He laughed. "No. But you should see the look on your face. It makes me glad I didn't."
"Oh stop it," I said. "So whatdidhappen?"
"You're right about one thing. Itwasa fight, except I was supposed to lose."
"Why?"
"Remember that businessman I told you about?"
"The one who loaned money to your Grandma?"
"Yeah. Well, you know that old saying. He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse."
"To throw the fight?"
"Yup. And he'd forgive the loan. Refuse and, well, let's just say he'd be very unhappy."
"So you agreed?"
"Yeah. I was young and dumb. I knew I shouldn't. But I kept thinking of getting that loan off her back. It seemed a small price, wrong as it was."
"So what happened?" I said.
"One fucking punch."
"What do you mean?"
"So I'm supposed to make it look good, right? Hit him a few times. He hits me back. He was supposed to be some tough guy, won a lot of fights. So I hit the guy. Just once. And it's all over. He was on the ground. The crowd was going nuts. The guy never got up. And that businessman, the one who paid me to take a dive, he saw the whole thing."
"So then what?" I said.
"Well, as you can imagine, he wasn't too happy."
My voice was very quiet. "So he tried to kill you?"
Lawton laughed. "Nah. He liked me. Had 'em drop me at the hospital, right?"
"Drop you?" I said. "I was there, remember? They squealed up and kicked you out. You could've died."
"Nah, it'll take more than that to kill me."
I reached out to trace one of the old cigarette burns, faint, but unmistakable now that I knew what I was looking at. "They hurt you," he said.
"Baby," he said, "whatever they did, it didn't hurt half so bad as losing you."
I felt my eyes grow misty. "Really?"
"Yeah. Even then. First time we met. That's why I couldn't have you talking about it."
"Why not?"
"Because them hurting me, I can deal with. But them hurting you, I wasn't gonna let it happen. I still remember that night. You were so sweet." He laughed. "And funny."
"I wasnotfunny," I said.
"You were too," he said. "And so fucking beautiful. And your voice. Man, I loved the sound of it."
"You couldn't have loved it that much," I teased. "You left without saying goodbye."
