“Rowan,” he said.
“Judge,” I answered.
Surprise flitted across his face before he locked it down. “And you must be Kendra.”
My Goldilocks frowned at each of us. “How do you know each other?”
“We used to work together,” I answered quickly.
“Right,” Father said slowly.
“Where?” Kendra asked.
“At Seeger. I’m the founder and CEO of Seeger Shipyards. Name’s Judge Seeger.”
Kendra smiled at him and shook his hand. “Is Judge a nickname or something you do on the side?”
I snickered. “No. That’s his actual first name.”
“My father wanted me to enter the law,” Father said. “He hoped by naming me Judge, I’d have a leg up on the competition at law school.”
“Or get your ass kicked on the playground as a kid,” Kendra offered.
“That too,” Father admitted. “Kids are assholes.”
“They are!” Kendra agreed.
“What are you doing here - Judge?” I interrupted.
“Came to check on the replacement boat and see how you were doing at the—” He squinted at the pirate ship at the end of the docks. “New venture.”
“Pegleg Pete’s is packed every night,” Kendra said, tucking herself under my arm. “But the replacement boat isn’t doing so great. It has the same electrical issue that my last one had. And that one burned.”
Father’s face remained stoic as Kendra dropped the truth bomb on him. Very few people dared speak to him in the first place, but tell him the truth about one of his bad designs? Unthinkable. I covered my smile by scratching my face.
“Interesting,” Father said. “Sounds like a design flaw that my best ship designer could fix if he came back to work for me.”
“Oh yeah? Who’s that?” Kendra raised her eyebrows, and then she nodded. “Ah. I see. Rowan. Of course, he’s the best. He has that fancy degree, plus the pirate thing.”
Father rolled his eyes. “Pirate thing. That ridiculous certificate.”
“I think it’s cool. Do you know how often I’ve wanted to make someone walk the plank off my charter?” Kendra asked.
“Indeed,” Father said.
“While we’re talking designs,” Kendra said, pulling away from me. She walked toward the boat's edge, where Father stood on the dock. “I have some modifications in mind to make this more eco-friendly that I’d like to run past you.”
“Such as?”
“For starters, I’d add solar panels on the boat's top there.” Kendra pointed. “You could harvest solar power from the sun, then store that power in lithium batteries, or some other such amazeballs batteries.”
“How would you manage the power?” Father asked.
Kendra shrugged.
“What if the power was sent to a charge controller? It would manage the flow of electricity to the rechargeable batteries,” I suggested. “It would keep the batteries from being overwhelmed and be more efficient.”
Father’s eyes lit up. “That could work.”
