Mal woke up and stretched, last night she stayed up late talking to Ryder about what was the best way to speak to Ben, and the boy told her that a straight forward conversation was the way to go. "You guys know each other, so don't forget that. Talk to him like you would about any other matter when you guys weren't together."
The girl picked her phone up and sent a quick text to Ben; it was only six am in New York, so Ben was asleep at his three am, but Mal wanted to make sure that he knew she was thinking of him. Getting up she went on to get ready and then have a quick breakfast before making her way to her office, today was a light day, so after her morning meeting, Mal was free to sit on her desk and answered emails that were starting to pile up making her uncomfortable. By ten am the girl was making a massive dent on the emails when her phone rang she answered the call without looking assuming that was Evie to confirmed their lunch date. When Ben's raspy voice came, Mal stopped in the middle of writing a word and closed her eyes while images of the boy waking up next to her saying good morning came to her, and she was sure her face was red. Ben said hello again, and this time she managed to answer him and tell him that she was surprised to hear from him so early in his morning.
"Oh, I just woke up and saw your message, and I wanted to hear your voice. You sounded annoyed last night before hanging up, and I wanted to know if you were ok. Actually, I wanted to know if we are ok." Mal sighed, of course, Ben noticed that she wasn't fine; this was the same guy that could read her mood from a text after not seeing her for years without a second hesitation. Then she felt herself getting annoyed again, where was this guy when he was writing those texts last night; thankfully, Ryder's voice came into her mind, and she focused.
"I was just confused about your texts, and tired after a long day at the office. We can talk more about it later if you don't mind, I'm in the middle of answering some emails, and I should finish that. If you are free, we can talk tonight." Ben apologized to Mal about the messages; he was aware that he was wrong about his assumption. Also, he was sad to tell her that he was going to be working late for the rest of the week; the project he worked in New York was having some issues, so they were going to work overnight.
His team was going to connect with the companies system at night to change things as a way to fix the issues without holding the daily companies activity, and the people there would send them feedback every day until the problems were resolved. Mal felt terrible for the boy, she knew that he wasn't in the development of the program, but he took it over so he could see her, and now Ben was the one in charge of fixing it. Mal went on to tell him how sorry she was that coming to see her had such an impact on his workload just for the boy to assured her that the trip was the best thing that happened to him. Tyler, one of Mal's coworkers, came and asked Mal if she could help him with something, so the girl told Ben that she needed to go but that she would text him later. Their conversation continued throughout the day with little messages about what they were doing and how Ben was preparing for his first overnight, Mal sent him a cute picture of her about to sleep wishing him a productive night.
At six am, her alarm went off, and her phone ringing soon followed it; the girl was confused but smiled the second she noticed it was Ben calling her. Mal answered, and soon the boy was wishing her a good morning and asking her how did she sleep. After answering his question, she went on to asked him how he was awake at that moment, briefly forgetting that he was supposed to be awake working.
"I told you we are working on fixing some issues with the program remotely; I already made some adjustments, and now part of the team is running some test to see if it's working correctly. So I noticed the time and decided to call you, did I managed to wake you up or did your alarm won?" Mal laughed at told him that the alarm beat him for a couple of seconds, but he was close. "I'm so happy to hear your voice Mal. I think we can make this a daily thing for this week, so if you trust me, you can turn off your alarm, and I promise to call you and wake you up every day."
"I'd love that, and of course I trust you. Maybe if you have time, you can call me a little earlier, and we can talk before I go to work. Only if you can, I know you have to work." Ben told her that he would make sure to have some time to talk to her for a few minutes, they talked for a while after that until someone called the boy to check things and he reluctantly told Mal that he had to go. The rest of the day, Mal couldn't help the small smile on her lips and little moments of daydreaming, remembering the conversation with Ben. It never crossed her mind that he would think about calling her when he was working long hours, and Mal wondered if he would be able to call her and talk more the next day. That night she was tempted to call him but decided against it because Mal knew that he needed to work so he could go back to a regular sleep schedule.
Precisely at five forty-five, Mal's phone rang the next morning this time, Ben was face timing her and even though she was sure that her hair was a mess the girl couldn't help but smile and answer him. "Aww, you look cute. Were you dreaming of me?" Mal laughed but nodded, making him smile broadly at her. "I wasn't sure how early you wanted me to call you, you need to sleep too."
Mal rolled her eyes, assuring him that it was the perfect time to call her and then moving the phone to stand on her bed with the help of a book she sat ready to talk to Ben for as long as he was available. In the end, they speak for almost half an hour before someone called Ben, making the boy pout and say goodbye to Mal, telling her that he would talk to her tomorrow. The same scene repeated itself for a month straight when Ben told her that he and the team were finishing the fixes in a couple of hours, and he wasn't going to be able to call her at that time. Mal congratulated Ben on finishing his job and assured him that although she loved talking to him every morning, she was going to feel better knowing that he was back to a regular sleep schedule.
The first day without Ben's call, the girl felt a little sad, but she knew it was for the best; however, when he facetime her half an hour after her alarm went off, Mal was equally shocked and excited. Ben appeared with the cutest sleepy expression on his face while he rubbed his hair with his free hand saying hello to the Mal, she smiled at him and asked him what was going on.
"I slept through my alarm, but I managed to wake up. Is it too late? Do you have time to talk a little bit?" Mal nodded, asking why he was getting up at that hour."I wanted to talk to you; I like our little conversations every morning. Although I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do them every day, I'll try, though."
"You don't have to do that; you need to sleep. I love our conversations too, but maybe we can just make sure that we talk every weekend as early as possible, but now I think you need to go to sleep." Ben tried to protest, but Mal put her foot down and told him that they could text when he wakes up in a couple of hours or more. In the end, Ben agreed, and after wishing her a good day, the boy went back to sleep and didn't wake up for several hours, which was ok because he and his team had the day off to helped them adjust after so much time working odd hours. After checking his phone, the boy smiled this was the time Mal usually used to go out to lunch; quickly, he sent her a text asking her if she wanted to facetime during her lunch hour. A couple of minutes later, they were talking while Mal made her way to a little cafeteria, hoping to find a small spot in the corner so she would be able to have a pleasant time with Ben.
She sat down at a table in the corner, prop her phone on a glass facing her and order quickly, not caring about anything but to talk to the boy. Soon, they were talking, and Mal was so focused on the boy that she didn't notice Jack, Carly, and Elliot coming her way. The trio sat close to her in the office, and they usually ate together, when the girl went out that day telling them that she was going to talk to Ben at lunch they assumed the boy was in town. Now seeing Mal talking to her phone, they were confused and walked towards the girl startling her asking her about Ben, and they noticed the boy on her screen. One second, the girl was having a lovely conversation with Ben, and the next, she was surrounded by her coworkers who took over the entire conversation after asking her for one of her airpods. Carly, who had notice Mal smile every time she mentioned Ben over the last month, decided to take this opportunity to asked Ben if he and Mal were still best friends. "I mean, you guys were always close, so I'm wondering if maybe you guys got closer lately."
Ben blushed, and he was sure Mal's face was red too, he didn't know what to answer to her friends. They hadn't exactly established what they were, sure they had moved from being just friends, but Were they dating? or Were they an official couple?; he knew what he wanted them to be, but saying it aloud without talking to Mal wasn't the way to handle the situation; without answering the question, Ben went on to excused himself and ended the call. Mal's mood dampened, and Carly felt terrible for bringing the girl down with her question; she honestly thought that Ben was going to tell them that they were together. Elliot, who had a crush on Mal for over a year, was relief to hear Ben dodge the question, in his mind, if the boy was with Mal, there was no way he wouldn't tell them. Anyone lucky enough to be with Mal would definitely not lose their chance to say it to the world; he knew he wouldn't. Like always, he did his best to bring a smile to Mal's face during the rest of the lunch and then went out of his way to make her day better.
Ben texted her a couple of times, but Mal decided that she needed some time to think about what to tell the boy. At first, she was hurt by him not saying to everyone that they were together now, but after a while, Mal realized that they never talk about what was the actual state of their relationship. Carly asking Ben put the boy on the spot, and she was sure that he didn't want to say something before talking to her. After lunch, the girl was in several meetings, and soon the matter of Ben took second place in her mind with the overwhelming amount of things that came her way. Once again, she went home late, but this time Elliot gave her a ride home because her phone had died without her realizing it.
When she arrived at her apartment, Ryder was waiting for her with a worried look, before Mal could ask him anything the boy hugged her and asked her how she was feeling. Ben, not being able to talk to Mal ended up texting Ryder and shared with the boy what happened and how he was sure Mal now hated him and was completely freaking out in Seattle, wondering if he should take a flight and try to speak with her face to face. Mal feeling awful for what Ryder shared with her, told him her side of the story, and then asked him for his phone so she could call Ben, not wanting to wait for her phone to charge. A ring later, she was talking to Ben, telling him what happened and apologizing for making him feel so bad. However, Mal wished that the boy stopped creating horrible scenarios in his head every time something happened between them, so she told him that too.
"I swear this is entirely out of character for me, Mal, but when you are a factor, I seemed to lose all perspective. I've always been extremely logical in a relationship, and this is new for me, the moment I hang up I felt like I needed to talk to you at that moment to know that you were ok. I was afraid to answer Carly because I didn't want to push you, but we do need to talk about this. Now I'm not saying we should do it right now, but it needs to happen soon for my mental health." Mal agreed with Ben and told him that they should talk on Saturday when they both had the time, and there was no need to wake up early the next day. "I thought maybe you could come here? I would go there, but I have meetings Monday morning, and I would need to leave on Saturday so I can work on some material on Sunday before my meeting."
"I have meetings on Monday too, and I would need to travel back on Saturday too, to flight there and come back in less than 24 hours is too much. Still, I think you are right about having this conversation face to face, so how about I go there next month, and we can spend your birthday together? No parties this time, just the two of us, deal?" Ben smiled and nodded; he could wait a couple of weeks to have the conversation with her if it meant that he would be able to have her with him. However, he didn't like that she was spending money to be with him, so he was planning on buying her the plane ticket.
Time flew by, and it was finally the middle of June, and every week they talk for hours; lately, their conversations were focused on Ben wanting to buy her the plane ticket and Mal saying that she would be doing by herself. In the end, Mal bought her ticket, and the moment she got into Seattle, Ben was waiting for her with open arms. While he waited for Mal, the boy wondered if there were going to be some awkward moments between them, but the second he saw her, all his doubts went away. They hugged, and then they were kissing glad to be able to be together again after months to be apart.
After a while, Ben asked her if they needed to pick anything up, and when Mal said no, the boy took her hand, and together they went to find a taxi ready to start their week.