Sparks Like Ours

by Melissa Brayden

  Elle followed Gia’s directions until they pulled up to what she could only describe as a boutique apartment complex. A post stood in front with a cute hanging sign that said Seven Shores, which made sense as that seemed to be the address, 7 Shores Drive.

  Elle nodded, studying the building. “This is where Gia Malone lives.”

  Gia glanced up at her place. “It’s not fancy, but it’s blocks from the beach, which as you know, is important.”

  “I’m guessing you’re training for Swatch Pro.” It was the next tournament on the Championship Tour. This time they’d stay stateside in San Clemente, California.

  “Only day and night.”

  Elle nodded. “Me, too. It’s like I never sleep.”

  “Bring it, Britton. I’m ready for you.” Gia raised her eyebrows in a challenge that was only half in jest. Elle shifted, knowing that as much as she scoffed at Gia’s recent rankings climb, it did increase the pressure. She pushed that much harder during her workouts knowing that Gia was only a handful of points away from taking her title as they neared the end of the tour. While motivating, it also left Elle nervous and a little off-kilter, which wasn’t her favorite place to be.

  Gia tapped the top of the Beetle once. “Hey, thanks for the lift. I appreciate it. You didn’t have to come all the way out here. Very cool of you.”

  “Anytime,” Elle said, brightening to her typical smile. “It also gives me a chance to scope out your practice beach.”

  “Totally my territory. Don’t get any ideas.” The comment was playful and a good note to end on.

  “Be good,” Elle said, and pulled away from the curb, realizing that that whole thing could have gone a lot worse. Maybe they’d made a little progress today. At least, she hoped so. But it was time to push Gia Malone from her brain altogether. She had a date to get to and an outfit to settle on. She cranked the music and drove toward the setting sun, wondering just what delicious possibilities the night had in store for her.

  * * *

  “Freeze. Don’t move a muscle.”

  Gia glanced up to see Autumn standing in the entryway to the courtyard. “Why am I freezing exactly?”

  “Oh, don’t play innocent with me. We saw you get out of Elle Britton’s car. What gives?”

  Gia glanced around. “First of all, who’s we?”

  “The three of us,” Autumn said, gesturing to her stomach. “As in, me and the twins.”

  “I didn’t realize they kept tabs on me the way their nosy mother does.”

  “Well, they do. They’re advanced for their age. Now spill.”

  Gia walked on, passing Autumn, who turned and followed her, hot on her heels. “There’s nothing to tell. Jeep’s getting towed, which sucks.”

  “Did she do something to the Jeep?”

  “No.”

  “Did you guys do something in the Jeep? Together, perhaps?”

  Gia whirled on her. “You need to stop hanging out with Isabel. She’s a bad influence on all three of you.” She made a circular gesture in the direction of Autumn’s stomach.

  “And why is that?”

  Gia turned at the sound of Isabel’s voice and found her lounging on one of the courtyard couches, probably trying to steal some sun for that pale skin of hers, a common and genuinely futile occurrence.

  “What did I do now?”

  Gia marched over to her. “You’re the one getting both Hadley and Autumn going about Elle Britton and sparks and conflict.”

  “Saucy conflict,” Isabel amended, matter-of-factly. “You guys have the recipe. You’re the ones with the rivalry. I just pointed it out. I can’t help it if the romantic and the busybody have both run with it.” She shrugged. “Not on me.”

  “Totally on you.”

  Autumn raised her hand. “Which one am I?”

  “The busybody,” Isabel and Gia said in unison.

  She nodded. “I own that. The busybody would formally like to point out that this one just got out of Elle’s white convertible Beetle. Saw it with my own busybody eyes.”

  “Get out of town,” Isabel said, intrigued now. “The story heats up.” She squinted at Autumn. “What else did you see? Report.”

  “Nothing,” Gia told them. “Because there was nothing to see. Stop being dumb.”

  “I saw them laughing,” Autumn said. “Most definitely. And smiling. Gia touched the car fondly like this.” Autumn imitated the tapping of the hood, but drew it out in exaggerated fashion.

  Gia rolled her eyes.

  “Wow,” Isabel said nodding, as if taking it all in. “That’s progression from wanting to kill each other. Right on schedule, too. I couldn’t write this any better.”

  “I hate you both,” Gia said calmly, and headed to the outdoor staircase that would lead to her second-floor apartment. Let them speculate all they wanted. In fact, let them drown in curiosity. But then…she couldn’t hate them for long. In fact, it lasted about ninety seconds. Her ability to hold a long-term grudge against her friends was embarrassingly lame. “Ms. Pac-Man in twenty?” she called down to Isabel, who glanced up. They’d bonded hard over their love for retro video games and never looked back. Isabel was not only competitive, she understood the treasure that was Ms. Pac-Man. A rare find.

  “Done. My place. I’ll tell Kate.”

  Barney, the beach bum who lived next door to Isabel, strutted from his apartment and looked up at her. “Surf chick?”

  “What’s up, Barney?” Gia called down.

  “Can you introduce me to your surf friend in the car?”

  She stared at him. “No.”

  “She’s the girl of my dreams,” he said happily, and ran his hand through his shaggy blond hair. “Got her calendar on my fridge. She’s in a swimsuit.”

  Isabel and Autumn exchanged a grin and a fist bump on the couches. Their muscle-bound neighbor was generally a happy-go-lucky individual, if a little random. You could always count on Barney to lend a hand when you needed one, making this the first time that Gia wanted to murder him. She took a moment to gather enough energy to not do just that.

  “She has a date tonight, with a guy named Christopher, so I’m thinking she’s not in the cards for you, Barn.”

  “Boo, Christopher,” Autumn said.

  Isabel nodded. “We hate him.”

  “Who is this dude? I’ll take him down,” Barney asked, flexing. Seriously? Did the guy ever wear a shirt?

  Gia lifted a shoulder. “Got me. I just report the weather.” She pointed at Isabel. “Pac-Man with a bow in twenty.”

  “Eighteen now.”

  “Do you at least have her digits?” Barney called.

  Gia chose to ignore him. She let herself into her apartment and crashed temporarily on her couch. With thirteen minutes to veg, and five to make sure her car was brought to the shop, she used the time to relax and unpack her psyche from such a weird and unexpected day. The shoot hadn’t been nearly as awful as she’d expected. She and Elle had sparred a tad, but nothing overt. The one detail she couldn’t shake, however, was Elle’s assertion that Gia had gone out of her way to be unfriendly. While true to a certain extent, hearing it played back was like a punch in the gut. She wasn’t raised to be a mean-spirited person. She didn’t want to be. In fact, she’d always tried to be kind. Yet she’d let her sense of competition override those instincts when it came to Elle and her bubbly shtick. Yes, Elle and her perfection annoyed her no end, but she didn’t deserve poor treatment.

  Gia sat up and ran a hand through her hair as self-recrimination swept in. She’d have to find a way to change her behavior where Elle was concerned. And you know what? Maybe Elle wasn’t as bad as Gia had built her up to be. Today they’d actually had fun together on the ride home. She seemed…genuine during their conversation.

  Gia would focus on the good. She could do that. She lay back down and gave it a shot.

  Okay. Elle could be warm on occasion, like today when she’d gone out of her way to help Gia out. She was a killer surfer, with the kind of
shred and precision Gia worked long hours to emulate. She was definitely pretty, and when she stood near Gia in a swimsuit, like today at the shoot, it was hard to remember the annoying stuff. She visualized that moment now, taking note of her own very acute reaction. Gia covered her eyes and shook her head. What a complicated scenario she had herself in. She gave her face a scrub to wash away the image of sparkling blue eyes and the swell of cleavage, and reached blindly for her phone.

  Time to rescue her car and forget about the rest.

  As if that were an option.

  Chapter Five

  “He had constantly moving hands. Like rovers. All over the place.” Elle sipped her Sauvignon Blanc, appreciating the crisp reveal of flavors. “A lot of touching going on.”

  “Thank God. I hate it when a guy just grabs hold and goes for it.” Holly grinned, enjoying the details from Elle’s date with Christopher two nights earlier.

  If only Elle could enjoy them as much. She’d hadn’t thought much about the night since, which told her it hadn’t made much of an impact.

  “What else?” Holly asked. Her hair bounced as she readjusted to sit cross-legged on her brown leather couch.

  Elle noted distantly that Holly’s house always smelled of cinnamon and apples. Homey, like her. She sighed from her spot on the floor and searched for more details that she hadn’t filed away, realizing she was failing at girl talk yet again. “That’s not enough?”

  “Not nearly. I’ll help. So, his hands are on the move, what then? Spare no detail. This has been a long time coming. When was the last time you got laid?”

  Elle thought on it. “A year ago. The guy with the beard, remember? It’s when we learned I hate beards. They’re so awful, Hol.”

  “Right. Don’t remind me about your facial hair issues. Back to Chris’s hands.”

  “Well, he has big hands and they’re clumsy.”

  “I love big hands.” Holly closed her eyes as if whisked away to a magical sex island. “They give me thoughts.”

  “He tried to unbutton my shirt, but he couldn’t quite kiss and do that at the same time. Tons of fumbling, which is not his fault. Don’t get me wrong, but again, big hands. It kind of ruined the mood.”

  Holly went still. “What do you mean ruined the mood?”

  Elle stood and walked to Holly’s kitchen, where she dumped the rest of her wine and filled her glass with water. Her early morning workout would thank her. “We just talked after that. He’s an awesome conversationalist, really. Did you know he studied abroad in Rome when he was twenty? He can still speak Italian and apparently makes a mean veggie lasagna. He’s going to make me dinner one night soon.”

  Holly looked like she’d just announced Game of Thrones was moving to the Hallmark Channel. “Hold everything. You’re saying you didn’t have sex? This story doesn’t end in sex?”

  “It doesn’t,” Elle said. “But I still had a great time. We really click.”

  “I thought this was gonna be a sex story. This was hugely misleading.”

  Elle inclined her head from side to side. “It’s kind of sexy, though, right? Making out, a little bit of groping, hands on the move. No?”

  “Yeah, until you stopped them.” Holly paused. “Have you ever considered that you’re just not that into him?”

  Elle had considered it. In fact, she still considered it, because if she were into him she wouldn’t have been balancing her checkbook while he attempted to get her naked. There was a disconnect, but then that wasn’t exactly new. Sex just wasn’t as important to her as it was to other people. The other stuff mattered more. Not a big deal. Some people also liked broccoli, while others were less enthused. It’s what made people different from one another. “Sex isn’t everything, Hol. Besides, and hear me out, maybe I just need to take some time for me and focus on surfing. The season is right at its midpoint, and this is probably not the best time to get caught up in anything overly romantic anyway. Christopher and I can keep it light.”

  “And compare lasagna recipes.” Holly pouted, which she did exceptionally well. “Whatever you say. Allow me to hang up my matchmaking cape.”

  “You don’t have a cape.”

  “Maybe that was part of the problem. What do I know about matchmaking anyway? I was totally improvising. Oh!” A lightbulb seemed to propel Holly into action. She grabbed her laptop. “I almost forgot. Did you see yourself on SurfNuggets?”

  She hadn’t. In fact, she avoided SurfNuggets as much as possible. That website reported mainly gossip from the surf world, and usually got it wrong. The last story she’d seen about herself said she’d gained twelve pounds and was leaving the tour for a health camp. Total lies. She loved media attention, just not that kind.

  Holly whirled the laptop around to face Elle. She stared down at the headline. “Declaration of War.” The article went on to detail a tumultuous relationship between Elle and the number two ranked Gia Malone. It described an all-out feud in which they fought for the Trainers endorsement deal. The short paragraph ended with the line “The claws are out and boy do they sting.”

  She pointed at the screen, laughing it off. “Ridiculous.”

  “Well, only a little,” Holly said, studying the screen. “They got most of it right. You guys do have a rivalry going and Trainers is a legitimate endorsement deal. You just happen to be sharing it.”

  Elle rejected the notion. “No way. There’s no backbiting, no underhanded tactics.”

  “Yet,” Holly said, with a grin.

  “That story is an inflated tabloid piece. Plus, Gia’s actually not so bad, it turns out. I mean, she’s not great, don’t get me wrong, but we had a chance to talk at the shoot.” She thought back to their conversation in the car.

  Holly looked surprised. “Oh, yeah?”

  “I think we came to an informal understanding. We’re different people, and that’s not going to change. There will be no kumbaya session, but the campaign should be fine. We’ll be able to work together easily enough, but there’s no way she’s coming close to taking my ranking. By the end of the season, I will be this year’s world champion. SurfNuggets should put that in their pipe and smoke it.”

  “I’m glad to hear you still have that fire, Wave Weasel. Keep it. Did you shame her for that late drop-in on your wave in the final?”

  Elle grinned, remembering the party and their exchange. “In my own way. She knows how I feel on the subject.”

  “Well, prepare yourself for the world to start asking questions about your hatred for one another. I have a feeling the gossip is only going to get bigger after this write-up.”

  Elle shook her head. “It’s all so stupid.”

  “It is.” Holly nodded. “But I’ll need you to leave now.”

  “What?” Elle froze the application of her lip gloss, mid-gloss. “You’re kicking me out?”

  Holly ushered Elle to the door. “All that big hands talk got me going, and Dash is on his way over.”

  “You were secretly texting him while we talked? You were summoning your booty call and planning my departure in tandem? What kind of person does that?”

  “Me. It’s a skill I’m quite proud of.”

  “You’re going to hell.”

  “Tonight, I’m hoping for heaven. Now leave, so I can change into my sexiest underwear and get some much-needed action. Something you should put on your to-do list at some point.”

  “Meh. I’m good.”

  “Honestly, Elle, if you got laid once in a great while, I think you’d be much happier.”

  Elle scoffed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I am happy. I’m at the peak of my career and enjoy what I do. Take in the noticeable smile on my face. My life is good.”

  “Please. You’re status-quo happy. I’m talking off-the-charts happy.”

  Elle grumbled as she hit the sidewalk. “Yeah, well, I don’t have your sex drive, okay? Not sure what I can do about that. Just a part of life.”

  “Maybe you just haven’t awakened it yet. Stirr
ed that inner, naughty yearning. Food for thought. Now scram. I got yearnings of my own happening.”

  Elle smiled at her friend and headed down the walk. She’d not brought her car, since she and Holly lived close enough to walk easily to each other’s homes, by design. It also allowed them quick access to the beach for impromptu surf sessions. Surfing with her best friend reminded Elle how much she loved the sport. When it was just her and Holly out for a fun Saturday, catching waves, she lost herself in the day, in the sun, the recreational side of an activity she’d forced firmly into the job category years ago. They needed to make a date to do just that soon. Elle needed it.

  She checked her phone as she walked, daylight all but extinguished, finding an email from her manager, Kip. Did you see the latest on you and Malone?

  Elle laughed because she had seen the latest, and Kip was overreacting. There was nothing to talk about. The feud article would be fodder for about ten minutes. Then the world would move on to the next new rumor. She clicked the link just because Kip had included it, and paused right there on the curb.

  This wasn’t the same story from SurfNuggets.

  This was a piece from Surf Magazine’s online arm, which came with much more clout. Way more people would stumble across this article. She scanned the words in front of her, not quite believing what she was seeing. At the top of the page was a shot of her and Gia in Elle’s car, pulling out of the studio’s parking lot. There were a few more shots of them smiling, one of her looking rather adoringly at Gia. How in the world had they managed these shots? She’d seen no one with a camera. The headline read “Canoodling Much?” and was followed by a short paragraph under the photos. Elle read on, flabbergasted.

  Spotted together in West Hollywood, Elle Britton and Gia Malone shed their tour rivalry for a flirtatious afternoon of fun. Sources close to the women say they’ve discovered a new appreciation for each other and are getting in lots of one-on-one time. Are we witnessing a burgeoning romance? How will this new pairing affect the race for the number one?

  Beneath the article was that old photo of Gia watching Elle talk to reporters, the one that had received all the attention for Gia’s gaze, which had been totally misconstrued.