Open Road Summer(31)

“Sure.”

“That’s what I’m supposed to say if someone asks me how you broke it?”

“Why would anyone ask you instead of me?”

“I don’t know, Reagan—I’m not a psychic. But it could happen, and I’ll feel like a jackass for not knowing the history of my friend’s injury.”

Apparently we’re friends now. “Make something up.”

There’s a glint in his eyes, like he sees an opportunity reflected back at him, but I don’t have time to worry about that. I’m too overcome by the stale smell of medical supplies—latex gloves and plastic-wrapped syringes and other forms of evil that lurk here.

We walk up to the office window, and I sign my name on a clipboard. The window opens to reveal a nurse, who hands me another clipboard of paperwork. She glances at me, then at Matt, and her face turns as pink as her scrubs. “Omigawd.”


My eyes flick to Matt, who has turned on his polite-charmer smile.

“You’re Matt Finch,” she says. I focus on filling out the paperwork, ignoring the overeager look in her eyes. “Hi.”

“Hi there.” There’s a pause as he glances at her name tag. “Kelly.”

I look up from the form to roll my eyes at Matt. Smarmy celebrity.

“My friends and I love your music.” She bats her mascara-thickened eyelashes at him, which is borderline tragic because she’s at least in her midtwenties—too old for this behavior. Also, she really needs to dye her roots. “You’re so talented.”

“Thank you,” Matt says. Kelly giggles at nothing until her idiocy catches the attention of an older nurse, who glances up from a chart and frowns.

“How do you know each other?” Kelly asks both of us. She’s obviously trying to feel out whether I’m his girlfriend. I want to reach into the window and yank her dye job. Instead, I shoot her a look that I hope says: Stop slobbering all over him and get this damn cast off my arm.

Matt shifts uncomfortably. Like Dee, he won’t outright lie about their “relationship.” Instead, as usual, he gives a vague response. “We have a mutual friend.”

His presence is grating on my nerves, so I lie for him. “He’s dating my best friend. She couldn’t come with me, so I get him instead. Yay.”

The younger nurse stifles a gasp. “Lilah Montgomery? I totally read that in Stargazer.”

“Kelly,” the older nurse says, finally intervening. “I need you in room seven. Zach, take over for her, please.”

Kelly looks crestfallen as she retreats, and Matt glares at me for referencing Dee. From the back, a tall guy emerges in black scrubs. He looks too young to be a doctor, with almost-messy hair and half a day’s worth of stubble on his face. Now we’re talking. He sits in the chair that Kelly abandoned. “Sorry about her. She won’t say anything—doctor-patient confidentiality.”

“It’s not a big deal.” I hand over the paperwork, which he looks over while I examine him. Dark hair, blue eyes. Hello, doctor.

“Okay.” He shoots me a sexy smile. “Come on back. That door’s right there, and I’ll meet you in room four.”

I wish room four was a hotel room. Matt walks with me, but the polite smile is gone from his face. Quietly, he says, “Don’t worry. I won’t leave you.”

“Lucky me.” I push the door open, and all of my attitude dissolves inside me. The room is smaller than I expected—stiflingly small, in fact, with an industrial-clean smell that makes my stomach turn.

Fortunately, Zach enters right behind us, and I focus on him instead of the terrifying equipment in the room. He gestures for me to sit down on the padded table. I attempt to do so in a sexy way, but, with tissue paper crumpling beneath me, I can’t quite pull it off. Matt settles into a chair on my right. After a moment, I tell Zach, “You’re too young to be a doctor.”

He smiles as he sits down on a stool in front of me. “I’m not a doctor. I’m a nurse.”

“You look too young to be a nurse.”

He gives me another grin, and the cast almost melts off my arm. “I’m twenty-three.”

“Do you know what you’re doing?” I raise my eyebrow a bit as I ask this, meaning it to be suggestive.

“I sure do.” Smiling at him, I decide that I’d really like to know more about his bedside manner. “Let me just grab an Ace wrap, and we’ll get this thing off of you.”

“Get a room,” Matt says when the door closed behind Zach.

I glare at him. “We’d have this one if you weren’t here.”

I meant this to piss him off, but instead he tips his head back and laughs. He shakes his head, grinning as if I’m some sort of cute pet that has performed a trick.

Zach returns and sits back down in front of me. I’m feeling vindicated in my wardrobe choices—short shorts, sexy heels. He selects a tool from the tray, and my appearance is suddenly the farthest thing from my mind. The tool in his hand looks like a handheld power tool gone horribly wrong.

“I’m sorry.” I hold up my free hand to stop him. “That looks like a miniature buzz saw.”

Nurse Zach considers this. “It kind of is.”

“Oh no,” I tell him, retracting my arm. Zach’s sexiness is depleting by the second. “I’d rather chew this thing off my arm.”