A/N: Ha ha I realize a month of summer has passed and it's still taken me forever to update...sorry. Not too much happens here, I just felt like I needed to update this

Bradin fiddled with a small plush ball he had found when he had cleaned his room a little while ago. It was a few days after the surprising and strange date he had with Jessica and the thought of it still caused him confusion. He would never understand her; that much was certain. Ava had nagged him to clean for nearly two weeks now and seeing as though he was a bit bemused from the odd events, he had finally given in. The ball was one his girlfriend in Kansas had sewn for him in home economics. He in turn had made her a stuffed dog (albeit it looked slightly deformed, Bradin wasn't the best at sewing) and a snoopy intarsia. Her name was Bailey, and the two had been quite serious in the middle part of his high school years. Bailey was star of the girl's basketball team; she had been vehemently against cheerleading, despite the fact that a multitude of people had urged her to be one. Had she wanted it, a spot on junior varsity was pretty much guaranteed. A member of the yearbook, debate club, badminton, lacrosse, and swim team, she was definitely very involved and active. A perfect match for Bradin, one might say. Not to mention the fact that she was not in any way a stereotypical preppy girly-girl air head. That girl had substance and their relationship was strong. It had faded slowly in the middle of eleventh grade… Bradin had grown distant and restless, and he had ultimately ended things.

Another serious girlfriend came in the form of a cheerleading blonde who had been voted homecoming queen. She was, he supposed, the type of girlfriend people had expected him to have. Bradin had found a memento from his ex hidden at the back of his closet. It was a small bronze flag (with the appearance of one from any sporting event, you know the ones, the triangular flags spectators wave?) with the words 'You're #1 in My Heart!' engraved in silver on it. That had been just before Bailey, in the latter few months of freshman year.

And now he was a senior, with yet another new girl. Jessica Wong. She with the quiet, shy nature and a sarcastic loud one at the same time. She who could be the most touching of sweethearts and also a snarky, defensive, emotional confusion. Jessica was artistic and smart, but reserved. She wasn't in any school clubs, nor did she have any interest in any school sport.

Stop it, Bradin told himself. You're analyzing her. Somehow he didn't think the guys back home would expect Bradin to be with Jessica, of all people. He could almost hear their disbelief. Shit. That was mean. Bradin scolded himself for thinking such thoughts and shoved the other lingering thoughts out of his mind. It was true that Bradin hadn't really ever gone out with a younger girl before, and had Bradin himself were to say, Jessica didn't exactly seem like his type, but honestly, none of that mattered, did it?

As he lay there for a few more moments in the quiet house, Bradin began to feel sorry for himself. The house was empty, Johnny and Derek were at Little League practice, Nikki was at the movies with Amber, Jay was at the surf shop (or a date, whatever), and Susannah and Ava were at a meeting. His younger siblings and his thirty-some caregivers had more of a social life than he did. There he was, seventeen years old, with nothing to do but go through his old stuff from Kansas. That was it; he wasn't going to be so pathetic anymore.

Jumping up, Bradin grabbed his surfboard and decided to go for a swim. As he absentmindedly reached the beach, he vaguely registered that there were boards and banners set up around the sand but ignored them. It wasn't rare for competitions and shows to be held up here so he paid them no mind. Bradin grinned as he hit the waves and let all thought float away from his mind, the sheer exhilaration of the sport over shadowing all else.

Time passed, and Bradin deftly tore himself away from the seduction of the ocean as he began to get a bit tired. Straightening up from his graceful landing into the water, he prepared to head back to the beach for a break. As he was about to turn around, a thundering of applause and cheers shocked Bradin. His senses working again once the concentration of surfing passed, Bradin turned around in confusion. A crowd was gathered on nearby bleachers, whooping. And they were all facing him.

He managed a smile as he strode out of the water self-consciously, awkwardly realizing that they had been watching him.

A man walked over to Bradin and grinned. "You chose an extremely lucky time to go surfing. What's your name?"

"Bradin Westerly." Bradin answered, biting his lip and uncomfortably waving towards the broadly grinning audience.

"Well, Mr. Westerly, today just happens to be the day where Playa Linda's surfers under twenty five gathered around to show their skill and talent. You see those bleachers over there? There happens to be a few scouts in there, ready to spot the finest of this city. I'm one of them. The purpose of my being here is to find the ones in here with true, raw, talent and with an obvious appreciation of the sport- I'm here to whittle down this crowd of a fair hundred amateurs to a smaller elite group. Then, after picking those that make the cut, they come back tomorrow, in which case those bleachers will be filled completely with scouts. And I'd really love it if you would come back tomorrow." The man grinned.

"…What?" Bradin blinked.

"Yeah, you dove into the water fifteen minutes before we were about to start this thing. Great timing. Anyways, my name is Eric Dexler. Here's my card in case you want to contact me. The scouting tomorrow is from one to around four." The man rambled on.

"Thanks… I'll be there." He gazed at the little card in awe.

"That's wonderful! See you then, all right?" Dexler clapped him on the back and turned back to the waves.

Bradin strode to the nearby community pool and sat down by the ledge. It was almost completely deserted; after all, the beach was literally minutes away. Bradin continued staring at the card he had been given. Everything was so surreal…

Laying down his board, and the card carefully on top of it, Bradin dove into the warm pool. He wasn't ready to return home and he couldn't go back to the beach, so what the hell. After swimming a few dozen laps around the pool, Bradin's shock had worn off. He told himself not to make a big deal out of all this. After all, out of all those people at the beach today, at least half of them had to be shoddy beginners (not that Bradin wasn't a beginner…), it wasn't a huge thing that he was asked to come back. Still, he'd be given the chance to perform in front of a horde of scouts. A great opportunity, that was for sure.

Bradin didn't tell any one about what happened, partly because he didn't want to jinx it, partly because this way they wouldn't even know anything about this if he lost, and partly so if he won it would be a major surprise.

Bradin returned the next day and was actually crowned one of Playa Linda's best surfers, and the best new surfer in the circuit. He walked through it all in a haze, shaking hands with people, staring at a rather nice medal, and feeling more and more as if the whole thing was a dream.

"Why didn't you tell me you were asked to go down there!" Jay's distinct voice broke through indignantly as Bradin walked by the surf shop a half hour later. "I live with you and yet I have to find out that you made the Top five in Playa Linda through the bloody people buying boards at the shop?"

"Heh. I was going to tell you…" Bradin shrugged sheepishly.

"Come here, you boy wonder!" Jay laughed, embracing his protégé. "I guess all those surfing lessons with Erika and me really paid off. You have told your surf instructor, haven't you?"

"I haven't told any one yet- it's not that big of a deal," Bradin replied.

"Sure it isn't, your only the only surfer under twenty-one to be put on that bloody list in three years! What are you holding?" Jay cocked his head, looking at a piece of paper Bradin had been half concealing behind his back.

"Nothing… just some people said something about sponsorships…" Bradin was getting more and more flustered by all this attention.

"Holy…! Bradin, this is a huge deal!" Jay whooped, staring in amazement at the various cards Bradin now held. Flipping though the papers, Jay' jaw dropped. "It says that the top five get a trip to Florida to compete with all the other Top Fives in California!"

"Oh, right, that." Bradin scratched his head. "They don't tell us the dates of that until later on…"

"This calls for a victory dinner of some sort…" Jay exclaimed.

"Oh no you don't, can we just keep this on the down low for now?" Bradin pleaded.

"What are you talking about, I'd have thought you'd be boasting about this, not keeping quiet!" Jay frowned.

"No, I know, but, uh, well I don't want the whole family on me about this. I'll tell them when I get more info about the whole Florida thing." Bradin muttered, "Besides, Nikki just got voted Student Body president in her grade and she's going to totally think I stole her thunder."

"If you insist, bro," Jay shrugged. "But this is fantastic, I'm really proud of you. If you don't tell your Aunt, you've still got to tell Erika. She taught you this and has a right to find out from you, not from other surfers."

"Yeah, yeah." Bradin smiled.

Erika's reaction completely boosted Bradin's ego. A shriek, a hug, and a chorus of 'I'm so proud of yous!' resounded, effectively causing Bradin to start seeing that this whole thing was a big deal. Of course, now that the two of them knew, Erika and Jay redoubled their efforts at training. Since Bradin didn't want anyone else to know, his absence was noticed and questioned, but as long as his grades strayed no lower than the B's, Ava didn't mind.

The process of keeping the surfing competition secret and having to train three times harder forced Bradin to stay a bit later at school everyday in a mad attempt to finish his homework before getting home. Immediately after getting his homework done, he went straight to the beach where Erika or Jay, or sometimes both, were waiting to give him a two-hour training session. He was then allotted thirty minutes for dinner with the family, and then he worked for an hour or two at the surf shop on three days of the week, on the remainder of the time he seized the opportunity to cram for tests, work on projects, or spend time with Nikki and Derek who were getting disgruntled. After that, he had another half hour surfing time and then twenty minutes of catching up on schoolwork, and or studying. His schedule was so tight that he hardly had time to shower, much less have very much down time at all to R n R. His days of channel surfing were temporarily over, along with the days of lounging at the Tiki Squeeze, and hanging with his friends.

The chaotic circus his life has become had forced Bradin to more or less cut out the moments with his friends, including Jessica. Bradin was too busy to really notice this fact, his attention being spread far too thinly; he didn't even grasp this absence very firmly. He realized he was neglecting his relationships and missed the people he used to spend every waking hour with but he was pretty happy with the way he spent his time, his life was going well and he was excelling academically and in his sports, he couldn't complain. This new schedule of his had only been in effect for a few days so far but Bradin already believed that it was a great and efficient system, he got nine hours of sleep every night and got to work out every part of him, his days were more balanced than they had ever been.

"Hey," Jessica smiled as she walked up to Bradin's locker after school.

"Hey, sorry but I have to run." He answered distractedly.

"Okay, is it just me or are you avoiding me?" she asked, standing in his way.

"It's just you." He said drolly. "I've just been really busy. I'll talk to you later, I have to meet Erika for surf lessons in twenty minutes and I've got a massive English project to work on. Bye, all right?" Bradin gave her a two second peck on the cheek before racing off to the library. All right, so he felt a little bit bad about blowing her off but there were simply more important things to worry about. She'd understand later, anyways.

Zipping up his binders and stuffing his pens back in his back pack fifteen minutes later, Bradin jogged out of the school to the beach and gave Erika a one armed hug.

"You're looking flustered, Kansas, are you sure you can handle these hectic training sessions?" Erika frowned in concern. "We can lay off for a while if you want, you're already really good."

"I don't want to be really good," Bradin managed between heavy breaths. "I have to be the best. Besides, I'm fine." He flashed the girl a reassuring smile and nodded at the waves. "Besides, it's not like this is work. I'm doing what I love with a hot chick like you, what's there to complain about?"

Erika laughed and the two dove into the water, flexing their skill.