I keep my tone light. It’s easier that way. “He’s just excited.”
Dane frowns. “That makes one of us.”
Ryan’s voice cuts in from the doorway. “Relax, Dane. He’s seven.”
Ryan’s always been good at that—stepping in before things tip too far.
He tosses a towel across the cabin, and Dane catches it.
Ryan leans against the doorframe, shoulders pink from the sun, hair already lightened from a few days in the ocean. He looks completely at ease, like he always does.
“Dinner’s almost ready,” he says. “Your mum said not to track water everywhere, little man.”
He glances down where Jameson’s wet footprints trail across the floor.
Jameson grins. “Too late. Sorry.”
I grab a dry towel and scrub it over his hair while he squirms. “Hold still.”
“You’re rubbing too hard!”
“Then stop moving.”
Ryan laughs.
Dane doesn’t.
I give Jameson one last pass and drop the towel over his head. “Go get dressed for dinner.”
He pulls it off, lets it fall to the floor, and darts to his drawer.
I turn to the mirror and start braiding my hair, working through the salt-stiff strands.
Above us, music plays. Voices drift down from the deck—laughter, chairs scraping, the low hum of engines kicking in somewhere deeper in the yacht.
“When we get to the next island, you have to come snorkeling with me,” Jameson says.
“I just went snorkeling with you.”
“You went for, like, two minutes.”
“That’s because you kept trying to chase fish.”
“They were chasing me!”
“Pretty sure that’s not how fish work.”
He tips his head back to look at me. “You promised.”
I did.
I smile and tap his nose. “Fine. Next island. I promise.”
Ryan pushes off the doorframe. “Five minutes, everyone, or Tara’s sending a search party.”
Jameson giggles.
Dane mutters something under his breath and pulls on a clean shirt.
