The Big Break. Cara Lockwood

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.

      The disappointment welled up in him. Months of rehab, and his knee wasn’t anywhere close to where it needed to be if he was ever going to surf seriously again. Hot tears of frustration burned the backs of his eyelids but he refused to let them fall. He was on all fours in the hot, wet sand and he felt like punching the ground but didn’t.

      It wasn’t just his body that had disappointed him but his mind. He was afraid in a way he’d never been before. His whole life he’d been fearless, and now a simple dump off the board and he felt as though the ocean would kill him. He didn’t want to go back out there. Wouldn’t. Not today. Maybe not ever.

      At the heart of it, he was a coward, plain and simple.

      The wave knew it, too. That was why it had bucked him. It was the ocean schooling him for being a fool. He managed to drag himself back to his house, not proud of himself for leaving his broken board to the surf but too shaken to do much of anything else. He vowed to go look for it later, once he’d gotten his breathing under control. He felt as if he was going to have a heart attack, the panic pressing against his chest like a two-ton weight.

      Was he really done with surfing at age thirty-three? Was it really all over?

      When he got to his porch, he saw Gretchen waiting for him there, sitting on one of his patio chairs, clipboard in her lap, looking pissed.

      Training! He’d forgotten entirely that it was a training day, that Gretchen would be working him on weights today. Everything about the tightness in her shoulders told him she was furious. He almost turned around and left, but she’d seen him, and he knew that would just make her angrier. Sooner or later, he’d have to take his medicine, and later would just be worse.

      He trudged to the open patio, still dripping wet, his hands still shaking from nerves.

      “You’re late,” she said, and he could feel her glare even through her mirrored sunglasses.

      “Gretchen, I am so sorry. I was surfing and lost track of time...”

      “What did I say about being late?” She cut him off, standing. Her short dark hair hung nicely around her face, but it was her muscled body that everyone noticed first. It was no wonder she was the most sought-after personal trainer on the island and had a library of exercise videos and apps under her belt. She got results. She knew how to push him in all the right ways.

      Except recently.

      In the past year, her go-for-broke, hit-the-weights-harder approach just hadn’t been working for him. The more she yelled, the less he wanted to do anything.

      But the fact that Gretchen wasn’t yelling at him now only made him nervous. That she was suddenly so calm made him realize the situation was far worse than he’d thought. She gestured with her hand and her diamond wedding band caught the light and sparkled like fire. Happily married to one of the best tour-boat captains on the island, she was off-limits. Kai liked that their relationship had been strictly professional. Gretchen was one of the few women in his life who didn’t feel complicated.

      “You said I couldn’t be late anymore or skip sessions.”

      “Or?”

      Kai swallowed. “Or you’d quit.” Panic rose in his throat. First Bret had quit on him. Now Gretchen, too? Everyone’s abandoning me because they know I’m finished.

      “Exactly.” She ripped off the page on the top of the clipboard. “My official letter of resignation, effective now.”

      He glanced at the handwritten note, stunned.

      “Gretch, you can’t quit! I need you. I...” She’d been with him for almost all of his surfing career. As his star had risen, so had hers. They made a nearly unstoppable team. He’d never worked with anyone else before and hadn’t even considered the possibility.

      Gretchen raised her chin, determined. He knew that look, and it was the one where she usually told him he needed to run five more miles and do an extra round of strength training.

      “I can quit and I am. I told you to cut out the partying and staying out late. You didn’t. I told you to eat right. You didn’t. I told you to show up at training sessions, and you haven’t. It’s not me who’s quitting. It’s you.”

      Kai knew she was right.

      “But I pay you anyway,” Kai pointed out. “And I can pay you more. Name your price.”

      “It’s not about the money.” Gretchen shook her head, a look of pity washing over her face. “I’ve got my professional pride, Kai. You’re in some kind of really dark place, and you need to find a way out of it. Maybe me quitting will be the inspiration you need to figure out what’s wrong and do something about it. I don’t know, but what I do know is that I can’t help you. Not until you get your head right.”

      “Gretchen, give me one more chance. I promise, I—”

      “You promised last week. No, it’s done. I’m done. I’m sorry, Kai.”

      “But the surfing competition is in a matter of months! Who am I going to find on this kind of short notice?”

      “Maybe some of your friends can help you?” Gretchen held up her smartphone and showed him the picture of him drinking in the hot tub. That damn picture was going to be the death of him. He suddenly wished for a massive internet malfunction, or at least just some strange outage that affected only social media sites.

      “That’s not as bad as it looks.” That was the second time in as many days that he’d said that, but it didn’t make it true. “Look, I know I’m a mess, but...”

      “I can’t do anything for you, Kai. You’ve got to change that.”

      Now she sounded like Jun.

      “Gretchen, please...”

      “Uh-uh. Kai. That’s strike three, and I told you, after strike three, you’re out. I don’t mess around.”

      There’d be no changing her mind. Kai was officially screwed, and not in the way that involved tourists and hot tubs.

      What am I going to do now?

      On his patio, he saw Jun’s gift bag and next to it, on the tabletop, her card: “Good for One Free Tai Chi Class.” He saw a list of scheduled classes on the back, one of which was being held this afternoon.

      It’s not like I have anything else going on. He went inside to dry off and get dressed.

       CHAPTER THREE

      JUN WAS PACKING up her gym bag, trying very hard not to think about Kai Brady. She’d been trying for nearly an hour, but it wasn’t any use. She’d made the mistake of searching for him online and found a photo of him making out with at least one of the women she’d seen at his house. That wasn’t the only photo, either. It seemed that Kai made a point of posing with