Mal got out of her last meeting before Christmas break ready to go home, and change into something comfortable maybe watch a movie. Lately, her job was exhausting, and the usual joy she felt when seeing her finished work was not compensating all the extra effort she was putting in her tasks these last months. Most people were making their way to a little holiday celebration at the main conference room, but Mal only wanted to get out of that place as soon as possible before she would yell at someone.
The girl went to pick her purse when a conversation she had with Ryder came to mind about the same subject. "I think you are letting the situation with Ben affect you. I can be wrong, but since this year he didn't renew your subscription you seemed to be getting more annoyed with things at work, cause you are continually reminded of that there. Honestly, I understand, but you need to realize the root of your problem, and as far as I see, it is not your work."
Standing in front of her desk Mal took a deep breath and picked up her phone sending a text to Ben asking him if he was free to talk; the last couple of days the boy was very talkative sending her long texts several times a day, but she was busy with the issue, so there weren't talking too much. Still, Ryder's voice telling her that maybe asking the boy the reason why he didn't renew the subscription would make her feel better. "Mal, you have to admit that he is also busy, so maybe that is the reason. You forget things, so do I; I'm sure it was an honest mistake."
Mal's phone rang, and a picture of Ben and her smiling at the camera appeared on the screen, making her miss were times were simpler for her in regards to Ben. She answered the call, and the boy went on to tell her that he had a meeting in five minutes, so he apologized in advance for the short call. "Is ok, I just wanted to ask you something and is not important, but I just needed to know."
In Seattle, Ben felt himself getting nervous, and he wondered what was happening with Mal, so he asked her to please ask him anything she wanted. "Ben, Did you forget about renewing my subscription?" The boy almost laughed; there was no way he forgot that; he had chosen the auto-renewal option for several years now so that Mal always had that coming. Suddenly he remembered that he has lost his card and canceled it, and he felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. His mind played a scene, where he was reading an email about the final chance for updating his payment details when he was on a date with Veronica. Ben remembered thinking that he needed to do that and then completely forgetting until that moment, cursing he shared what happened to Mal and apologize.
He understood why Mal was sad about the subscription; for them, it meant that Ben was the first person to believe in her dreams, and even though she had already achieved them, it was a nice reminder of his unconditional support. "I'll fix it immediately."
"Ben no. I was just wondering what happened, and Ryder told me just to ask you." Veronica's voice could be heard telling Ben to hurry up because people were waiting for him making Mal feel dumb for asking him about the subscription. "You should go, don't worry about it is ok. I just wanted to be sure what happened; we'll talk on Christmas, ok?"
Mal hung up quickly, wishing she didn't call him, it was dumb to be upset by that, but for her, it was just another reminder that Ben didn't have her as a priority now. Ryder was right; people forget things, and Ben was busy with his company and his relationship, and she just needed to get over it, mostly because the root of the problem was that she wished to be in Veronica's place. Lauren, one of Mal's coworkers, call her name, asking her if she was going to join her in the celebration, and even though she didn't want to, Mal decided to do it and focused on something that didn't have anything to do with Ben.
That was the mentality she used for the rest of the day and the next couple of days, and to be honest, she did feel better. Ben wrote to her a couple of times, asking her for her address so that he could send her a new subscription, but Mal told him no to worry about it. After that, she told her friends not to give him the address; she wanted to stop that tradition and start to distant herself a little from Ben. They will continue to be friends, but there needed to be some more boundaries for her to get Ben out of her mind, at least until she could control her feelings for him.
On Christmas day Ryder and Mal made a little celebration just for the two of them, they went to Rockefeller center and skate for a while after that they went back to their apartment and made dinner. At first, Mal thought they were going to have a relaxing dinner watching tv. Still, Ryder told her to dressed up, and together they had an elegant dinner where they talk about old celebrations they had and getting to know each other more with every story making both of them realized how strong their friendship was. They toast at midnight, and Ryder asked her if she wanted to change and watched a movie before going to bed. Mal agreed, and when she was about to change her phone rang, the next second, Ben was smiling at her wishing her a Merry Christmas. It took him a second to realize how she was dressed and asked her about it.
"Ryder and I just had a lovely dinner, we decided to dress up, and we spent hours talking. I have to admit I didn't know what to feel about spending Christmas with him alone, but we are getting close is nice to have a friend like him. How is the celebration going there? Are Belle and Adam close? I'd like to wish them a Merry Christmas." Ben was silent but nodded, and Mal saw him get out of the room, and then his parents came in without him. She talked with them for a while until Ryder knocked on her door, asking her if she was ready; Belle asked Mal if she could introduce them to Ryder, and after rolling her eyes at them, she opened the door.
They loved Ryder; they talk for so long that Ben came into the room looking annoyed, telling his parents to please end the call because they had guests that were waiting for them. Everyone was a little put off with his attitude, but his parents decided that it wasn't the moment to talk to him about it, and after sending love to Mal and Ryder, they ended the call. Walking into the living room where Veronica's parents, Veronica, and Ben were sitting the last one with an annoyed face on, they apologized. "We are sorry, but we never get to talk to Mal, and we completely lost track of time."
Veronica's parents assured them that they understood, and the night continued; however, the second they went away, Belle tried to talk to Ben about his attitude just for the boy to tell them that he was tired. Ben went into his room angry with everybody, even himself, Mal's voice playing in his mind repeating how it was nice to have a friend like Ryder. He didn't like how close they were and how pretty she looked while having and intimidate dinner with Ryder in their apartment. Veronica sent him a text telling him that she didn't like how moody he was and to please tried to check his attitude the next day went they meet for brunch with their parents.
Ben rolled his eyes and tossed his phone to the right; he knew that he wasn't the best host, but he was tired of putting out all the stops for her parents. He spent so much time with them, taking them to all the places they wanted to go, eating in the places they wanted basically being their tour guide 24/7. Lying on his bed, he tried to force himself to sleep without luck, so Ben picked up his phone and sent a text to Mal asking her if she was awake. Ten minutes later, when he had lost all hope, she responded, telling him that she was watching a movie with Ryder. Ben asked her what movie and asked her if he could join them, her answer came ten minutes later this time telling him sure with the details of the film and where they were so he could look it up. He launched himself to his computer and searched the movie, and told them that he was ready. Mal created a conversation for the three of them, and the three started texting about the movie, and every once in a while, Ben would send her texts only to her trying to gain more of her attention, but she didn't answer those. After the movie, everyone said goodbye, and Ben felt a little better about the interaction with the couple; maybe he was just creating scenarios in his mind. New Year came and went without Ben and Mal having a chance to talk thanks to Veronica; the girl was starting to get annoyed now that Ben was talking more about Mal so she purposely hid his phone and made sure that he had no free time to call her. Veronica continued to do that for several weeks until she noticed how Ben's mood would get worst with every call he missed or texts where Mal was answering with a date for them to facetime, and that made her angry.
By February, one of Azis's projects was in the implementation stage, which was supposed to happen in New York. The usual way they would handle the situation was that the partner in charge, Azis, would go and supervise the beginning of the implementation, and then the team would stay while he would only go back to Seattle and only come back if there were an issue. However, seeing how Ben was acting lately, Azis talked to Jay, and both of them decided that for this time, the one that should go and stay the entire month of the implementation should be Ben. Azis would cover the project the boy was working on, which wasn't going great because of his state of mind, so there would not be any time lost, and Ben would finally see Mal, and he could go back to be the way he was.
The friends usually met every Monday to see how the projects were going after talking between themselves; they would bring a couple of project managers to brief them in some specifics that needed more discussion. This time Azis told his team to wait and went in first with Jay and together they share his idea with Ben, the boy was shocked the first few minutes and then stood up and hugged his friends thanking them for allowing him to do this. When Azis's team came in, they were informed of the change, and although they were confused, everyone like Ben and in the past had already worked with him and knew that the boy was a good boss. However, when the meeting ended, and they started telling their colleagues about the change Veronica came bargaining into Ben's office, telling him that he couldn't go to New York just because he missed his friend. "You are not a child, Ben, grow up."
What came next was the first and only time the people at the office saw Ben lose his cool, he tried to remain calm at first, but when Veronica admitted to sabotaging his calls, he yelled at her, and told her to leave his office at that moment. If looks could kill, Ben would have died with the last one Veronica sent his way before assuring him that he better thought well what he was about to do before leaving his office. Jay and Azis came in and asked Ben exactly what happened, and when he shared with his friends the girl's admission; both of them stay silent, and then Azis picked Ben's desk phone and asked one of his project manager to come. When James came in, Azis went on to asked him to gather all the contacts information Veronica had on their clients and start calling them, telling them that the girl was planning on leaving the company and asking to please stay with them. The other two friends looked at Azis like he was crazy. "Trust me; I've been suspecting something was going with her since December. I think its safe to say that she is not going to be helpful if she is going to try and destroy Ben. There are two things she knows you care for one is this company, and the other is Mal."
"If she even tries to do anything to Mal.." Before Ben could say anything, Azis told him that the girl was not going to do anything to Mal, she probably would write some mean comment on her Instagram maybe, but that was going to be it. Ben seemed to be upset about the possibility, and Azis told him to relax. What he needed to do is call Mal and tell her that he was going to be living in New York for a month, so she could help him get a place to stay. Of course, the company could do that for him like they were doing for the team, but Azis knew that this would give the boy a chance to reconnect with Mal and maybe stay with her for that time. Ben nodded and went on to call Mal asking her at what time she would available to face time that night.
Later that day, he found himself telling everything to Mal while she sat down on her bed with a shocked expression. When Ben asked her about her opinion, Mal just shook her head, trying to understand how exactly her friend had a girlfriend and company that was booming to an ex-girlfriend and a company that was losing some big clients in a small period of time. "I'm so sorry this happening to you, Ben. I don't understand why she did those things and why she is taking some of your clients."
Ben went on to tell her that Veronica saw an opportunity to build her own business, and she took it. Sure she told them when she quit earlier that afternoon that it was because of Ben that she was leaving, but they didn't believe her. "If I was the reason, then she wouldn't have already talked to so many of our clients trying to convince them to go with her. I think she cared for me in the beginning, but in the last couple of months, she was more focused on what she could get out of the relationship before we broke up."
That made Mal mad, how can Veronica be so horrible, poor Ben was invested in their relationship, and she took advantage of him. The boy cleared her throat and told her that he was going to be flying to New York in a week, so maybe she could open a little her schedule to hang out with him. She smiled at the comment and assured that they would get to see to open some of her calendar for him.
"Mal, I was wondering if I could stay in your place for a week. I was supposed to book a place, but right now, I don't feel like being alone. I know you have to ask Ryder because it's his place too, but would you mind if I stay with you?" A thousand ideas came to her at the same time, almost making her dizzy, sure these last couple of months she was feeling better. She didn't have dreams of Ben, and the fact that they barely talk help her to settle her feelings; still living with him sounded like a lot. Mal was about to tell him no when she realized the way he was looking at her through the screen; Ben seemed so vulnerable. This was important for him, and as his friend, she needed to get over herself and be there for him, with that in mind she agreed to him staying with her assuring him that Ryder wouldn't have a problem.
Ryder didn't have a problem with the idea, aside from being shock by it. Even though Mal assured him that she was over Ben, he knew better than that, but he was glad that maybe this trip would give her friend a chance to get closer to Ben and perhaps finally get together with the boy.
When Ben arrived a week later, Mal and Ryder made him a pretty banner welcoming to the apartment, making him smile. He said hello to Ryder and thanked him for letting them stay with them; the boy assured him that it wasn't a problem and went on to take Ben's suitcase to his room where he made space in his closet for the boy. The moment he was alone with Mal, Ben hugged her thanking her for letting him come to stay with her. "You are the only person that makes me feel better no matter what."
He said it as a whisper, and even though it was a simple phrase that they had tell each other before Mal couldn't stop but to close her eyes and let the feeling his voice had on her washed over her body. At that moment, she realized that she was definitely not over her feelings for Ben, not even a little and that this week was going to be more difficult than she had expected.