me, but shook her foot to get my hand off her. She pointed toward Naomi, as if I already didn’t know that’s why she was stopping me from touching her.
“You have the scary spot,” Naomi said, looking back at Lacey. “I am the fastest, and Daddy is scardest.”
“You got me,” I said, “but lucky for me I have both of you protecting me on either side.”
The lifeguard gave us a push, and the raft slid right into the tunnel of the slide. We picked up speed as we moved, but it didn’t go especially fast. Still, the turns were sometimes sharp and sudden, and the whole raft slid unpredictably left and right along the lower half of the tube, depending on how the g-forces slid it around on each twist and turn.
Naomi was screaming, but it was the happy scream of a kid who was way too excited and having a fucking blast. It wasn’t a scared scream. Lacey laughed behind me, and I caught myself laughing too.
The raft shot out of the tunnel and into a roped off area of the pool. It slid across the water and was in no danger of tipping or falling, which I decided wasn’t exactly fun enough, so I gripped the handle on my left side and pulled the whole raft over, capsizing it.
We all fell into the water. I made sure that Naomi was safe, treading water as I held onto her. She was just laughing as her water wings held her buoyant.
Lacey popped up from the water. Her hair was soaked, and she shoved me.
“What?” I said. “You liked it when I got you wet last night.”
Her face burned red, and she looked like she was going to say something for a second or two, but she just huffed and swam away.
“Did you and Miss Lacey Larsen play in the water last night?” Naomi asked me. “Without me?”
“Sorry, sweetheart,” I said. “We’re making it up to you now.”
Lacey swam under the roped off section and into the main part of the pool. I helped Naomi toward the rope, and when we reached it, I picked her up and threw her over. She giggled as she crashed back into the water. I swam under to stay behind her.
“Sorry,” I said to Lacey, swimming up next to her. “I’m always going to make you wet when I get a chance.”
“You just used that joke.”
“It was a variation on the original joke. I’m keeping the theme going.”
I looked up and saw Silas standing on the deck. He was wearing sunglasses and swim trunks. No shirt.
His skin was golden bronze, and I caught some women looking at him as they sunbathed.
I wasn’t exactly happy to see him. I had managed to do what we needed to do last night with Chance Charter, but I wasn’t looking forward to telling him how. In fact, I was planning to lie to him, but he always caught me when I lied.
“That’s my partner,” I whispered to Lacey.
“Oh? Him?”
I nodded. “I’m going to tell him...look, this thing we did last night. Not that thing, but the thing before that thing.”
“The space wizards contract?”
“Yes, that thing.”
“What about it?”
“Just, um, follow my lead here?”
“Okay.”
“Naomi!” Silas said, waving as he approached us.
“Silas!” Naomi said. “Daddy! Look! Look! Look! It’s Silas.”
“Yep, I saw him.”
“You coming in?” I asked him.
“I’ll meet you halfway,” he said.
He sat down on the edge of the pool and let his feet fall in. The water went up to his knees, but he didn’t jump in.
“Silas, look! Look! Look!” Naomi shouted.
We all stopped to look at her. She twisted herself back and forth as fast as she could, the water wings acting as anchor points on either side of her body. You could tell she was trying to mimic swimming, but she wasn’t really going anywhere.
“Woah,” Silas said. “Michael Phelps!”
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“The best swimmer in the world, but you’re actually better than him,” Silas said.
He looked over to me, and his smile faded to a smirk. “You making progress on Chance?”
“Closed the deal already,” I said.
Silas whistled. “No shit?”
“No shit.”
Lacey swam up next to me.
“This is Lacey. Naomi’s new nanny.”
“Ah,” Silas said, “I’ve heard so much about you, Lacey.”
Lacey held out her hand, and they shook hands as best they could with Silas not in the water.
“You are a force of nature, Noah Black,” Silas said. He looked up at the sky and shook his head, but I could already tell he was working up toward something. His