Chapter 2
ILIAS
The First Time – Damiano David
Alejandra had deemed Ilias’ presence essential in giving her best friend’s cleanup the attention it deserved.
He would have loved to keep sleeping and sneak in extra training for the third leg of the Universal Surf League tour—USL, because surfers hated long names—but the second he floated the idea, Alejandra shot him that look.
The one that made him feel like his wave-riding credentials were suddenly under review.
So, he’d accepted.
That friend of hers, whom she’d spoken about endlessly, was some kind of scientist. She had founded a marine project in Ericeira and needed help kicking it off and grabbing the attention of big sponsors like TerraVive, who had been sponsoring him since he was fifteen.
The only sponsor who hadn’t dropped him after he took a two-year break from surfing.
Ilias rolled in about five minutes late at Praia dos Pescadores—the small, bustling beach at the heart of Ericeira—even though he’d rented a house with his sister and their team just a short walk away in the town’s center.
He loved the vibe of the town and had missed it during the two years he had spent slowly healing.
At the entrance to the beach, a big poster in earth tone colors read “Salacia Project x Ericeira Cleanup”, with a lineup of local shop sponsors underneath. Even the municipality of Ericeira was sponsoring it, and he genuinely wondered why Alejandra needed him
During his two-year break, Ilias had almost forgotten how wild fans could get when he was on tour.
Not that he minded. They had every reason to be impressed.
Olympic gold, back-to-back Universal Surf League titles, the first North African surfer to achieve it.
He’d earned the attention, even if he sometimes felt a twinge of disbelief that all of it had actually happened.
Fame didn’t come naturally, but hard work and obsession had carved his path, and now, stepping back into the spotlight, he could feel the world still watching.
As soon as he arrived, people started stopping him for pictures and autographs.
He signed with a genuine smile, letting the moments pass without rush.
During his break, he had shut down all his social media and avoided the public eye, wary of judgment he didn’t need.
Now, facing the familiar attention, there was a quiet satisfaction.
Not the thrill of praise he once chased, but the steady warmth of recognition earned through years of work.
“You’re here!” Alejandra’s voice cut through the crowd and his thoughts. She found him and dragged him away from his fans, towards the back of a tiny stage set up with the event and all the sponsor logos as a backdrop.
“You’re late,” Alejandra remarked.
“Fashionably late,” Ilias replied, waggling his eyebrows.
“?Venga ya! Sofi is losing her mind, so just try to be on your best behavior, vale?”
Ilias feigned offense. “When am I not?”
Alejandra shot him a deadly stare. He raised his hands in defense.
He wasn’t here to cause trouble. The only thing he wanted was to help Alejandra and her friend out, smile politely at fans, and make his sponsors happy, mostly TerraVive, who had not-so-subtly reminded him that winning was part of the deal if they were going to keep supporting him.
Luckily, the first two legs of the tour had gone well.
He’d won the opening event, sparking the great comeback headlines, and placed fifth in the next one.
Not a victory, but still solid. In surfing competitions, every spot earned points, and every point kept him in the running.
He’d learned to take the results in stride now, letting the numbers speak for themselves instead of getting lost in the hype.
Somehow, Ilias still had it. That connection with the ocean, the board, his body. Even though he’d thought about quitting, it was still the only thing that made him feel truly happy. Truly alive.
“Sofi, Ilias is here!” Alejandra called out in their mother tongue; her Southern Spanish accent thicker than when she spoke English.
The woman who turned around looked up at him with unimpressed brown eyes, even though she was anything but unimpressive. Maybe he should’ve researched who Sofia was, because this girl looked like she could eat him alive and he’d gladly let her.
“You’re late,” Sofia said, looking at the iPad she cradled in her arms.
“My fans wouldn’t let me go.” He smirked. In his mind, it sounded like a great excuse, but by the way Sofia looked at him, she was even more unimpressed.
“Anyway, thank you for coming,” she said, plastering on what he thought was the most gorgeous fake smile he’d ever seen. “I’m Sofia. Nice to meet you.”
Her Spanish was flawless, but there was a slight accent he couldn’t quite place.
“Ilias. Thank you for inviting me,” he said, shaking her outstretched hand, which glittered with rings set with colorful gemstones, each one catching the light like a tiny jewel from a treasure chest.
“It was Ale’s idea.” Sofia shrugged.
“Anything to help the ocean and a new project.”
Her brown eyes searched his for a moment, then she nodded. “Do you know what your role is in this?”
“Enlighten me.” He grinned.
Sofia looked between Alejandra and Ilias. “I’ll give a speech, then we’ll start the clean-up, which we’ve designed to be like a race. We’ll split them into three groups, each of us leads one, and the winners get eco-friendly gear from our sponsors.”
Ilias tilted his head, intrigued. “So, is it a competition?”
Sofia frowned. “Well, yes. But like, a friendly one.”
“There’s nothing friendly in a competition, Sofia,” Alejandra grinned. “And I’m going to crush you both.”
“Gosh, you surfers,” Sofia almost groaned, definitely annoyed, as Ilias chuckled.
He couldn’t quite figure her out. Was she nervous? Standoffish? Introverted? Or just too focused on her work to be nice?
“And what do we win?” Ilias asked.
“If you win, you get gear and glory. That’s it,” she replied with another shrug.
“Could we raise the stakes a little?”
Sofia cocked an eyebrow. “It’s not a game for me. It’s an important day for my business.”
“What were you thinking?” Alejandra interjected.
“It was more a proposition for Sofia.”
He turned to look at her. Her long brown hair tumbled in waves over her chest, brushing the curve of her breasts, her nipples peaked through the fabric beneath the Salacia sweater. He forced his gaze back to her eyes, and they were definitely judging him.
“I have no time for this,” she snapped. “The gear’s over there.”
Sofia stormed off. Alejandra pinned him with one of her famous stares while he grabbed the gloves and started putting them on.
“What?” he asked, pretending not to care.
“What were you trying to ask her?” Alejandra crossed her arms.
“Just for a date. Is she single?”
“Listen, she’s off limits. She has a lot going on. She’s not up for a one-night stand.”
Ilias placed a hand over his heart. “Who said I just wanted a one-night stand?”
Alejandra gifted him a flat stare. “I’ve known you since we were eleven. But I’ve known her since we were five. Just let her be. She needs to heal. She needs someone reliable.”
“Wait, that hurt. I am reliable.”
“Unless you’ve changed in the past two years, you’ll have to prove it to me before you even try to have a chance with her,” Alejandra warned.
“Fine. I’ll be on my best behavior. But you could’ve warned me she was gorgeous.”
“All my friends are,” she replied with a grin.
“You just called me gorgeous?” Ilias teased.
“You’re not my friend,” Alejandra said, sticking out her tongue.
Ilias chuckled.
Yeah, they were friends. They had been for years now.
Maybe she had been a better friend than he had over the past two years.
Maybe she was right. He had left the circuit because he’d been too childish well into his lat twenties, too in love with partying, to the point where he’d had to quit drinking.
Sure, he’d won medals and awards, but he hadn’t been truly happy, nor had he felt deserving of them.
He had been broken after his father’s death two years prior, shattered into pieces he barely recognized as himself.
Grief had swallowed him at first—angry outbursts, sleepless nights, the weight of things left unsaid pressing on him.
Slowly, he had faced it, piece by piece, through long therapy sessions and quiet days spent wandering the coasts of Morocco and Spain, retracing the steps of conversations he wished he could have back, trying to reconcile the last words he’d exchanged with his father.
He had learned to sit with his pain, to listen to it instead of running, and in that patient reckoning, he had healed.
If there was one person who truly understood what healing meant, it was Ilias.
So he would let Sofia heal too—though not without teasing her a little.
She seemed like she needed to loosen up a bit.