Ripped - Cassia Leo Page 0,12

but I’m still the number-one seed. That means I’ll have to work even harder than ever to make sure he doesn’t gain on me at the Trestles event in nine days. I can do this.

By the time I’m dressed in my board shorts and rash guard and have my chia pudding ready to go, Lindsay and Mila join me downstairs in the kitchen. I scoop Mila up and set her down on the kitchen counter as I offer her a spoonful of pudding.

She turns up her nose. “Yuck. It’s slimy.”

I shake my head as I finish my banana almond butter chia concoction and set my bowl in the sink. “You want to go to the beach with me today, baby?” I ask Mila and she beams as she nods at me.

“Don’t get her hopes up like that,” Lindsay says, grabbing Mila off the counter and setting her down on the floor. “I have stuff to do around the house. We can’t go to the beach today.”

“Why not?” I argue. “What do you have to do that’s so important you can’t come to the beach and support your old man?”

Lindsay hands Mila a slice of apple as she starts preparing some apple cinnamon oatmeal. “Kaia and I are going school shopping. And don’t forget you have to be home in time for Kaia’s orientation night at her new school. It starts at six, so make sure you give yourself time to shower first.”

I come up behind her, wrapping my arms around her waist as I nuzzle my face in her neck. “Are you saying I stink when I come home from the beach?” I murmur in her ear and she smiles as she squirms in my arms.

“If you think seaweed smells good, then by all means, please go straight from the beach to the school.”

I rub my hand over her swollen belly. “You know I love the smell of seaweed, but I’ll be home in time to take a shower.” I skim the tip of my nose along the shell of her ear. “They recalculated the scores for Tahiti and Carlos Ferreira is just 500 points under me now.”

She dumps the oatmeal and diced apples into the pot of hot coconut milk on the stove, twisting out of my grasp so she can reach into the cupboard for some bowls. “Adam, you’ll be fine. Carlos is just a poser.”

My mouth drops at this reply. “You can’t seriously believe that. Carlos has consistently ranked in the top ten for the past six years. I’ve only been top ten for two of the last three years. He deserves to be up there as much as I do.”

“Whatever,” she replies as she spins around to grab a wooden spoon out of the drawer. “Can you wake Kaia up on your way out?”

I sigh as I realize she’s too distracted to take this conversation seriously. “Yeah, I’ll see you later. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” she replies automatically as she begins stirring the oatmeal in the pot.

I knock on Kaia’s door to wake her before I leave for the beach, but she doesn’t answer.

“I’m in here, Dad!” she shouts through the closed bathroom door across the hall.

“Go downstairs and have breakfast. I’ll be back later, baby.”

“Bye, Dad!” she calls back to me.

I leave the house in a bit of a daze, wondering if my anxiety over possibly being overtaken by Carlos at Trestles is warranted. Everyone seems to have complete faith that I’m going to pull out this victory, but there are four events left in this tour. This is still anyone’s game, especially now that the scores have been recalculated and Carlos is just 500 points away from unseating me.

As I slide into the driver’s seat and pull out of the garage with my surfboards in the truck bed, I put on Pandora and smile when “Is This Love” by Bob Marley comes on. It reminds me of the brief time between when I broke up with Lindsay and moved to Wrightsville Beach nine years ago. The days when Yuri and I used to hang out at his apartment in Durham every weekend, back when Lena worked as a preschool teacher.

If Yuri wasn’t competing that week, we’d kick off the weekend every Friday night with a few well-packed bowls. Then we’d go out somewhere and get shit-faced drunk until I found some poor girl to take back to Yuri’s place so I could fuck her in his guest room. Come Monday, I’d head into work