Mali had only recently made the decision to bring Lacey, whose full name was Sophea Pennington, into his surf school team, thinking at the time that she would be a helpful and enthusiastic new addition to his business. He believed she had the right attitude, the energy, and the charm to connect with students, so he didn’t ask too many probing questions during the hiring process. Unfortunately for him, that hasty choice very quickly came back to haunt him. It soon became clear that there was one rather critical detail he had overlooked: Lacey didn’t actually know how to surf. Not even a little bit.

At first, Lacey tried to cover up this embarrassing truth. Instead of admitting her lack of skills, she attempted to bluff her way through the early lessons, putting on a confident smile while secretly panicking inside. She leaned heavily on her boyfriend Theo, played by Matt Evans, to take over the practical side of the surf classes. Theo, who at least knew his way around the waves, ended up stepping in front of the students, demonstrating moves, explaining techniques, and essentially running the sessions as if he were the real instructor.

Lacey, meanwhile, stood to the side, pretending to supervise, throwing in vague motivational comments, and hoping that none of the students would notice that she never actually got on a board herself. To the untrained eye, it might have looked like a tag-team approach: Theo did the teaching while Lacey kept up appearances, managing the atmosphere and pretending she was simply delegating. But of course, the charade could only last so long before someone began to question why the “surf coach” never surfed.

When Mali eventually found out the truth, he was understandably frustrated. His whole business was built on credibility and trust. Hiring an instructor who couldn’t surf was the kind of mistake that could damage his reputation if it ever became public knowledge. He confronted Lacey, expecting her to come clean, and she reluctantly admitted that she had no idea how to handle a surfboard. She tried to explain that she thought she could “pick it up along the way” or that her role could be more about connecting with people than demonstrating technique.

Mali, caught between anger and sympathy, weighed his options. On one hand, firing her would have been the simplest way to protect his business. On the other hand, he didn’t want to crush her confidence completely, and there was no denying that Theo’s involvement had kept things running relatively smoothly up to that point. Against his better judgment, and perhaps out of a sense of fairness or optimism, Mali agreed to keep the arrangement for the time being. Theo would continue handling the actual lessons while Lacey would support from the sidelines, though the secret hung between them like a ticking time bomb.

In the end, Mali knew that this setup was unsustainable. It was only a matter of time before the students caught on or word spread around the community. Still, he decided to give Lacey the benefit of the doubt, hoping she might genuinely learn to surf quickly enough to justify her place on the team. Whether that gamble would pay off, however, was another story entirely.