Ben dropped his phone out of shock, and putting his hands on Shelby's shoulders he gently pushed the girl away from him, fighting the urge to clean his lips. "I have a girlfriend, don't do that again, Shelby."
The boy picked up his phone from the floor, turned his back to Shelby, and then Ben cleaned his lips using his sleeve. Then he noticed that Mal had ended the call, and a wave of anger and fear took over him. He hoped she didn't hear him because he wanted to explain what happened and so he called her, walking away from the blonde that was still standing behind him. Lonnie had seen the girl follow Ben outside and followed them hoping to stop Shelby from bothering the boy, but she was late and saw the girl kissing him and then him put a stop to the situation. It was then that it clicked; Shelby must be behind Gaston's call to Adam now she only needed to find out how she managed to do that. Lonnie went back to the table, and by now, Ben had told Ryder and Azis a very short, curated version of his fight with his dad, so Lonnie was careful when she shared her suspicions with the group based on what she had just had witnessed. The boys all seemed to agree that at some point they all had thought Shelby had something to do, but they couldn't imagine how she managed to contact his uncle. That's when Ryder decided to call Lizzy; he was friendly with the girl, and he knew that if they were careful, there could be a way for them to get the information they needed to understand the situation.
Outside Ben called Mal and the girl asked him if he was ok; the boy groaned and told her what happened promising her that he didn't do anything to make Shelby think he wanted that to happen between them. "I know Ben; honestly, it was going to happen eventually. I thought she would do it in front of me at some point, but she couldn't wait, I guess."
The boy was confused by Mal's comments, so the girl focused on assuring him that she trusted him and knew that he didn't want it to happen, then she shared with him how she had already ordered food and was on her Pjs. "At least you are out with your friends, so go and have fun."
"I want to be with you." They talked for a couple of minutes before Mal convinced the boy to go back to his friends while she eat her food and go to sleep. Every day he would text her, and a couple of nights, he would go to bed and call her making sure he wasn't waking her up and talking to her about his day and asking her about hers. By Sunday, he wished she could come home early, and he started to tell her things he missed about having her near him; the conversation started to get intense until Jay knocked on his door telling him that he had bought pizza and they were waiting for him. Ben told him to go away that he was talking to Mal, but Jay continued to annoy him, and the girl laughing made it clear that the moment was broken; she told him to go and that they would be together soon so they could talk more then.
Tuesday afternoon, Ben made his way back to his office after lunch; working in another team was weird, but he was starting to get into the groove of things. Andrew had been put in charge of a few new hirings, and John, some projects were redistributed, and the other groups were not on good terms with the pair. The boy was ready to go back to his task when his phone rang, and Mal's face appeared on the screen, making the boy smile; he answered the call and asked her if she was calling from the airport because he thought her flight was supposed to be on the air now.
"Hey, well it is on the air. I had a little incident, so I missed my flight, and now I'm going back on Friday." Ben asked her what happened and if she was ok; Mal told him that she had a bit of a fall and fractured her left arm. "Miranda took me to urgent care, and I have a cast, but we lost our flight. We managed to find a flight on Friday, so I can rest and feel better before going back. I'm calling you now cause she managed to book us another hotel to stay in until Friday, but they gave me some pills, and I think they will make me sleep."
Ben felt horrible; he wanted to ask her more about what happened, how she fell, and things to understand the situation. However, he knew that she needed to rest, so he asked Mal to please give her phone to Miranda for a second; Ben noticed the hesitation, but a second later, Miranda was saying hello. "Hey, sorry to bother you right now. Could I please call you, or could you call me later so we can talk? I don't want to bother Mal with questions, but I want to know more about what happened if it's ok with you?."
Miranda told him not to worry and that she would send him her contact from Mal's phone so he could text her. "I'm busy now, but I'll call you later. Ok?" the girl ended the call and then sent her contact. The rest of the afternoon felt like an eternity, Ben made great efforts to focus on his work, and even then, he noticed he was making mistakes. Azis and Ryder noticed, so they tried to calm the boy down.
Finally, when he was getting ready to leave, his phone rang, and Miranda's name appeared; Ben answered, thanking the girl for calling and asking how Mal was doing. "She is ok, it was hurting for a while cause she is really stubborn and didn't want to take any painkillers. Finally, she took one and fell asleep not long ago, so I thought it was best to call you before ordering something for us to eat when she wakes up."
Ben thanked her again and then asked her what happened, and Miranda went on to share with him what happened since he had talked to Mal on Monday night. Mal and Miranda got to the hotel early on Monday to get all their things ready but decided that they would go out to eat something and have one last walk around the restaurants and bars near the hotel to get some footage. Both girls put on some comfy clothes and went out close to ten o clock after finishing packing, and decided to go pick up some food and only film on their phones on the way to the restaurant. It was a nice walk soon, they were making their way back, and that's when a group of guys were getting into a bar but stopped the moment they saw them approach.
"They tried to convince us to go to the bar with them, but we said no and continued to walk. One of them walked behind us until we made it to the hotel, we told one of the staff that a guy was following us, so they stopped him at the lobby and asked him to leave while we went into the elevator." Ben felt anger invading, he hated those types of guys, and sadly it was common to find them whenever he went out. Miranda told him that the next day they got out of the room with their suitcases, ready to have a quick breakfast, and made their way to the airport. Then they saw the guy from the night before smirking at them from a table in the corner where he was seated with a couple of older men.
He stood and made his way to them, sat down on the empty chair, and said hello, at that moment both girls stood up, deciding that it was best to have their breakfast at the airport. The guy looked annoyed and moved to follow them, but one of the men at his table came asking him if he knew them. "We said no, and that he was bothering us since the day before when he followed us. The man looked shocked, but we didn't stop to hear if he was going to say something to us because, in the end, the guys that were with the guy the night before didn't do anything to stop him."
The story continued with the girls going to the lobby where they ordered their car, and when it was near, they were making their way out when the guy appeared again, trying to get Mal to tell him her name. The hotel had a couple of steps to get to the door, so she made her way down when he tried to grab her and Mal fell. "It wasn't a big fall but her suitcase hit her and the position of her arm didn't help the situation. Mal tried to stand up, but when she felt the pain she stopped, and the hotel staff came to help her and made sure to get the guy away from her. The uber driver came too, and the men eating with the guy also came and asked him what happened. "I told them what happened while asking the uber driver to take us to urgent care and asking the staff to please hold our luggage. The last thing I heard was the guy saying that he didn't do anything and saying that at least he knew new Mal's name."
Ben was ready to hit something, and everyone around him noticed how angry he looked, so most people there by the middle of the call decided to leave quietly without saying goodbye. The only ones there now were Azis and Ryder, who were seated quietly at their desks, waiting for the boy to finish the call so they could ask him how Mal was doing. Miranda assured Ben that Mal was ok, it was a simple fracture, and the doctor said it should be healed in 4 to 6 weeks. "Don't worry, ok? I got our luggage, and I'm monitoring my accounts and Mal's accounts in case the creep tried to look for her and I'll block him the second he tries. I didn't get his name; he just looked like a rich creep. Mal is ok, and she will call you tomorrow; I know that you are mad now, and so am I. Still, being mad will no to help her be better and you know Mal feels bad about making us worry, so is better than you don't make a big deal of how everything happened."
The boy thanked her and asked her to please tell Mal that he would be waiting for her call, so there was no need to worry about waiting for him to get out of work to call him. After he ended the call, the boy felt like throwing something, finally, he shared with his friends what happened and they understood why he was acting like that. "Hey, if Miranda ever finds the guy's information, we could see who he is and see if we can do something." Ryder suggested, and they agreed that they would gladly mess whatever they could to make the guy's life difficult. When Ben got home he told Lonnie and Jay what happened, and they agreed that if there was a way to find the guy they could see that he paid for what he had caused.
It was difficult for the boy to sleep that night, and he woke up to his phone ringing, Ben looked for the phone in the dark, and it was Mal calling. He answered the call and saw her smiling at him; that's when he realized since her call from the day before, he had never stopped being painfully stressed, and now seeing her, Ben felt himself relax. "Hey, sorry to wake you up. I was trying to wait for it to be six, but Miranda said I should just call you."
"No worries, I'm glad to see you. How are you feeling?" They talked for an hour about how the girl was feeling, her trip to urgent care, and how lucky she was that everything went smoothly there. Ben told her that he had talked to Miranda the day before, and she told him how everything went out. He saw then that Mal seemed uncomfortable, so he didn't push the subject, although Ben did tell her that he wished she was back with him already.
"Me too, I'm staying in the rest of the day, and maybe tomorrow we'll go out to have a nice lunch, but it all depends on how I feel. At least, I convinced Miranda to go out to grab some breakfast with her friends, and she promised to bring me something from Starbucks, and we are ordering food and watching movies. I texted one of her friends, though and told them to spend as much time as they want out because Miranda was bored, and I just planned to rest. So I'm hoping she is not coming back for a while."
Ben felt bad that Mal was going to be alone, but the girl told him that she had a lot of footage to go through and she needed to contact a friend who sometimes helped her with editing to send the footage to him with her notes. "Honesty, I'm going to have a lot to do today, so I'm not going to be bored. Oh, you should start getting ready for work, when you get back home call me, ok? I'm probably going to take a nap, so we can talk late if you want."
The boy agreed, and the rest of the day passed without incident; Miranda texted him that the creep was nowhere to be found on their social media, so there was no need to worry. That night he talked with Mal for an hour and then went to sleep; she was supposed to call him the next night but ended up texting him that she was taking a pill for the pain and would see him on Friday. Ben was doing everything to finish all his work earlier than usual by Friday afternoon. He had to ask Spencer, his new team leader if he could get out an hour later, and the man agreed but told him to finish editing a couple of things. Sadly it wasn't as easy, and Ben stayed two hours past his plan. Spencer noticed that and told the boy that he was happy to see that Ben was responsible and promised the boy that he could come an hour late on Monday. Ben thanked him, but he knew that HR had been monitoring everyone's arrivals time since the John incident so there was no chance for him to get away with coming late.
Mal promised to text him when she was at the house, he asked for the flight information, but she forgot to send it, so he started following flights and had a chart in his desk. However, when work took a life of its own Ben's chart was forgotten until he was making his way home. Ben noticed that there were two more flights and he decided that he was going to get home, change and get his car and go to the airport to wait for Mal. He arrived at the house and noticed that his car wasn't there, he had lend it to Jay that day and now he was annoyed with himself for not asking his friend to wait for him so he could take his car. Still, Ben planned to call an uber and go look for his girlfriend, with that in mind he got into the house and stopped the moment he saw Mal seating on a chair a couple of steps away from the door waiting for him.
"Hey, I didn't want to bother you at work so I've been waiting here." Mal stood with a bright smile and he tossed his backpack to the side and engulfed the girl in a hug telling her how happy he was to have her there with him. Ben let go a little worrying that he was making her uncomfortable with her cast, but Mal told him that she was ok. "Jay and Lonnie went to get us food and Miranda left a while back."
They talked for a while until Jay and Lonnie arrived, the couples ate and talk for hours. Mal showed the footage of the city and talked about her adventures then Jay told some stories of when he visited Boston, in the end, they all fell asleep in the living room. Mal phone woke them up late on Saturday, and after groaning annoying the girl found it and saw that it was Evie calling. The girl answered and Evie announced that she had managed to find an earlier flight and she was about to make her way to Seattle to visit, and Mal cheered excitedly promising her friend to pick her up.
"Great, I'll text you the details. Oh, I managed to get us an Airbnb so get so you are going to need to pack for two weeks. No worries, I'll help you." After that Evie, said her goodbyes, and Mal turned to share the news with the group. All of them seemed shocked about the Airbnb, but Mal explained that Evie didn't know any of them so it was uncomfortable for the girl to live with all of them. Still, she promised that they were going to meet her and they would definitely go out together as a group. They understood, and Lonnie offered to help her pack and they went on their way while the boys started to cook something for all of them to eat before going to the airport.