"No need to be embarrassed. Should I call you Mr. Grey?"
"Fuck off, asshole."
"You do look a little like James Spader. Do you leave her tied for long?"
"Goddammit, Bo Peep, you don't shut up about Grace and I'm going to shove that life jacket down your throat."
I didn't say another word but mostly because I was laughing too hard. Noah was easy to get worked up if you knew his buttons and that crazy possessive motherfucker hated any Grace talk. Of course, if I was honest with myself, I didn't like to hear anyone say anything about AnnMarie in a sexual manner. That thought shut me up and I apologized.
"Sorry man, just popped into my head when I see you steering your own boat with the captain you probably pay a hundred dollars an hour cooling his jets downstairs in your galley."
"It's two hundred dollars and it's worth it."
"Two hundred dollars." I whistled. "No, Noah, I can't believe this. We've got the world by its balls."
We both looked down to the prow of the boat where Grace was showing AnnMarie some pictures she had taken of the kids. Speaking of the kids, mine was stretched over the edge of the boat, her ass in the air next to Nicholas. I followed the sight line backward and sure enough there was Nathan staring at her ass. My hand dug into the polished teak of the yacht's dashboard.
"Pull back, hoss," I heard Noah say. "What the hell? I just got that relacquered and I think you put gouge marks in it."
"You okay with having a eunuch for a son?"
"That would be a negative. Why?"
"Because if Nathan doesn't start looking at something else, I'm going to go down and use the fishhook on his twig and berries."
"I don't think you're allowed to harm your godson."
"I didn't know my godson was going to want to defile my precious daughter."
"He's just looking," Noah said mildly but he gave a quick jerk of the wheel which caused everyone to tumble to the left. Charlotte sat her ass on the bottom of the cushioned seat but now Nathan was staring at her chest. I cursed her early development. Why wasn't AnnMarie there covering Charlotte up with a towel until only her eyes were seen?
"Is Mal still in Dubai?"
"You can't move to Saudi Arabia and expect your daughter to wear a burka."
"You don't know that." I grunted. "I respected every woman I slept with. I shouldn't have been punished like this."
"You shouldn't have made babies with AnnMarie," Noah retorted. "Hot women usually have good looking kids."
"I could've had sons."
"Don't let her hear you say that."
I sighed loudly and ran a hand through my hair. "God, I know. I just feel helpless now that she's entering her teen years. I'm terrified. AnnMarie read some stupid piece about sexuality and made me have the talk with Charlotte."
Now it was Noah's turn to laugh so hard I had to take over steering the wheel.
"You're an asshole," I muttered.
Noah just laughed harder. When he could breathe, he stood up and patted me on the back. "We're raising Nathan right. Someone is going to fall in love with Charlotte and spirit her away. Why not Nathan?"
"Yeah," I said sullenly. "Could be worse."
"Could be a lot worse," Noah said. "My boys are good boys. They aren't going to break girls' hearts. I tell them all the time how Grace was it for me. You've been with AnnMarie for just as long. It's what they see and all they know. They both want that. Nathan, particularly, knows what he wants and doesn't waver. Remember the dog?"
Nathan saw a stray when he was four years old at the park. He went back every day without his parents knowing and slipped that dog food. One day that dog didn't show up and Nathan was distraught. When we finally figured out what had happened, Noah and I had combed that park for the damn dog for days but couldn't find him. Finally Noah offered to get a different dog for Nathan. Nathan refused. He didn't want a different dog. He wanted Hobo, as Nathan had dubbed him.
Several months passed and Nathan had been despondent but he still returned to the park, leaving little bits of bones and bread. The food was always gone but we'd figured other park creatures had taken it. Finally, a month before Christmas, Nathan had forced his nanny to take him out again in the cold and there was the dog, one ear missing, limping and so scrawny it looked like a rat. Nathan wouldn't leave without that dog and he sat outside in the cold for at least two hours until Noah left work to come and get him and the dog.
Hobo was old, although we didn't know how old, and lived in relative doggy luxury. No other dogs lived in the Jackson household because Hobo was the only one for Nathan. So yeah, if Nathan felt that way about Charlotte, there were a lot worse options.