Nadine Book 7

80. Hearts

We eat lunch, then I go to Tye's room. He takes a little more time with me, but it's still fast. I can tell these boys need it. We cuddle and take a nap after we're done.

Then I go to the conference room.

Thora is sitting there with Mason and Coral. "What the hell took you so long this time?"

"I took a nap. I didn't know you were starting again right after lunch."

"Yea, I guess we didn't figure that out. Do you think we should put in a desk room? Like the desk room here."

"I have no idea. I doubt it. I think we can put a little table and a couple of chairs in the rooms. If they have to work on something, they could do it there."

Coral nods. "Yea that's true. Sorry, I'm trying to come up with something to add to the ship. I have lots of ideas for the rooms."

"Yea, we're going to summon you back for those."

She stands up. "Ok I'll come back for that. Sorry I can't add anything to the ship. I think it looks perfect."

"Thank you. We're trying."

"You should sell wine in the spa though. Or have a wine room. Somewhere to sit and have a quiet glass of wine looking out over the water, with no kids."

Thora nods. "That'll be the quiet bar Coral. We'll put wine in there for you."

"Sorry, I'm still trying." She walks out laughing.

"Who do we have left?"

"Tre, Elek, Nik, Dipak, Marcus, was Samson here?"

"Yea."

"Just the 5 of them."

"Same time or different?"

"Different."

Marcus comes first.

I smile and get wiggly.

"Go sit on him. You're going to be wiggling all over if not."

I launch myself at him. He catches me and sits with me on his lap. "I'm happy to see you too, angel."

I smile and turn sideways. I lay against him and put my head on his shoulder. "Mine."

"You're mine, woman." He kisses my head and hugs me.

"STILL HERE." Thora rubs her eyes.

"Sorry." He picks up the paper. "This is amazing, angel. You might want to put in a kid's play area though. And if you have kids, you'll have to have pizza."

"I put kid zone. They could even go to the bars really. You know, play cards and dance. It wouldn't be that bad."

"Good luck getting that idea by Tre." Marcus and Mason laugh. Marcus pats my butt. "You're doing good angel. Keep it up."

He kisses my head before he goes.

Thora yells, "SEND NIK."

"OK."

Nik walks in and looks at the paper. "This looks good, babygirl. If you ever go anywhere cold though. You will have to heat that center pool. Maybe you could get a cover for it. Make it all look like a normal deck. You could drop a movie screen from 1 of the sail things and play a movie for people if it was to cold anyway."

Thora jumps up. "SCREW THAT. I WANT TO WATCH A MOVIE FROM THE POOL."

"Or you could do that too."

She starts writing fast.

"Don't forget to write the pool cover that looks like a deck. I feel like that may come in handy a lot."

"I got it."

Nik stands up and then leans over and gives me a kiss.

"Thank you sir."

"My pleasure babygirl. I'll see you at dinner."

Dipak walks in. "Who you got left?"

"Elek and Tre. I didn't know who to do last? All 3 of you have to approve it."

"It's fine. Let me know if they add anything."

"We'll do you separate, then pull you back together."

"Yea, that'll work."

"It looks good. I see Kane's areas. I don't know if he thought about cells though. Write cells on Kane's level. I'll talk to him more. Summon him when you summon the 3 of us."

"Ok."

Dipak sits the paper down and leaves.

Thora looks at me. "They get less helpful the higher up in rank they go."

Elek walks in with a paper. "You need somewhere to treat injuries. Or at least hold them until we can get them off the boat."

"K. I wrote doctor."

"That's all I really see that's missing." He kisses my head.

"I only have Tre left, then I'm summoning you back."

"Ok, pretty girl." He kisses me on the lips.

I smile and jump up.

Thora yells, "STILL HERE."

Elek smiles and walks out.

"That's not even your mate. Sit down."

I give her a dirty look. Then I stare at the table.

She summons Tre. "Now behave."

"I am."

Tre walks in and I smile so big. I get wiggly.

He smirks. "Hi baby."

"TRE" I hop up and run to him.

He wraps his arms around me and gives me a big kiss.

Thora throws her pen down. "STILL HERE."

He picks me up by my ass and sits me on the conference table. Then he kisses me again and looks at Thora. "That's really not my problem."

"GOD DAMN IT TRE." She jumps up and pushes him into the seat at the end. He cracks up laughing. Then she pushes me down to Mason. "SIT THERE. WE ARE GETTING THIS DONE."

"FINE."

Tre takes the papers. "It's like a city on the water. Jail. Doctor. Restaurants. Shops. Rooms. Spa. Lots of entertainment. Park for the kids. This looks good. Some floors are kind of crammed and some are mostly empty, but we can figure that out when we do the layout."

"We have to have room for the pools that are on the floor above."

He winks at me. "You're so smart baby." I wiggle around a bit more.

"STAY THERE. Mason, hold her back if you have to."

Tre winks. "Well, he might like a show."

Mason cracks up laughing.

Thora yells, "UGH. You 2 are a pain in my ass."

Mason sits up. "So you 2 have been together the longest?"

I nod. "Long time."

"You can really tell."

"Yea, they are really close. Even when they argue, she still gets wiggly."

"This looks good baby. I wouldn't add anything else."

Thora stands up. "You stay down there, princess queen. I'm bringing 3 more in. Don't touch anyone."

"I'm being good."

"Ok."

Dipak comes in with Elek and Kane. "The only thing that got added in the last 3 rounds was a doctor, Dipak. And she is not allowed out of that spot. She will dive on Tre."

Dipak takes the papers and talks to the boys.

Then they start arguing about sizes. I play with my pen. They talk about jails and I feel my head bobbing around. I hear someone say the dining room doesn't need that much space and I fall over on Mason's shoulder.

"GIRLS."

Thora and I sit straight up.

"You 2 did good today. You have an hour before dinner. You can design the rooms tomorrow. You need a break. But you both did really well and got a lot done. And now I know how big of a boat we need for you. It's huge, but we'll find it."

We kind of stagger around.

"Let's go to the bar."

I nod. "Yep."

Tre smiles. "Why don't you 2 give Mason a tour, so he's not as lost as Tobias was."

"We could probably take Tobias too. He really only got like a half-assed tour of this level. I was pointing at doors from the hallway."

"Ok."

"Let's start with the bedrooms though. We can explain them to Mason. I did that part with Tobias already."

"What else did you show Tobias?"

"The bedrooms and the closet. He didn't get anything else."

"Sounds like a plan."

Dipak looks at me. "And you remember what I said about the bedrooms." I nod.

I look at Mason. "Did anyone give you a room yet?"

He shakes his head and I give Dipak a dirty look.

"You're the 1 who does that woman."

Thora stands up. "I guess we're lucky Tobias wasn't sleeping on someone's balcony. Let's start in the room making room. We'll see which rooms are empty and give him 1."

"That'll make our lives easier."

"Yea, we should start there all the time."

4 hours later, we are done. We had dinner. Toured everything. Explained everything. There is nothing left.

I rub my eyes. "I am tired."

She nods. "Let's go see if anyone is playing poker. I think Tobias was trying to teach us a new game."

I yawn and lean on the wall.

Mason puts his hand on my back and guides me behind Thora. Tye, Johen, Elek, and Tobias are playing poker. Thora jumps in a seat.

"Dipak gave us this money to play poker with. But we don't actually win it. We have to put it back. He won't give us anymore."

"We start with 100g. You can get more if you lose it. But it's in that drawer if you want to play."

I plop on the couch.

"You're not gonna play, babydoll?"

"I'm tired. I want a glass of wine."

Mason sits with them. "You play hearts or just poker?"

Johen nearly jumps out of his skin. "HOW DO YOU PLAY HEARTS?"

Thora looks at him. "All we know is poker. If you want to teach us another game, we would love that."

"Hearts is a game for 4 people, but it's adaptable to 5 or 6, we just have to take some cards out of the deck. You do not want to get any hearts or the queen of spades. The queen of spades is worth 13 points, the hearts are each worth 1. So you actually want 0 points. Or you want all of them. But I'll show you that later." He deals the cards. I sit by him and watch "You have to follow suit. Can you play 1 hand, so I can watch everyone?"

"Sure."

"These are Nadine's cards. You are going to put them together by suit and lowest to highest."

"Should the queen of spades be with the hearts?"

"No. She's a spade. She has to be played like a spade."

"Ok."

"Now the 2 of clubs goes first. Who has that?"

Johen raises his hand. "Me."

"Face up in the middle of the table. Now I'll walk around and show you all. You have to follow suit. You can only play a club."

"What if we don't have any?"

"I'll show you when I get there. So Johen started, we go clockwise around."

He walks around showing everyone how to play.

We play a bunch of hands with Mason showing us.

Then I need more wine. Mason takes his spot back, and they play for real. I sit and watch. I get about halfway through my wine and feel my head hit his shoulder again.

I get lifted and I snuggle into Tre. He holds me up by my butt and I wrap around him. "I don't care Tye. You have to put her to bed. You can't leave her sleep wherever because you're playing a game. If you don't want to, then summon me."

"Fine. I'm sorry. She wasn't asleep that damn long though."