Chapter 25
ALEJANDRA
“Look who’s here!” Amira screeched, running toward her with arms wide open, only to stop just short when Alejandra shot her a look of pure panic.
“Oh, right. The shoulder,” Amira muttered, adjusting course. She kissed her on the cheek and gave her a much gentler hug.
“Yeah. The reason you’re going to win the USL this year and not me,” Alejandra joked, or tried to. Even if she got the words out, it still stung like hell. Not just physically. Emotionally.
She was supposed to be competing. She was supposed to ride those waves, chase her third title.
But after what Callum had told her earlier, she felt greedy.
Why had she wanted more, when she’d already had so many chances?
She was a gold Olympic athlete. A two-time USL title holder. She’d done it. She’d won it all.
But he hadn’t. And god, his story was so much more heartbreaking than hers.
Fucking hell. Way to put things into perspective, Callum.
“I’ll try my best,” Amira beamed, then wiggled her eyebrows. “Did you see Mr. Superman?”
Alejandra groaned.
“Even though he cut his hair... does he still qualify for the title?” Amira asked, mock serious.
“Did everyone know he was coming?” Alejandra muttered, grabbing a beer the bartender at the Athlete Zone handed her.
“Except you? Yep,” Amira grinned. “Did you talk to him, then?”
“Yeah. We’re meeting after this.” She tried to sound chill, like it was not the most exciting thing that had happened to her in months.
Her heart was still hammering from earlier. The way his blue eyes had locked with hers had sent all kinds of signals through her body—most of them illegal in public.
Amira clapped. “Ilias! Did you hear Ale?”
Alejandra rolled her eyes as Ilias walked over, fresh from the water. His dark curls clung to his forehead, dripping wet.
“What?”
“She’s going on a date with Callum!” Amira squealed.
“Yeah!” Ilias pumped his fist. “Team Cale is back in action!”
“?Qué?” Alejandra scowled. “Team what now?”
“Team Cale. Callum and Ale,” Ilias said proudly. “I came up with it.”
“You’re unbelievable,” Alejandra groaned. “And we’re not going on a date. We’re just meeting. Catching up.”
“Sure,” the Ríos El Idrissi siblings said in unison, sharing a look.
She shook her head in disbelief—and maybe a little annoyance—when someone called her name.
Mick “Frosty” Turner. The surfing legend, in his fifties now, approached her with a kind smile. She’d met him a few times over the years, and he’d always been a steady, encouraging presence in the surf community.
“I’m glad to see you recovered,” Mick said, his British accent still crisp after years of traveling the world.
She’d once heard that people who kept their accents after living abroad were more rooted to who they were.
People who lost theirs were, apparently, shedding pieces of themselves.
And since hers still carried the Andalusian melody, she somehow believed home was still in that corner of the world where surf had first met her.
And Mick Turner, looking like the stereotypical surfer in his fifties still wearing baggy pants and sweaters, still carried that posh British accent that somehow clashed with his appearance.
“That wipeout was brutal,” he continued.
“Yeah.”
“You’re alive. That’s what matters,” he said, patting her right shoulder gently.
She nodded. Because what else was there to say?
“What did the doctors say?”
In the surf community, he was a legend. Since he had retired, he had kept training some surfers. Edward, her ex, was one of them. But somehow, even though the competition required distance, Mick always looked out for the younger surfers. Everyone respected him.
“Up to a year,” she said. “It was worse than they expected.”
“You’ll come back from it, Ale. You’re tough. You’re meant to be in the ocean,” he said with a soft smile, wrinkles forming at the corner of his blue eyes.
She clenched her jaw. “Yeah. I’ll come back.”
“You’ve been lucky until now to not have had any big injury. It’s how you face this one that will prove how strong you really are, Alejandra,” Mick reminded her. “Take this time as a way to prepare mentally for your comeback.”
“Do you really think I could—”
“Alejandra,” Mick reproached her. “You are what? Thirty-three yet you don’t look past thirty.
Your body has been trained to surf its entire life.
I’ve surfed professionally until I was forty, and then decided to retire because I wanted to help other surfers reach the top.
You are an athlete, one of the best. Don’t give up just because you cheated on death and come up a little bit beaten. ”
Alejandra nodded. “Thanks, I’ll—It’s just been tough.” That was the pep talk of someone used to giving them.
“You’ll come back,” he repeated. “I’m sure.”
But she didn’t believe him. Not right now. What she felt in her bones was the impossibility of it. The sheer weight of being out.
She wasn’t the Alejandra Callum had met. Not anymore. She felt broken. She wondered—would he see that? Would he look at her and think she wasn’t who she used to be? And then there was the other issue.
Sex? Practically out of the question. Any wrong move and her shoulder would throb like hell.
But fuck if she didn’t want to be manhandled by that man.
Callum could do whatever he wanted to her.
She tried to push through the two hours that separated her from seeing him again. Smiling at colleagues. Answering questions about her comeback. Making small talk when all she wanted was to be far away from the Athlete Zone.
Since arriving, that first conversation with him had been the only one that had made her feel…
okay. Grounded. She loved all her friends.
Amira and Ilias stood by her side the entire time, and yet they were the constant reminder that she had to give up on her dreams for that year.
Maybe she could embrace what Mike said, and yet, she could only see the missed opportunities through that sling. She hated it.