Above Water (Blue Mind #2)

Chapter 1

ALEJANDRA

Troubled Waters – Alex Warren

They should have been enjoying the beach, family members coming from around the world to attend the wedding, the familiarity of being together once more to celebrate, and yet, here they were, seated at the bottom of the pool, anchored by two dumbbells each one.

The water swallowed every sound from above.

Alejandra steadied her breathing, and with it, her mind.

Ilias, one of her best friends and the groom-to-be, sat beside her.

In front of her, Amira—his sister—floated, a cloud of curly hair drifting around her face.

Ghita, their cousin, was already faltering, shoulders tightening against the urge to breathe.

If Alejandra counted right, it hadn’t even been a minute.

She was going to win this without breaking a sweat.

To non-surfers, surfing was all adrenaline and risk, walls of water closing in. But in reality, it was about control. The discipline to quiet their bodies, to hold their breath, to remain calm under the crushing weight of the water overhead.

Even in the off-season, they had all eagerly agreed to apnea training. Competition was ingrained in them, and Alejandra loved turning everything into a challenge. Losing to them was never an option. Not if she could help it.

As predicted, Ghita resurfaced a couple of seconds later. Alejandra could excuse her because she was the only one who wasn’t a pro and did it just for fun. She definitely didn’t have all the hours Alejandra, Ilias or Amira had spent training daily.

A smirk played on her lips as Amira caught her eye. She didn’t even have to do much before Ilias’ younger sister burst into laughter and had to resurface.

Two out.

Ilias was already watching her. His hazel eyes were trained on her with that eagle-sharp attention he usually reserved for reading waves. He knew she was there to disrupt his peace, and he was ready for it.

The staring contest began. They’d been playing that game since they were kids, bored to death during apnea training. Now, well into their thirties, they still behaved like children in moments like this.

By the way Ilias’ nostrils flared, she knew he was about to lose it. She just had to hold a little longer. She raised her eyebrows, tilting her head slightly. His nostrils flared even more before he lifted a middle finger and finally went up for air.

Alejandra followed seconds later, resurfacing and letting air fill her lungs, and the sound of seagulls ground her back on planet Earth. Warm air kissed her cheeks as she pushed the goggles off her face, fingers tangling briefly in her long black hair as she tried to free them.

“I won,” Alejandra declared smugly.

“Almost five minutes, Ale,” Carlos called from the side of the pool, where he was crouched, stopwatch in hand.

“I’m getting better.”

“That training with the big-wave surfers really helped to expand your lung capacity,” Carlos commented, quite impressed.

“I should’ve gone with you,” Ilias frowned as he lifted himself onto the pool’s edge, where Amira and Ghita were already stretched out in the sun, clearly pretending to be unbothered by the loss.

“Next time. I bet Edo will lead another retreat soon.”

“I want to join too. I could offer him one retreat for free in Azul in exchange,” Ghita offered.

“Yeah, because you were shitty down there,” Amira shot back, and Ghita, who clearly didn’t like that comment, just pushed her into the pool.

Alejandra chuckled as they watched the two cousins bickering.

Learning new techniques to deal with wipeouts had always been an obsession of hers. If she could reduce the chances of feeling like she’d been thrown into a washing machine without panicking, then that was the goal.

It didn’t help that after winning her second title in Fiji the year before, she hadn’t won the season that had just wrapped up.

She’d lost to a new twenty-something Aussie and hit her head on the reef at Pipeline.

Thankfully, she hadn’t lost consciousness, but the bump and the scratches had hurt for days.

That alone had pushed her to sign up for another big-wave surfers’ retreat led by Edoardo, an old friend and ex-pro surfer, when the season ended.

If nothing else, it bought her some peace of mind.

“How do you feel?” Alejandra asked Ilias as she sat next to him on the pool’s edge, the Atlantic stretching endlessly in front of them.

“About marrying the love of my life? Amazing.” The bright smile he gave her confirmed—again—how completely smitten he was with Sofia, her best friend and bride-to-be. “But all the organization stuff,” he scoffed. “I’d rather stay underwater until it’s over.”

“Oh, come on,” Amira chimed in from the other side, lifting herself back on the border. “Like you didn’t hire a wedding planner to deal with all that shit.”

“Francois gives me anxiety,” Ilias said. “He should take a Valium once in a while.” He reclined against the pool border, soaking up the late-August Tarifa sun.

Sofia and Ilias had booked a villa for their families, plus apartments all around town for friends coming in for their destination wedding in Tarifa, in Andalucía, in the South of Spain.

Salacia Project, Sofia’s business, was doing great in Ericeira—expanding, even—and Azul, Ilias’ business in Imsouane, which had started just a year earlier with Ghita basically running the show, was already booked solid for the entire year.

When word got out that Ilias and Amira had a retreat in Morocco where they taught surf classes, people lost their minds booking it years in advance.

Alejandra wasn’t surprised. They were surfers she looked up to daily, and learning from them was a one in a lifetime opportunity for many.

“It’s just a different lifestyle,” Carlos interjected as he sat down next to her.

Ilias nodded. “But Sofia’s happy having someone handle all that shit, so I’m happy.”

“Good boy,” Alejandra smiled, patting his shoulder.

“By the way, where’s Sofi now?” Ghita asked.

“Showing the nerd trio their apartment, I think. They just arrived from Sevilla. They’ll probably show up any minute.” Ilias checked his watch.

“Can’t wait to finally meet them. You’ve spoken so much about them and it annoys me I never got the chance to meet the nerds,” Alejandra laughed.

Ilias frowned. “You’ve never met them?”

She shook her head. “Never had the time. You know, I'm busy trying to win my third USL title.”

“They’re funny,” Ilias conceded. “They are very cool.”

Alejandra leaned back against the concrete, letting the sun dry her green bikini and her skin, her feet still dangling in the water.

“Ready for another season?” she asked, feeling the adrenaline entering her body already.

In January, the season was going to start again and she was aiming—once more—to her third title. Plus, the result in the USL would lead to the Olympics, her second one and hopefully, her second gold. She was aiming for a stellar season, she could feel it in her bones.

“It will probably be my last one,” Ilias admitted. “I’m getting old, and Mama Water has been hitting me hard lately. My back gives me nightmares.”

“Old man,” Amira sneakered, splashing some water into his face.

“You are not that old,” Alejandra frowned. “If you retire, then I have to retire, and it’s not an option.”

“You don’t have to do what I do,” Ilias reminded her. “I already retired once and came back, but since Margaret River last year my back has been playing games with me.”

“Gretchen suggested he takes it slow,” Amira intervened, now slightly worried. “We don’t want him to hurt himself too bad.”

Alejandra nodded, closing her eyes, trying to process the conversation, not quite sure what to take out of it.

She knew she was getting older too. Heading for thirty-four.

Her body wasn’t what it used to be at twenty, and yet, she didn’t feel weaker, she felt stronger.

But she knew she wasn’t going to be immune to the passage of time.

At one point, inevitably, her body would give up.

Turns, paddles, carves she had done her whole life would become trickier to do.

She had seen surfers compete until they were forty, like Mick Turner, a legend she looked up to, but even he was retired now.

Panic swelled in her chest at the idea. She needed something for after.

For when her career ended, when sponsors would inevitably drop her if she didn’t play her cards right.

The house she had bought in Conil a couple of years earlier was a backup.

An anchor. A place she could rent when she wasn’t around, and a home when she wanted the quiet of a familiar place in the town that had seen her grow.

Even though, traveling as much as she did, the idea of home had changed immensely from when she was a kid.

It wasn’t a place anymore, it was more the people she surrounded herself with.

The downside of growing up in the surfing world was that everyone came from somewhere else, everyone called a different place home, which meant she had no idea where hers was, beyond the one she had bought in a futile attempt to keep time from slipping away.

She opened her eyes and caught Carlos watching her, a frown creasing his brow.

He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze, and she answered with a reassuring smile.

He didn’t need to know what was running through her mind.

The goal for that year was to win her third USL title and her second Olympic medal. That was where her focus needed to be.

As voices drifted in from the villa’s entrance, she pushed those thoughts into a corner of her mind, locked them away.

It was Sofia’s weekend. Her worries could wait seventy-two hours.