7. Rashad
CHAPTER 7
RASHAD
R ashad looked down at Kate and Miles, who were smiling up at him with identical angelic expressions. They looked so similar, from their blue eyes to their carbon-copy freckles, that Rashad was glad they were different genders. Otherwise, he was sure he wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.
Miles blinked slowly, reminding Rashad of a cat sizing up its prey, and Rashad had a moment of nerves. What was he thinking, offering to watch a pair of twin preschoolers? He’d barely spent any time with children — if the time he’d kissed a baby during the opening of the Al Soub–UAE pipeline project didn’t count. He wasn’t sure what to do with them.
The better option might have been to turn around, but they were a full day’s sail from San Diego by now. It would take just as long to get back, and Nina might be feeling better by then.
“Can we drive the boat now?” Miles asked.
“Sure. Let’s go.”
As though shot out of a cannon, the twins flew down the hallway and up the stairs. Surprisingly, they were going in exactly the correct direction, although Rashad had no idea how they knew where the bridge was. Perhaps they remembered from yesterday’s tour, although he’d only pointed then. Rashad followed at a light jog, worried about the mischief the kids might get up to if he left them alone too long.
The bridge was empty, with the course set and monitored remotely. Rashad opened the door, and the kids immediately ran towards the equipment.
“Hold on!” Rashad called. Luckily, the twins stopped in their tracks, looking guilty. “We don’t touch anything until I explain what it is,” he continued. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Miles said. Kate nodded, though her small face had fallen.
“Don’t worry, you haven’t done anything wrong,” Rashad assured the kids. “Now, who wants to steer the boat?”
Both twins immediately perked up and raised their hands. Rashad grinned and got them set up, with one on each side of the yacht’s large wheel, the captain’s chair boosting them to the correct height. He quietly pressed a button to lock the ship’s controls, then let the twins spend an enjoyable ten minutes pretending to steer the yacht. They didn’t seem to notice that the boat remained on a steady course no matter how much they pulled on the wheel.
“Look, a pirate ship!” Miles called, pulling the wheel to the left.
“Let’s see if they have treasure!” Kate lifted onto her tiptoes to see through the windscreen. “Maybe some gold and chocolate coins!”
“Oh no, a sea monster!”
“That’s okay, it’s a friendly one.”
Rashad enjoyed watching the kids interact. It was clear that they were both very imaginative children who loved each other deeply. Nina must be an excellent mother, which was doubly impressive since she was running a business at the same time. Rashad certainly wouldn’t have time to raise kids while running his business.
“What’s next?” Miles asked after a few more minutes of play. He and Kate turned to Rashad with expectant expressions.
“What’s next?” Rashad echoed.
“Yeah. Can we watch Paw Patrol ? Or go swimming? Or play Uno?”
“Let’s play Uno.” The twins gave him matching Cheshire Cat grins again.
Rashad wasn’t sure what Paw Patrol was, didn’t feel confident supervising swimming three-year-olds, and didn’t have a deck of Uno cards on the boat, so he scanned his brain for another activity. What had he enjoyed doing as a child?
“How about we color?” he suggested.
“Okay,” Kate hopped off the chair she’d been standing on and took Rashad’s hands. She looked up at him with wide, innocent blue eyes. “I like coloring. Do you like coloring?”
“I sure do.” Rashad led them back to the meeting room, where their coloring things were still set up on the smaller table. “Grab whatever you’d like. We can go color on the deck.”
The twins filled their arms with coloring books, crayons, and markers, then followed Rashad onto the on-deck seating area. Kate flung herself onto her stomach on a couch, her coloring book in front of her, while Miles flopped cross-legged on the floor and opened his book on his lap.
“Here.” Kate handed Rashad a page from her coloring book. “You can color the panda princess.”
“Oh.” Rashad blinked at the page, which did indeed show a panda dressed in a beautiful princess gown with a high collar and intricate embroidery. “Thank you.”
He spent several minutes shading in the princess, and when he looked up, he saw that Miles had colored all down his little arm with a blue marker. Rashad’s eyes widened as he began to worry about chemicals in the marker liquid.
“Oh, no, Miles; we should wash that off.”
“Mommy lets us color on our arms,” Miles said, though he wore a guilty expression that undermined his confident statement.
“I sincerely doubt that.”
“What does si-cerely mean?” Miles asked.
“It means honestly.”
“Oh.” Miles looked down at his arms. “I guess I wasn’t being si-cerely.”
Rashad almost laughed at the adorable phrase but held back. “All right. Come on, Miles. Let’s get you washed up.”
“All right.”
“Kate, come with us.”
“I can stay here and color.” Kate stuck out her lip. Rashad knew he was probably being silly, but it seemed important that they stay together.
“No, we’ll all go. Come on.” They walked to the bathroom, where Rashad helped Miles wash his hands and arm. Then they returned to the deck, and Kate looked up at him with those big blue eyes.
“I’m hungry.”
“You had breakfast ninety minutes ago.”
“Yeah,” Miles chimed in. “It’s snack time. I like blub-blub crackers.”
“What are blub-blub crackers?” Rashad asked.
“You know, blub-blub.” Miles made a fish face and mimed swimming with his arms.
“Oh, goldfish crackers. I’m not sure if I have them. Let’s check in the kitchen.”
Rashad didn’t have goldfish crackers, but within a few minutes he got the twins set up with a clementine each and several rosemary crackers to share. He sat across from them while they ate, already feeling tired. A glance at his watch showed that he’d only been looking after the kids on his own for about an hour, yet he was already out of ideas for how to entertain them. Rashad’s respect for parents, especially single parents like Nina, was growing by the minute.
The rest of the morning passed in several more snacks, a game of Red Light, Green Light on the main deck, more coloring, and a dramatic reading of several of the picture books the kids had brought. Despite his tiredness, Rashad found that he was enjoying spending time with the twins. They were sincere and playful in a way that adults just weren’t.
A little after twelve, when he was trying to decide what to do about lunch, Rashad heard footsteps in the hall behind him. He looked up from the panda princess he was coloring (the kids had been through a half dozen pictures each, but he wanted to do his best work on his coloring) and spotted Nina in the doorway, smiling at him and the twins.
“Hey,” she said. She looked much better than before — most of the color had returned to her cheeks, and she was smiling. She had pulled her hair back in a braid that hung over her shoulder and was dressed in a white blouse and a blue flared skirt that ended just below her knees.
“Mommy!” In unison, Kate and Miles threw down their crayons and ran to their mother. She scooped them into her arms, planting kisses on their small heads. With one twin balanced on each hip, she surveyed them.
“How are you?” she asked.
“Good!” Miles snuggled into her. “We drived the boat.”
“Wow, you drove the boat? That’s so cool!”
“Yeah, and we colored,” Kate added. “Your friend is nice.”
Rashad smiled at the little trio. It was clear that the twins loved their mother and that she felt the same way about them. As soon as they spotted Nina, both kids had lit up like a movie star had just walked into the room or their favorite cartoon character had come alive. Rashad didn’t remember if his relationship with his parents had ever been like that, though he suspected it hadn’t. He was glad that these kids would only ever experience love from their mother.
Rashad was going to have to forget how great a mother Nina was and how much her kids relied on her before they sat down for their business meeting.
“Thank you so very much for watching them.” Nina set the kids down and crossed to Rashad. “I really appreciate it, and I hope they weren’t too much trouble.”
“Not at all,” Rashad said, though he’d been outnumbered more than he wanted to admit. “Are you feeling better?”
“Yes, much better.” Nina smiled. “The rest was just what I needed. If you give me a few minutes to get the twins something to eat and settle them in with some entertainment, we can get down to business.”
Rashad should have been relieved to hear her say that. After all, getting down to business was the point of this whole trip. The sooner they could start working, the sooner he could make a plan and the sooner Nina would be gone from his life forever. Yet, strangely, the prospect of Nina and her kids disappearing wasn’t as appealing as it had been even a few hours ago.
Rashad hesitated, unsure of how to answer. He knew the right way forward: he should thank Nina for her suggestion and set up their meeting while she fed her kids. He should be what he always was — ruthless and goal-oriented, not stopping until he got what he wanted.
And yet, a part of him wasn’t sure that’s what he wanted anymore.