Ramping Up

by Zoe Dawson

  “He was whining about losing another prospect and was giving me a hard time about the fact that we have principles. He also threatened me.”

  “What?” Trista said. “I will kick his ass.”

  “He just went on about stealing a client. Wishful thinking on his part,” I scoffed.

  “Making the boys cry? Way to go, Helena.” Hannah appeared, buttoning her coat. I chuckled. “We are all bitchcraft masters.” Hannah was just as driven as Trista and I, but a little more sedate about it. She had been a former Olympic snowboarder, but had blown her knee out and lost the gold. She laughed in a way that I could only describe as sunshine. She was calm and so sweet at times that it practically gave me a toothache.

  “Yeah, the art of pissing people off while smiling. It’s truly magical,” Trista said.

  “Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble,” I said, and all three of us cackled like the Wicked Witch of the West as we piled into a cab.

  “I think we deserve a night on the town.”

  “It’s already nine thirty, and I’m exhausted,” I argued.

  “One little drink won’t hurt,” Trista said, nudging my shoulder. “Geez, you got old.”

  I rolled my eyes. I hated when Trista called me old at twenty-six. “Okay, fine. One little drink. Then I’m going home.”

  —

  “Helena!” I heard from far off. My head was still fuzzy from sleep and the alcohol I had consumed last night. One little drink, my ass. If I didn’t move, like ever, there was a good possibility I could keep my head on my shoulders. Even my hair hurt.

  “Sleep,” I mumbled into my pillow with no way for Hannah to hear me.

  “Helena. It’s your cell. Make the ringing stop.” Breathing was iffy right now, and she wanted me to…get up? As in vertical? I wasn’t big on geometry, but I felt that if I were a math whiz, I’d be a huge advocate of horizontal.

  I rolled over and pretended it was good enough. I had made an effort.

  “Helena. Cellphone. Ringing. I think it’s not in my head,” Hannah whispered.

  I carefully opened one eye a fraction of a slit and saw Hannah’s face half-buried in the covers. “It’s too far away,” I whispered back.

  Trista materialized right next to me, and I jerked up in surprise. She had a glass of water and tablets in her hand. Oh my God. She’d been running. She was dressed in exercise clothes, the sweat still glistening on her. I wanted to hate her, but she had the precious Advil. “Take these.” I dutifully downed both. Then she handed me my cell. “Honestly, Helena, you’d think answering the phone would be an easy task.”

  “It would be if I hadn’t done shooters with you. I can’t believe you went running…you…Amazon. I swear your ability to wake up and spring out of bed, be aware before coffee is…inhuman.”

  “I second that,” Hannah said from deeper in the covers.

  Trista shrugged. “I made coffee. The French vanilla kind,” she said, her dark gypsy eyes dancing. Her even darker curly hair was pulled severely off her gorgeous face. Her dark brows arched.

  I pulled myself into a semi-sitting position and realized that I’d only half-dressed for bed. My bottoms were cute little boyfriend shorts, but the top was silk and what I had been wearing at the reception last night.

  “Hello,” I croaked into the phone.

  “Helena?”

  “Yes,” I said, recognizing the voice of Max Wilder, one of my father’s former athletes who now owned his own business, a successful surf and skateboard company with shops all over California.

  “You sound like you swallowed a frog.”

  I laughed, then clutched my head. “I’ve been better. What can I do for you?”

  “I know it’s early, but I wanted to contact you because I need a favor.”

  “Sure. Anything for you, Max.”

  “There’s a kid I want you to see. Just pull up ‘The Midnight Dance’ on YouTube, the one with Falcon Dane in it, and call me back after you’ve seen it.”

  “Falcon Dane?” I said. “But, Trista—”

  “It’s not about Dane. Just watch the video.” Trista grabbed my arm at the mention of Falcon, shoving a cup of steaming black gold into my free hand. I ended our conversation and focused on my eager friend and colleague.

  “Falcon?” she whispered, her eyes alight. Trista was still a surfing maniac, and she followed everything to do with the sport, mostly the meteoric rise of competitive surfer Falcon Dane, a talented, muscled hottie. Dane was not only hell on the water, the guy knew how to carve it on land, a term used for skating and coined by the Dogtown Boys who birthed street skating. Trista was always watching that guy. She was desperate to recruit him, but my understanding was that he was happy with his representation.

  I gestured toward my laptop, and Trista grabbed it as Hannah emerged from the mountain of bedding. “What about Falcon?” she said, as I sipped.

  “Trista, pull up ‘The Midnight Dance’ for me?” There was no way I was letting go of my coffee.

  The video started to play, and I saw a bunch of bare-chested guys under streetlights. The quality of the picture was very…artistic. Almost like brushed metal. I loved the ambiance of it immediately. It looked to be about midnight, which fit with the title—a big bald moon shining down, sending some of the concrete obstacles into shadow, making the city seem otherworldly. The music was high-octane punk, matching the adrenaline look of the skater boys standing around. I saw it already had eight hundred thousand hits.

  My eyes ran over them—urban combatants. Some were on their boards; others were just holding them. They were all attractive in that rebel-boy way. There were five of them in all, shooting the breeze. I instantly recognized Falcon, but not the rest.

  As they continued to stand around, I began to lose interest in the screen, focusing more on my coffee and hangover and everything we needed to pack. The corporate jet was going to be here in two hours.

  I heard Hannah gasp and my head popped up.

  He was emerging from the right-hand side of the screen and for some reason, the videographer had decided to slow his entrance down. He was carrying a board by the nose, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He had a loose, easy stride with a sexy hip roll that was pronounced by the slow motion. He exuded power in the most natural way I had ever seen. Bare-chested, with nothing but a pair of tight black skater pants on, he showed some serious lean muscle in his hips, six-pack abs, arms, and broad shoulders. One of the guys said something, but I couldn’t make out what it was. It seemed like a challenge.

  The hot guy’s muscles flexed as he raised the board in acknowledgment, flashing a secret bad-boy smile. All my girl parts melted, went weak and moist. I caught my breath.

  As the video sped up, the man looked like he was honed from quicksilver. His face was just as powerful with its dark arching eyebrows, high cheekbones prominent above the faint beard stubble along his jaw and across the soft curve of his lips. He had a shock of messy dark hair I wanted to touch. His gaze was narrow, fierce, piercing in its intensity; his alertness honed to a razor’s edge.

  He radiated confidence. The kind of confidence that came from within.

  He was a street warrior.

  He faced the slight incline leading down to a handrail spanning seven elongated concrete stairs, then another incline down to three freestanding, odd-angled blue walls that resembled a bowled corner of a skate park that had been picked up and shattered. I recognized the area. It was the Waterwick Building, where the cool fountains were.

  The night must have been balmy because his sun-kissed skin was glistening. He pushed once off the platform and then bent and kicked out his right leg and lunged forward, eyes on the metal rail ahead. Compact, muscled, and lethally athletic, he stayed crouched as he turned his shoulders 90 degrees and positioned his back foot on the board. Going into a Z shape, he roared toward the stairs. A minute had passed, and my eyes were glued to him. By the time he finessed the board’s tail, used the explosive muscles of his thighs and left the groun
d, I still couldn’t catch my breath.

  He did an ollie. The ollie is the basis of almost every move in street skating; it involves popping the tail of the board off the concrete so the board is propelled upward into the air, its path directed by the feet of the skater without any hand-to-board contact.

  He pointed his toes to the top of the board’s right side toward the rail now just in front of him. Sliding his front foot to the board’s left, he was setting up for a kickflip.

  I’ve seen some air before, but this guy…he was high. Before he was halfway up the rail, the board was upside down under his navy-blue Nitors, with his head, shoulder, and cocked left knee aligned over the angled spinning deck—his back leg kicked out of the way, using his arms to balance his body as the board turned 90 degrees. He looked over his shoulder and hit the deck backward with precision, all his dynamic weight on the concave board slamming down onto the tiny cylindrical handrail, then grinding along the metal while still beautifully balanced on his board. An impossible move. His body bent in the air, his fingers splayed, and his muscular arms raised like a dancer. At the end of the handrail, he turned in midair, planted it, and rolled forward.

  The four urethane wheels landed at once with a cracking clack. Without hesitation, he turned and began pumping toward the waved blue walls ahead. He slammed his foot down and back twice hard, and on the second kick, turned, tucked, leaned back, and rolled up the six-foot wall to take flight.

  He stuck to the board the way older pros couldn’t—and he was many feet above the wall’s lip. He turned halfway, toward the five men watching him. The looks on their faces said everything.

  At this point the videographer slowed him down again, and for an instant, he was superimposed over the fat, wide face of the moon. All three of us gasped at the beauty of the shot and the athleticism of him.

  He was now between the walls, both rounded and knurly angled, exploding ten feet over one side, one arm up, his folded shadow stretched down below him.

  He turned opposite from the way his toes were pointing. With his head down, he waited until the top of the angled wall entered his periphery, and stomping down, he rode away clean.

  Eight seconds had passed.

  With some more slow-mo tricks artfully placed and performed with precision timing and skill, he transferred ramps and ground over an arched rail, the sound slickly metallic, like a sword drawn from a scabbard. Then he rode along a ledge on only his front trucks, kicking and flipping the board as he came out of the grind.

  By this time four of the five men were whooping. Only one of them had a very sour look on his face—the challenger. I finally recognized him as Charlie Powell.

  The skater jumped off his board, bounded up the seven stairs, dropped the board, and this time he approached the rail from the other side. He tucked into his blast-off stance a little differently this time because he was going backward. He choked way up on the board’s tail—the end closest to the approaching rail. With a straight back, his arms wound around his glistening torso, he snapped up over the rail and spun 90 degrees so he was facing the stairs, like before. But instead of doing the 90-degree spin, he kept turning his body until he’d rotated another 180 degrees for a 270, or “full cab,” to nail the board and land backward on the rail before sliding off and falling the short distance to the ground.

  On touchdown, he planted his hand, his right palm dragging him around 180 degrees with a spectacular save. With brutal athletic grace he was up, pushing again toward the blue walls, and there was a roar in my ears when he rode up the blue wave and vertically planted his back truck, the wheels’ axle over its thick, uneven lip. Then, instead of popping the board off the wall and rolling down, he executed a blunt-force-trauma move. With a back wheel locked over each edge of the wall, he spun like a savage dancer, using his arms to rip himself off the wall front side, or blind, 180 degrees over his shoulder, rolling back down.

  I spilled my coffee, and I didn’t give a damn. “The balance! Omigod!”

  He gently flipped off a thin, low ramp leading to the area where the guys were standing and stepped off his board to bend down and let it roll back into his palm. He rose, and Falcon grinned like a fool, hooked his neck, and screamed in his face. All the other guys, except Charlie, erupted, and the video panned to the moon.

  I set down my coffee and grabbed my cell, hitting Max’s number.

  “Who is this guy?” I demanded, my need for caffeine forgotten, my headache faded. I was buzzing with energy.

  “Gunner Smith. What did you think?”

  “He’s talented. And he looks vaguely familiar.”

  “Technically, he’s not a skater. He’s a surfer.”

  “A surfer?” I felt disappointment ripple through me. I wasn’t a big fan of water sports. I hated what the moisture did to my hair. “Max, why did you show me this video?”

  “I want to offer him a sponsorship. I want you to represent him.”

  “For surfing?”

  “No, skateboarding.”

  “What? Max, he’s got to be at least twenty-four.”

  “Do you think he has what it takes?”

  “Based on that video, yes, but…”

  “Helena, he reminds me of Jeff. I need you to hurry. He lives in San Clemente.”

  That made my heart lurch, and I realized why he looked familiar. “Oh God, Max, you’re right. He does remind me of Jeff. Do you want to put yourself through this?”

  “Yes. I need to do this, Helena. I’ve thought about nothing else since I saw him. He’s going to be a hot commodity and he needs someone like you in his corner. Will you do this for me?”

  How could I refuse? Jeff was Max’s son. He had died, and losing him had been so tragic.

  “Of course I will.” I hung up and started to pull my shirt off over my head.

  “What are you doing?” Hannah finally found her voice.

  “Getting in the shower, dropping you two off in San Diego, and going to track down Gunner Smith in San Clemente.”

  “Right now?” Trista said, smiling big. “You’re going after him? Right now?”

  “Right freaking now,” I said emphatically. “Max needs this. He said Gunner reminds him of Jeff.”

  Hannah’s face softened, and Trista made a quiet sound. “Then you do need to go,” Hannah said, following me into the bathroom as I turned on the shower and jumped in.

  “Hannah, hand me my cell.”

  “You’re going to do business in the shower?”

  “Cell!”

  I heard her scramble out of the bathroom, and then she was back.

  “Here.”

  I reached out my arm and head, pressed speed dial, and when a female voice answered, I said, “Hi, Gretchen. I need an address for Gunner Smith. He lives in San Clemente.” Gretchen Carlsson was our go-to gal. She did everything for us from booking flights to taking care of our cars to finding a good caterer on short notice. We wouldn’t be able to function without her.

  “Got that,” Gretchen said. “Sexy name.”

  She didn’t even know the half of it. “I need a contract prepared with his sexy name on it. Fax it to me, pronto.”

  “Got it. Anything else?”

  “Yes, alert the pilot to be ready in an hour. I want to be in San Clemente yesterday.”

  “Check. Turn back time. Done.”

  “You rock.”

  I could hear the grin in her voice. “I know.”

  I handed the phone back to Hannah. “Wow,” she said. “She’s already kicking ass and taking names.”

  “Badass Helena Mavrick,” Trista added.

  Squeaky clean, I turned off the water and ripped back the shower curtain. “Stop standing around giving me compliments! Let’s get packed, you two.”

  Just the thought of losing this guy to anyone was enough to light a fire under my tail. Max was such a close friend, and I didn’t want to let him down. Trista gave me a you’re-a-bitch-but-I-love-it look while Hannah, sweet Hannah, gave me a you’re-a-powerhouse
-and-I-want-to-be-you-when-I-grow-up look. Then both of them scurried off.

  Come hell or high water, Gunner Smith was signing on the dotted line.

  Chapter 3

  Gunner

  A fist headed for my face, and it was so fast, I couldn’t duck. I should have been ready for it. His tight, squinting eyes, the tension in him from the moment I walked in the door, and the hair on the back of my neck prickling were all tells.

  “You’re not quitting,” he screamed, grunting as his fist hit my lower lip and jaw. He hadn’t hit me since my mom left us over ten years ago aside from a shove or a slap here and there. My punishment usually came in the form of surfing drills, working out, or swimming until I wanted to puke.

  My lip split and the metallic taste of blood burst on my tongue. He wound up for another strike. But before I realized what I was doing, I grabbed his fist in my hand, shocked at not only how big my hand was, but how strong I was, easily able to stop him in mid-punch.

  A stunned look washed over his face until I pushed at him and drove him back. “I’m quitting,” I said savagely, reveling in the words again. “And there’s nothing you can do about it. I’ve had enough.”

  “You ungrateful little bastard,” he said, and I jerked away from him. On shaky ground, my stance was as tense and aggressive as his, which I hated; it felt like his sick, twisted way of molding me into his legacy. I was no one’s legacy. I backed up and away from him and headed for the kitchen, but he just followed me. I grabbed a paper towel and dabbed at my lip, absorbing the stinging pain. I reached into the freezer and grabbed some ice.

  “You sad excuse for a son. You’re going to man up and do what I tell you to do.”

  “You made me what I am,” I said, quietly firm, narrowing my eyes. “But no matter what you say or do, I’m not letting you run my life anymore.” I set the ice into the towel and put it against my lip and jaw. I kept him in my sights.