.” He rubbed his chin.

I knew he was fucking with me . . . hard. He was almost as excited as I was.

“I think it was called . . . ESPN.”

I froze. “No. Fucking. Way.”

“Eight rounds. Fifty K. Philadelphia. Saturday night.”

“I swear to God you better not be fucking with me right now.”

He started laughing as he handed me a manila folder. “Lacy’s just out of a yearlong stint in rehab and trying to make a comeback. He was supposed to be going against Pryor, but he pulled out yesterday for reasons that were not disclosed to me. And quite honestly, I didn’t care enough to ask.”

I flipped through the pages of the contract, and sure as shit, everything was there in black ink. My eyes homed in on the four zeros on the second page.

Fifty thousand dollars.

“Holy shit. This is incredible.” My heart was banging around in my chest.

“This is a big break for your career. The sheer amount of promoters who will be watching this fight is going to be ridiculous. Everyone is dying to see what Lacy can do now that he’s sober, but I want them to leave that arena talking about Till Page.”

“Hell yeah,” I whispered.

“Now sign that shit and get in the ring. We need to develop a new strategy for Lacy.”

As I pushed to my feet, I swear my whole body was numb.

“Thanks, Slate,” I called out as I left his office. As I headed down the hallway, I bypassed the main locker room and made my way to one of the dressing rooms in the back. I needed to make a phone call.

“Holy shit. I literally just thought about making twice-baked potatoes for dinner and you called me. That is some kind of serious obsession, Till.” Eliza laughed.

“I’m going to be on ESPN,” I rushed out, and her laughter stopped.

“What?”

My hands were shaking as the shock and exhilaration threatened to overtake me. “Slate got me a fight on ESPN. Fifty thousand dollars.” I broke out in manic laughter. “Oh my God, Doodle. This is so fucking huge.”