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When he wakes again, his throat tingling from the gross aftertaste of medicine but no longer unbearably sore, a yellow sticky note catches his eye on his nightstand.
Malcolm,
Had to go to work. Please for the love of god drink water. And take another shot of that green stuff when you’ve woken up.
And TEXT ME. Bitch.
- Peter
Malcolm sticks the note onto his wall, slapping a few extra pieces of tape onto it to keep it there. He knows the record shop is closed, so Peter must be talking about his job at the radio station. That green stuff Peter gave him must have had the powers of gods in it, because he feels infinitely better than he did yesterday—or was that this morning? He turns to check the time, and startles at how long he’s slept. It’s still the same day, but it’s almost time for Rebo’s segment.
Should he even call in for Rebo? Peter said to text him, but he’s not sure if he can do that yet. Is that even fair, to call Rebo when he’s still kind of avoiding Peter? Fair or not, he knows what he wants to do.
He picks up his phone, shaking out his arm to get some feeling back into it after sleeping on it wrong for hours. He turns on the radio, checking the time. At 11pm, Rebo’s voice rings through.
“Hello, hello, hello! Welcome, welcome, to the amazing, brilliant, fabulous—” There’s a muffled voice, and Rebo says, “Alright, jeez, getting on with it. Hello listeners, I am your host, Max Rebo.”
You could probably compare the effect Rebo’s voice has on his body to a drug, Malcom thinks. The instant his voice comes through, Malcolm can feel his body relax, like it knows that that voice means ‘safe.’ He calls in.
“Hello, Malcolm,” a voice that isn’t Rebo says.
“He...llo?” Malcolm says. He had to give his real name for the screener the first time he called, but he didn’t realize they would actually remember it.
“After all this time, you still don’t know my name?” The woman says.
Malcolm’s mind clears for a blessed second, and he says a fraction too loudly, “Kit! Of course, I remember your name. Rebo’s supervisor.”
“And friend,” Kit says. “You know you call in here a lot?”
Malcolm nods his head despite being invisible to the woman on the other line. “Uh, yeah, I guess.”
“Uh huh. And you know that means a lot to Rebo.”
Malcolm feels a chill start to go through his body, and the guilt he had been staving off comes flooding back with a vengeance. “You know what, maybe I should just—”
“Kit!” Rebo’s voice says over the radio and slightly through the phone. “Looks like my supervisor has someone on the line for me. Bring ‘em over!”
“Just don’t hurt him, please,” Kit says to Malcolm, leaving him thoroughly dazed before she puts him through to Rebo.
“Welcome, caller!”
“You know it’s me, dude,” Malcolm says, trying to shake off that dunked-in-ice-water feeling Kit’s words brought him. “Do you even get any callers?”
“C.K.!”
“What?”
“I’m trying it out. It’s short for Clark Kent. Don’t like it?”
Malcolm hums, pursing his lips. “Try it again.”
“C.K.?”
“Nah, don’t like it,” Malcolm says. “Makes me sound like a frat boy.”
“You’re telling me you’re not a frat boy?” Rebo says with a dramatic gasp. “There goes my whole mental image of you.”
“Oh, don’t tell me you’ve been thinking of me as some douchey backwards-cap muscle bro this whole time.”
“I never said anything about muscles.”
“Oh, you asshole,” Malcolm laughs. Rebo chuckles on his end, and in that moment, Malcolm almost forgets why he ever wanted to stop talking to Peter. Then Rebo’s laughter settles, and Malcolm hears something in his breathing that makes his shoulders tense.
“Speaking of mental images,” Rebo says. “I was kinda thinking...maybe I wouldn’t have to guess what you looked like if I actually, uh...knew?”
Malcolm feels his hands go cold. “What?”
“There’s this shop I work at,” Rebo says, and in his mind Malcolm shouts ‘no, no, please, not now.’ “It’s called Roisin Records. I thought—well, I dunno. I’ve had kind of a weird week and I just thought, hey, maybe it’s time I finally get to meet my best pal, Clark!” He lets out a weak laugh that dies quicker than it started. His nerves seem to only make Malcolm’s grow stronger. “I don’t know how far away it is from wherever you live, but, you know. Maybe you can swing by?”
Malcolm’s throat isn’t sore anymore, but suddenly it feels as though he’s lost his voice within the past five seconds. He opens his mouth, but only an odd strangled sound comes out.
“There’s no pressure!” Rebo adds quickly, a little too loudly. “Honestly, it was just a thought. Just, if you happen to be around that area, then, uh...yeah. I just thought that might be a cool, ya know, thing to do. Maybe...maybe next Saturday?”
There’s a muffled voice—presumably Kit. “You work next Saturday!”
There’s a sound over the speaker like Rebo’s put his hand over the mic, and his lowered voice saying, “Kit, I love you, but I might just have to take that day off if things go according to plan.”
In the five seconds that Malcolm hesitates to speak, he tries to run through all of the many, many reasons why he should say no. He still isn’t replying to Peter. He still hasn’t told Peter anything involving Rebo and Clark. It is quite possibly the worst idea in the history of ever for Malcolm to actually say yes to Rebo right now.
“Okay,” Malcolm’s mouth says without his consent. His eyebrows furrow, marveling at his own audacity. “I’ll see what I can do.”
There’s a crackling sound over the speaker, like Rebo’s blown out a gulp of air he had been holding in. “Awesome,” he says, sounding a little awed. “Cool.”
“Cool,” Malcolm says, and ends the call.