Page 30 of Mister Daddy
I laugh. “We’ll try.”
After we hang up, I walk back into the room. “Alright, today is about us. What should we do?”
The girls finally smile. “I’ve been thinking we need to check out the pool. We haven’t done that yet.”
Thank goodness. Water is something I can deal with. “I love that idea. Just let me get changed.”
Under the girls’ tank-tops, the straps of their tiny bikinis peek out. I slip into the bathroom to pull on my one piece. It’s got a cutout just under the chest, which is more skin than I usually show in a bathing suit. I fell in love with the light yellow suit when I saw it, and I knew I had to have it. Thankfully, it looks good on my large body.
Once we’re ready, we head for the elevator. Surprisingly, the large deck pool is pretty empty for early afternoon. We have a sea day before our last stop tomorrow, so I expected to see hoards of travelers enjoying the sun-warmed water of the pool.
Caitlyn and Jessica sit on the edge while I jump right into the water. Floating on my back, my eyes squinting against the rising sun, I feel just as comfortable as I did yesterday in the sea with Carter. “You know, Carter is a big fan of the water, too,” I say.
“Cool,” Caitlyn responds. “I think we should go to one of the restaurants for lunch today. We haven’t been to any of them yet.”
“I like that idea,” Jessica agrees.
“Yeah, same. You know, yesterday for dinner, Carter took me to this great place in the Bahamas. You guys would have loved the food.”
“Nice,” Jessica remarks.
After a while, the girls jump into the pool alongside me, and we swim and splash until our fingers are pruned and the sun is reaching the highest point in the sky. “I’m hungry,” Caitlyn says. “Ready to change for lunch?”
Reluctantly, I follow the girls out of the pool and back down to our room. We each take a super quick shower to get the chlorine out of our hair and change into lunch appropriate attire. The air is warm and sticky with humidity, so I pull on a pair of high-waisted Bermuda shorts and a yellow, floral tank top. With regular shorts, the top would show a lot of my stomach, but in wearing this pair, only a small sliver of skin is visible. Just the way I like it.
We have to wait twenty minutes for a table at one of the onboard restaurants. Once inside, our waiter brings us menus and takes our drink orders. I settle for a lemonade. “Yesterday at dinner, Carter made me try this Bahamian soda that was so good. I wish they had it on board.”
“What do you want to do after lunch?” Jessica asks.
“Why don’t we go try some mini golf?” Caitlyn suggests. “It’s up on the top deck, and it seems like fun. I’ve never played before.”
“You’ve never played mini golf?” I ask incredulously.
She shrugs. “Nope. There are about a million places around us, but I’ve never gone.”
“Then we are definitely going up there after lunch. We can’t let you off this cruise until you’ve gone mini golfing.”
“Okay,” she laughs.
We eat our lunches slowly, chatting about the weather and the different events going on throughout the day. Caitlyn whips out the cruise line app she downloaded before we left and scrolls through the day’s itinerary. “Hey, they have trivia at three! We should go to that after mini golf.”
It’s a little after one now, so we should have plenty of time. “I’m down. We’ll probably do as well as the last time we tried trivia, but it’s worth a shot.”
Jessica and Caitlyn both laugh. There are a few Miami bars that do weekly trivia games. We went to one a few months ago and came in dead last place. We’re smart women, but we cracked under the pressure. Hopefully, this trivia game doesn’t turn out the same way.
The waiter clears our plates, and we leave a generous tip. This restaurant is one of the free eateries on board, so we don’t have to worry about paying the check, but we still want the waiter to know we enjoyed ourselves.
We take the elevator all the way up to the top deck. My heart starts fluttering. “Carter took me up here after hours last night to see the stars,” I tell them, leaving out the part where we made passionate love in the chilly night air. “It was beautiful.”
“I bet,” Caitlyn replies, a slight edge in her voice. I let it slide, figuring she’s just tired from the heat. Miami gets hot, but not as hot as the middle of the sea.
We grab clubs and balls and make our way around the mini golf course. Despite her novice status, Caitlyn does pretty well. Jessica wins, with me placing second, but Caitlyn is a close third despite not knowing how to golf.
Our round ends just in time for us to get to the atrium for trivia. We take an answer sheet and find some seats near the back. The cruise host starts reading off questions, and surprisingly, we know a few answers.
The eighteenth question, out of twenty, surprises me. “What year did the first cruise on this line open in the form of a river boat on the Mississippi River?”
“Oh!” I say. “Carter told me about this yesterday. He bought the river boat twenty-five years ago.”