Ridiculous: Mattory

19: Between the Tick and the Tock

A/N: Late update today. Chp. 24 is being a pain in my rump; I have made no less than four attempts at it but it's finally starting to work with me.

Matt

I'm surprised at how not-pushy Adam and Stacey are the morning after my date with Nicole.

"How'd it go?" Stacey asks cheerfully.

"It went," I respond with a resigned sigh. "It wasn't bad." Adam opens his mouth, but I cut him off. "But neither of us want anything more. Oh, and someone stole my phone, joy of all joys."

"What, really?" Adam asks.

"Picked it right out of my pocket," I say. "I'll probably go pick up a new one after work." Speaking of work, that's what I was actually here for, and I should probably get on it.

An exasperated Stephen catches me at lunch. "Today we have five," he says, holding out a stack of envelopes, "count them, five letters for Mal."

"The fans miss her," I respond.

"It just seems a little ridiculous," he says. "Almost every letter these days is for her." He mutters something about them all being the same before sorting them into the box we'd set aside for her mail. "Next time she calls Whitney I'm going to see if she wants us to go through them."

I glance at it out of the corner of my eye. It was weird, I acknowledged. But it wasn't exactly like I had a right to go looking through her mail, now did I?

As tempting as it might be, I definitely did not. I do peek at the outside, though; I noticed a good half of them aren't postmarked. I file that thought away for later.

At least when I get home, I have all the bells and whistles that come with a new phone to distract me. However annoying it had been to lose mine and however costly it was to replace, at the moment it was an incredibly welcome distraction.

Loneliness settles over me like an unwanted blanket. I find myself staring at Mallory's contact, a war waging inside me on whether or not to press the button.

Finally I shut my eyes, tap the screen, take a breath, and wait.

It rings a few times in my ear, then goes dead. I let the air out of my lungs in one loud burst. I should have expected that, honestly.

The screen taunts me throughout the night, but my first real attempt to contact her in two and a half weeks being so thoroughly rejected has deterred me from trying again.

My mind keep circling back to Mallory's fanmail. Why weren't they postmarked? They would be, if they were coming through the mail. Someone had to be dropping them in the mailbox, or using some similar tactic to get them to the studio.

The phone rings and my heart leaps in my chest. She must have just been busy but she'd gotten my call and she wanted to talk—

My hope deflates when it's not her name on the screen, but instead a number I don't recognize. With a dejected sigh I let it go to voicemail.

Whoever it is doesn't leave a message and instead calls again a few minutes later. I groan and pick it up.

"'Bout time," comes a voice, garbled and too low to not be electronically modified. "Thought the sun might go supernova before you picked up."

"I let it ring through once," I say, annoyed. "I think you have the wrong number, anyways."

"I'm quite certain I don't, Matthew."