“If you like them all masculine and forceful,” Brook said with a smirk.
“I do like a guy who doesn’t hide behind a curtain for safety,” Cassidy said with a nod of agreement.
My ex seemed to agree with her as they both sighed like smitten teenyboppers. Sometimes it was better to just walk away. I heard a knock at the door and ran downstairs. I found two police officers waiting, so I took them through the house and pointed to where Manaia was. Everyone was suddenly downstairs. It might have been the sound of the siren as the police charged in for the rescue.
In less than five minutes, Manaia had turned the culprit over to the officers’ custody and given them a brief statement. Everyone seemed to want to watch our real-life episode of
While we watched that, Manaia and Cassidy headed off in two different directions around the house, presumably to check for other intruders. They came back, and Manaia smiled.
“Surf’s up!”
I like a man who has his priorities straight.
◊◊◊
Everyone decided to go surfing today. Manaia, Lexi, Pam, and I helped the novices. The daily regulars gave us dirty looks and moved away from where we were surfing. That was probably for their own safety, as my guys didn’t quite understand the unwritten rules about who got which wave. It wasn’t uncommon for two or three of them to try to take the same wave, and we had some near disasters.
It didn’t take long for the noobs to get tired. They left and gave the four more-experienced surfers a chance to demonstrate what we had. Pam and Lexi showed they’d been doing this all their lives. Like a dumbass, I tried to duplicate some of their moves.
That was foolish. One moment, I was trying this sick cutback, and the next, my board was ten feet over my head, and I was crashing into the path of the wave. The crest of the wave landed on top of me and pushed me under. I found myself rolling under the water as the comber shoved me toward the shore. There was nothing I could do but ride it out.
When I finally stopped tumbling, I was a little disoriented and not sure which direction was up. I took a moment to calm myself; the surest way to drown was to panic. I knew that my body would naturally rise upward. When it began to lift, I kicked towards the surface. My lungs began to starve for oxygen, and my natural reaction was to try to gasp for breath. It was all I could do to fight that instinct.
I broke the surface, sucked in a huge lungful of air, and spotted another comber coming. I’d learned to dive towards the wave to shorten the time it had to do its worst. When I popped up on the other side, Pam was there. She was frantic because she hadn’t seen me surface the first time to catch my breath. She knew that someone under as long as she thought I’d been was probably in serious trouble.
“Give me your hand,” she barked.
I was laboring to catch my breath when I saw another big wave start to break. We were in the worst spot. We either had to get out into deeper water or head to shore, or we would get pummeled. I kicked so I could get my arm around Pam just before we were rolled. This time, the surfboard lifted us to the surface, so not too much damage was inflicted.
I got on behind her, and we paddled to shore.
“Thanks,” I said once we reached the beach. “Did you see where my board ended up?”
She pointed, and I saw Manaia had saved it. At least this time, I hadn’t broken it.
◊◊◊
At breakfast, I learned that Miss Future Reporter, Tracy, had videoed my spectacular crash, and Pam saving me. How did I discover this? My mom called me.
“David Allen Dawson!”
Since the excited teen never worked, I opted for the cool factor.
“Did you see the sick move Pam and Lexi taught me?” I asked.
“What? Trying to kill yourself?” she huffed.
“It was no big deal. That’s why you surf with a buddy.”
I figured out that Tracy had posted the video, so she received the stink eye as I was lectured on exactly why it was a ‘big deal.’ I had to remind myself that the only reason Mom was so upset was that she loved me. Otherwise, I might have been offended by some of the stuff she said.
◊◊◊
Today we planned to do a studio tour for everyone while I met with Lexi’s dad, Paul Andon. He wanted to give me an overview of where they were with the preproduction of the
Tracy and Pam were off to USC with Cassidy. The rest we dropped off at the visitors center for the tour.
Saul met us in the lobby of the studio executive offices.
“We need to renegotiate your deal,” Saul said.
“Tim, Wolf, this is my agent, Saul Gessler,” I said, and then turned to Saul. “We already have a deal in place, and they paid me a lot of money up front. Why would we want to go to them asking for more money?”
