Crash Around Me (Love In Kona Book 2)

by Piper Lennox

  To be fair, the Lees did see a jump in revenue—but almost all of it was coming directly from customers within the resort, rather than new clients approaching them, as the resort promised would happen.

  “Pretty soon, we were at the point where customers, even ones not staying at Paradise Port, were going there for bike rentals and shuttle tours,” says Lee. “They were bypassing us completely. We grew reliant on them. We had to.”

  So, when Paradise Port approached Kona Tours with yet another offer—the tenth in two months, according to Lee—they saw no alternative.

  “The corporate person they sent over basically said they could get their own shuttles and bikes, any time they wanted, and we’d be out of business,” says Lee. “So we took the offer, because the only other option was trying to compete. And we knew we couldn’t.”

  Similar stories abound from former affiliates and owners, and not just in Kona. Last week, the company’s Aruba location announced it would soon shut down, due to demands and protests from locals, as well as a massive backlash on social media.

  “Companies like these are nothing but bloodthirsty parasites,” wrote one user on the Paradise Port: Aruba ConnectedWeb page. “They don’t care about mom and pop stores or local economies. They just want more and more money.”

  Another user angrily described how he believed Paradise Port forced his uncle’s jet-ski rental company out of business, when he refused to be bought out.

  “I take full responsibility,” says current owner of Paradise Port: Kona, Luka Williams, the youngest son of David and Rose Williams.

  He says he had no knowledge that Paradise Port was pressuring affiliates worldwide into buyouts, setting up competing businesses, and turning his program into a thinly-veiled monopolization machine.

  “But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t take responsibility,” he says, “because I should. I have to. When I signed on...that’s what I agreed to do, isn’t it?”

  It would be all too easy to point the finger at Williams, who pitched the affiliate program to Paradise Port in 2015, before he was even an owner.

  But his plans for the program indicated a much purer, honest design than what the corporation executed: “It was meant to smooth local relations, and boost local economies,” he says. “By its name alone, ‘affiliate program,’ that was obvious. I wanted partnerships. Not takeovers.”

  “I hate that I let myself be so blind to everything [Paradise Port was] doing,” he adds. “They kept saying they cared about the local businesses, the people...but they didn’t.”

  My eyes strain against my phone’s light as I blink and skim the article again. I flip past ads at the bottom, until I find the comments thread.

  Instead of my name appearing time and again, users tearing me to pieces in a way I probably deserve, at least a little, I find thread after thread about corporate.

  I go to my dial screen, enter the digits I’ve had memorized for two years now, and hit Call.

  Tanya

  “Hey.”

  I smile, tucking the phone between my chin and shoulder. “Hey. You see the story? Not to brag, but it’s already been shared over five thousand times.”

  The sound of his laugh, even huskier through the phone than in person, practically melts me into my chair. “I can’t believe you did that.”

  “What?”

  “Well, first—the paper.”

  “I’ll have you know, Kona Today is one of my favorite publications. They were far better suited to run this story than WorldCast.”

  “And second,” he continues, drowning out the last of my sentence with his laugh, “your strange ability to somehow quote me directly, yet still make me come out of this sounding like anything but an asshole.”

  “That, I’ll admit, was a challenge.”

  He laughs again. I’m surprised by the pull I feel in my chest, hearing it.

  “Seriously—why did you do that? I mean, you could have sold that story to any publication you wanted, made out like a bandit, and had your pick of jobs. And I’m sure you had more than enough material to make the thing more edgy.”

  I switch the phone to my hand and spin the chair in a lazy circle. “Way to insult my writing style.”

  “Come on. Tell me.”

  A weird feeling washes over me. It’s that heat of a new crush, the heady joy of being with someone you’ve just met. I’ve never felt that with a guy I’ve known longer than a week, let alone years. Even in a fragmented, vacations-only pattern.

  But, when I think about it—which I’ve been doing ever since the phone call when Mollie snapped plenty of sense into me—I’ve felt this way about Luka before. Every time I see him, in fact. Every time I look at photos of our time together, and every time a text appears out of the blue, right when I need it most, like a perfectly synced miracle.

  “You’re a nice guy,” I tell him, finally. “You didn’t want to believe Port was doing that shit because you didn’t want to believe anyone could do that shit. Not because you wanted to claim ignorance or something. You gave up your business and put yourself in the line of fire to do the right thing.”

  He’s quiet. I can hear the tick of the line, our connection stretched across so much land and water.

  “And,” I go on, “I realized the hard-hitting, ultra-edgy story would have sold better...but it wasn’t the truest version I could write.” I swivel back to my computer. The desktop photo is a selfie of us, that day at South Point. I’ve been looking at it a lot, lately. “How Port hurt the towns they came into, the people who trusted them...that was the story that needed to be told.”

  For once, his silence isn’t tinged with tension or thought. He just breathes.

  “I have absolutely nothing to do today,” he says suddenly. “It’s the weirdest feeling. I bet you’re drowning in to-do lists and job offers, though, huh?”

  “Just a few. But I’ve got a feeling you’ll find a project soon. People like us don’t stay down for long.”

  “Yeah, guess I will. If Port doesn’t sue me for defamation or some shit. But Dad’s lawyer is pretty sure they’ll just let me out of my contract in exchange for a non-disclosure, where I can’t talk to anyone else about the details. Which is fine. I’ve said all I needed to say.” He pauses. “By the way, nice touch with that last line. Funny, I don’t remember saying that in the interview.”

  “It was off the record,” I admit, “but I thought it made for a nice ending.”

  I can hear his smirk, wrapping around his words like a low wave, hugging the shore. “I think so, too.”

  Twenty-Four

  Luka

  Tanya was half-right: I’m not down for long, but I don’t find a project. A project finds me.

  “You can’t sleep till noon every day.” Mom flips my light switch on and off to some imaginary beat. In her head, I’m sure, she’s singing Jones or Jovi. “Come on.”

  “It’s been two days,” I counter, sheltering my head from the light with a stack of pillows. It isn’t just the hangover brewing—Jake snuck me more than a few drinks when I wandered to the resort yesterday, right after I hung up with Tanya. It was weird, being in a place I knew so well but that already felt foreign to me, beating with an aura of being anything but mine.

  “Hey.” He swept a nervous look across the pool deck. I didn’t know why; no one could stop me from being here. I owned the property. Even if—when—Port cut ties, this would all still belong to me. Even stranger was the fact I did the exact same thing, the two of us fidgeting as I sat.

  “Shit hit the fan yet?” I asked.

  “It’s all anyone’s been talking about all morning.” He poured some gin into a glass over two cherries, sliding it to me. “Corporate hasn’t called any meetings or anything, though, if that’s what you mean.”

  I sipped it gratefully. “Here’s to joblessness.”

  “Don’t be like that. We have no idea how this will all turn out. For all you know, someone will swoop in and buy the entire place. Employees too. Maybe even
make you a CEO.”

  “Sure. And the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day.”

  Jake’s second pour was even more generous.

  “Luka.” Mom’s voice grows stern. I shove the pillows off my face and look at her.

  “Get dressed. Something nice.” As she leaves, she looks around my room at the towers of boxes, destined for nowhere.

  Sweatpants are tempting, but I force myself into some jeans I’m not even sure are mine. Kai probably left them behind when he moved.

  I pull a surf company T-shirt, wrinkled to hell but clean, over my head. Then I push back my hair, inhale, and face the mirror.

  A week ago, I looked like a businessman. I was a businessman. Twenty-three and en route to building my own house. Owner of one of the biggest companies on the island. Involved—even in the most minimal of ways—with a beautiful woman.

  Now, I look and feel like a loser.

  In the hallway, I smell coffee, the strong brew Dad and I love, and hear voices. My parents’, of course, but two more it takes me a second to register.

  “Luka!” Wendy grins when I slink my way into the kitchen. She hugs me. Gregory stays in his seat, but shakes my hand.

  “Uh...hi. What’s going on?”

  “The Kalanis were very impressed by the story,” Dad says.

  “Impressed?” I take a seat and wave away the coffee pot when it comes my way. “Why?”

  “Your honesty,” Wendy says, and Gregory and Mom nod in agreement. “And the way you took responsibility, even though none of it was your fault.”

  “Not knowing isn’t an excuse,” I mutter.

  “And when you did know what Paradise Port was doing,” she goes on, oblivious, “you refused to lie down with the dogs. That was so...so....” She looks to Greg for help. Good luck, I think.

  But, surprising me for the second time in my life, Greg says, “Noble.”

  “Yes.” Wendy smiles again and bring her mug to her face, not sipping, elbows resting on the table. I notice Mom put out the good placemats, lacy and summery, reserved for company. “Noble.”

  Their praise makes me blush; I want to dismiss it as easily as I passed on the coffee. I don’t deserve it. But, just like when Tanya said it, I also want to believe them. Not to ease my guilt, but to give my actions weight; the story, power. I want all of this to mean something and help someone, somehow. At least I managed to help Tanya, if no one else.

  “Luka.”

  I look from the table to Wendy, but don’t lift my head. She’s still smiling.

  “We want you to become our new commercial executor. Well,” she laughs, “our first and only commercial executor.”

  I sit up. “What?”

  “You’re exactly the kind of person we’ve been wanting to bring on board. Expansion’s been on our minds a lot, now that Greg and I are getting older—it’d be nice to have everything more streamlined, spread a little farther...nothing crazy, of course, but maybe a location or two on other islands. More Segways, more tours. Seems like it’s right in your wheelhouse.”

  On instinct, I shake my head. “I’m really flattered. And grateful. But...with how bad I messed everything up with Port, and the affiliates—”

  “Just think about it.” Wendy stands and motions to Gregory to follow. Mom and Dad stand, too, so I have no choice but to help walk them out to the driveway. “We know you’ve got a lot to get settled, before you can think about your next job and all that. The offer will still be standing though, okay?”

  They’re already climbing into their car. I stand on the asphalt barefoot and feel nothing, not letting myself believe that I can get something so good this fast, this easily. Sure, I’ve had a lucky life. But never this lucky. Never when I don’t feel deserving.

  But then, as I walk around the house and see the start of the path there, I feel that guilt fade.

  It’s the trail my brothers and I would run or bike down in the evenings or early mornings before sunrise, when the beaches weren’t crowded and waves were steady. Surfboards at the ready, already talking shit to each other.

  It’s growing over with moss and grass. I haven’t taken this path in years.

  I can still remember it, though. The texture of tree roots under my feet, the slip of pebbles, the friction on my palms if I took a turn too sharply and fell. The sight of my brothers’ heads in front, ducking under branches, dodging neighbors’ dogs and hopping fences just for fun. The sound of our voices crashing against siding and brick and glass as we wound around houses and sheds at full-speed, barely slowing when that first sliver of the ocean finally appeared.

  How many times in the last two years, and even before that, did I tell myself, “I’ll go surfing tomorrow,” only to push it back again and again, because Port said they needed me?

  How many arguments have I gotten into with Kai or my dad over this business? How many nights did I look up from my desk or the kitchen table, sure it was only midnight, to find daylight? I’ve consumed so much caffeine in two years it doesn’t affect me at all, unless you count tearing up my stomach and burning a hole in my throat. All for this company.

  I lost so much of myself in this business, I couldn’t even give more than the smallest, most temporary piece to a girl. Not until one came along who said that was all she wanted.

  “Noble” damn sure isn’t the word I’d use to describe anything I’ve done lately, but that doesn’t mean I don’t deserve at least some good luck. I’ve worked hard to prove I’m not the class clown anymore, the kid who ditches shifts and spews the word “work” the way most people curse. Just because the reward is different now, doesn’t mean I haven’t strived and sacrificed to get it, just the same.

  I grab my board and a rash guard, then some swim trunks that, once again, I can’t confirm are mine. The wax is flat, so I swipe on some more, comb the rest, and run my palm over the surface. Not perfect, but good enough for a few waves. I won’t be out long.

  I’m out there for hours. My legs feel shaky on my popups, and I know the other surfers in the lineup think I’m crazy: half the waves I paddle out for, I handle like a pro. The other half, I make every rookie mistake there is. I keep blaming the waves, but I know it’s me. I’m out of practice.

  Just when I decide to paddle back, a wave lifts from the horizon like a smoke signal that I can’t ignore. Swelling low but fast, one long ripple that makes me turn, plunge my hands into the water, and rush towards it.

  It sweeps me along faster than I thought it would. I pop up, knees aching, and find my balance.

  Already, I can tell exactly what kind of wave this will be. Even before the far end begins to curl against itself, and the light at the end shrinks to a pinhole, shimmering and crackling like static on an old TV, I can see the double barrel forming.

  My instinct, as the wave closes behind me and that hole in front of me disappears, is to lean back. I know I have to keep up the pace to follow this tunnel as it forms, but the sight of nothing in front of me but frothing foam makes me panic.

  “You can’t be afraid of it. When you’re afraid, you hesitate and lean back. And when you lean back, you slow down.” Noe’s words, ones I’d heard more times than I’d ever wanted, came at me fast. “And when you slow down, that’s when the wave gets just enough time to change.”

  “When I’m inside a tube,” I’d protest, as saltwater scorched my lungs and sinuses after yet another wipeout, “there’s about a thousand pounds of water that could crash around me at any fucking second. How am I supposed to not be afraid?”

  “You can’t only look at what’s happening right beside you,” he explained. It was the first day I would finally get it right. Not immediately after his little speech, but hours later: when my anger and frustration seeped out of me like sweat, and I decided, while he and Kai cheered from the line, to give it one more shot. “If you’re only focused on what’s in front, you miss everything behind and around you.” He sat back, angling his board from the water before letting it slap the surface a
gain, like a gavel. “That’s your mistake. Past, present, future—you can’t pick just one. Pay attention to them all.”

  Now, as the spray from the tunnel around me pricks my skin, water glittering with sunlight and rushing like blood, I look ahead. I look behind me.

  And I look beside me, gauging how wide the tube is, but also taking just a second to appreciate this view, this feeling.

  I lean forward. Just enough to creep away from the closing end behind me. Enough to get scared by the sight of the closing end in front.

  When I emerge from the tube, I angle out. The board coasts down the face. In the open air between the barrels, I laugh. More like “catch my breath,” but still.

  Only a few surfers in the lineup noticed, but they cheer as I slow myself down and cut back.

  I thank them, panting, and watch the wave closeout before paddling back in the direction of the shore.

  Before I get there, though, I pause. Lie on my back, arm resting on my eyes to block the sun. I rest my other hand on my chest. My pulse is still pounding, the fibers of my rash guard moving with it.

  Meanwhile, my board moves with the ocean, the same steady but powerful pulse, and I move with the board. One small fiber, in the middle of something so much bigger.

  Epilogue

  One Year Later

  Luka

  Today, I landed us a second office in Oahu.

  I saved us at least ten percent on our new advertising campaigns, thanks to a long meeting with more talk about tequila than numbers.

  I’ve already gotten congratulatory calls from two of Kona’s most respected business owners. Three, if you count my father.