Eva leaned forward. “Is that… a dock?”
I nodded. “For yachts.”
She eyed me closely. “Do you have a yacht, Mr. Lincoln?”
I snickered. “I’ve got better things to spend my time on than a yacht I’d only use every once in a while. No, no. These yachts belong to a good friend of mine, Trey. He actually flips them, you know. Like some people flip houses?”
“He flips them and then rents them out? That’s actually pretty genius, especially since we’re so close to the water.”
I nodded. “And he had a last-minute cancellation on one of his boats.”
She gawked. “Wait, we’re actually going out on one of those?”
I grinned. “For the entire weekend.”
My daughter cheered from the backseat. “Yay! Yay! Yay! I’m gonna go swimming all day, Daddy. It’s gonna be awesome.”
I craned my neck around as I eased into a parking space. “You’re darn right; it’s going to be awesome. And there will be plenty of food and freshly squeezed apple juice just for you.”
She kicked her legs around in excitement. “Yay! I love you so much, Daddy!”
I chuckled. “I love you, too, princess.”
“What about drinks for the adults?” Eva asked.
My eyes found hers. “Trust me; there will be plenty of drinks and fun to be had by all people of all ages.”
Trey knocked his knuckles against my window. “You gonna get out and give me a hug, man? Or, do I have to rip this door off its hinges?”
I opened my car door with a smile on my face. “Get over here, asshole.”
My daughter gasped in the backseat. “That’s a dirty word, Daddy!”
I clapped Trey’s back as Eva wrangled my daughter out of the backseat. I held my arm out as they walked over, and I quickly introduced Eva to Trey, another good friend of mine. They shook hands before Trey tossed me a look that said, “we’ll definitely be talking about this,” but I shrugged it off to be dealt with later because we had weekend plans to keep.
“So, which one is ours for the weekend?” Eva asked.
Trey grinned. “I’m glad you asked. Right behind me with the beautiful red and blue decorative accents is—”
“A nightmare, that’s what it is.”
I furrowed my brow. “Huh?”
I watched as a shorter, stockier woman scurried up to us in a pencil skirt with her blouse tucked in. She had a couple of pencils stashed in her hair that had been twisted and pinned against her head. Her heels looked damn near deadly, and the way her face was flushed told me they’d been out here for much longer than necessary.
And when Trey cleared his throat, the short woman started talking again. “They haven’t gotten anything right. We’re having to change out all of the food and drinks. They fulfilled the prior order. We need at least another hour.”
Trey shook his head. “We don’t have another hour, Leslie. Our customers are here.”
She looked at me briefly from beyond the thick, green rims of her glasses. “Right. Anyway. My point is, unless they want to eat like a vegetarian party of seven, they’re going to have to wait.”
Asia slid her hand into mine. “What about my juice?”
The woman peeked down at my daughter. “They actually got the apple juice right, so don’t you worry about that.”
“Phew,” my daughter said, “that was a close one.”
Eva giggled as she rubbed my back. “I don’t think waiting another hour is a bad thing, do you?”
