Over the past five years, he’d had a few short-lived relationships, but nothing that had lasted longer than a couple of months. He hadn’t dated anyone in the past two years. He’d been solely focused on getting ready for this fight.
Maxi’s phone rang and she pulled it out of her pocket and answered it as Billy did his best to distract her from the call. Her husband buried his head into her neck so she lifted her shoulder and silently giggled as she half-heartedly shooed him away.
While she was distracted, Gabe slid out the side door of the conference room. As he headed toward the elevator banks through the casino, he put in earbuds and kept his head hung low as he walked with purpose. Low key, blending in with the crowd, that’s what he was going for.
In his day-to-day life, he didn’t attract much attention to himself, but with larger-than-life posters advertising the upcoming bout hanging off every available surface, staying under the radar was easier said than done.
He heard the moment he’d been spotted. Even the music he was playing couldn’t drown out the squeal of twenty-something female fans.
“Gabe Maguire!”
“Oh my God!”
“And look it’s him! It’s the other one!”
Gabe looked over his shoulder expecting to see Nunez, the man he’d be facing in the cage, but instead, he saw Eli Bishop. Eli was the only other firefighter in the room when they’d saved the pregnant woman from her gun-wielding boyfriend.
He hadn’t expected to see Eli here in Vegas.
Gabe smiled, “Hey, man—”
“Do you know where Kenzie is?” Eli cut him off.
“Last I heard she was going up to her room. We’re not filming until tomorrow morning.”
“Can we get a picture?” One of the girls asked.
“With both of you?” Another girl clarified.
“Please?” The last one folded her hands in a prayer position.
Gabe’s eyes cut to Eli. He seemed like a man on a mission. Kenzie was part of the documentary team that had been following Gabe around for the last year. Gabe wasn’t sure exactly what was going on between her and Eli, but Gabe sensed it was about to come to a head.
Eli begrudgingly nodded.
What started out as a small trio of college girls wanting selfies quickly multiplied to a crowd of about twenty guys that were obviously in town for the fight. Some even donning T-shirts with his face on them.
“All right, I’ve got to get going. Thanks guys!” Gabe announced.
After pointing Eli in the direction of the South Tower, he took the North Tower elevator up to his own room. As he stepped out into the long hallway on his floor, his heart started picking up speed at the thought of who was waiting for him.
He pushed the card into the reader, and when the light went green, he pushed it open. He was already smiling from ear to ear, but when he saw a flash of blonde hair hurling toward him his smile widened even more.
“Unco Gabe!”
“There’s my favorite one year old!” He held out his hands.
“I’m two!” She held up two chubby fingers.
He caught his niece midair and spun her around. “Hello, my favorite two-year-old named Anna!”
She leaned back and framed his face with her small hands. Staring straight into his eyes she spoke slowly. “My name is Aubrey, Unco Gabe!”
“That’s what I said.” He kept his expression serious. “Ally.”
Her face scrunched in the mad expression it did every time he called her the wrong name, but it dissolved into a fit of giggles as he flexed his fingers and tickled her ribs. When he set her down, she clung to his leg, and he walked across the room with her hanging off of his right leg like a monkey.
His brother stood from his lounging position on the couch and pulled Gabe into his arms. “Someone’s a little excited to see you.”
“Aww, I’m excited to see you, too, bro.” Gabe teased.
Glenn leaned back and shook his head and smiled.
What Gabe had said in the interview was the truth. He was so proud of his older brother. When he’d unexpectedly become a single dad after the baby mama bailed on them, Glenn had stepped up. He was an incredible father.
“Unco Gabe!” His niece released her monkey grip on his leg so she could clap her hands. “I went on a pwane.”
“You did?”
She nodded and lifted her arms above her head so he would pick her up. He swooped her up and flew her around his hotel room like she was a plane.
A voice in the back of his head reminded him that this was the closest thing he’d ever have to a family of his own. He knew that if that were the case, it was okay.
He would be the best damn Unco Gabe he could.
Chapter 2
‡
“No!” Lexi flailed her arms and ducked away from the plastic cup hovering over her head as she tried to escape the dreaded rinse off.
Adriana Hale was mid-yawn when water splashed into the air. She flinched and turned. Sadly, her reflexes weren’t fast enough and heavy drops hit her like a bullseye on the face. Lifting her heavy, tired arms, she wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist and ducked her head. It was then that she noticed the dark orange stain from tonight’s spaghetti dinner splattered across her right boob.
“No,” she whispered in defeat.
Unlike her daughter’s powerful protest, her objection was barely audible as her heart sank. She fought back the tears that were threatening to make an unwanted appearance.
It’s just a shirt, she told herself. In the grand scheme of things, it means nothing. It’s cotton material held together by thread.
But that cotton had been there for her since her freshman year of college. It had survived six moves, two heartbreaks, pregnancy, and the death of her cousin and best friend. To Adriana, the shirt was her adult version of a security blanket, and she had no one to blame for its demise but herself.
Before dinner, she’d had every intention to change out of her oldest, most comfortable, cherished University of Michigan T-shirt. But somewhere between getting a splinter out of Lexi’s finger, removing gum from her sister Laney’s baby soft hair, and breaking up a fight over whose turn it was to play with Mr. Bear, she’d completely forgotten her save-the-shirt mission.
She mentally made a note to treat it with OxiClean before she went to bed.
Refocusing on the task at hand, Adriana drew upon the ninja-like speed that she’d been forced to acquire since the twins were born. In one fluid movement, she dipped the plastic cup that she kept beside the bath beneath the surface of the water and filled it. Then, using her other hand to shield first Lexi’s and then Laney’s foreheads so that the water wouldn’t drip down onto their cherubic faces, she dumped the contents over the crown of each head. She was saved from the two blood-curdling screams that would’ve pierced the air had even a single drop slipped past the barrier and landed in one of their eyes.
Setting the cup back into the cubby that was its home, because the key to order was that everything had a home, she grabbed the two identical towels beside her.
Using a parenting strategy that she’d learned from listening to a Kristen Bell interview she asked her girls, “Do you want to get out of the bath in one minute or two minutes?”
“One.” Lexi’s chubby forefinger stretched out in Adriana’s face.
“Two.” Laney, AKA Miss Independent, of course, took the other.
Adriana smiled as relief sank into her bones. It still surprised her every time the tactic worked. Give them a choice, do not demand.
Instead of saying, “You need to finish your dinner,” ask, “Do you want to take eight more bites or twelve?”
Instead of picking out their outfits, grab three and ask which one they want to wear. Instead of asking what book they want to read before bed, narrow it down to two to choose from.
There had been significantly fewer tantrums and breakdowns since she’d implemented this technique. The approach had proven itself to be less overwhelming for both her
and the girls. And since she was now a single mom of three children, anything that made her life more manageable was priceless.
“Rina, it’s time!”
Adriana looked over her shoulder and saw Jonah standing in the doorway breathless. When he was learning to talk he couldn’t say her name, so he’d always called her Rina. It stuck. His milk chocolate eyes were gleaming with more excitement than she’d seen in them in the past year.
When Adriana’s cousin and best friend, Emily, had made a will after her son was born and asked her to be Jonah’s legal guardian should anything happen to her she’d agreed, never thinking for one second that time would come. Em passed six months ago from an inoperable brain tumor that she’d been diagnosed with only three months before.
Jonah’s dad had never been in the picture and the twins’ father was a musician who decided he wasn’t ready to settle down a month before Adriana gave birth. So now, she was a twenty-six-year-old single mom of three-year-old twin girls and a nine-year-old boy. And every day she questioned whether or not she was enough.
“Are you coming?” he asked eagerly.
“Yeah, bud. I’m just finishing up with the girls.”
A worried expression crept up on his face, squelching the enthusiasm that had been there a moment earlier as his shoulders deflated. “Okay.”
“I already ordered it so you can start without me.” She might’ve forgotten to change her shirt before she made dinner, but she hadn’t forgotten to order the Pay-Per-View fight that Jonah had been talking about nonstop for the past three weeks.
His wide, toothy grin lit up the small bathroom before he tore off toward the front room and called over his shoulder, “Thanks, Rina!”
That kid had a light in him, a magic that she knew she had to do whatever it took to protect. He’d already learned at much too young of an age that this world was cruel and life wasn’t fair. Adriana couldn’t do anything about the tragedy that he’d endured, but she could do everything in her power to protect him from anything else hurting him. And she would. And if he wanted to watch two men kicking and punching each other, she’d drop $100 to let him do it.
MMA wasn’t her cup of tea, but Jonah had been obsessed with it ever since he’d started karate lessons two years ago. At the time, Adriana had been concerned that it was too violent for a kid, but Em believed it was a healthy outlet for him and would teach him discipline and focus. As always, her cousin’s instincts were right. Jonah had always been distracted in school, but since starting his martial arts classes, his grades had improved, and it had given him a sense of purpose and community.
And even more importantly, it had been one of the main things that had gotten him through the past few months.
Taking a deep breath, she turned back toward the girls and held up the first pink towel. “Alright, I need my one-minute piggy to put in the blanket.”
Lexi giggled as she stood and Adriana lifted her out of the bath, wrapping her up tight in the soft terrycloth. After being dried off, piglet number one followed the nightly routine: pajamas, the brushing of teeth and hair, and getting into bed to wait for the story. Laney followed along a minute behind her sister.
Routines were lifesavers in Adriana’s life. Without them, her world would crumble into chaos.
By the time she’d wiped out the tub, put the bath toys back in their mesh holder, and dried off the counter, both girls were waiting in their respective beds with their chosen bedtime books in hand.
After fifteen minutes of story time, Adriana kissed both of her sleeping beauties good night, flipped on the nightlight that lit up the ceiling like a starry night, and slipped out of the room.
This was her favorite time, when they were tucked in their beds, safe and sound, and quiet. She exhaled a sigh of relief as the door clicked shut and she rested her forehead against the wall beside it. One more day was in the books.
When the twins were born, there were some days that Adriana hadn’t been sure she was going to make it through. Life as a single mom of twins had been so overwhelming. Just going to the grocery store had seemed like an insurmountable task. But with each passing day that she’d kept everyone alive, her confidence had grown.
As they got older, some things got easier, but then others were more difficult. Every single day brought new challenges. This past year even more so.
She still hadn’t come to terms with the fact that her cousin was gone. She hadn’t processed that she couldn’t pick up the phone and call her. She hadn’t accepted that she wasn’t going to be walking through the front door carrying a bottle of wine and a bag of Doritos, their girls’ night snack of choice.
Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them back. She had to be strong. For herself, for the girls, but most of all, for Jonah.
That little boy deserved the world after what he’d been through. She’d promised Emily that she would take care of him and that was exactly what she planned to do. She’d also promised to try to find his father, but that search was coming up with diddly-squat. It didn’t help that Em couldn’t remember the guy’s last name. All she knew was that his first name was Jake. She did have a photo strip that they’d taken in a booth together, but the small snapshots weren’t a heck of a lot to go on.
Jonah had been conceived during a one-night stand in Vegas. It was a trip that Emily had taken for her twenty-first birthday and she’d hooked up with a guy she’d met at a club. Adriana sat the trip out since she was only sixteen at the time. Six weeks later, Em found out she was pregnant.
Adriana had moved in with her and helped when Jonah was a baby. She’d lived with them for the first two years of his life. And Em had stepped up by spending all of her free time helping her with the twins. They were each other’s person, and now she was gone.
“Rina! Are you coming?” Jonah called out.
She didn’t answer for fear she’d wake the girls. She lifted her head and wiped the tears that had formed in her eyes as she let out a forced breath.
On her way to the family room, she shook out her arms and pushed out her bottom lip, blowing air up her face in an effort to dry any moisture that remained. If Jonah had even an inkling that she was upset he always felt responsible for cheering her up. He had the sweetest heart, and he already had to grow up way too fast.
“Do you want popcorn?” she asked as she walked into the room.
He nodded but didn’t take his eyes off the screen.
Yes!
She’d been trying not to snack at night, a bad habit she’d picked up when she was pregnant.
On her way to the kitchen she did a little happy dance, and when she did, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the hallway mirror.
“Oh boy,” Adriana said beneath her breath.
Her dark brown hair was haphazardly piled on top of her head and looked like a rat’s nest. There were large, dark circles beneath her bloodshot eyes. And…she squinted as she leaned in…Yep, there was red sauce splattered on the side of her cheek and her nose.
If you Googled “hot mess,” she was sure this image would be the first result, or if not, it should be.
Not wanting to be faced with the reality that was her appearance, she turned, opened the pantry door and tore open the popcorn pouch before unfolding the bag and placing it in the microwave.
As she waited the two minutes and twenty seconds, she tried to remember the last time she’d taken a shower. Her first instinct was the day before, but she ruled that out when she realized that she was still wearing the same sweats that she’d been wearing when she’d taken the kids to the park. The day before that was a possibility, but it might’ve been even longer than that.
She was blessed to work from home. She loved owning her own business, Love by Design, which had become quite profitable after two celebrity stylists had started using her pieces on their clients. Thankfully, they’d discovered her when she was pregnant with the twins and she’d been able to turn her part-time passion into a full-time career. Her schedule was flexible, a
nd she didn’t have to be away from her kids. The only downside was that things such as showering, getting dressed, putting on makeup or feeling like a human being sort of fell by the wayside.
The nature of jewelry design only required her to go to trade shows and conventions about four times per year. And all of her supplies could be ordered online and shipped to her front door. So could her groceries and dinners, for that matter. If Postmates or Instacart had been around when the girls were newborns, her life would’ve been so much easier. But then, she wouldn’t have known what she was capable of.
That was a philosophy she’d adopted over the past few years, and she’d held onto it like a port in the storm that had been her life over the last six months. Every challenge that she faced and met served to build up her confidence and resolution that everything would be okay. It had to be.
The pop, pop, popping of the kernels started, and she grabbed a large bowl and a couple of fruit juices from the fridge and made a mental note that no matter how tired she was after this fight, she was going to take a shower before she went to bed.
After the timer beeped, she pulled out the bag and shook it before tugging on the corners and pouring the contents into the bowl. She leaned over and inhaled the heavenly aroma. Sweets were never her weakness. Salty, carb-filled goodness was. But she was trying to eat better. Healthier. She had to do everything in her power to be around for the three little lives that needed her.
On her way out to the front room, a pain pierced the bottom of her foot, and she cursed beneath her breath as she hopped on one foot and juggled the bowl and fruit pouches.
Hearing the commotion, Jonah turned to look over the back of the couch. “Are you okay?”
“Lego,” Adriana hissed her one-word response.
“Oh,” Jonah nodded in understanding.
Adriana’s hate-hate relationship with the tiny, plastic toys was common knowledge.
She took a seat at the corner of the couch and set the bowl between them.
“That’s him, Rina!” Jonah pointed to the TV. “Gabe Maguire!”
For the past week, Jonah had been talking about an MMA fighter who was a hero firefighter. The whole thing sounded like a publicity stunt to Adriana, but then, she’d grown cynical over the past year.
Fire and Foreplay Page 2