Ridiculous: Mattory

3: Closets and Confessions

Matt

I wasn't sure whether to think our lunch had been an amazing success or an abject disaster. A bit of both, I'd finally reckoned.

It had been over a week since our... date? Non-date? I'd eventually given up on trying to figure that mystery out. Our lunch. It had started well enough, but my attempts at flirting—and perhaps discussing the elephant in the room—had been quickly thwarted.

I was convinced she was going to bring up the kiss. Well, technically I had kissed her, but she'd started flirting first, so I sort of thought she would initiate the conversation about it. No such luck. By the time I'd realized that, well, that perverted waiter had gone and screwed up the whole thing.

Well, maybe something would change, I'd thought, coming in for work the next day with a cheery smile on my face. And things had changed. For the worse.

Mallory barely spoke to me in person, at least not about anything not strictly professional in nature. I'd taken to texting her in the evenings, and she was considerably warmer to me then, but work had become frigid.

I'm sick of it.

I'm still fairly certain that she wants nothing to do with me, not romantically, despite the oddness of the past few weeks. In my head, I know this, but I have to talk to her. At least if I know for sure, then we can move past the awkwardness. Well, actually, it would probably make things a thousand times more awkward, but I think I'll prefer that to the strange limbo we're in.

Luckily enough, my chance comes easier than I thought it would. Most of the cast is rehearsing a sketch that Mal and I aren't in, for once, and I caught a glimpse of her heading into the break room a few minutes ago. So I take a second, steel myself, and follow her.

I'm momentarily caught off guard by how beautiful she looks, just doing nothing. Well, not nothing exactly—she's reading a letter and munching from a bag of chips, smiling softly. She's kicked her boots off and tucked her feet under herself, and her hair has fallen in front of her face. I'm loath to disturb her, but I clear my throat anyway. "Mal?" She looks at me, startled, and I feel a twinge of pain. "I think we need to talk."

A flash of guilt comes over her face and she hurriedly stuffs the letter back into its envelope and tosses it aside. She tucks her hair behind her ear before rolling up the chip bag and turning to face me. "Yeah, I kinda figured that."

I perch on the edge of the couch, clasping my hands together between my knees and watching her raptly. "Mal... I just want you to know..."

"I know what you're going to say," she says firmly, and I blink in surprise. "And I get it, all right? Please don't feel guilty about it."

"Guilty...? What?" I'd had everything planned out, had rehearsed what I was going to say over and over again in my head, but this was not how I expected her to react.

"Really, it's fine, I promise," she barrels on, heedless of my confusion. "I'm the one being ridiculous, if you think about it, I mean you could have any girl you want twice over, and it's stupid of me to think you'd ever give me a second glance... I care about you a lot, Matt, I really do, and I want you to be happy."

I can only stare at her for a long moment, waiting for her words to sink in. And they do, eventually, and I realize what she's trying to tell me. She breaks our gaze and looks to the floor, and I put a hand to her cheek, gently turning her face to look at me. "Oh, Mal, you are ridiculous," I say gently. "And beautiful. Ridiculously beautiful, why don't we go with that?" Words fail what I want to tell her, so without another one, I tangle my hand in her hair and crush my lips to hers.