Malibu Love Story: A Novella

Chapter 3: Trial by Fire

AN: My first cover, yay! @honeydaydreams has sent the cover I'm using now. In a few days I'll create a chapter for alternate covers and fan art and put it in, crediting her, you all know the drill by now. Please send them if you make them, I can't use them if you don't lol! 
Now, let's see how things are going wrong for our MCs...

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Reed fell asleep feeling better than she had when she woke up in the hospital bed. She'd been concerned about how much an overnight stay in the hospital would cost, but after the amazing Duncan Browne had shown up to tell her the cost was none of her concern, she'd been able to relax. And knowing that in the morning there would be a car waiting to take her home and that she wouldn't have to call for a very expensive Uber was another worry off her mind. Now all she had to do was worry about how she'd drive and type with her messed up arm.

Life was almost okay again.

Early the following morning, she was duly discharged, and emerged into a world that already seemed a little too bright, a world whose edges seemed a little too sharp, after only one day in the bubble of her hospital room.

The driver held the door and helped her into the car, laying her things next to her and giving her a smile as he closed the door.

Reed smiled back gratefully and sank into the leather seat, prepared to enjoy her ride back to her apartment.

The ride was over all too soon, as far as she was concerned, for she had enjoyed seeing sunny Los Angeles glide by through the tinted windows. People were out shopping and enjoying the nice weather, roller blading, tops down on their cars, walking their dogs, doing their LA thing like in no other place in the world. Even her seedy little corner of La Cienega was comforting, until she turned the corner at the liquor store and saw the upstairs.

Oh. My. God.

There was a fire truck still spraying water through one of the broken windows, which was smoking a little. Many of her pitiful belongings were out in the street; her colorful sofa, now a soggy ruin, her TV, smashed to bits, her cheap, thrift store bookcase with her cherished, secondhand paperbacks a smoldering mess. But worst of all, sitting amid the carnage, her laptop was a charred chunk black metal, recognizable only by the apple on the front.

Oh no. She was pretty sure her novel had stopped backing up to the cloud long ago because it was mysteriously full, and she had no idea what that meant.

Suddenly she thought of Waldo, whose apartment was right next to hers and looked almost as bad. Then she saw him, standing almost next to the car, spindly legs sticking out of his Bermuda shorts, sandy blond hair going every which way as he surveyed the damage. Thank god.

"Waldo!" she called, from her rolled down window, still too shocked to even get out of the car.

He turned around and walked over to where she was, looking mournful.

"What happened?"

"At first it was just people throwing stuff, I think," he began, scratching his sizable stomach. "That's what it sounded like, anyway. I heard your windows breaking and all, you know? I called to see if you were okay, and I could hear the phone ringing, but you didn't answer, so I figured you weren't home. So I thought maybe someone was trying to break in, so I called 911, but by the time they got here, it was on fire, so they rousted me out of my place, and got the fire department out to try to put it out."

"When did this happen?" Reed asked, aghast.

"About three or four this morning?" Waldo shrugged. "I figure it was one of them girls.
"One of what girls?"