“I was wondering where the food was going.” I shook my head. “I even looked under the table to see if the food was going straight through.”
“You think you’re funny, do you?”
“I am not trying to be funny. That was actually amazing.” I, too, rested against the back of my chair. “I had planned to teach you some ballet but realized that we do not have a ballet bar.”
“Thank God.” His head jerked up. “I meant, ‘Darn, now what are we going to do?’”
ChapterThirty-Two
COTA
She had me fooled when she said we couldn’t do ballet because of no bar. Next thing I knew, she had me holding a railing on the dock while doing all five positions. I hadn’t felt it fair, seeing as she had on ballet shoes and I was made to take off my flip flops. I could hear the crew on the yacht chuckling but I had to chuckle with them. Never in a million years would I have imagined myself doing ballet.
“I appreciate you trying this out for me.” Sabrina faced me, holding onto the railing. “I liked teaching you what I love.”
“It’s only fair. I made you learn to swim and swim with dolphins.” I stopped and gave each leg a good shake. “I think I’m going to be sore later.”
“You might be. I am sorry. I should have considered that.” She frowned. “I’m not a good teacher, I guess.”
“I’m sure I’ll survive it.” I looked out over the ocean. “How about we go out on the jet skis this afternoon?”
“I’d like that. It will be your turn to teach me something.” She slipped off her ballet shoes and into flip flops. “I am sorry, again, that you have to teach me normal things.”
“On the contrary, I am enjoying it. Teaching you makes it new for me.” I nodded for her to follow me. “I have some calls to make, then business to discuss with Sawyer. Let’s meet around four o’clock.”
She agreed then went off toward Murphy, who was laying out sunning. I grabbed a cold water from the outside refrigerator and headed off to Sawyer’s office. We would be leaving soon and I wanted to make more definitive moves forward.
“Hey, do you have some time to chat?” I asked from the doorway of Sawyer’s office. “If not, we can chat later. You look pretty busy.”
“Come on in. I was just on the phone with Asher. The malls he has been working on need some new designs at low cost.” He clicked away at his computer. “Look here, this is the current layout. He wants me to see what we can change with a complete renovation.”
We spent the next two hours looking at several options for modernizing the layout. I had a few ideas that Sawyer liked and I certainly learned a few things from his experience.
“If you want, I can bring you on this project with me.” Sawyer spun his chair away from the computer. “Dad called, by the way.”
“Okay. Did I come up in your discussion or, should I ask, was I the discussion?” I walked around, looking at things on his bookshelf. “And don’t lie.”
“I wasn’t going to. He asked about your relationship. He was rather skeptical.”
“Isn’t he always when it comes to me?” I scoffed. “I don’t understand why.”
“Man, he was the same way with me and Kellan.” Sawyer paused. “Well, not so much Kellan. He has never done anything wrong.”
“Did he ask just about my mail order bride or was there more?”
“Mostly the bride thing, but I reminded him I did the same thing not long ago.”
“You’re taking your time and planning a wedding. As far as he’s concerned, I ran off and eloped.”
“I reminded him that I would have done that same thing had Jade not have wanted to wait for her father.” Sawyer rubbed his neck. “I’m going for a massage. I spent way too much time bent over these blueprints.”
“A massage sounds like heaven, but I told Sabrina to meet me to go out on the jet skis.” I walked to the door. “Why don’t you and Jade come with us?”
“I’ll ask Jade but, with us all heading to New York soon, she is trying to get the wedding plans finished.” Sawyer followed me out into the hallway. “How about we go fly over those two islands we were thinking about buying?”
“Sounds good.”
We went our separate ways. I felt excited at the prospect of working on the island resort, but even more excited for the possibility of working on the malls. I knew Sawyer didn’t need me, he was amazing at his job. So, to have him accepting me and asking my opinion felt really good.