“—and that’s why we think this activation is the perfect vehicle for the brand’s pivot toward environmental consciousness,” James said, clicking to a new slide. There was a stock photo of a sea turtle on it. The sea turtle looked about as engaged as I was.
“Listen, my guy.” I shifted in my chair, which was one of those ergonomic mesh things that cost two thousand dollars and still somehow made your ass hurt. “I appreciate you including me in all this…planning…but why are you asking me to choose the location?”
Jacky blinked. He clearly hadn’t accounted for audience participation.
“I’ll be honest with you, Chase.” He leaned forward, doing the thing where he steepled his fingers like he’d probably seen someone do in a TED Talk once. “Your reputation, it isn’t what it used to be. With the scandal three years ago?—”
Yeah, like I’d forgotten. I’d only thought about it every single day since then. One stupid choice that had nearly ruined everything. Instead, it had only mostly ruined everything. Three years of smiling through interviews where every reporter found a new way to ask the same question. Three years of watching old friends cross to the other side of the beach when they saw me coming. Three years of my agent—sorry, my new agent, because the old one dropped me faster than a bad wave—fielding calls from energy drink companies and wetsuit brands who wanted the clout of my name, but only at a discount.
“—we are seeing this as your comeback tour.” Jimmy was on a roll now, gesturing with the little clicker in his hand. “Getting you back on the horse, or the board, or whatever the saying is. But we can’t just throw you into the championship. A small, local event will be good for you, and for RipTide. We’re working a new eco PR angle and?—”
I stopped listening to him again.
Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful RipTide had sponsored me after the incident. Not that they were exactly a top-shelf sponsor—their flagship energy drink tasted like TV static with a hint of mango—but they paid on time, and their health insurance covered dependents, which was the only thing that actually mattered. Everything else was theater.
But they needed me too. In fact, sometimes I thought my scandal had helped RipTide, gotten them a ton of press, and they’d always loved my “bad boy” image. Before me, their brand ambassador had been a guy named Todd who smiled like a youth pastor and posted workout routines on Instagram. Todd did not move product. I moved product. Even disgraced, I moved more product than Todd ever had, because people didn’t buy energydrinks to feel wholesome. They bought them to feel dangerous. And I was the most dangerous thing RipTide had ever gotten its logo on.
Which was why I was sitting in this Poseidon-forsaken conference room instead of, say, literally anywhere else on earth, letting Jeffrey pitch me on whatever “activation” meant this quarter.
“—and the biodegradable bottle initiative is going to be huge. We’re talking full sustainability rebrand. Chase Perez, face of the ocean-friendly future?—”
“You know I’m a shark, right?” I interrupted. “Sharks aren’t exactly the poster child for friendly.”
Dead silence.
Then Jason laughed, a beat too late, like people do when they can’t tell if you’re joking. I was joking. Mostly. The thing about hiding in plain sight is that the truth is always the safest lie. Nobody believes the guy who actually is a shark when he says he’s a shark. They just think you’re leaning into the brand.
“Right, right. El Tiburón.” He pronounced it wrong and made a chomping gesture with his hand that made me want to bite it off. “That’s exactly the energy we want. Apex predator goes green. The people will love it.”
Whatever you say, Johnny.
Plus, I hadn’t shifted in months. Too busy being the human surfer, the brand influencer, which conveniently covered up the fact that I hadn’t wanted to shift ever since…
“Anyway,” he continued, pulling up a new slide—a map of the coast this time. Finally, something worth looking at. “We’ve narrowed it down to five locations for the exhibition event. East Coast, smaller markets. Towns where a surf competition is the biggest thing to happen since they got a second gas station.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. Small towns meant RipTide could roll in like a circus and take over the whole beachfront for weeks—for cheap. The tourism money alone would have these places rolling out red carpets. City council approvals in forty-eight hours. Free permits. The mayor showing up for a photo op in a RipTide visor.
I’d seen it before—we all had. The surf industry had been doing it to coastal towns for years, and the towns always said yes because the alternative was another summer of selling taffy and renting boogie boards to tourists from Ohio.
“We’d like you to choose.” He said it with the air of a man offering a great gift. “It’s your comeback. Your narrative.”
My narrative. Right. Like any of this was actually about me.
I looked at the map. Five pins along the Eastern Seaboard, each with a little pop-up: town name, population, average wave height, nearest airport. Corporate surf planning at its finest—reduce a living, breathing beach to a spreadsheet and a pin.
First was Cape Hatteras. I’d surfed there twice. Decent reef break, but the locals were territorial, which made for bad optics. One of those towns where the surfers had a whole pecking order about who got which wave, and they did not appreciate outsiders. Hard pass.
Buckroe Beach. Never been. The pop-up saidemerging surf destination, which in my experience meant “the waves are mediocre, but someone built a boutique hotel and now there’s a marketing budget.”
A notification popped up on my phone—a new Instagram follower. I got a dozen a day, but this one was fromjuicy_kouture, and the profile picture looked familiar. Juice-bar girl.
I glanced up through the conference room’s glass walls and saw her give me a coy smile and wave. I grinned back, the piercing in my lip pulling tight, but before I could send her a message, Julian coughed at the front of the room.
I groaned, stuffing my phone away and looking back up at the slides, pretending to care when?—
Crescent Cove.
My eyes lingered on it.
