Malibu Rising: A Novel by Taylor Reid (best books to read now TXT) 📕

the first time at the age of six and had a perfect serve by his seventh birthday. And so his father, Dick, put him on the court every hour he wasn’t in school or sleeping.

His father taught him two things: You always win and you always act like a gentleman. And at the age of twelve, Brandon started training with renowned tennis coach Thomas O’Connell.

Tommy was punishing in his exactitude. There was no almost, there was no good try. There was only perfection or failure. Brandon rose to the challenge, bought into the premise, hook, line, and sinker. Either you win or you are a loser. Brandon became relentless in his pursuit of precision.

He would triumph, always. And he would act like a gentleman, without fail.

Brandon hit the global stage when he made it to the finals of the Australian Open at the age of nineteen, courtesy of his signature slingshot serve, which ESPN was calling “the Snap.”

He went on to win the title. And the very second he won the last point, Brandon did not drop to his knees and raise his racket to the sky. He did not pump his fists in glory. He did not rejoice in any way. He held back a smile, walked to the net, and shook the hand of his opponent, Henri Mullin. The camera, close up, could see him mouth the words “You played beautifully.”

And the media called him “The Sweetheart.”

By the time Brandon turned twenty-five, he had won the U.S. Open, Wimbledon, and the Australian Open, some multiple times. And the sportscasters no longer called him “The Sweetheart.” They called him “BranRan” and they called him a phenom.

But they always kept the camera on him. And people tuned in to see him crush his opponents, as humbly and graciously as any athlete in the history of sports television.

Nina liked that about him. She liked it about him a lot.

“My father always said …” Brandon told her on their first date, sitting at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant in Santa Monica. “It’s easy to be gracious when you’re winning. So you have no excuse not to be.”

His father had passed away just the year before and Nina admired how eloquently Brandon could talk about him. She found it hard to share anything about her mother without her voice catching.

“And if you lose?” Nina asked.

Brandon shook his head. “You just work harder to make sure you win on the next one. And then you haven’t lost anything at all.”

“And you can stay gracious then, too?” Nina asked.

Brandon laughed. “The cameras zoom right in on me when I lose,” he said. “They’re just waiting for me to slip up. So yes, I stay gracious then, too. But it’s harder, I’ll give you that. But we are talking about me too much. So, the first time you were on a surfboard. Tell me everything.”

Nina smiled and told Brandon the story of all of her siblings on the beach that afternoon in ’69. Brandon laughed when she told him about not letting Kit go on her own, but instead pulling her along on Nina’s shoulders on the board. “I realize I barely know her,” Brandon said. “But I feel like I already know that she hated that.”

Nina laughed. “Oh, she definitely hated it,” she said. And then she sipped her wine and caught Brandon’s eye. How nice it is, she thought, to laugh in this way.

After Brandon drove her home that night, he kissed her on the cheek as they sat parked in her driveway.

“I like you, Nina,” he said. “And I know you’ve got guys coming at you every which way nowadays. But I want to be the real deal. Can I see you again?”

Nina smiled and nodded.

“All right,” he said. “I’ll call you tomorrow and plan something good.”

“OK,” Nina said. “You do that.”

Despite his fame and his fortune, Brandon did not woo Nina with expensive dinners. He did not ask very many questions about her fancy father. He did not whisk her away to penthouse apartments in foreign lands.

He made her stir-fry at his place in Brentwood. He showed up at her house with flowers. He went to the beach with her and watched her surf.

When she cut her arm on some coral, he pulled a first aid kit out of the back of his Mercedes and bandaged her up. When she said thank you, he kissed her on the temple and said, “I like taking care of you.”

That April, the cover of Sports Pages was not BranRan in Big Bear or BranRan in Joshua Tree. It was BranRan with his back to the ocean, his racket down by his side, calling out to someone off-camera.

The headline said BRANRAN: TENNIS’S NICE GUY IS LOOKING FOR LOVE. It was the only issue of Sports Pages that sold out that year. Kit thought it was cheesy but she still bought Nina three copies.

By that point, Nina and Brandon had started seeing a lot of each other. And Brandon almost always invited Kit, and soon Jay and Hud, out with them, too.

The five of them all went to see Raiders of the Lost Ark together. They went hiking together. They went on road trips to chase waves. Brandon drove and waited out on the sand for them.

When they all tried to teach him to surf one afternoon at County Line, he kept falling off the board. His strength and training from tennis didn’t seem to help him with his balance in the waves just yet.

“Fall off nine times, get up ten, right?” Brandon said, after he bit it the first time.

Nina laughed and helped pull him up onto his board and he leaned over to her and kissed her and said, “I guess you’re better at this than me.”

Nina laughed. “I’ve been doing it longer.”

“Still,” he said. “It’s sexy.”

Kit had overheard him and smiled to herself.

“All right,” Brandon said after falling off for the fourth time, frustration growing in his voice. “I’ll be in charge of lunch, meet