- I just can't believe it's really over.
- Please allow me to present surf legend Tai Manning.
- Told you it was gonna cheer you up.
- I think we're gonna be great together.
- The greatest thing about tattoos is,
they tell a story, right?
- I think it's time for me to start telling my story.
- This whole book was actually Charles' idea.
- Can we really trust Quinn?
- Liza, what do you think?
- I don't know what to think.
[bright music]
♪ ♪
- Keep it moist, but let it breathe.
- That's my motto.
So am I gonna see you again?
- I definitely want to see you again.
- Great. How about right now?
♪ ♪
[loud moaning]
- Okay. Wait, do you think that was it?
- I hope so.
Have you ever googled turtle orgasm?
- Um...no.
- [shrilly] Eeeeeh...
- Stop. - Now you don't have to.
- You are so much weirder than me, and no one knows that.
Oh, hi. Good morning. Didn't know you had a guest.
- Hi. KT, nice to meet you both.
Wish I could stay. - Yeah.
Me too.
- Bye, bye.
KT seems loud. Nope. I mean nice.
- Was it that loud? - Yeah. It was real loud.
Hey, were you guys doing ear stuff?
I mean, I know when someone's going up on me
I then have a hard time hearing the volume
of my own love sounds. - No, not ear stuff.
We were just doing the regular sex.
- Okay, guys. Don't hole shame. Come on.
Aural is considered regular sex.
- Oh my, God, you are so much weirder than me.
♪ ♪
- Hey, I just want to remind you
I'm leaving early today for Montauk.
- Right. Come in, come in.
There is something here, right?
I'm worried we literally just judged a book by its cover.
- So will readers, and we'll get the content.
[light knocking]
- Good morning.
I was just going over the budget.
You spent 400,000 on the Kai Manning book?
- It's part of my discretionary fund.
I didn't think I needed to run that by you.
- No, but we do have to get approval
for everything over 250,000 from Chicago,
so I am going to have to go to bat for you on this,
and I am worried
that we don't have anything beyond that cover.
- Covers are what sell books,
and I'm really not worried about it at all.
- And, I'm going to Montauk today
to spend some time with Kai.
I'll make sure we have something to show Chicago.
- Okay. You probably want to leave early.
The traffic can get really bad.
- Yeah, I remember.
[mellow music]
♪ ♪
- So much for that silent Chicago money.
- Yeah, first they take away Millennial,
and now we have to run our budget by them?
- If it isn't my favorite Empiri-gals.
- Coffee?
- No, I hate coffee breath.
So, should I bring something to Charles?
You know, strike that. I don't know why women
constantly feel the need to ingratiate ourselves.
- Because we're smart and being nice is social lubricant.
- Am I gonna need lubricant with Charles?
- Please don't answer that.
- I think I already know the answer.
All right, gals, I'm out.
Love you like a sister. Here comes the titty twister!
- No! - Oh--
- I'm kidding. You're hilarious.
- She's just here working. - I know.
♪ ♪
- It's a really strong, Quinn.
And it's accessible in a way that "Claw" wasn't.
Everyone fails.
No secret to success.
It's just picking yourself up and moving on.
- Yeah, and the whole process
of going through my past failures
and realizing it's all part of the same journey--
it was so therapeutic.
- Well, makes sense.
That's why a lot of writers write--
to work out their real-life issues.
- What do publishers do to work out their real-life issues?
[light music]
♪ ♪
- Good question.
♪ ♪
- Okay, back to books.
And since mine is in such good shape,
what do you think about a fall release?
- It's, uh, possible.
We'd have to move quickly though.
- Oh, good. I love moving quickly.
So if your team can read it through tonight,
I can meet end of day tomorrow?
- I will see what I can do. - You're the publisher.
You can do whatever you want.
[upbeat pop]
- ♪ So sad, yeah ♪
♪ Never left ya ♪
♪ Couldn't wait to get up ♪
♪ Get up, get up, hey ♪
♪ Thank me later ♪
[tinny, over radio] ♪ 'Cause I got ya back ♪
♪ Yeah I really mean that ♪
♪ And I'm never--♪ [click]
- Kai.
Kai.
[mellow funky music]
♪ ♪
- Oh, hey, Liza.
Nice to see you.
- You too.
Your home is so beautiful.
- Well, it beats living out of the back of my van.
Yeah, back in the day I'd just go
wherever the waves were and just crash wherever.
I've slept in a banana shack in Oahu,
in the back of an oyster truck in the south of France.
I even surfed Lake Michigan and spent a week
in a sorority house at Northwestern.
- Were you pledging?
- I think I got pledged. - All right.
You do have stories. - I do.
- Well, maybe the book is a collection of personal stories
from each place you've surfed, kind of like a surf journal.
- Oh, I also have journals, pretty detailed ones too.
- Amazing. Would you mind sharing them?
- Would you mind if I read your journals, Liza Miller?
- Fair. Okay. Tell me this.
Tell me why.
Why travel around the world and sleep in an oyster truck?
Why is surfing so important?
- It's not.
No, that's what I love about it.
It doesn't matter. It's just enjoyable.
I mean, I literally get paid to do what I love.
- I get that. So do I.
- That's an amazing feeling, right?
- Yeah. I'd kind of forgotten that recently.
I've had a lot on my mind.
- Then, let it go. - Is that all I have to do?
- Hey, for me that is the key for self-preservation.
You want to stay on your board with all the elements
crashing around you, you have to stay present.
Let all your worries or your fears or your self-doubt go.
- Mm. It's not so easy for me to get out of my head.
- Well, then you have to do something
to get you into your body.
- You gonna say yoga? - No. I was gonna say sex.
- Well, I've been in my head plenty of times during sex.
- You haven't had sex with me.
Look, I don't want to make you uncomfortable.
I know you're here for work, but we could have sex and work.
Maybe I could help you get out of your head.
- Thank you for the offer,
but sex and work
can be complicated, so, um...
I'm gonna put this down and grab this,
and I'm gonna say good night.
- Sure. No worries. Hey, drive safe.
- I'll see you in the morning.
[O'Dowda's "The Fault Lines"]
♪ ♪
- Navigation active. Where would you like to go?
- ♪ I keep my hopes up ♪
♪ And I'm turning the stone...♪
- Where would you like to go?
♪ ♪
- I'm sorry. I didn't get that.
- I was just wondering
if I should sleep with the hot surfer,
'cause the last person who made me feel good
was also the same person who broke my heart,
and I really, really wanna feel good again.
- ♪ It's the cold, it's the flames ♪
♪ It's the fog lights ♪
- I'm sorry. I didn't get that.
- North Harbor Inn and Suites.
- ♪ This is the moment ♪
♪ It's the moment we take from ♪
♪ The main line ♪
♪ ♪
- Okay, you want to write a book
about a surfer, you have to surf.
- Well, I bodysurfed once at the Jersey Shore.
I broke an ankle, not mine, someone else's.
So I know the power of the ocean.
- Well, I'll be right there with you.
We'll take it easy, ride the white water for a while,
and then once you feel more comfortable,
we'll move to the green. - Okay.
Just give me the worst-case scenario.
I'm assuming it's somewhere
between water up the nose and death.
- Well, you'll probably get rag dolled.
That just means when you fall off,
you might get whipped around by the wave a bit.
- That's what it sounded like.
- Come on. What's scarier--
trying something or not trying something?
- Sharks.
- Ha ha!
[bright music]
♪ ♪
- I do like this as a follow-up to "Claw,"
but just to clarify, is the message that we're sending
"Hey, ladies, climb to the top, but failure is inevitable"?
- Pretty much.
But failure is not the opposite of success.
It's an important part of learning to succeed,
so the message is don't be afraid to take risks,
and it's not just for ladies.
- I think it's an important message.
- Yeah, I mean, I feel like this is my story.
I mean, my whole life has been about risks and look at me now.
Whoa, I'm sorry. I'm tearing up.
[giggling] - Um...
- Excuse me.
Hello? - Are you with Quinn?
- Yes, we're in a meeting. Who's this?
- It's Quinn's assistant,
and this is not on her calendar.
- I'm sorry. How can I help?
- It's Quinn's birthday, and there's a huge, expensive,
well-attended surprise party for her at the Rainbow Room.
- [sighs]
You're kidding.
- Do I sound like I'm kidding, Mr. Books?
- Uh, it's Brooks. - That's confusing.
Aren't you the publisher?
- Y-yes, but-- - Whatever.
I need you to make an excuse
to get the Rainbow Room with Quinn in, like, 20 minutes.
- I think we should continue this meeting over dinner.
- Ooh, I love a working dinner.
- Great, so I got us a table at the Rainbow Room.
- The Rainbow Room? - Yeah, I'm sorry.
Is Diana Krall performing an evening of standards?
Because I will need to tell my parents.
- Whose musty idea was that? No, no. This is my meeting,
I'll pick the place, and I know the perfect spot.
[light music]
♪ ♪
- ♪ I wanna party ♪
- Dave & Buster's?
- Yeah, I bring my C suite team here all the time.
It's so fun, and they have food.
I'm gonna get us some power cards.
- What is happening? - I agreed to help get Quinn
to a surprise birthday party at the Rainbow Room,
so we have to get her out of here.
- Oh, maybe we could club her in the head
with one of those giant pretzels
and just drag her out.
- Diva would know what to do in this situation, you know?
She'd be clever, but she'd also be firm.
She'd probably say something like "Quinn"--
- Yeah. - "T-this is not conducive
"to a business meeting, but yeah, we're here,
so let's just have some fun."
Kelsey, was complaining.
- Look, I know there's a surprise party for me
at the Rainbow Room, but this is my birthday
and this is what I want to do, so just give me an hour
and then I promise I'll go.
Please.
- Okay. - Yay!
- Wait!
- You got up your first time.
That's really impressive.
- I am impressed by myself. - Here I got ya.
- Oh, thanks. Thanks. - There we go.
- I was surfing. - That was rad, right?
- Oh, it's so rad, and the adrenaline.
It makes you feel, like, alive and invincible and--
- Kind of like you can do anything?
- Yeah.
- Oh, here, let me help you with that.
- Thanks.
- Wow, you are really sexy.
- I, um...
I just went through a really bad breakup,
and I don't know if I could
or should jump back into bed with somebody.
- Ah, totally get it.
You know what, there's a shower in the house.
You can take that one, I'll take the one outside.
- ♪ Two hearts colliding, sparks in the night ♪
♪ Don't know 'bout no crystal ball ♪
♪ But now is all we got in my book ♪
♪ Joy ride down the boulevard ♪
- But I guess it doesn't have to be a bed.
- ♪ We can have it all ♪
♪ Come with me this close, lover ♪
- So you actually bring your staff here?
- Oh, yeah, once a year for team building.
- Ha.
You're a really good boss.
- I'm really good at a lot of things.
- All right.
- Oh see, you've got to protect the ball.
- Easy.
- You'd think for how tall you are,
you'd be much better at this game.
[laughter, chatter]
- We both went in. - Ringer.
- We both went in.
- Oh! - Yes!
- No!
[buzzer] Aah! Yeah!
both: One, two, three.
- That's how it's done, son!
- Oh, I love that winning has a sound.
- I should have teamed up with you.
- Oh, yeah. We could have run this place.
Probably would have had enough points
for like an iPad mini or something.
- No, in business, when you offered to finance me.
- Oh, that.
- Yeah. I went back to what felt safe
and I didn't take a risk,
and I think about it every day.
- I understand why you stayed, Kelsey.
It's a wonderful group of people.
But you did blow a great opportunity,
and that would gnaw at me too.
[percussive music]
♪ ♪
- Happy birthday, Quinn.
- I'd invite you up, but this is work.
Hanging out with you and your team,
that was the real party.
Thank you, Charles.
- You're welcome.
- ♪ All fun and sunshine and can't hide it ♪
♪ I said it, prophetic, watch me get it ♪
♪ I'm ma-manic ♪
- Oh! What's this?
- Everything. What's that?
- Oh, Quinn's birthday party. It was just inner circle.
- She hijacked a meeting and took us
to Dave & Buster's. How was Montauk?
- I got a lot of really good content, and Kai is great,
so cool, so smart, and I went surfing.
I even got up.
- Oh, did he get up?
- Of course, he's a pro.
- No, girl, I think she means did you--
- Have sex with him?
- Yeah. - Yes, a lot.
- Oh my God! - What!
- I know, I felt like I was on a retreat for my body,
my mind, my soul. Mostly my body.
- Oh my, God, tell us everything.
- No, no. Did you get a book?
- Oh, right. Yes, that's what I really want to know, the book.
- I got his journals, and if they have the content
I suspect they do, we could just publish them.
- Wait, wait. We could turn his handwriting into a font
and use it to print all the books.
- I love that idea. - Me too.
- Ladies, this is what in the zone feels like.
- I feel like Kai's journals are a great way
to throw people right inside the experience
of living this adventurous, nomadic,
sometimes lonely life where he's doing what he loves,
but never creating any real...
permanent... Huh.
This is weird. It's just like a bunch
of doodles and surf breaks and...
women's names. - This is just women's names
and--and doodles of people having sex.
- Yeah, I'm looking at a bird's eye view
of a man surfing a muff.
- Boobs. - Dicks.
- Boobs.
- This one's just a surfboard with like a bubble butt.
Nope, that's a dick.
- No, no, no.
- Okay, Liza, did I get screwed too this weekend?
[knock on door] - Hey.
- Hey! - Hey!
- I got a, um, oh, I got a thing to do, sorry.
- How was Montauk? - Wow, work.
That Kai.
He's not much of a talker, but I ended up getting
a lot of really exclusive content that is...
- Ballsy.
- Thank you. - Mm-hmm.
- He gave me his journals, in which he bears a lot.
- Can I see? - No.
- She needs time to organize the great...content.
- Tomorrow? - Tomorrow.
- Sure. - Oh.
- Well, I hope you took some time to enjoy yourself too.
- A little. - Good.
- [groans]
- Ooh, hi. - Hey.
- Wow. Work was a doozy today, my friend, and to top it off
I went too big with my brooch, poked someone on the train,
and then I got called the C-word,
and that C-word was not chic.
- Oh...ho. I'm sorry, dude.
Hey, KT and I, we were going out tonight,
but she just texted and she's coming over here instead.
- Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. I'm going to go put my headphones on
and turn the volume up to 50.
- Shut up! [knock on door]
Hey. - Hi. Hi, hi, hi.
I have to cancel tonight. - Ugh!
- I am so sorry. It's Flo DB.
- Is everything okay? - A month ago she decided
to paint the studio black, which is not the problem.
The problem is she now claims she can still smell paint,
so we have to record the entire album
in a different studio in Atlanta.
- Shit. - [laughs] Yeah.
- So you're leaving tonight?
- In a few hours.
But I wanted to see you and maybe...
[phone chimes]
Oh my, God, it never ends.
I'm going to be babysitting her for the next two weeks.
- It kind of sounds like you got a kid.
You know that, right? - I know.
Thanks to her I never, ever want children.
I run from babies, and apparently from hot guys.
I am so sorry.
- I am too.
- Oh, rays of...
rays of dicks.
- Wow, this guy, he slept with a ton of women.
- I know, it's making me itchy.
- All it takes is one in-grown hair to catch a crab.
Cheers.
- Listen, is there anything that you guys talked about
that could be spun off into a book? Anything?
- I think we're gonna have to piece together
all the research I did, the interviews and articles.
We could build a timeline of his life,
throw in some pictures,
maybe use the format of the reality show.
- Okay, that's a men's health article, not a $400,000 book.
Like, this doodle of a frickin' dick
wearing sunglasses would sell better than that.
- I know, I'm so sorry.
- Wait, did you do any of these?
Borneo twist? Rail bang?
Oh, wait, wait, log jam.
- Those are surf terms, not sex terms.
- Are you sure, because these journals
read more like a sex manual to me.
- I wish it was. That we could probably sell.
- Wait. Can we?
I mean, that's not the worst idea.
We could add little aphorisms,
like teachings on life and surfing.
- W-we could use the surf terms as sex positions.
- You're going to need better pictures.
- Maybe like silhouettes of Kai?
Would he do that?
- He's definitely not shy about being naked.
- I mean, this is the best idea we've had.
- You're welcome. - Okay, but what do we present?
I'm not going to stand up
in front of the office and demonstrate.
- Well, I can draw if you can model.
- You're going to need to put down your wine.
I'm coming in.
- ♪ Get up, come on ♪
♪ Let's get up and roll ♪
♪ You need to get up ♪
♪ Get up ♪ - Okay.
Got the Kai Manning book proposal.
- We do.
- What, you do? - We do, Lauren.
- Our goal was to capture Kai
in a way that hasn't been done before.
His journeys around the world surfing are well documented,
but he has yet to talk
about his journeys around the world...in bed.
- So it's a tell-all?
- It's...more of a... philosophy.
- "The Kama Surf-tra" by Kai Manning.
- Now, there will be as much nudity
as the ESPN body issue, and that sells double
the amount that the magazine normally sells.
We also believe that this will double
the amount of the average sports autobiography.
- Our target sales are Andre Agassi's Open,
and we feel like this is definitely more revealing.
- Yeah, revealing is one word. Um...pretty explicit.
- Maybe it's a Valentine's Day release.
- Or Arbor Day with that big ole piece of wood.
- Any day it's released, it will sell.
- Exactly. - I will let Chicago know
that this is what we're doing.
It looks like you had a good time.
- Hey. We missed you at the party.
- Happy belated birthday, Quinn.
- Thanks. I got you something.
- Great. - Hey, I just wanted to check.
Are things really over between you and Charles?
- Pardon? - I Just wouldn't want
to date him if there was something still going on.
- There's nothing going on.
- So you traded Charles in for a celebrity surfer?
- I didn't trade Charles in for anyone.
He's...free to do whatever he wants.
- Well, that's all I wanted to hear.
Thanks, Liza.
- I just never thought you'd be someone's rebound.
- You've done a lot to get back into publishing
and I don't know what's going to happen,
but when an employee doesn't get along
with the boss's new girlfriend, guess who's out?
- ♪ You better get ready 'cause I'm going down ♪
♪ You better get ready, gonna hit the ground ♪
♪ If you ain't ready, I'ma show you how ♪
♪ Get ready, ready ♪
- I just gotta get used to her being around.
- Happy breakup brunch, ladies.
- The gentlest warriors always carry the biggest swords.
- [laughs]
- It's Charles' problem now, not yours.
- Liza, I need to apologize to you.
- Sashay away.
- You have your eye on anything tonight?
- Sure do.
[cheers and applause] - Liza Miller, is that you?
I used to have such a crush on you.
- When you know what you want, you don't apologize for it.
You go for it.
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪