Page 15 of Ride the Wave

Oh God.Why is he always half-naked andwetwhen I speak to him?

It’s incredibly distracting.

He looks so… solid.

‘Hi,’ I say brightly, keeping my eyes firmly on his face and refusing to let them drift down to his perfectly sculpted torso. ‘It’s me again.’

‘I can see that,’ he says, alarmed.

‘We didn’t get the chance to rearrange our meeting back at the beach, so I thought I’d pop over and we could book something in.’

He stares at me. ‘You thought you’d… pop over.’

‘I know you have to be at work soon and I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to visit you there, so I thought—’

‘You thought you’d come to my home,’ he finishes for me, his brow furrowed.

‘I’m sorry for disturbing you when you’re… uh—’

I gesture in the general vicinity of his abs, accidentally glancing down to the deep-cut V muscles leading into the top of his towel.

Jesus. Did someone carve this man out of marble?

‘Showering?’ he prompts to finish the end of my sentence, my eyes flying back up.

‘Right. I thought you’d be done by now. You’ve been in there… a while.’

He narrows his eyes at me. ‘I made some breakfast before I showered.’

‘That makes sense. None of my business.’ I hold up my hands to show I come in peace. ‘But it’s really important that we get this first chat booked in so we can work out the best way of me shadowing you.’

His jaw tightens. When he doesn’t respond, I continue confidently.

‘As I was trying to say at the beach earlier, I understand that this process can be really daunting, and it might seem a bit invasive, having someone follow you around, but I promise I’m very discreet.’

‘You? Discreet.’ His eyes travel down to my heels and back up again. ‘Really.’

‘Yes,’ I bristle.

He looks sceptical.

Despite the fact he’s pissing me off, I try to level with him. ‘You’re not the first athlete who has been unnerved by the idea of a profile piece, but you’ll soon realise that it’s absolutely fine. Most of the time, the athletes I shadow end up loving it. You get to speak about your passion all the time to someone who’s really listening, you can show me how important certain things are to you, you can talk through your hardest challenges and feel pride at overcoming them. It can actually be therapeutic.’

He rolls his eyes. ‘Oh please. This kind of bullshit isn’t going to work with me, okay? You can save your manipulative speeches for someone else.’

‘I’m not trying tomanipulateyou,’ I say, stunned. ‘All I want to do is talk to you and learn about your life. That’s what I do.’

‘I can’t do this now.’

Shaking his head, he goes to shut the door in my face. But I step forwards, jamming my foot in the way to stop him. My patience is starting to wear thin.

‘Hey,’ I say abruptly, frowning at him. ‘You agreed to this interview and, whether or not you want to do it now, I’ve flown out here from London and the least you could do is be civil. Don’t you think?’

He looks taken aback by my candour and has the decency to look a little ashamed, his eyes falling to the floor. He doesn’t say anything, his lips pressed into a hard line, but at least he’s not forcing the door shut anymore. I sigh, putting my hands on my hips.

‘Leo, I don’t get it. This is your big comeback. Why wouldn’t you want to do this interview? This isn’t any old publication; this isStudio. Most athletes would kill for this kind of publicity.’

‘I don’t speak to the press,’ he states plainly. ‘My mum wanted me to do this and I said I would do an interview because her team kept going on at me about it and I…’ he pauses, a muscle twitching in his jaw ‘…owed her one.’

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