Swell (13 page)

‘You were largely responsible for that. You made me realise I wasn’t ready to retire.’

I said nothing as I recalled that fateful night in Hawaii.

Jason slid closer to me.

‘I have to tell you, Bailey, you look really special tonight.’

The intensity of his tone made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I brushed my hand across my neck and looked into Jason’s face.

‘You’re flirting with me,’ I said calmly.

Jason blinked.

‘Maybe I am.’

He placed his hand on top of mine on the jetty. It was hard not to feel a thrill. Here we were alone in the jungle after a glorious day. It was no wonder surfers and their entourage oozed sensuality. Watery horizons, immense skies, sand between one’s toes and fit bodies were infinitely more sexual than stiff suits meeting in a concrete jungle. I pressed my lips together, feeling as if I had been here before. The thought brought me to my senses.

‘I am flattered, Jason’ – I slowly withdrew my hand – ‘but this is not a good idea.’

‘But sleeping with Cain was?’

I jolted at the comment.

‘That’s beneath you, Jason. I am not some object for you and Cain to fight over. Are you sure you’re not just trying to prove a point that you can have me too and beat him at everything?’

I pushed my feet into my sandals and stood up. When I turned to leave Jason jumped up and caught my arm.

‘Please, Bailey, I don’t think of you like an object at all. I’m sorry, I just…’

His voice broke and we stared at each other. Our faces were centimetres apart and when his breath brushed my cheek a wave of desire rushed through me. He was so overtly masculine and delicious but he was also out of bounds. I would not succumb to the weakness I had displayed with Cain. Not even when he lifted his hand and smoothed it gently over my hair.

Damn, what was it with these surfers? Resisting them was harder than I had ever imagined. Cain and Jason were like chalk and cheese yet there was something about them both that stirred me. Cain momentarily but Jason enduringly so.

‘I apologise,’ Jason said firmly, ‘but you look so incredible and we’ve become so relaxed with each other. I suppose I was in the celebratory mood after today and here you are.’

He stopped speaking and his other hand moved to my cheek. His palm was warm against my skin. His eyes bore into me, silently willing me to melt like a sandcastle succumbing to the rising tide. Somewhere in the undergrowth a monkey shrieked.

The moment was magical but my head was clear enough for me to make the decision to break the spell.

‘I am your biographer, Jason. Besides, you have a girlfriend.’

His lips formed a tight line.

‘You mean Portia?’

‘Yes I mean Portia.’ I stepped away from him. ‘I heard she was in Australia.’

Jason stepped back and pushed his hands deep into his pockets.

‘Did Chuck tell you that?’

‘He mentioned it.’ I touched a finger to my lips with a quizzical expression. ‘In fact I think his words were, the wicked witch followed Dorothy to Kansas to eat Toto.’

Jason’s eyes narrowed.

‘I didn’t invite her there. I didn’t want her to be there but she wouldn’t leave. She’s needy and unpredictable and she won’t take no for an answer. I have to be careful.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she loses it. She can be a bit crazy.’

I arched one eyebrow.

‘You think? And here was I thinking inflicting death by Jimmy Choo was normal.’

Jason laughed sadly.

‘She wants to be with me but I can’t deal with her. She can’t take the travelling. She would never have survived that trip you made to get here.’

I smiled wryly, knowing full well that no man would ever ask a precious girl like Portia to make that journey. She would have flown in by private helicopter unless the ocean could have been ironed flat for a perfectly smooth crossing by luxury cruiser.

‘Portia likes her comforts. She loves the fame but she hates the groupies. She’s so jealous all the time. She thinks I can’t talk to a girl without wanting to screw her.’

I pouted.

‘Perhaps she has a point.’

The nerve twitched in Jason’s cheek.

‘Touché, Bailey, but I promise you I’m not like that. The groupies try their best to seduce me, sure, but I don’t succumb. That’s not what I’m looking for. Not now.’

‘Not now?’

He cleared his throat nervously.

‘I indulged when I was young and stupid. I was brought up by a dad who thinks women are just docking stations for his dick.’

‘Sounds like a pleasant chap.’

‘He was all I had so he was my role model until I realised that was not who I was. I made mistakes but haven’t we all?’

The silence between us was deafening. I looked down at my feet.

‘Sorry if I offended you, Bailey. I’m not perfect when it comes to dealing with women. I guess I could put it down to the fact I missed having a mom around.’

‘Really? Do you want mine? She’s a fucking nightmare,’ I smirked.

A smile spread across Jason’s face and I laughed, safe in the knowledge that the awkward moment had passed.

‘I guess there’s a lot we have to find out about each other over the year,’ Jason said.

‘Well I have to find out everything about you or this book will be very short.’

He hooked his arm through mine and we turned to head back towards the party.

‘I need to know everything,’ I said, ‘warts and all.’

‘Hey I definitely don’t have warts.’

‘I am talking metaphorical warts.’

‘Right. So how about a metaphorical kiss?’

I elbowed him in the ribs.

‘Don’t push your luck, surfer boy. Now come on, your party awaits.’

CALIFORNIA

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The next morning, a luxurious speedboat picked us up from G-Land and raced us back to Bali to board a plane to LAX. No bone-rattling bus journey or boa constrictor this time, which was not to say the journey was uneventful. When Chuck heard a strange noise coming from the cabin, we investigated only to discover the skipper had brought along his baby (note:
man eating
) Komodo dragon because, and I quote, ‘He gets lonely at home.’ If it wasn’t for the fact his mouth was only big enough to bite off a finger or two I would have been quite upset. However, the traveller spirit must have rubbed off on me because after tigers and rats, I found sharing my boat ride with a man-eating dinosaur quite amusing. Perhaps it was just as well we were heading for the materialism of Los Angeles or before one could say tie-dye I would be changing my name to Sunshine and converting to Buddhism.

Jason made the flight arrangements en route by calling his travel agent. From the personal tone of the conversation and the swift, book-my-usual orders, it was clear he was not talking to a school leaver at your average travel agent with a qualification in sunbeds. I vowed to one day be important enough to have my own travel agent.

At Denpasar, Oli, the surfers’ team manager representing their sponsor, joined Jason, Chuck, Rory, Ruby and I. Oli was a small, rotund man resembling a Weeble with salt and pepper hair growing in a small island on the tip of his forehead. I put his age at pushing fifty but he dressed like a teenager in a hoodie bearing a skate slogan. Oli was pre-programmed to talk to a woman’s chest rather than her face. He also had the annoying habit of rolling his eyes and jabbing his tongue inside his cheek whenever a girl
walked past who a) was young enough to not remember the early eighties and b) had two legs.

Poseidon, the leading multinational surf brand who paid Jason’s seven-figure salary, employed Oli to keep all the team riders happy and organised. A rookie like Rory did not have a personal manager like Chuck so it fell to Oli to coordinate his travels, photo shoots, competitions and promotional events. Jason was the darling of the team and Oli was obliged to tread the delicate line between encouraging Jason to attend events to promote the brand while pandering to his every need. Oli also had to run every request by Chuck, which, as far as I could tell, involved the two managers rucking like two angry tortoises before eventually reaching a compromise and then walking away to bitch about each other like schoolgirls.

‘That guy is a dick,’ Chuck growled in my ear after one such contretemps in the Denpasar airport lounge.

‘He speaks very highly of you too, Charles. Why what’s he done this time?’

Chuck flicked his head back and smoothed his hair away from his high forehead.

‘Oh I dunno, he wants Jason to model for some hotshot New York photographer with a movie star and a couple of supermodels or some shit.’

‘Gosh, sounds awful.’

‘For real,’ Chuck tsked and wandered away without having the slightest notion I was being sarcastic.

When we boarded the plane to Los Angeles, I automatically turned right, brightly greeting the airhostess in the hope she would appreciate my politeness and not run out of
my choice of meal just as she got to my row. Her make-up was so thick her face appeared to jut out from her body as if I were seeing her through 3D glasses.

‘Ma’am, your seat is this way,’ she said with a laugh that sounded like a crystal chandelier crashing down from the ceiling.

Passengers pushed up behind me like cows ramming themselves through the gate to pasture.

Following the hostess’ outstretched arm, I squeezed back through the crowd and pointed at a fold down seat next to the restroom.

‘This one you mean? You are joking.’

I thought Jason had given up on the practical jokes.

‘DVT is a certainty if I have to sit on that for twenty hours. I’d be better off on the toilet.’

The hostess creased her make-up as she stared quizzically at me.

‘In here, Bailey,’ I heard Jason laugh.

He poked his head through the first class divide.

‘It’s Jason Cross,’ said voices in a whisper that raced the entire length of the plane like an autumn breeze.

Jason reached out for my bag with one hand, for my arm with the other and pulled me into a world I had never thought I would see. There were sofa-sized seats with enough legroom to do the Can Can. I had my own television, a luxury blanket and socks as soft as silk. A naturally beautiful airhostess who looked genuinely pleased to serve me, deftly poured champagne into a real glass.

‘You don’t get this in Economy Plus,’ I whispered to Jason.

‘I wouldn’t know,’ he replied with a wry smile and I believed him.

‘Jason, how much is this flight? I don’t think I can afford it,’ I mouthed.

‘You can’t. This one’s on me. Now get some sleep.’

I slipped on the headphones and sank back into the comfortable seat. How, I wondered, would I ever be able to return to my normal life when this job ended?

Jason and Rory lived a truly jet-set life between surf breaks and did not seem to have anything resembling roots. They caught flights the way most of us would catch a bus and Jason would probably have thought nothing of hopping straight back on a flight if he suddenly realised he had left behind a favourite pair of shoes. Jetlag did not seem to affect them the way it did most people. The overwhelming tiredness and the feeling of disorientation every morning I awoke in a new location was something I would have to get used to.

Both surfers were booked to tour California before the next scheduled contest, making personal appearances, opening surf shops, appearing on television and radio shows and launching new Poseidon products.

‘I need clothes, Oli, can you sort it?’ said Jason when we landed in LAX.

From the speed of Oli’s reaction one would have thought Jason had screamed – ‘FIRE!’.

One urgent phone call later and we were pulling up outside Poseidon’s U.S. head office in Irvine, south of Long Beach. I was exhausted and keen to collapse onto a hotel room bed but I was not even handing out fliers for this show never mind running it. I had
no choice but to follow Jason’s schedule, but my bottom lip was becoming more petulant by the second.

The California sky was a vibrant blue and the sun sizzled on the bonnet of our black SUV but, after a month in the tropics, I could feel the hairs on my arms standing up in protest against the dip in temperature. The American obsession with air conditioning did not help either. The plush reception area was so cold I could have hung CDs from my nipples.

‘Welcome everyone,’ the receptionist gushed, bouncing to her feet with enthusiasm.

Her silicone breasts remained perfectly still.

She wiggled out from behind the desk as if she was trying to keep a hula-hoop whizzing around her waist and bent down to air-kiss Oli. Open-mouthed, he happily greeted her breasts before they turned their attention to Jason.

‘Jason, how lovely to see you again,’ she said in a noticeably higher tone of voice.

‘Hey Bambi,’ said Jason with a polite nod.

Bambi? I threw Ruby a knowing glance while Bambi tried her level best to flirt and flutter her way into Jason’s pants.

We were led through the offices that were steeped in surf culture. Every wall was curved like a wave and hung with stunning photographs of surfers and oceans. High-gloss, colourful surfboards suspended from the ceiling looked good enough to eat. Rock music played over a speaker system in some parts of the building while mood lighting and the sounds of waves drew us into others.

‘Is it part of the job description that you have to be gorgeous and a size zero to work here?’ I whispered to Chuck as we emerged from a bank of secretaries who could quite easily have been supermodels.

He shook his head, stopped shaking it, stopped to think and then chirped – ‘Yep.’

We then entered a vestibule with a high-vaulted ceiling that refracted the sun’s rays in a magically kaleidoscopic fashion. The photographs in this room were entirely dedicated to Jason and his glittering career, which was even more glittering when represented by twelve gold world champion trophies and numerous other accolades.

‘Is that you?’ I gasped, pointing at a photo of an angelic young boy clinging to a surfboard that he could barely get his arm around.

The board had a red lightning bolt running down the centre.