“Ah, okay. Well text when you get there.”
“I will.” Each night on the road trip Glenn Facetimed Zoe so Bree could talk to her mom and say goodnight.
“Okay, Pumpkin. I’ll see you tonight before bedtime.”
“Okay, Mommy. But when am I gonna see you not on the phone?”
“I’m going to pick you up next Saturday,” Zoe explained.
“Okay.”
Glenn could hear the disappointment in his daughter’s voice. He knew that she missed her mom, which was one of the main reasons he’d decided to spend the summer in Hope Falls, so that she could see her more than if they’d stayed in Chicago.
“Talk soon,” Glenn moved his thumb over the button on the steering wheel to disconnect the call.
Before he pushed it, Zoe said, “Thanks again for this, G. I’m nominating you for Best Baby Daddy of the Year. You are up against a few heavy hitters including Bradley Cooper, who, full disclosure, I might have to vote for.”
Glenn grinned. “You’re nominating me and then voting for someone else?”
“I mean...it’s Bradley Cooper.”
“Fair enough,” Glenn responded.
“Love you, Pumpkin Pie!” Zoe called to their daughter.
“Love you, Mommy!” Bree exclaimed from the back seat before he hung up.
When Zoe told him she was going to be in Lake Tahoe for the summer on a job, his first thought was, how was Bree going to handle not seeing her mom? Or if she went with Zo, how would she handle not seeing him?
He’d heard of people co-parenting from different states, but he didn’t know how they did that. He couldn’t imagine not seeing his baby girl for months at a time. Since his job in construction was flexible, and his brother had relocated to the small mountain town about an hour outside of Tahoe where most of his extended family lived, he considered relocating for the summer.
His hesitation was that it would be a short-term solution for a much bigger issue. Zoe had graduated with her MBA from Northwestern a few months ago and had landed her dream job with a restaurant conglomerate. The job meant she’d be travelling up to nine months out of the year. She went wherever they were opening new restaurants. He might be able to relocate to be near this project, but the next opening could be in Spain, or London, or New York.
Which meant Bree was going to see a lot less of her. Glenn worried about that. He worried about her not having her mom around as much.
He still hadn’t made up his mind about whether or not to spend the summer in California when he got an email from Lucky Dorsey with a job opportunity that decided his fate.
Not that Glenn believed in fate. He didn’t. He believed in hard work and making smart decisions. But even his logical brain had to admit he felt like there was some force greater than himself at work pulling him to Hope Falls.
Call it fate. Destiny. Serendipity. God. The universe. He wasn’t quite sure. But something was conspiring for him to spend his summer there. Why else would he have been thinking about going there and then get a random email for a job opportunity for exactly that timeframe?
Lucky Dorsey was a retired MMA fighter who opened a gym in Hope Falls that was making quite a reputation for itself. Lucky’s newest fighter was an up-and-comer in the MMA world, Arturo Cruz. The kid was born and raised in Manchester, England and was about to make his U.S. debut in a few short months.
When he first saw the email, Glenn was sure it was actually meant for his younger brother Gabe and Lucky had accidentally sent it to him by mistake. Glenn was a boxer in his past life, or at least what felt like his past life. Gabe was a title holding MMA fighter who trained at Lucky’s Gym that was conveniently next door to the fire station where he worked as a firefighter. But as Glenn read the details of the offer, he realized he hadn’t received it by mistake.
The reason Lucky had reached out to Glenn was because Cruz’s opponent, Jasper Cain, was a trained boxer who worked with Mayweather’s team. Cruz’s mat work was unbeatable, but to face someone with Cain’s ability and coaching, he had to up his boxing skills.
During his heyday, Glenn had been a heavyweight champion. But it had been over a decade since he’d been in the ring. He’d stepped away for personal reasons. He knew he’d made the right decision, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t missed the sport every minute of every day.
Now, he was going to be back in the gym. Coaching, not training. He wasn’t exactly sure how he was going to feel about that. Or about being so far away from home. He was born in Chicago and had lived there all his life.
Spending three months in a town the size of a postage stamp was either going to be a nice break, or torture. He wasn’t sure which one.
“Are we there yet?” Bree asked again.
“Almost,” Glenn responded making sure not to let the irritation that question triggered in him bleed through in his voice.
It wasn’t Bree’s fault. She was bored out of her mind. It was his fault for taking a six-year-old on a cross country road trip.