4. Malcolm #2
“You know,” I mumble. “Like he gets haircuts and works out.”
“Uh-huh.”
I don’t say anything else. I shouldn’t have brought it up.
I take the remote from Kaylin and start flipping through video thumbnails on the screen.
She was right. There’s no shortage of people who want to teach me how to gamble and win big.
It’s probably not much different than investing in the stock market, and I’m not too bad at that.
“So, you’re saying he grew up.”
“We’ve all grown up,” I mumble.
“Have we though?”
I drop the remote and look at her. “What do you want me to do?”
She holds up both hands. “Nothing. I’m just throwing out ideas. If you’re okay with having bad blood, I totally support that.”
“Thanks, Kay. Really appreciate you putting it that way. ”
“But I mean, for real—after all this time, don’t you forgive him?”
Forgive Ryan? Have I ever thought of it like that?
I mean, he was basically a kid. A dumb teenager fucked up on narcotics.
Forgiveness isn’t really the issue. Back then, it was more like I couldn’t hang with him if that was the way he really felt about me—about guys .
Not when all my friends thought queer people were sexual deviants—aberrations—freaks.
What would I be forgiving him for? Lying to me? Betraying me? Manipulating me? No, that doesn’t sound right. Maybe what really upset me was discovering he wasn’t who I thought he was. And then…what would that say about me?
“Like you said, it was a long time ago.”
“And he was a kid…” she reminds me.
“So was I,” I argue.
“Oh my God, never mind, I don’t want to talk about this with you anymore. You brought it up, you know?”
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“Why? It’s not like you ever make up your mind about anything. I’m sure avoiding Ryan for the rest of the summer is by far the easiest thing you can do. You won’t even have to think. You just have to not be an asshole.”
Whoa. “You sure you want to stay for dinner?”
She doesn’t say anything, just selects a video and presses play.
By midnight, I’m down to fifty bucks, and I’m getting desperate. Gambling is fun, and I was doing well for a few hours, but I have to call it quits. I’ve still got a shot at turning this challenge around with fifty dollars, but if I lose that, I’m out in one night. Yeah, I get that I’m fucked.
Logging into ChatGPT, hoping for some inspiration at a minimum, if not a fantastic idea, I ask the internet to give me three ways to turn fifty dollars into ten grand in three months.
“Buy vintage t-shirts?” I say to the computer screen like it’s personally offended me. Would I know a vintage t-shirt if I saw one? Do I know someone who would? My friends are more mid-century modern. Maybe Jake’s girlfriend? She dresses kind of quirky.
The escalation of the t-shirt scheme is extreme, too.
It’s got me turning over refurbished computer parts in two weeks and then rapidly scaling up to limited edition sneakers—like I have time to look for those.
As if. But it’s either that or dog walking.
I might consider dog- sitting since I can do that in my time off, but when I plug that in as an option, the yield isn’t more than a couple hundred a week—once I start getting clients, which fifty dollars wouldn’t help much with.
I go to bed alone and stressed, thinking about everything Kaylin said before the food got here, especially this whole concept of forgiving Ryan for a dumb feeling he had when we were fourteen.
I really thought she was going to tell me I owe him an apology for how shitty I’ve been with him ever since, and I think if she had, I wouldn’t necessarily be tossing and turning now.
I probably would have agreed under protest—no harm, no foul. If an apology would smooth the waters for any future interactions, it might be worth it, but forgiveness is like—way different for some reason. Do I just walk up to him and say, hey, asshole. I forgive you? Would he want that?
But truly— do I forgive him ? I’m decently bent out of shape for someone who supposedly got over something years ago.
I don’t know. Now that he doesn’t look like someone who washed up on the shore of Venice Beach, I don’t really see him as the kid I used to know. The one I spent most of my childhood with as best friends and then bitter enemies. Is enemy the right word for it? For the way I hate him?
Do I still hate him? It’s obvious there are strong feelings there, otherwise it wouldn’t be keeping me up.
Why the fuck is Ryan Vale still keeping me up at night?
Is seeing me at work every day fucking him up, too?
Is he lying in bed right now somewhere with the sheets thrown off running his hand down his bare chest and stressing?
Are his abs super cut now, too? I feel my way past mine, which could use some work and fewer carbs.
My fingers swirl through the hair beneath my navel, and I picture what his happy trail might look like—dark…silky maybe?
Goddamnit. Stop. What the fuck ? I take my hand off my stomach and flip to my side. Do people need midnight dog walkers? Surely there’s a market for that. Night shifters? I could put up whatever small stack of flyers I can afford to print for fifty bucks in hospitals, I guess.
Okay. I’m spiraling. According to my therapist, the best way to manage a spiral is to take an action. So fuck it. I pick up the phone and call my stepmom.
Jill answers the call, breathless, panicked. “Mal? What happened?”
Oh wow. I totally just called my mom after midnight. Not cool.
“Nothing, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize what time it was.”
“You’re okay?” she asks.
“I’m fine. I just wanted to see if I could get Ryan’s number.”
“My Ryan?” Now she really sounds alarmed.
“Yeah. Ryan. I don’t have his number, and we’re in an internship together. I had a work question I wanted to ask him. ”
“You’re in the Marks & Baker internship?” she asks, like it’s the first she’s heard about it. Granted, I do consider her my mother, but in a distant way, especially since she ditched my dad. Not that I’m mad at her. I’m just not the best about keeping in touch.
“Yes.”
“With Ryan ?”
Now I’m getting nervous. “Uh-huh.”
“Why didn’t I know about that?”
I dodge that question, not wanting to think about all the reasons he wouldn’t want to tell her. “Did I wake you?”
“Yes. Do you have a pen?”
I put her on speaker and open up my notes app. “Yeah.”
She gives me his phone number and asks again if I’m all right. I assure her I am.
“You’re not going to upset him when you call, are you, Malcolm?”
“I…I’m not gonna try to.”
“Because you know it doesn’t take much between you two.”
“I really just have a quick question for him.”
“Well, can it wait until Monday? Won’t you see him?”
“Maybe,” I admit. “I’m sorry I woke you.”
“I’m just glad you’re okay. You scared me.”
“Sorry,” I say again.
“All right, good night. Good luck with the internship. And don’t be such a stranger.”
“I won’t. Let’s catch up soon.”
“In the daytime,” she says.
“Of course. Sorry again. Good night,” I tell her, and hang up. Exhaling, I stare at the digits I typed. Talking to Jill was like dunking my head into a bucket of ice water. Sanity has temporarily returned. I guess my therapist knows what she’s talking about .
Closing my phone, I try to go to sleep again. A phone call doesn’t need to wait until Monday—it doesn’t need to happen at all.
I don’t need to talk to Ryan. Rebuilding the bridge I burned between us is a terrible idea. It brings up way too many memories I’d just as soon put behind me for good. The bottom line is, I don’t know him anymore. In fact, there’s an argument to be made for whether I ever knew him at all.
I don’t delete his number or anything, but I don’t add him to my contacts list, either. I need to calm the fuck down. Anyway, it’s Friday night. I don’t have to lie here and dwell on this.
I send Henry a text in case he’s up to something fun.
Turns out he and the guys are out. I put on a fresh pair of jeans, run some gel through my hair, and get the hell out of my apartment.
Ryan’s laugh is sudden, unexpected, and makes every hair on my arms stand on end. Isla startles when I whip my head around to the couch where my ex-stepbrother has been camped out with his mentor since we got out of our intern huddle this morning.
Isla’s hand lands on my forearm, and I jerk away without thinking.
“Sorry,” she says without regret. “Let’s go to the coffee bar. You look like you need a break.”
“I’m fine,” I grumble, turning to look back down at one of her client’s most recent financial statements.
I’ve been studying it for half an hour, but it’s like that one time sophomore year when I tried to read A Clockwork Orange because I thought it would impress Kaylin.
Except half the first page wasn’t written with real words, and it took me four reads through it to realize I didn’t have an attention problem—the book literally wasn’t written in normal English.
Likewise, none of the words and numbers on my screen are making any sense, and I wonder what the fuck I went to Stanford for.
“My treat,” Isla tries again.
It’s a free coffee bar, so I get that I’m supposed to smile at her joke or something, but I’m not in the mood.
Ryan laughs again, harder this time. Longer.
I can’t hear what Charlie is saying from here, but it must be really fucking funny or Ryan’s acting like he thinks it is.
It’s the same way Isla treats everything I spontaneously say like the cleverest or wittiest thing to ever come from a human mouth. Are they flirting ?
In the middle of the office on a Monday morning?