Nothing But Trouble (Malibu University Series)(5)

Bad driver is standing next to him with his legs spread apart and arms crossed over bulging chest muscles covered by a worn blue t-shirt. He’s staring at the mottled red and blue thing, otherwise known as my lower leg, with his face screwed up like there’s an answer here somewhere just waiting to be discovered.

Here’s your answer, bud––there isn’t one. Not unless you have a time machine we can jump into.

“How did it happen?” Doc asks. I’m not sure if the question is directed at me, or the guilty party.

“My fault,” bad driver mutters. I don’t argue. We’re in absolute agreement on that front. The embarrassed smile he returns is, I will begrudgingly concede, an endearing one. Or at least it would be under different circumstances. The throb in my ankle has now become so painful it feels like it’s giving birth to a baby alien.

“How, exactly?” From the looks these two are exchanging, I take it they know each other pretty well. Doc pulls out cotton and a bottle of clear lotion and holds it up. “This shouldn’t sting,” he tells me right before he aims it at my skinned knees.

Never trust anything anyone says after “this shouldn’t.” Because sure enough, it frigging stings. Every time the antiseptic hits my cuts, a word bursts out. “He’s…a terrible…driver. The fucking worst.” My brown eyes latch onto green ones. “No offense.”

“None taken.” Bad driver turns away, chewing on his lower lip. Glad I can amuse him.

“She was walking up the street by the pool and I was coming around––”

“You hit her?” Doc finishes for him, looking justifiably horrified on my behalf.

Doc replaces the old ice pack with a new one and I nearly jump off the gurney. “I had to dive for safety––”

“You’re in good hands now,” the guy who almost killed me says. “Dr. Fred’s our team doctor. He knows all there is to know about soft tissue injuries.”

“Team?” Panting as the cold pack comes off and an ACE bandage is skillfully wrapped around my ankle, I’m reduced to speaking in single syllables. I couldn’t care less what either of them are yammering on about, but I have to do something to keep my mind off the ankle.

“The water polo team.” Dropping his arms, he points to his t-shirt. Emblazoned across it in faded orange…Malibu U Water Polo How Wet Can You Get?

“Umm…” is all I can come up with because––one, seriously? Two, who cares? Not me. Not this girl with the busted ankle, and the busted car, and a world of trouble. And three, the hell is water polo anyway?

My remark is met by two identical frowns.

“You know who this guy is, right?” Doctor Fred tips his head at bad driver as he’s securing the bandage with a butterfly clip. My gaze slides over, and bad driver meets my scrutiny with a bright, expectant expression. Am I supposed to?

“I’m kind of a big deal,” he deadpans with a smirk. “People know me.”

Huh? For a minute I’m mired in confusion. Is he serious? Is he a screaming megalomaniac as well as a shitty driver? But then the words grow familiar. “Did you just…quote the movie Anchorman?”

Mr. Big Deal’s gaze moves away, pink stains his cheeks. Roger that. I nailed it. Then again, I guess I should be grateful. Quoting the movie isn’t half as bad as if he were serious.

He shifts on his feet and I catch sight of a tiny dolphin tattoo etched on the outside of his calf, hidden amongst the sun-bleached man hair.

“Reagan Reynolds,” he finally mutters.

“Wait, wait…The Reagan Reynolds.” My eyes go wide for maximum dramatic effect. I probably should stow the bitch card but my ankle hurts something fierce and this guy is the root cause.

The Reagan Reynolds gifts me with another one of his half-cocked grins. “You know who I am?” He’s dropped the Ron Burgundy act. This is all him. He’s a little surprised and a lot pleased that I may know him.

My face falls flat. “No.”

Dr. Fred coughs and Reynolds’s smile promptly disappears.

I can feel my forehead getting very clammy. “I don’t know if the Tylenol is going to cut it, Doc.”

“I’m afraid we don’t dispense anything stronger. For that, you need to get to an ER.”





“Thank you for waiting with me,” I say as he parks the Jeep in front of my dorm two hours later.

“It’s the least I can do,” Reynolds replies through the tight set of his mouth.

It took a while for the painkillers to finally kick in, for me to feel more human and less Incredible Hulk, and once the pain became tolerable, Dr. Fred sent us to a medical supply store to pick up a pair of crutches. Reynolds insisted on paying and I didn’t argue since I inconveniently don’t have an extra fifty bucks sitting in my checking account.

Reynolds takes my new crutches out of the back seat and holds the passenger side door open for me. “You really should get that x-rayed,” he insists, worry etched in the V between his pulled-together brows. I wave at him to step back and position the crutches to stand. In the meantime, he watches on, unsure what to do. The swagger he’s been brandishing all afternoon seems to have deserted him, his expression steadily growing more troubled since we left the medical center.

I really can’t. I have too much to contend with right now without adding this guy’s “fragile male psyche” to it.