I looked like hell. Three days worth of dirty blond stubble lined my chin and cheeks. Bloodshot eyes, a small cut on my cheekbone that I assumed I'd gotten somewhere along the line in the fight. I looked more like a homeless person than a professional anything.
I doused my hair and brushed it back with my hands, then swished water in my mouth, trying to remove the lingering taste of beer and tequila. I crossed the hotel room and fished out a stick of deodorant from my duffel bag along with a container of mints. Somehow, I'd forgotten to pack a toothbrush. And I hadn't thought to buy a new one.
Five minutes later, I stepped off the elevator and into the hotel lobby. I scanned the room, looking for Mark. There was a group of tourists at the front desk, stacks of suitcases piled up next to them. I couldn't tell if they were checking in or out.
I looked to my right, at a seating area with couches and overstuffed armchairs, all occupied. Their backs were to me so I couldn't see who was seated there. Probably more tourists. Mark stood next to one of the chairs, his arms folded across his chest.
“Handler.”
I ran my hand through my hair and tugged a little on my shirt. “Hey,” I said as I approached.
He slammed a newspaper into my chest. “You better start talking. Now.”
It was the same article I'd just read in my hotel room. I knew what it said. But I reached for it anyway and unfolded it.
“Well?”
I looked up at Mark, his eyes blazing, his mouth set in a grim line. “Sorry, bro,” I said. “The dude riled me up, man. And he swung first.”
“It doesn't fucking matter.” He jabbed his finger into my chest. “You are Kellen Handler. You can't do this shit.”
“It was one time,” I said. “One fight.”
And that was the truth. I didn't pick fights. I wasn't one of those dudes with an attitude, wigging out over waves or getting freaked about getting cutting off in the lineup. Maybe part of it was because guys didn't do that shit to me. Maybe my reputation kept people at a distance. I didn't know. But I didn't go looking for fights and, more often than not, I let things go.
Mark reached for my arm and led me to the couches. Heath sat in one of the chairs, his leg bouncing nervously. The suit from yesterday was there. Johnson? I couldn't remember his name. Dressed in a white button down and a pair of charcoal gray slacks, his black loafers impeccably polished. Next to him were a couple more guys from the tour. Big shots. And sitting across from them in a floral armchair was a small, dark-haired woman. Her hair was pulled off her forehead with a glittery headband, her face like a china doll, smooth skin and pink cheeks, her lips a soft red. She was hot. Not surfer girl hot. Just hot.
She was also the woman I'd crashed into at the bar the night before.
They all stared at me impassively. A ball formed in the pit of my stomach. Not the way it had when Jay had gone missing, out of my sight line on the water – nothing would ever compare to that – but a sense of uneasiness grew. They weren't there to simply chew my ass out.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked.
Mark motioned toward an empty space on the couch. “Sit. We need to talk.”
I crossed my arms and stayed put. “I'd rather stand.”
He started to say something, then stopped. He nodded curtly and cleared his throat. “Fine.” He glanced at Johnson.
“As I mentioned yesterday,” Johnson began, his hands folded in his lap. “We'd like to help you with your...image.”
I stared at him. “Right. And, like I mentioned yesterday, I'm not interested.”
Bruce Wyckoff, one of the tour officials sitting on the couch, spoke up. He was older than Mark, slightly overweight, his hair a silvery gray. “You don't have a choice.”
“Excuse me?”
He nodded. “You're in multiple violations of tour rules, Handler. We have enough to suspend you. Indefinitely.”
The ball of anxiety moved from my stomach to my throat. “What?” I glanced at him and then at Mark and then at Heath. Bruce was the only one who would meet my gaze.
“You're a wreck, Kellen.” His voice was firm but I detected a note of sympathy. “And we all know Jay's death was hard on you. Hell, it's a miracle you're back out on the water. Winning, even.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Winning. And I have the finals this afternoon. I don't have time for this shit.”
“You're not going to the finals,” Bruce said.
“Bullshit I'm not.” I made a move to walk away but Mark reached out and grabbed my arm. I pulled out of his grasp. “Get the fuck off of me.”
“Kellen.” He gripped harder, jerking me close. He was a couple inches taller than me and he bent his head close, so close I could smell the coffee that lingered on his breath. “You don't have a choice.”
“A choice in what?” I reached for his hand, trying to pry his fingers off of me, but he dug in harder.
“We're going to suspend you if you don't get help.”
“Help with what?” I half-yelled. “My surfing? Look, I don't know if you've noticed but I'm doing pretty fucking good out there. No one seems to be complaining about the shitload of people here to watch me on the water.”
“No,” he hissed. “Help with your image.”
“I don't give a shit about my image.”
“You need to,” Bruce said from his spot on the couch. “Your actions reflect poorly on the entire sport. On this organization. And until you start to care about it, you're going to be suspended.”
Surfing was the one thing I had left. It was the one thing I'd clung to since Jay's death. And now they were threatening to take it away from me.
I swallowed hard. “What do you want from me?”
Bruce and Mark exchanged anxious glances.
Bruce crossed his legs and leaned back in the chair. “We want you to work with Gina.”
“Who the hell is Gina?”
Bruce pointed at the girl I'd crashed into at the bar. “This is Gina Bellori.”
She didn't smile at me, just gave me a short nod, the silver hoops in her ears bouncing a little. If anyone wanted to be there less than me, it seemed to be her.
“We want you to work with Gina,” Bruce explained. “Her firm specializes in righting the ship when things start to sink. She's going to put some things together for you, things like community service, some interviews, that kind of thing so you can start to correct any misconceptions that may be forming about you in the media.”
“And the tour,” I said, my voice bitter.
He nodded. “Yeah, absolutely. Because like it or not, Kellen, you are the face of the tour. As you go right now, we go. So you're right. We have an interest here. But our interest also includes your well-being. It's your choice as to whether or not you believe that, but it's true.”
He sounded like he was telling the truth, but I wasn't sure whether to believe him. I did believe, though, that he had the power to end my career. I didn't know if I wanted a career anymore as a professional surfer but I did know one thing: I didn't want someone else making that decision for me. And he was ready to if I didn't step up and do what he asked.
“So what do I need to do?” I asked.
It was like they all breathed a collective sigh of relief. They all stood except for Gina.
“Gina's going to explain the plan,” Bruce said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Basically a thirty day deal. You stay out of trouble, do some things that shore up how the public views you, and then we all move forward.”
“What about surfing?” I asked.
“After today, you're out of the water until Gina gives us the all clear,” Bruce said.
I hesitated. “But I can surf today? In the finals?”
Bruce exchanged another glance with Mark, then nodded. “Yeah. You can finish out today.”
I hated that I felt relieved. They weren't letting me surf for me. They were letting me surf for them. Pulling me out of the finals would've screwed up everything for the tour. No television, no competit
ion, no nothing. So I knew it wasn't about me.
But I was relieved that I'd get one more run in the water. Not because I wanted to win. I suddenly felt a wave of guilt wash over me. It had nothing to do with letting the tour down. I did feel a little twinge of regret about that because, despite their hard-ass attitudes, Mark and Bruce were still guys I considered friends. No, the guilt I was feeling ran deeper. This was the first competition since Jay's death. And he wouldn't have wanted this for me. Like Matty and Mark and everyone else had tried drilling into me, Jay would have wanted me to focus, to get my shit together, to win. And I was determined to do it. For him.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “Okay.”
“So,” Bruce said. “We're going to get out of here and let you get acquainted with Gina.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “And make no mistake, Kellen. What she says goes. Period.” He squeezed my shoulder. “Good luck this afternoon.”
I watched them all walk out the front doors of the hotel.
Then I took a deep breath and prepared to get acquainted with the chick who now controlled my future.
EIGHT
Kellen
I slumped in the chair next to Gina. “Let's get this over with.”
I couldn't believe I was sitting there, waiting for some chick to bark orders at me. I had a surfing competition to win – for Jay – and I felt like I was in detention, waiting to be chewed out by my teacher.
“So,” she said, reaching for a black briefcase sitting next to her on the floor. She set it on her lap, opened it, and retrieved a thin manila folder. She opened that and rifled through some papers. “I've been doing a little research and have some ideas to run by you.”
“Ideas to run by me?” I glared at her. “Pretty sure I don't get a say in any of this.”
She looked up, her face expressionless. “Perhaps not.”
I sighed. “Alright. What kind of endorsements do you have for me?”
Her lips quirked a little, a hint of a smile on them, but she reined it in. “No endorsements. Not yet, anyway.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Well, what's in there?” I asked, motioning to the folder on her lap. I tried not to notice the legs only half hidden by the black skirt she wore.
She reached for a lock of dark hair and absently began twirling it as she studied the papers in front of her. It wasn't done to entice me or to get my attention; instead, it just looked like a habit she'd picked up. But I noticed.
“Alright,” she began. “Your endorsements aren't the problem here. You work with solid companies with good reputations. The problem is that you're probably on thin ice with a few of them. The drinking, the women,” she stopped, her cheeks flushing a little. She swallowed and continued, not looking at me. “And then last night. The fight. You have a reputation, Mr. Handler, and we need to turn that around. But not with new endorsements.”
“Okay.” I watched her. She wound the lock of hair tightly around her finger, then released. It bounced to her shoulder, unraveling as it fell and she picked it back up, winding and releasing it again. It fell against her blouse, a silky blue shirt that clung to her. I realized I'd been wrong about something the night before. She did have cleavage. Very nice cleavage. I brought my eyes back to her face. “Then what do you have in mind?”
“We need to convince the world that you're not a bad guy.” She handed me a sheet of paper and I noticed her hand was trembling.
I smiled. Good. I hoped like hell I made her nervous. I took it from her and scanned the contents. “Community service?” My voice was flooded with disbelief.
She nodded. “To start.”
I read the press release in front of me. It was dated for tomorrow. It said that I'd be spending my day at Huntington Beach State Park, running a surf clinic for underprivileged youth.
“I don't like kids.”
“That's not really the point,” Gina said.
I handed the paper back to her. “You have me spending all day teaching kids how to surf. Not my thing, sweetheart.”
She bristled at the empty endearment. “None of these are negotiable, Mr. Handler.”
“Call me Kellen.”
She squirmed a little in her chair and her black skirt rode up just a bit, revealing more of her thigh. Her legs weren't tan but I didn't care. I couldn't stop looking at them. Slim but curvy, her skin soft and smooth, her toes peeking out of a pair of high-heeled sandals, her nails painted bright pink.
“Kellen,” she said, tripping over it a little as she said it, like she was saying the name of some revolting insect. “As I said, none of these things are really choices. I've tried to find events and opportunities for you that stay inside your comfort zone— ”
“You know my comfort zone?” I interrupted.
Her cheeks flushed a deeper red. “Well, no. But I tried to focus on things where there might be some familiarity for you. Surfing. Swimming. Things of that nature.”
I could tell I made her uncomfortable and I wondered why. Was she a little star-struck? I doubted that. She worked PR – she must have had her fair share of dealing with people in the limelight. But maybe I was her biggest client so far. Or maybe her biggest fuck-up, I thought. Maybe she didn't think she could turn me around. Maybe she'd drawn the short stick at the PR firm that week and ended up with me and didn't know how the hell she was going to fix my rep.
As far as I was concerned, she was the person standing between me and freedom. I needed to ignore the legs and the hair and the dark eyes that, combined, made one delectable package. A package I'd definitely want to get to know better under different circumstances. If I could convince her to sign off on me, then I was free to do whatever the hell I wanted. And that might be easier to do if I intimidated her.
“There's nothing else?” I asked. “Maybe I could sign autographs or something at a surf shop? A mall?”
She shook her head. “No, not yet. We need to keep you out of the spotlight for a while. Especially with news reporters and cameras.”
“So no one will be covering the poor kids' surf clinic?”
Gina frowned. “Underprivileged. Not poor. That's not a politically correct term.”
“Fine. Underprivileged,” I said, enunciating the word carefully. “No reporters there?”
“No, there's bound to be.” She reached for the lock of hair again. “Especially after today.”
“Yeah, they'll be there regardless of whether I win or lose,” I said.
She looked at me. “That's not what I was talking about.” I must have looked confused because she motioned to the folded-up paper Mark had tossed on the couch.
“Oh.” For some reason, I didn't like the fact that she knew about the previous night. It was illogical – after all, the fight was the main reason she was sitting across from me – but it was how I felt.
I tried to make sense of what she was telling me. “So if there'll be reporters there at the beach...” She wasn't making any sense. If she wanted to keep me out of the spotlight, a public event didn't seem like the best way to accomplish that.
“There will be press,” she said. “But you won't be allowed to talk to them.”
I stared to speak but she cut me off. “I'll talk to them. Me. Me only. Not you. And not that...that manager of yours. Heath.” She said his name with even more derision than she'd said mine and I smiled. “You won't say a thing to anyone without going through me first. Got it?”
I'd never met a woman like her before. Firm. Decisive. Ordering me around. I didn't know whether to be irritated or amused. “What happens if I do?”
She raised her eyebrows, perfectly sculpted, dark like her hair. “You really want to take that risk and find out?”
I thought for a minute. What the hell did I want? I wasn't sure what I cared about anymore. Before January, before that day at Mavericks? I would have been on board with whatever Gina was telling me. Grudgingly, to be sure, but I'd do it. Because, back then, I'd cared. But, I reminded myself, I wouldn't have been in this position. I wouldn't be t
he fucked up mess I was, sitting across from her in a hotel lobby, getting my ass chewed out for all the stupid shit I'd been doing.
Now? Now I was just going through the motions. I was surfing because it was what I did, what I'd done for as long as I could remember. And because, despite the pain the ocean bathed me in each and every time I stepped foot in the water, it was the only thing I had left. It didn't just tie me to Jay in some twisted pleasure-pain way but it tied me to myself, to the only identity I had.
“Alright. A surf clinic.” I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose with my fingers. “Tomorrow. Got it.”
NINE
Gina
I hated that he made me nervous. Sitting in the hotel lobby across from Kellen Handler, my knees knocking together and my hands shaking, I was acting like some starstruck little grommet. Or worse, some fangirl who wanted to climb into bed with him.
I'd tried holding my ground, doing my best to keep my voice steady as I told him about his first public appearance. It wasn't his ridiculous good looks that did me in. I didn't care that he was probably the best-looking guy I'd ever sat across from. In any setting. Ever.
I was nervous because of what he represented. What he stood for.
And what he reminded me of.
But I'd done what I needed to do. He slouched in his chair, his fingers pinching the space between his eyes.
“Alright. A surf clinic,” he said, closing his eyes. “Tomorrow. Got it.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I gathered up the papers and arranged them neatly in the manila folder. One thing at a time. We'd do the surf clinic the next day and then I'd let him know what else I had planned.
“And that's it?” he asked.
I glanced at him. He was watching me, his blue eyes questioning. “That's what?”
“That's all I have to do to...” he paused for a second. “...to improve my reputation?”
I almost laughed. I was pretty sure he'd need a month's worth of back-to-back public events – that went well – to dig himself out of the mess he'd created.
“That's all for today,” I told him. I shoved the folder back into my briefcase.
The XOXO New Adult Collection: 16 Full Length New Adult Stories Page 145