Ripped - Cassia Leo Page 0,33

Enzo calls out to me.

I want to tell him to go fuck himself, and the judges while he’s at it, but I don’t want to get fined for violating the Code of Conduct. Instead, I keep walking to force him to try to keep up with Lena and me. As soon as we’re by the truck, I hand my Rip Curl rep, Andy, my board. He looks at Enzo and back at me, shooting me a look, a warning that I need to watch what I say.

I turn back to Enzo and look him in the eye. “The waves were pretty peaky out there today, splitting in both directions. I don’t know if the judges made the right decision. I still think I had priority until he cut in on me, but it’s not my call. That’s for the judges to decide and they called it for Carlos. That’s the breaks, man.”

Enzo follows me as I head to the passenger side of the truck. “What do you want to say to all the people who say your rise from #12 last year to #1 this year was all a fluke?”

“I say, ‘Fuck you. This is still mine to lose.’”

Andy opens the passenger door for me and shoves me inside to stop me from saying anything else. He glares at me as he slams the door and I roll my eyes as I turn to look at Lena in the backseat.

She shakes her head as she tries to suppress a smile. “You’re gonna pay for that,” she says. “I don’t think even Hank can get you out of that one.”

I shrug as Andy slides into the driver’s seat. “Fuck it. I don’t mind paying a fine for the privilege of telling that little fucker off.”

Andy shakes his head. “It’s not just the fine, Adam. You know the commissioner isn’t going to like that comment. And whether you like it or not, the judges take into account the surfer favored by the commissioner. Do you really want to get on Wembley’s bad side?”

I lean back and stare out at the clay tile roofs on the small houses lining the road near the beach in Peniche, Portugal. “I hate the fucking politics of surfing. The only thing that should matter is skill. It shouldn’t matter if one surfer is better at bullshitting the media.”

“Well, that’s the world we live in, so suck it up,” Andy replies. “Carlos has been the favorite since he won Pipeline two years ago and still came away without the world title. You gotta watch your step.”

After a long shower, and a two a.m. phone call to Lindsay, I toss and turn in my hotel bed as I think of all the things that went wrong today. From the shitty waves, to the even shittier call from the judges, and the crowd cheering their asses off for Carlos, I was destined to lose this one. I can’t let this loss screw me up mentally. But it’s pretty fucking hard not to, when Carlos has beaten me twice now, both times on calls made by the judges. Is the commissioner trying to force me out?

I shake my head as I turn over onto my other side. I can’t allow myself to get caught up in the paranoia or the politics. If Lee Wembley, the World Surf League commissioner, wants Carlos to win, he can probably pull it off. Carlos is a good enough surfer that no one will question it. Which is why I have to come out stronger than ever at Pipeline. I have to make sure that there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind who’s the better surfer.

There’s no way around it. I have to destroy Carlos Ferreira.

* * *

In the morning, Lena and I meet in the hotel lobby to check out and head to the airport. I grit my teeth as Carlos and his father get in line behind us at the reservation desk. Lena glances over her shoulder at Carlos as the woman at the desk calls us forward.

I place my hand on the small of her back to lead her to the desk. “Come on,” I mutter, not wanting to engage Carlos in a conversation when I’m feeling as bitter and energized as I am right now.

We step up to the counter and Lena puts her arms up on the glossy white surface. The woman behind the desk takes the room keys I slide across to her. As we wait for her to print out