Nothing But Trouble (Malibu University Series)(14)

We’re big on the I love yous in my family. After my birth mom died, Dad started to say it all the time. Then I started saying it all the time. And then he met Nancy who says it more than me and Dad combined.

“Love you more.”

An hour later I’m cursing my stupidity. Sweaty and in pain, I’m in a foul mood by the time I reach the library. Only to find a note on the door of study room B explaining that it’s been moved off campus, an address attached, due to a broken pipe that flooded the room.

I want to die.

Anyone who forgot to list their cell number on the sign-up sheet can do so here, it says at the bottom.

As a general rule I don’t write my cell number on something as public as a sign-up sheet, and judging by the list of numbers written on here now, quite a few of us hadn’t. The joke’s on us. Without pause, I take out a pen and scribble it on the designated line. This can’t happen again. My mental health won’t allow it.

As I’m leaving, to begin the torturous journey back home, someone I recognize from class rushes in. “Group has moved off campus. Room is flooded. There’s a sign-up sheet if you forgot to leave your cell number.”

His shoulders slump. “Shit,” he grumbles under his breath.

I know what you mean, bud. I know what you mean.





Chapter 6





Alice


Being a transfer student, I’ve been exiled to the dorm of cast-offs. I share a suite with six other girls. Each of us with a single room since we’re all upperclassmen.

Out of the six, four of us have struck up a fledgling friendship, bonding over our mutually obsessive love of reality television, Netflix, and sarcasm.

Here’s the rundown: Zoe Mayfield, tall, blonde, extrovert (to put it mildly), likes to curse a fair share, grew up in Beverly Hills and is presently slumming it in the dorm as punishment. Some business about being kicked out of her mother’s ritzy beach condo for throwing a party, during which somebody walked away with her mother’s favorite Andy Warhol painting. A real one. That’s the abridged, sanitized version. Zoe’s was a lot more descriptive.

Blake Allyn, medium height, bears a striking resemblance to Halle Berry with long braids. She’s another rich kid from Beverly Hills, reserved, the total opposite of her best friend. From what I’ve observed, they balance each other nicely. Operating in lockstep, Blake is the conscience of the two, and the only thing standing between Zoe and the possibility of a mug shot.

She was living with Zoe in the condo, and from what I’ve been able to suss out, she’s only here out of friendship. Which is seriously admirable considering the mattresses (relentlessly hard). She also wears a medical bracelet and I haven’t worked up the nerve to ask why yet.

And then there’s Dora Ramos. Shy, studious to the point of being obsessive. Small, curvy, redhead. Has a tendency to stutter. Dora, like me, is a scholarship kid.

Together we’re the merry bad of misfits.

On Friday, I hobble back to the dorm and go in search of Zoe, the only person I know who has a functioning car. Hearing the sink running, I knock on the bathroom door in our suite.

“Zoe, you in there? Can you give me a ride to the trailer park?” The unmistakable sound of a sniffle rides above the running water. “Zoe? You okay in there?”

The door bursts open and out steps miles of long tan legs set off by a tiny denim miniskirt. Her large, heavily lashed hazel eyes glisten with unshed tears and her slender nose looks rubbed raw.

Zoe’s supermodel features are so distracting that most don’t see the odometer reads a thousand hard miles in the depths of her eyes. There’s a weight to her stare that says Zoe’s seen and done things she’d rather not have. I don’t know…maybe it takes someone who’s faced their own dark matter to recognize it in another.

“Are you crying?” her red-rimmed eyes compel me to ask.

Dabbing at the corners, she gives me a look that says are you high? “Allergies.” Avoiding closer scrutiny, she looks down, adjusts her off-the-shoulder t-shirt. I don’t press her for more. I don’t know her well enough for that.

She pulls out a tube of lip gloss from the micro Chanel purse hanging across her slim torso, swipes some on, and exchanges it for a set of car keys.

“You wanna take my car?” A Mercedes fob is thrust in my face. Her car costs as much as my dad’s saltbox house in New Jersey. No, I do not want to be responsible for her car.

“Not a chance,” I say, expression horrified.

“What’s the big deal?”

“What’s the big deal? What if something happens to it? It would take me till I’m dead to pay you back.”

“It’s just stuff,” she tells me, her tone implying I’m the densest idiot on the planet. “Come on.” She motions for me to follow her out the door.

Minutes later we’re barreling down Pacific Coast Highway in her customized AMG black-on-black Mercedes G wagon.

“Slower!” I practically shout as I cling to the door handle with a death grip. “Do any of you California drivers have any respect for the basic rules of the road?”

Ignoring my harried expression, Zoe’s gaze darts to the ACE bandage on my ankle. “What happened to you anyway? You never explained.”

The last few days have been an exercise in sleep deprivation. Every time I move, my ankle reminds me it’s injured. And I’m one of those people that needs at least seven hours to function. The consequence of this lack of sleep is that I’ve been steadily growing grumpier by the day. It was so sore when I woke up this morning to leave early for class––having prepared myself for the extra hour it was going to take for me to get there on time––that when I passed Zoe going into the shower I basically growled at her.