Page 8 of Below the Barrel

My voice of reason extinguishes any flame of hope her reaction gave me and I find myself standing up straight and taking the towel from her.

“Thanks,” I mutter before throwing it over my head and rub my hair dry.

“What was that?”

I lift the towel from one of my eyes to peek at her and confirm she’s talking to me, her ocean eyes piercing right through mine.

“What was what?”

She lifts her finger and waves it in my face in a circular motion. “That look. You went from a goofy smile to suddenly straight faced. What were you thinking about?”

For the second time today, I find myself staring into her eyes with the truth sitting at the tip of my tongue, but as usual, I swallow my words and drop the towel back over my face so that I can continue drying my hair.

“The fact that there are cameras recording my every expression right now.” It’s not necessarily a lie; I’m uncomfortably aware of their presence following me.

“Right.” She doesn’t sound convinced, but she also knows now isn’t the time to push for answers.

I slide the towel so that it drapes over my shoulders behind my neck, and I watch as she picks up her freshly waxed bright pink surfboard. She recently had it custom made by our team board shaper, after some green haired goblin of a woman tripped her at a competition a few months ago, and caused her to break her favourite board.

She checks her ankle strap twice, takes a deep breath, and straightens her back as she walks towards the remaining surfers lined up by the Surf Sports Official. Within minutes, the BB gun is shot into the air and the girls are sprinting into the ocean, Maliah leading the way. As she furiously paddles towards the lineup spot, I turn to face Gabriel.

“Did you actually rig it so that we’d be paired together, despite our rating?”

He turns to look at me with calculated eyes. I watch as he contemplates his answer before he returns his attention to Maliah.

“No,” he says, sliding his hands into his pants pockets. “I was just trying to take some of the pressure off you guys. I remember how nerve-wracking the first competition on tour can be.”

His answer shouldn’t surprise me, it’s a typical thing for Gabriel to do, but it leaves my blood running cold because that means Maliah might actually end up paired with someone other than me. I whip my head up to the scoreboard and see that I currently hold the highest ranking for the men, which means I’ll be paired with the highest-ranked woman.

I push my way to the front of the crowded beach and search until I find her paddling after a wave, while another girl paddles closely behind, chasing the same wave. I cup my hands around my mouth and do something I will probably regret later.

“Give it your best, Maliah,” I shout.

She raises her head when she hears me, and I watch as her brows raise slightly before she refocuses herself and drops into the wave first at the perfect moment. She cuts through the face of the wave and absolutely crushes the maneuvers. That wave alone is most definitely worth enough points to have her ranked highest for the females, but I refuse to get my hopes up so instead I continue to cheer her on as she surfs her final wave.

When she handles that one perfectly, I’m satisfied enough to return to Gabriel who is smirking as he watches me approach.

“That was cute,” he says.

“Shut up, no one else here can surf as well as she can, and I intend to win,” I say defensively.

“Mhm,” he mumbles with an annoyingly smug smirk as he watches her paddle to the shore along with the rest of the women from her heat.

When she reaches us, I hold out her towel for her and she wordlessly takes it and wraps her hair up before I pass her another towel for her body. Within minutes, we hear music play as images on the digital scoreboard begin to fly aroundthe screen until a picture of my face lights up the screen for first place male ranking, followed by a picture of Maliah’s for women’s first place ranking. The wordsTeam Onefloat above our pictures and I feel a warmth spread in my chest.

That warmth quickly turns ice cold as Maliah turns to look at Gabriel and I over her shoulder, pinning us with frosty eyes that cause the hairs on my arms and the back of my neck to rise. Without a word, she picks up her board and marches over to the car that will take us to our hotel. I watch as the driver takes her surfboard and opens the door for her before securing the board to the top of the car.

Gabriel whistles beside me. “Looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you, bud,” he says before walking towards the car.

I mumble a few choice words for him under my breath before I pick up my board and follow him. He’s not wrong. She isn’t going to make this year easy for me one bit, but I refuse to give up this time.

The cool airfrom my air-conditioned hotel room feels amazing after being out in the hot sun for most of the day. In five minutes, I’ll have to go back out there to join Gabriel and Maliah along with the rest of the tour attendees for a welcome dinner.

I stand in front of the mirror, staring at my all-black outfit: black dress pants, a black dress shirt, and an uncomfortably tight black bow tie. I’ve been wearing black for over a year now, ever since Maliah broke up with me. Every time I attempt to wear colour, I’m overwhelmed with memories of her, and I can’t bear the pain. Black is the only colour I can handle wearing,because it’s the only colour she hates and the only colour I never wore while we were dating. It reminds her of her mother’s funeral, and it’s been off-limits for her since day one.

With a sigh, I walk over to my queen-sized bed and fall back onto it so that I can stare up at the smooth ceiling. Maliah always loved that I still had both of my parents in my life. She always told me I had no idea how lucky I was. But even that wasn’t enough to keep her by my side.

A knock at my door has me bolting upright and readjusting my bowtie before grabbing my hotel key card off the dresser and walking out into the hallway where Gabriel waits. He’s wearing a white dress shirt and navy dress pants.

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