I press the “UP” button and glance at the round, numbered lights above the elevators. The left elevator is moving up from three. The eleven above the right elevator flashes, and then, half a minute later, ten.

I glance down either side of the hall, swallowing a sigh when I see a family approaching from my right. Middle-aged parents, son and daughter in the six to ten range. Guests. I glance at the numbers again—the eight is glowing.

I look straight ahead, and stand very still, with my right shoulder ever so slightly turned in. I want my body language to convey that I’m—

“You’re that surfer, right?” the dad asks, with no preamble, and I almost jump because I didn’t even realize they—How did they do that? Did they jet down the hall? Or did I zone out?

Dad’s about as tall as me, but fat. The missus looks like a dime in a blue one-piece that shows a decent amount of cleavage. Her hair is kind of long—good for pulling.

“Are you,” pipes a voice somewhere below Mrs. MILF. The boy. He’s looking at me with wide, ambitious eyes, a wooden skim board under his left arm.

“I was,” I say after a beat. “Not anymore.”

“Was it hard?”

I shrug. “Not really.”

“But you had to practice a lot,” his dad prompts.

I nod. “A whole lot.”

“I wanna ride the really big waves. The hundred-foot ones!”

The elevator door dings open, and I practically leap inside. And—fuck! Why did I do that? I should have acted like I forgot something on the beach. Is there still time? No, the whole fucking family has filed in, and they’ve created a wall between me and the door.

“Did you ever ride any that big?” the boy asks.

Any…? Ah, hundred-foot waves must be what he means.

No; that’s tsunami-sized. But I nod. “A few.”

“Wow.” His green eyes are wide. “Was it like so fast you went a hundred miles an hour?”

Not even close. “Sure did.”

He makes two stubby fingers wipe out. “Did you ever wipe out?”

“Totally,” I say.

“Did it hurt?”

Not as much as this. “Sometimes.”

“And you won lots of trophies?”

I nod.

“Were you really world champion?”

“Yep.”

“Did you win a lot of money?”

“Brandon that’s not nice,” his mom warns.

“Well, did you win a lot of…what are surfing competitions called?”

I shrug. “Competitions.”

“Did you win a lot?”

My gaze falls to my sandals for a not-long-enough moment. I manage to pull it back up. “What do you consider a lot?”

“A hundred?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you still surf?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“A shark ate my leg.”

His eyes widen, and so do his younger sister’s. She leans around her brother to look. “Where?” she asks.

I make a vague motion that encompasses my entire left leg. “The whole thing.”

“Nuh-uh,” the girl says. She points to my leg, and I say, “That’s a fake.”

“No it’s not.”

“It’s just a joke, sweetie,” the dad says.

He glances at me, hoping I’ll agree, and I narrow my eyes. “It didn’t feel funny.”

The elevator dings, the doors slide open, and my new friends get off on floor seven.

I ride, alone, to the thirteenth floor. It is not called the thirteenth floor. When the elevator finally stops at the top of “Seaside Seascapes,” the number that glows is fourteen. There is no thirteen. Most hotels that do this have a thirteenth floor and leave it empty, or they use it for storage or maintenance, and they pretty much always have more floors above it.

Seaside Seascapes just calls the thirteenth floor the fourteenth.

I open the door to my suite and wonder, not for the first time, if I made a mistake when I bought it.

I was eighteen, and I wanted a place to crash that wasn’t my parents’ house. I didn’t imagine myself living in Longview. I guess I didn’t think about the future at all.

I don’t believe in luck, necessarily. Or feng shui or any of that. But I have a vague sense that maybe living at the top of an aging resort, on a floor that pretends to be something it’s not, isn’t good for my psyche.

But ultimately I don’t care. And I still do kind of appreciate that the fourteenth floor is bullshit. Because the whole thing is. This bullshit three-bedroom, two bath “executive suite” is bullshit. Seaside Seascapes is the nicest resort in town, and that’s bullshit. My whole life is bullshit—my business, everything.

I flip on my light switch. I shut the door.

I take a deep breath that is supposed to be calming…

At least the décor is honest. This place hasn’t been updated since the ’90s. Which means lots of white, and one wall—the one just to the right of the door—that is a floor-to-ceiling mirror.

I stare at my reflection, trying to feel reassured. I smile, all teeth.

Everything’s fine.

I spin and walk to the sliding glass door that leads to the balcony, which is huge—two hundred-plus square feet on its own. There’s a grill out here, and a hot tub. There are three pools below and of course the beach. I hear the waves breaking, smell the salt in the breeze. I take a deep breath and walk to the railing.

There are still a lot of families down there. I see a group of maybe fifteen people trying to organize themselves for a picture. They’re all dressed in white shirts.

I don’t get how that became the go-to outfit for family pictures on the beach. I’m not a photographer, though. Also, my family wasn’t the kind to take family photos. So obviously I’m not the expert.

I go back inside and contemplate stretching out on the couch: a bulky, beige sectional that’s shaped like a half circle.

Instead I grab a beer from the fridge and check my phone. I have all my notifications turned off, because the constant buzzing drives me crazy. But if I forget to check my phone for a couple of hours, I’m under a wave of messages and tags.

Like I am now.

A lot of people wanting things—figures, opinions, meetings. On Instagram and Twitter, it’s a bunch of likes and tags and comments, and I could spend the next two hours looking at all this bullshit.

I’m not going to.

I just…can’t anymore.

When I first opened Hot Beach, it was on the advice of my accountant, who told me I needed some kind of business to invest in. Something that would generate income and overhead.

So I bought a bunch of chairs and hired some lifeguards. And in a couple of years the business was making a stupid amount of money. So I hired Mione Flair and we redesigned the Hot Beach suits for sale. The women’s are perfect: classic but signature. The men’s have a good cut. Shit is blowing up. We’re sold out from stores in Miami, Key West, and Tampa.

And I just don’t give a shit.