“I’ll tell you why, but you’ll have to thign a nondithclothure agreement.”

Rich people had the craziest stories. She was probably into bestiality or some shit. Money makes you bored, and being bored makes you an asshole.

“I’ve signed so many NDAs in my life, at this point I don’t talk to anyone about anything other than the weather.” I eased back into my chair, suddenly feeling very smug about getting into business with this dude.

His eyes darted to me, glistening with hope. He loved her. I’d always been embarrassed by love. It was such an uncomfortable feeling. People did a lot of stupid stuff in the name of it.

“Right. Right. Tho…do we have a deal?” he piped, taking a greedy hit of air. I looked around, scanning his office for the first time. Traditional. Dark oak and floor-to-ceiling shelves with hundreds of thick, pristine books. A Persian carpet and camel-hued silk armchairs. The bar was the only thing that looked used, the bottles half-empty, sad, and riddled with his fingerprints. Everything else was for show. This man was lost, and I was the lucky bastard who’d found him.

Like taking candy from a fucking baby.

“I’ll give her six months, and I want to know her story.”

Morgansen poured himself another glass of whiskey, stared into it as one would into an abyss, gulped the whole thing as one would when they jumped to their death, and let the glass dangle between his fingertips before it fell to the carpeted floor.

“You want her thtory?”

I hitched one shoulder up. I never repeated myself and wasn’t going to make a habit of it because of this fucker.

When the first words left his mouth, my fingers clutched my seat.

When the first sentences dug through my skull, my throat went dry.

And after ninety minutes of listening, I had only one response to spare. It was one word, actually. And it summarized what I was feeling pretty accurately.

Fuck.

“IT’S A GOOD DAY FOR a hang eleven.” Beck laughed wildly, his long, wet, brown hair flipping in the wind as he lay stomach-down on his surfboard while riding a bomb wave. It was called dick-drag, and I hated when people did that. It was the equivalent of wasting a gorgeous supermodel on a drunken hand job. Truth was, every day when the beach was mostly empty was a good day to surf naked. That’s why every sea creature in SoCal knew the shape of my dick by heart. I laughed and watched as he pulled his shorts down, wrapping them around his wrist like a bracelet. My high school friend, Hale, was a few feet away, busting through the break zone, and my high school girlfriend, Edie, was right beside me, sitting on her surfboard, staring at the beach in a lull.

I followed her gaze and spotted her husband, Trent, and his daughter, Luna, building elaborated sandcastles with their shapers. Edie was my favorite, and consequently only, ex. She was also one of my best friends. That sounded complicated, but it really wasn’t. I liked people for who they were, regardless of my likelihood to fuck them. Edie—or Gidget, as I’d called her since high school—was unfuckable for me, but she was still Edie. Her forehead was crinkled in concern. I squatted down, straddling my Firewire Evo, and flicked her ear.

“You’re doing it again.”

“What?”

“Overthinking.”

Gidget scrunched her nose. “I’m just a little dizzy.” She sleeked her blonde hair back, squinting to the golden shore.

“You look pale.” It was an understatement, but not a very gentleman-y thing to point out. “Go home. The waves ain’t going anywhere.”

She twisted her head back. “Hey, Beck! My daughter is on the beach. Put your trunks back up, you creeper.”

I loved how she referred to her stepdaughter as her daughter. They’d only known each other for a few years, but this family was the realest thing I’d seen.

“What about you? Are you okay?” Edie moved her fingertips across the water.

“Never been better.”

“Still using a condom?” She arched a wet eyebrow. She’d been asking me this a lot ever since I decided I was open for business five years ago. I fought an eye roll and gave her surfboard a push with my foot. “You’re breaking the waves, Gidget. Surf or get the fuck out.”

I watched Edie paddling back to shore before I turned around to deal with Beck and Hale, only to find they were both straddling their surfboards mere feet from me.

“Show’s over.” I spat into the water. Beck jumped on his board—fucker had the core of a yoga instructor—and did the annoying groin-thrust dance douchebags do when they want to sexually harass everyone in their radius. He kind of looked like a young Matt Damon with long brown hair. He started singing “The Show Must Go On” by Queen, clutching his fist dramatically.

I’d taken Beck under my wing in hopes of making him the pro surfer everyone would drag their asses to competitions to see. He was Kelly Slater good, but he was also Homer Simpson lazy, so I was training him for his next competition in late September. I was pretty much the only person he was afraid of, so I figured if anyone could drag his ass out of bed every morning at five, it’d be me.