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My trunks tenting at the sight.
Then come rub some oil on me…
“Seriously honey? I need you to watch Archie for a second. I gotta go below,” I call back, making sure I watch her as she walks across the deck and climbs up the steps to the bridge where I have her take the wheel as well.
“What’s so urgent?” she asks, standing on tippy toes to peck my lips before I hand her the most valuable possession aboard, our son.
“I just wanna check on some equipment,” I tell her, pointing to the experimental 3D sonar we’re using.
She squints her eyes before she makes a clicking sound with her tongue.
“Must be fish again,” she murmurs, holding up Archie’s butt and giving it a sniff.
“Equipment check, huh?” she asks. I shrug with sincerity. “I can’t always smell his diapers from all the way up here.” I smile, half-truthfully.
“I’ll change him before I go if you want,” but mom’s already on it.
“You do it better anyway,” I say, watching her from behind as she expertly lays little Archie on one of the mobile changing stations we have dotted all over the yacht.
“Didn’t you have someplace to be?” she teases me, glancing behind her and noting the bulge in my trunks she warns me to do something about it before Mel sees it.
“She won’t see,” I promise her.
“Once you’re done there, why don’t you have Mel watch Archie for a while? I actually might need some help down below with all this equipment.” I grin.
Almost forgetting exactly what it was I was going to be doing instead.
“Oh right.” I snap back to it, feeling a rush of excitement. “Check those numbers again and look at this. Forget what the big screen says.” I tell her.
Feeling stupid for telling the expert what to look for, but I do have a keen eye for real estate.
Even if it is over two thousand years old.
“Here,” I point at the screen and enhance the resolution on one part of our grid.
“Holy…” Jacinta mutters.
“Fish don’t swim in rectangles now, do they?” I ask, wondering if they actually might.
“We’ll have to check it out. Get the dive team down here tomorrow,” Jacinta says, creasing her brows with her serious, scientific face.
“Mel?” I call down to the lower deck. “Could you watch Archie for a bit? We have some err… equipment issues to check out down below,” I explain.
I can practically feel her eyes rolling behind her sunglasses. But Mel never passes up the chance to spend time playing at being a mom.
She’ll have plenty of that herself in a month or two by the looks of it.
“Again?” she huffs back. “With all the money you spent on this damned boat you’d think the equipment would work,” Mel groans, Jacinta and I stifle a knowing laugh.
“It’s a yacht, Mel. Not a boat,” I remind her, making myself scarce before she comes up here and sees just what kind of equipment trouble I’m actually having.
“I’ll be down in a minute,” Jacinta says, resting a freshly changed baby on her hip as she studies the bank of screens.
Her mind is already moving in a direction I’d hoped we’d see on this expedition.
The possibility we’ve done it. Found an actual uncharted ruin.
“It’ll still be there when we get back,” I remind her, giving her a wink as she pokes her tongue out at me.
I head down below and after checking the gear and the sensors are actually connected properly I think it’s safe to say we definitely have found something.
AN HOUR LATER
“Fixed that equipment issue?” Mel asks me innocently as I move to lift Archie, but she’s not quite ready to hand him back just yet.
“Uh… Yeah,” I tell her. “It looks like Jacinta’s found something too. Actual unmapped ruins!” I say excitedly, but Mel’s too busy blowing raspberries on Archie to even notice.
She hands him over to his mom when she appears, the red still in her cheeks and the shine still in her eyes from our latest impromptu lovemaking session.
I was put off at first by having Mel holiday with us for the week, but she’s done her share of babysitting when it counts.
“I was just telling Mel we’ve likely found some real ruins,” I tell Jacinta.
“A whole town by the looks,” she replies enthusiastically.
“And what kind of town is it?” I ask, changing my voice to try and get some enthusiasm going.
“Kyle… No.” Jacinta groans, covering little Archie’s ears.
“It’s gonna be a Lundstrom town!” I cry out, my voice echoing off the miles of empty ocean all around us.
I repeat it a few times, trying to get the girls on board with my enthusiasm, but Archie decides he’d rather cry for his mealtime. Mel gives me a look like I have a screw loose or two, then resumes her sunbathing on another part of the yacht.
