Cara Lockwood - The Big Break

Kirk let out a long sigh. “You going to tell me what’s going on there?”

Kai shook his head. “Not my story to tell.” If Bret hadn’t told him the details, then Kai wouldn’t.

“You’ve got a new tower? Someone you can trust?”

“I’m working on it,” Kai lied. He wasn’t. Why recruit a tow partner when his knee was 50 percent at best?

“You’d better work fast.”

“I know.” Kai shrugged, thinking about his wipeout earlier in the week. He hadn’t been on his board since. In fact, the very thought of getting out there again made his stomach buzz with nerves, as if he’d drunk too much of the Kona coffee served at his sister’s café.

Kirk studied him a minute. “Knee okay?”

“Still stiff,” Kai admitted, avoiding all eye contact, as if the truth would be evident on his face. Kirk nodded, looking somber, and then leaned forward, clasping his hands together on his desk.

“Gretchen says you’re blowing off training.”

Gretchen was Kai’s personal trainer, but even he had to admit he hadn’t been very trainable lately. Gretchen had told him to cut back on the bar life, but there wasn’t anything scarier than not being able to surf again except dealing with that sober.

“You gonna be ready?”

Kai met Kirk’s gaze and for a split second considered spilling his guts and admitting everything. I’m not going to be ready. I might never be ready again.

“I’m gonna try,” Kai said. He thought it was safely the truth, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wasn’t sure. Was he trying?

“The new surfboards are ready to go, but we need some promo shots,” Kirk said, leaning back in his chair. Pure Kona sunshine filtered in from the big bay window behind his desk. “Maybe you on a big practice wave? Maybe on Jaws? You know, after you find a new tow guy.”

“Yeah, sure. Sometime.” No way. Never.

“How about next week? Photographer has openings a week from Sunday.”

“Can’t do it.” Kai nearly clipped off the end of Kirk’s sentence in his haste to decline. The idea of a photographer or anyone else recording one of his recent surfing disasters filled him with white-hot embarrassment. He glanced at his fine form in the oversize photo above Kirk’s desk. He was a lifetime away from the Kai Brady of two years ago.

“Kai, this has to be done.”

“I know.” Kai eyed Kirk, who didn’t blink as he crossed his arms across his chest.

“Fine.” Kirk sighed, frustrated. “You’re going to have to talk to me sometime about what’s going on with you.”

“Nothing’s going on with me.” Nothing that can be fixed by talking about it. Kai stood, and even in that brief motion, he felt the loosening creak of his right knee. He didn’t care what the orthopedic surgeon said—those tendons and bone just hadn’t healed right. He nearly stumbled a little but righted himself in time. “Is that all, Kirk?”

“Need your signature on this,” Kirk said, sliding contracts his way. “Just a renewal for the Mountain Dew endorsement. Oh, and Todd Kolkot wants to talk to you. Says he needs to get your approval on the new fall line.”

Kai bent down and signed his name with a flourish, all the while wondering how fast Mountain Dew would have dropped him if they’d seen him surf this week. Kai turned to go.

“One more thing, Kai. Somebody from Time magazine keeps calling. They’re doing an anniversary piece on the tsunami, you know, ‘The Big Island a Year Later,’ and wanted to interview you for it.”

“No,” Kai said. He’d woken up in a cold sweat from nightmares about reporters asking him questions about how well he was surfing, how his knee was, all of which would be part of any interview, no matter how it started. Besides, he didn’t like talking about the tsunami. Not just because of his knee, but because of a whole host of other reasons, namely that people he knew had lost their lives that day.

“But it would be good for your brand. You know no publicity is...”

“I said no.”

“Okay, okay!” Kirk’s hands went up in a gesture of surrender. “I know you don’t like to do interviews about the tsunami, but at some point, you’re going to have to talk about it.”

“People died that day. I just got my leg broken. So what?” Might as well have died, though. Self-pity began to creep in again and he tried to shoo the thoughts out of his head, but they had sticky, gooey edges. No matter how hard he pushed them out, some gunky residue always remained behind.

“You’re famous. You’re a hero. You can inspire people.”

At this, Kai barked a caustic laugh. “I’m no hero.” Last night he’d been so drunk he barely remembered what had happened between him and the two tourists. He woke up in bed with a new girl nearly 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.