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I stuff it in my mouth, gobbling it down as if I’m in a race. “Still hungry.”
“Wanna go to Surf House?”
Surf House is by far my favorite restaurant in Carolina Beach. They have a ton of healthy seafood dishes, and they really strive for the farm-to-table approach, which suits my training diet of at least 95% whole foods and at least 60% raw. Plus, it’s nice when the chef loves you. Chef Rainier will make just about anything for me.
I get a pang of guilt as I think of going to Surf House without Lindsay. Lena and I have gone out to eat plenty of times to get a quick bite—some sashimi with brown rice or my favorite paleo tacos at the new Asian fusion hole-in-the-wall down the street—but we’ve never gone to a nice restaurant like Surf House without Lindsay and Yuri. I’m not sure what prompted her to ask me to go there, but I’m sure it was probably just the first restaurant that popped into her head. She knows how much I love that place.
I nod as I pick up both boards and she grabs Dioji’s leash so we can start heading back to the truck. “Yeah, let’s do Surf House.” I glance down at my sand-covered feet. “They’ll make us sit out on the patio, but that’s fine by me.”
“The weather’s perfect for outside dining,” Lena says, taking the words out of my mouth.
Once my surfboards are in the back of the truck and I’ve brushed as much sand as I can off my feet, I hop into the driver’s seat. My phone begins to vibrate in my hand as I’m about to put it in the cup holder. I look at the screen and my heart races a little when I see the caller ID: BAE-BAE.
“What’s up, baby?” I say, glancing at Lena, but she’s staring out the passenger window.
“Where are you? You were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago to meet the electrician. I don’t know what to tell him.”
“Fuck!” I whisper. “I’m so sorry. It totally slipped my mind. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“You’re still at the beach?”
“We’re just leaving,” I reply. I don’t dare admit that I was about to go to dinner with Lena. “I have to drop Lena off and I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
She sighs. “I’ll try to keep him here, but he’s already super annoyed.” She drops her voice to a whisper. “You’d think he’d be honored just to be standing in Adam Fucking Parker’s house.”
I laugh, but just the way she says this makes my stomach flip. “I love you, bae.”
“Love you more. Now hurry up and get your butt over here. If this guy doesn’t fix the wiring issue in Mila’s room, she’ll have to sleep with us again tonight. And I’m in the mood, if you know what I mean.”
I can just imagine her wiggling her eyebrows. God, I love that woman.
I want to talk dirty to her, to get her even more in the mood, but I can’t do that in front of Lena. “I’ll be there soon.”
I end the call feeling both excited and a bit guilty that I was about to miss the electrician and possibly hurt Lindsay’s feelings by having dinner with Lena at Surf House. It’s not as if there’s anything between Lena and me, but there are subtle rules and blurry lines that can be crossed in a marriage. Now that I’ve spoken to Lindsay, I’m pretty certain she just saved me from crossing that line.
Four
I wake with my heart racing. This hasn’t happened to me in a long time, and I know exactly what brought it on: the prospect of having my last win taken away from me by the judges rescoring the Tahiti semifinal. Even the sight of Mila and Lindsay snuggled peacefully in the bed next to me does nothing to calm my nerves. I brush the hair away from Mila’s face and kiss her forehead, but it’s Lindsay who opens her eyes.
“You have a text message,” she says groggily. “I heard your phone go off a few minutes ago.”
She wraps her arm around Mila and closes her eyes, seemingly falling back to sleep within seconds. I turn over and retrieve the phone from the top of the bedside table, only to find it’s 6:23 a.m. and I have six new text messages. This has to be about the Tahiti scores.
I tiptoe into the bathroom to take my morning piss while I check the messages. One is from Lena and the other five are from Hank Langley, one of the five judges at the Tahiti event. I check Hank’s messages first, starting with his fifth text, and my heart sinks like a stone.
Hank: Sorry about the adjustment. I strongly believe you’ll still pull this one out.
I don’t have to read the other four messages from Hank to know what they’re about. I read Lena’s message next and I actually manage a smile.
Lena: Fuck Hank. Fuck Carlos. Fuck them all. You’re still #1 and no one can stop you. See you at 8.
Judging by both of those text messages, I guess that Carlos Ferreira moved within striking distance of me in the CT rankings, but I’m still the number-one seed. That means I’ll have to work even harder than ever to make sure he doesn’t gain on me at the Trestles event in nine days. I can do this.
By the time I’m dressed in my board shorts and rash guard and have my chia pudding ready to go, Lindsay and Mila join me downstairs in the kitchen. I scoop Mila up and set her down on the kitchen counter as I offer her a spoonful of pudding.
She turns up her nose. “Yuck. It’s slimy.”
I shake my head as I finish my banana almond butter chia concoction and set my bowl in the sink. “You want to go to the beach with me today, baby?” I ask Mila and she beams as she nods at me.
“Don’t get her hopes up like that,” Lindsay says, grabbing Mila off the counter and setting her down on the floor. “I have stuff to do around the house. We can’t go to the beach today.”
“Why not?” I argue. “What do you have to do that’s so important you can’t come to the beach and support your old man?”
Lindsay hands Mila a slice of apple as she starts preparing some apple cinnamon oatmea
l. “Kaia and I are going school shopping. And don’t forget you have to be home in time for Kaia’s orientation night at her new school. It starts at six, so make sure you give yourself time to shower first.”
I come up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist as I nuzzle my face in her neck. “Are you saying I stink when I come home from the beach?” I murmur in her ear and she smiles as she squirms in my arms.
“If you think seaweed smells good, then by all means, please go straight from the beach to the school.”
I rub my hand over her swollen belly. “You know I love the smell of seaweed, but I’ll be home in time to take a shower.” I skim the tip of my nose along the shell of her ear. “They recalculated the scores for Tahiti and Carlos Ferreira is just 500 points under me now.”
She dumps the oatmeal and diced apples into the pot of hot coconut milk on the stove, twisting out of my grasp so she can reach into the cupboard for some bowls. “Adam, you’ll be fine. Carlos is just a poser.”
My mouth drops at this reply. “You can’t seriously believe that. Carlos has consistently ranked in the top ten for the past six years. I’ve only been top ten for two of the last three years. He deserves to be up there as much as I do.”
“Whatever,” she replies as she spins around to grab a wooden spoon out of the drawer. “Can you wake Kaia up on your way out?”
I sigh as I realize she’s too distracted to take this conversation seriously. “Yeah, I’ll see you later. Love you.”
“Love you, too,” she replies automatically as she begins stirring the oatmeal in the pot.
I knock on Kaia’s door to wake her before I leave for the beach, but she doesn’t answer.
“I’m in here, Dad!” she shouts through the closed bathroom door across the hall.
“Go downstairs and have breakfast. I’ll be back later, baby.”
“Bye, Dad!” she calls back to me.
I leave the house in a bit of a daze, wondering if my anxiety over possibly being overtaken by Carlos at Trestles is warranted. Everyone seems to have complete faith that I’m going to pull out this victory, but there are four events left in this tour. This is still anyone’s game, especially now that the scores have been recalculated and Carlos is just 500 points away from unseating me.
