“I booked a reservation at the restaurant in the Radisson Inn by the arena. I figured from there we could park once and then walk over to the fight after dinner.”
“Good planning. They have a lot of vegan options for you too. I’ve eaten there a couple of times for business meetings.”
“Yeah?” he questioned as he held the door of his SUV open for me to get into the passenger side.
“Yup.”
He closed the door and then passed around the back of the car to get into the driver’s seat.
“What business meeting did you have over that way?”
“With the NFA, actually.”
He peered over at me, after pulling out of the parking space in front of my building. “What business was that?”
“For ParaSquad. Last year, Tanisha and I spent a good amount of time negotiating with the executives of the NFA to work out a contract.”
“What type of contract?” His eyes were on the road, but his question was filled with interest.
A smile of pride touched my lips. I sat up a little higher in my seat. “ParaSquad is now the exclusive on site first responders for the NFA’s local fights.”
Luke shifted his gaze to me briefly before looking back to the road ahead. “So, you’ll be working the fights?”
I shook my head. “Notmeper se. Obviously, if I’m training you and you’re fighting, I can’t work for ParaSquad at the same time. However, my company, yes. Our employees are trained to handle the relatively minor issues that may come up with spectators who get too rowdy and injure themselves.”
Luke nodded. “Do you like owning your own business?”
The question caught me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting it for some reason. It was almost as if Luke went out of his waynotto ask too many questions, so this sudden interest left me a little confused.
“Yeah, I love it actually.”
“What about it do you love?”
I shrugged. “Working for myself and making my own hours is great. Not always, of course. Being the boss often means working late hours or getting up early when I want to sleep in. There are also the times when I have to cover a shift when an employee unexpectedly has to take off. But I get to serve people, help them when they need and I’m not so much confined by policies and red tape like if I were working in hospital administration or healthcare policy making somewhere.”
Luke nodded. “It’s why I own my own gym. Even after fighting I’ll be damned if I work for someone else.”
“After fighting? Are you thinking about retirement?”
He glanced over at me before turning back to the road. “I’m not dumb enough to think my time isn’t limited. Every athlete has a window. Especially those of us who get the shit kicked out of us for a living.”
“So you’ve got your retirement plan all set up?”
“Not quite, but I’ll be sitting pretty enough that I can take my time figuring my shit out.”
“When do you think—”
“We’re here,” he stated abruptly, cutting my question off.
Looking around, I recognized immediately that we were in front of the Radisson, where the restaurant was located.
Luke placed the car in park, lowering the window to speak with the valet before turning to me. He shifted his head, looking through the passenger window and nodded. The door on my side opened as one of the Radisson employees opened it to assist me out.
“Hands off,” Luke said abruptly, taking my hand from the employee. How the heck he got from out of the car to my side so damn fast was a mystery.
“Thank you.”
He snorted and I stifled my laughter.
