Next.

The Beach Boys

May 25, the next day. Pacific Coast Highway.

“Where are we going?” Ella Sue shouts against the wind as we roar through the highway on my Ducati, weaving through the remnants of the mid-Monday traffic.

The glittering shoreline just north of LA is beautiful, deep waves crashing against the beach, the faded storefronts in white and brown a smooth blur as we rush by them.

“Remember back on our first day in LA, how I said I was out surfing with a friend?” I shout back, my muscle tee fluttering in the wind.

“Yeah?” she says.

“Well, you probably figured it out already, but that was a lie. I was covering up my tracks so that Father wouldn’t be able to trace me,” I shout.

“What’s that got to do with where we’re going?” she yells. “You went here on that day?”

“Not exactly. I just remembered that I’d promised to bring you surfing with that friend, so, I’m taking you surfing with a friend.”

I feel her grip my waist tighter, as if that were possible.

“Who?” she yells.

“I think you’ll like him!” I call back.

She mutters something under her breath that’s lost to the wind, but I only laugh, enjoying the ride and the heat of the sun on my back. We reach our destination a few minutes later, pulling up to Zuma Beach.

The crowd today is light, a scattering of sunbathers on blankets and couples under colourful parasols.

“You should have told me we’d be going to the beach! And surfing! I’d have worn my bikini!” Ella Sue exclaims. She’s dressed in a short yellow dress and flip flops, which could be fine for regular beach-going, but certainly not surfing.

“Don’t worry, I packed yours into my bag,” I laugh, giving my duffel a quick heft.

After parking my bike, we begin to make our way across the beach, admiring the beach-bodies on display, commenting on the plenty of hot chicks and dudes laying about.

“Hey, that guy out there, riding back into the beach?” Ella Sue says, pulling on my arm. “He’s hot… look at those muscles, the way he’s got his hair styled, it’s like he’s got that movie star energy, you know?”

“I know,” I say, trying hard to keep the smile off my face.

“He looks familiar, kind of like Sean Corolla, don’t you think? Oh shit, is that actually Sean Corolla? Oh my god,” Ella Sue breathes.

She’s no longer walking, she’s just standing there, watching Sean Corolla wade up towards us with his surfboard tucked under his arm.

“You ready to meet my friend?” I ask, smiling at her.

“Oh my god, that’s crazy, this is insane, we’re actually going surfing with Sean Corolla!” she says, bouncing on her feet, waving at Sean as he makes his way in.

He waves back with a wide smile on his face.

“She’s a huge fan of yours,” I call out.

Ella Sue’s face goes ashen and she looks at me, mortified.

“He heard that!” she groans. “He’s going to think I’m… I’m…”

Sean gets up onto the beach then, closing the gap between us in a few quick steps.

“Whatever you’re going to say, you think he wouldn’t have figured it out from the jumping and waving?” I snort.

“I’m going to kill you,” she mutters.

“Hey, figure out what?” Sean says, sticking his surfboard into sand. He turns to face Ella Sue. “That you’re pretty cute?”

“Eeep!” is all that Ella Sue manages.

“Sean, this is Ella Sue, the friend that I was telling you about,” I say. “And Ella Sue, this is Sean Corolla. You might have heard of him.”

“Nice to meet ya,” Sean says.

Ella Sue has the sense of mind to shake his hand.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t expect this to happen, Claude wouldn’t tell me what we were coming out to do, so I’m not even changed to go out in the water and I don’t have a surfboard and…”

“That’s no big deal, I brought a couple spares boards with me. They’re back at the car, though. Shall we pick them up together?” Sean says.

“Yes! Umm… yes, that sounds good,” Ella Sue says, nodding hard.

He chuckles as he picks up his board out of the sand and begins to lead us to his car. We walk in silence for a minute, Ella Sue looking nervously over at Sean every couple of seconds, while I hang back and try my best to not burst out laughing.

“So, I hear that you and Claude are sharing a place right now. How’d the two of you meet?” Sean asks, glancing back at her.

“It’s a crazy story!” Ella Sue immediately says, happy to have something concrete to talk about. “I was super nervous about moving to LA at first because I’d signed a contract for a two bedroom apartment and I hadn’t found anyone to share it with—I’d looked online, and everyone who DM’d me had weird living habits or was kind of a creep. I literally spent weeks looking for somebody, but it was just terrible, but then, this crazy coincidence, when I got the train to LA from Boston, I just happened to share a compartment with this guy—”

“No, don’t tell me that it was Claude,” Sean says.

“Yeah! Such a massive stroke of luck! So when I first got in the train, I thought he was kind of weird, right, like…”

I let the two of them chatter on through the way to the car, only offering the occasional comment or quip as they tell stories to each other, getting to know one another.

We’re stopped a couple times along the way by people looking for photographs with Sean, and I see a few girls casting Ella Sue some jealous looks. She definitely notices them too, and seems to take some small satisfaction in that.

“No kidding, you’ve got 20k followers on Insta?” Sean says as we pull up to his car, parked in a secluded spot off a side road. “I didn’t even have that after my first movie came out. Hey, you want to take a selfie for it?”

“Are you kidding?” Ella Sue exclaims.

She whips out her phone without a second thought, and the two of them pose under the shade of the trees, snapping photo after photo. Sean’s topless, of course, and still dripping from the waves and the sand, but Ella Sue doesn’t mind, getting up close with him as the two of them start making funny faces for the camera.

“Want me to take a couple for you two?” I ask.

“Yes, please!” Ella Sue says.

I take the phone from her and snap off a dozen photos of her and Sean. The guy’s had his arm around her for the last couple minutes now, and the two of them seem very comfortable in each other’s presence.

“I’ve gone and ruined your dress now, sorry about that,” Sean says, running his hand down her back and brushing away a hefty amount of sand.

“I needed to change into my swimsuit anyways, so don’t worry,” Ella Sue says. “The zipper on my dress might get caught on the sand though, so I might need some help with removing my dress…”

She looks up at Sean with big, innocent eyes.

“I can do that,” he says. “We can duck behind the car real quick and get it sorted out.”

I open up the duffle and toss Ella Sue’s bikini to Sean. He catches it with a hand and gives me a that universal bro-code smile. A second later, and the two of them have disappeared behind the car.

I ignore their hushed whispers and soft giggles. I’ve seen Ella Sue naked enough that I don't feel the need to peep on the two of them.

Instead, I pull out my phone and check the messages that I’ve missed.

I’ve got the funding. Kept up the discussion with Goldman. They obviously don’t like the price, but Mandy got them close enough before dropping the thread. We can do the 2 billion LBO, Claire’s texted.

She’s been busy over the last day. We’re meeting with Mandy and Tiffany tomorrow to ‘finalise our plans’—Mandy’s words for figuring out how to get Tiffany to fuck Bob Simonds with the greatest chance of success. Claire and I are going to do our best to strong-arm Mandy into paying this deal the regular way. Securing the credit for the leveraged buyout brings us one large step closer to accomplishing that.

Great work, I text back.

There’s a loud yelp from behind the car, followed by Ella Sue’s high pitched giggle and a low chuckle from Sean. A couple seconds later, they emerge from behind the car with silly grins on their faces. 

“Sorry, we um… got distracted,” Ella Sue says.

“I could tell,” I say, as I slip my phone into my duffel. I pull off my pants to reveal the swimming trunks beneath. “Let’s go surfing, yeah?”

Sean pops his trunk open, revealing two pristine surfboards for us. Ella Sue and I each grab one, and then the three of us race for the beach together.