Boone's oblivious to her observation.

He's all about the swell.

“There's a swell rolling down from the Aleutians,” he says as he finishes rolling the wet suit over his ankles. “It's going to hit sometime in the next two days and High Tide says it's only going to last a few hours. Biggest swell of the last four years and maybe the next four. Humongous waves.”

“Real BBM,” Hang Twelve says from the staircase.

“Is anyone watching the store?” Cheerful asks.

“There's no one down there,” Hang Twelve says.

“‘BBM’?” Petra asks.

“Brown boardshorts material,” Hang Twelve says helpfully.

“Lovely,” Petra says, wishing she hadn't asked. “Thank you.”

“Anyway,” Boone says as he steps into the small bathroom, turns on the shower, and carefully rinses not himself but the wet suit, “everyone's going out. Johnny Banzai's going to take a mental-health day, High Tide's calling in sick, Dave the Love God's on the beach anyway, and Sunny, well, you know Sunny's going to be out. Everyone is stoked. ”

Petra delivers the bad news.

She has work for him to do.

“Our firm,” Petra says, “is defending Coastal Insurance Company in a suit against it by one Daniel Silvieri, aka Dan Silver, owner of a strip club called Silver Dan's.”

“Don't know the place,” Boone says.

“Yeah you do, Boone,” Hang Twelve says. “You and Dave took me there for my birthday.”

“We took you to Chuck E. Cheese's,” Boone snaps. “Back-paddle.”

“Aren't you going to introduce me?”

It's amazing, Boone thinks, how Hang Twelve can suddenly speak actual English when there's an attractive woman involved. He says, “Petra Hall, Hang Twelve.”

“Another nom de idiot?” Petra asks.

“He has twelve toes,” Boone says.