Page 52 of The Deal Maker

Duke shakes his head. “No, never.”

“Did you travel much while you were in college?” I ask. There’s a mental warning that I’m delving too much into the personal aspects of Duke’s life when I should be pushing him away. The guy had to put up with my sad tale and I’m curious.

“Day trips here and there. But it costs money to go places and I didn’t think my car would get me there and back. So I’ve just been dreaming of the fun places I’ll visit in the future.”

“And if you win the five thousand dollars and whatever your company gives you?”

“I’ll book a cruise or a vacation somewhere. Get out of town for a bit.”

Duke reaches down and pulls out a broken piece of a sand shovel. “This might help us get the sand moving a bit easier.”

He stabs the shovel into the sand and pulls it out a few times, trying to loosen the ground.

“Okay, are we thinking of layers and intricate designs?” I ask, taking some of the sand into my hands.

Duke’s eyebrows raise and he says, “This coming from the woman who says she’s not good at art? Unless we find some kind of mold to get things going, I’m thinking a one-level might be the best.”

He starts piling up a bunch of sand and I’m afraid my eye will twitch itself out of the socket if I don’t do something to change it.

“It might be good to have a plan, don’t you think?” I suggest. I’m trying to avert my gaze from the chaos happening before me, but I can’t pull my eyes away.

“What if we build our own sandcastles and then find someone to judge them?” Duke asks with a grin.

“That isn’t part of the task.”

“As long as we have a picture, I’m sure it will be okay,” he says, waiting for my response.

My knee-jerk reaction is to say that we have to follow the task to the letter for it to count. Sure, I was always a rule follower growing up, probably why I went into accounting because the rules don’t vary. And the family connection.

I have to take a deep breath and think this through. Will there be any big punishments if we don’t do it exactly how it’s written in the app? No. I won’t get into trouble and I won’t lose out on anything. This is for fun, right? Fun things can be stretched and bent to increase the excitement.

Now I sound like I’m an ad for a senior pain cream or something.

“Okay, deal,” I finally say. Something sparks life in me and I’m now excited to do this. My brain acts like an etch-a-sketch, drawing out what I should do to create a sandcastle.

Duke goes back to digging. I stand and walk over the sand, searching for anything that might help me with the task. I see a family playing in the water with their young son and wonder if they’ve got any buckets or small molds of sea creatures.

As I approach, I can see a small round pail and a matching shovel sitting next to one of the chairs. They aren’t using it at the moment, so I call out to ask if I can borrow it for a moment. The woman looks skeptical, but I point to where Duke is building what looks more like a volcano than an actual castle.

“We’re doing a competition and I would be grateful if I could use your bucket for a few minutes.”

“Sure, as long as we get it back before we leave.”

I grin, thanking her as I wave goodbye and head back over to where Duke is set up in the shade.

“Where did you get that?” Duke asks, looking at my bucket and shovel.

“From the family back there. They said I could use it for a few minutes.”

Duke frowns. “That’s cheating.”

Raising an eyebrow, I say, “Cheating, how? I found them along the beach. I asked for permission to use them. I don’t see any cheating happening in this case.”

“Found along the beach,” Duke says, sitting back onto the sand and staring up at me. I avoid looking at him for long and take my position about two feet away so I’ll have enough room to work on my castle.

“I did find it on the beach. You’re the one who was trying to get me to bend the rules and now you’re not even bending?” I say, adding some edge to my words. My biggest pet peeve is someone establishing the “rules” and then changing them once they don’t fit what will benefit them the most. Zander always did that, something I didn’t notice until after we’d broken up.

Duke nods and says, “True, true. Okay, well, I’m going to kick your butt at this.”

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