every weekend. He hardly knew if he was coming or going. He was the farthest thing from a hero.
“Course you are. There’s that little boy you saved.”
“I didn’t save him. We were both just lucky.”
Kirk rolled his eyes. “Fine. Then what about all those amateur surfers at Jaws? How many did you pull out of the rocks?” Kirk stared at him. Kai shrugged. “Two? Four? More than that?”
“They had no business being out there in the first place,” Kai said. “I only saved them so I could chew them out and tell them to find another hobby. Doesn’t make me heroic.”
“It doesn’t matter. It only matters if people think you are.” There was the Kirk Kai remembered, the one always looking for the angle and hardly caring about the truth. It was this side of the business, the marketing whatever sells, that just rubbed Kai the wrong way.
“Why not make that the next shirt slogan?” Kai said, a bit of bitterness creeping into his voice.
Kirk laughed. “We should, bro. We totally should.” He leaned forward, his antique wooden desk chair creaking. “By the way, that gossip columnist called again for a quote or confirmation. Said something about you and some wild escapade with two tourists. They have a picture. Looks like you.”
Kai’s stomach lurched. He didn’t want to know what picture they could’ve gotten ahold of.
Kirk tapped his tablet and then handed it to Kai. There he was, sitting in his hot tub with the two women he’d just dropped off at the airport. They were both topless, but the picture was pixelated. One of the women was kissing his face and the other was taking a selfie. Kai groaned. If his aunt Kaimana saw this, he’d be in for another lecture.
“Yeah, that’s me, but it’s not as bad as it looks.”
Kirk threw his head back and laughed. “Bad? Man, I’d kill to be you for one weekend.” The wedding ring flashed on Kirk’s hand as he took the signed contracts from his desk and tucked them into a file.
“It’s not as fun as you think it would be,” Kai said, remembering the awkward goodbyes that afternoon after he dropped the tourists at the airport. They hadn’t even gotten out of sight before they’d started posting to Instagram, clearly.
“As long as you can train and do this. You sure you can?”
“Yeah, of course.” Such a lie.
* * *
SEEING BRET AGAIN had made Kai itch to get out on the surf. He had something to prove. In the surf just beyond his beach house the next day, he started paddling. The wind was low, the waves gentle. It would be an ideal time to try to test his knee.
Kai paddled hard against the sparkling Pacific surf as he spied the perfect wave rolling in. He redoubled his efforts, sea spray hitting his face as the early-morning light glinted off the tip of his prototype surfboard. Kirk would be happy to see him on it, at least. Kahaluu Beach stretched out behind him, and the crystal-blue water was clear and relatively calm, the waves easy for even a beginner to handle. A few tourists were out, trying out their rental boards for the first time.
Kai still thought his board looked too new and flashy. If he’d been on one of the serious breaks, the locals would’ve ribbed him for it, and they’d have been right. Neon colors and cool graphics didn’t make you a skilled surfer. Sweat and blood did.
Maybe he’d forgotten that. He admitted loving the spotlight, the interviews on ESPN, the legions of followers online. Who wouldn’t enjoy dating the models and actresses who gravitated toward his rising star? He hadn’t turned them away. He’d passed the millions mark before he turned thirty. Since then, it had just been about building his empire of shirts, boards and even waterproof video cameras small enough to fit in your palm.
Of course, that was all before the tsunami.
Ocean spray hit his forehead and he shook his head to clear his eyes so he could focus on the wave. He couldn’t dwell on the past. Surfing was all about living in the moment.
He flexed his knee. It felt strong. Stronger than it had in weeks. Good. He was going to crush it today.
Is that why you’re hiding out on a tourist beach? Is that why you’re riding these beginner waves, barely six feet? You used to say anything below twenty wasn’t worth your time.
A tingle of nerves pricked his stomach as he tried to shake off the uncertainty.
He was the three-time reigning big-wave champion. He’d survived some of the most dangerous breaks in the world. He’d surfed waves taller than an eight-story building.
That was before the ocean shredded your leg and left you for dead.
Kai shut his eyes against the memory.
Now was not the time for doubt. He knew it, and yet he couldn’t shake the ghosts of uncertainty. He might never be good again, and he damn well knew it.
But now he was out of time. The wave was here. He’d have to attempt it or wait for the next one. He tried to blank out his mind, rely on muscle memory as the wave rolled toward him and he popped up on his board, the warm sun on his back, cool air whipping across his chest. For a shining split second, he believed he was going to do it. He felt the rush of the adrenaline as he struggled for a toe hold and a quick glance around told him nothing in the world could be as beautiful in life as this: glittering ocean beneath his board, shoreline in the distance dotted with gorgeous palm trees, like a line of hula dancers swaying in the tropical breeze.
Surfing was his first, and only, passion: he craved the rush of wind through his hair and the ocean spray on his face like a junkie needing a hit.
He was going to do it. He was upright, arms out for balance, both feet on the board.
And then something about the wave, the merciless engine of it, challenged him a bit too hard, bucked him ruthlessly, as if the water wanted him to fail. As if the ocean already knew what he was afraid to admit: he wasn’t a world-class surfer; he was just the empty shell of an imposter, nothing more than a has-been.
He adjusted, trying to find his balance, but out of the blue, a sharp pain shot up his knee.
No.
He struggled to keep upright, but his knee buckled like a rusty hinge collapsing under the strain, and he fell backward into the surf, and suddenly, the moment of bliss was replaced by a moment of panic. The wave held him down, punishing him, as his leg flailed, ankle still attached to his board. The shiny neon board slid onward, dragging him beneath it under a dangerous weight of water.
And once more, the fear suffocated him: he was back in the tsunami wave, powerless against the angry force of nature. He again felt the paralyzing terror: I’m going to die.
Panic, cold and hard, drove down his spine.
He struggled wildly to breach the surface, but tangled in the force of the wave, he felt helpless, as the expensive, shining new fiberglass board broke free of his ankle tether and shot across the wave.
The water is going to kill me. The thing I love most in the world is going to kill me.
He floundered, and then the wave released him, breaking across the reef, and he came up, gasping, sucking in big gulps of air.
Alive, I’m alive. And then he realized he wasn’t back in the tsunami. The huge wave that had killed so many people and destroyed so many homes was long gone. Yet the wave, being under, had brought him right back to the worst day of his life.
He coughed as salt water stung the inside of his nose and ran down his throat, the brine threatening to choke him.
He saw his board floating out to sea and let it go, too shaken to fish it out of the surf. He needed to get to land, and he swam, heart thudding as he made it to the sand. He rolled up on shore out of breath, feeling as if he’d just run a marathon with a gorilla on his back.
His knee had failed him—again.