Before Happily Ever After

CHAPTER 4: Larkin

I finally had told Nate what was going on about the warehouses and everything else for what's really holding me back from building that are for kids. He said he can always float me the money since we're partners in the business but I have to keep reminding him that I could never take his money, even as a loan. 

He knows how stubborn I am and has offered me a few times before that if ever I needed help rather it's financially or not, I could always ask him. However, I just can't do it because I know that he should be saving his money for when him and Kylie eventually have their own kids one day. 

After we discussed it a little bit more and went over a few ideas, including me telling him about the several new clients I had recently had sign-up; I thought maybe if they tell their friends at the Country clubs or wherever they go to in their spare time, maybe I wouldn't need a loan after all. 

Once Kamille and I looked at all the information in the envelope about the new Property Manager, I'd have to agree that it did seem a little bit too good to be true and Kamille being extra precautions most of the time (which isn't a bad thing), we both agreed to meet up with Mr. Denton when he arrived next week. 

Now, to help get our minds of all that, today both me, Kamille, Nate and Kylie took our kids to the new water park. 

Personally, I haven't been to one since I was ten years old and even then, that wasn't nearly as cool or big as this one was. 

Our son, Liam who in a few months will be three years old and our daughter, Rosemary who in a month will be turning six years old, I loved seeing their excitement from the moment we loaded up in the truck to when we pulled into the parking lot and grabbed our coolers and bags of things then packed the stroller with as much as we could and began heading towards the entrance. 

What's so fun and great about water parks is that it's an amusement park that features water play areas such as swimming pools, water slides, splash pads, water playgrounds, and lazy rivers, as well as areas for floating, bathing, swimming, and other barefoot environments.

There were chain link fences around the grounds, colored tubes and slides standing/twisting high in the air, staircases, water dripping from rides, puddles of water everywhere, lifeguard stands, flags flying, wet patrons in swim suits, towels, wave pool packed with people, inner tubes. 

You could hear and see a lot of people moving swiftly through tubes/down slides, screams, laughter, conversation, parents yelling, kids crying, water dripping/splattering/splashing, staircases creaking, feet slapping on the pavement, feet splashing through puddles, piped-in music, wind whipping. 

The further we got into the park trying to look for a place to set our things down at, the more we noticed the scents became stronger. From chlorine, bleach, water, sunblock, suntan oil, wet bathing suits and towels, food smells (hamburgers, fries, hot dogs, pizza, nachos), bubblegum, bug repellent, mildew, etc.

After settling down at a nice spot in the middle of everything,  we got all situated and then decided that the first thing we would do would be whatever Rosemary wanted to do first. 

However, we soon found out after removing our flip flops that it was better to wear our flip flops since the pavement burned your feet, causing you to have to jump from puddle to puddle to keep soles of feet from burning, slap of concrete against running feet. 

Of course, she gets her adrenaline from me and her sense of adventure that she started pulling me by the hand towards the biggest and largest water slide that I have ever seen. 

The part of the ride that made me nervous in having us go on it was that I can tell there is no top to it and that the round raft you sit in as you go down on it, goes up and down the wall from side to side and almost looks as if you could go over the wall even. 

"Uh, Pumpkin..." I began to tell Rosemary but she started giving me the puppy dog sad eyes which gets me real bad every time. 

"Daddy Pwease!!!" She begins begging. 

"Be strong." I hear Nate mutter under his breath. 

Damnit! She did it again. 

"Oh okay. But you can't tell mom." I have her pinky-swear to me. 

She claps and jumps up and down excited while Kylie tries to hold in her laughter. 

"Aww, such a softie." She teases. 

"Shush." I tell her while we begin walking towards the long line that leads all the way up several flights of stairs. 

I had Nate be on one side of her and me on the other, holding onto each one of her hands to make sure as we start going down that she is safe and doesn't fall out. 

It only lasted about two minutes but seemed like it was longer than that. Next thing I knew, we rode several other slides before heading back towards Kamille and Liam. 

"Hey guys! Did you have fun?" She asks while Rosemary jumps onto her lap and starts ratting me out in mentioning about the one slide I told her not to tell Kamille about. 

"Mommy, it was a lot of fun!" Rosemary says. 

"Oh is that so?" Kamille smiles at her then looks out the corner of her eyes at me. 

"Well, you see, she gave me 'the look'." I try and explain poorly. 

Kamille just shakes her head and Kylie and Nate offer to stay with Rosemary and stay with Liam as he was asleep in the stroller still while her and I went on a few slides before we came back and had lunch together. 

Next chapter will be posted soon! :)