Blocked

"Hello."

"Ryan, you're not upset, are you?" Elizabeth Olsen asked over the phone.

"Not at all. Social media management isn't an important position or anything. Anyone can do it. You don't need to apologize to me. We'll still have a chance to work together." Ryan replied politely.

"That's actually why I'm calling. A few more chapters want to film their own versions of the Harlem shake at their schools. How much are you budgeting this time?" Elizabeth Olsen asked.

"Zero. You don't need to contact the chapters anymore." Ryan smiled.

The Harlem shake had even made it onto The Daily Show. It was spreading like wildfire, and the sororities had done their part. Even without "sponsored shoots," there would still be students making Harlem shake videos. Ryan would never spend a cent more than he had to.

"Okay, so... that's it?" Elizabeth sounded a little hesitant.

"Goodbye."

Ryan hung up briskly. Social media management really wasn't an important position. More than ten people had already responded to the recruitment post he'd just put up. One had a profile picture of Scooter, and Ryan recognized it from before. The account had enthusiastically explained the Harlem shake to people under one of Ryan's YouTube videos. It seemed to belong to a "fan."

Still, Ryan wasn't about to put too much trust in strangers online, so he didn't make a decision right away.

Ryan noticed that evening was drawing near, so he shut down his computer and got ready to head out. He ran into Trey at the door, just as she was coming home.

She looked dusty and worn out. She'd probably been out filming on location in some remote wilderness again.

"Where are you going?" Trey asked Ryan as he headed for the door.

"On a date!" Ryan called over his shoulder.

"Will you be back tonight?"

Ryan turned around, his eyes narrowing.

"Remember to practice safe sex." Trey waved.

Once the door had closed again, Trey muttered, "You never make time to keep me company. What a waste of all the effort I put into raising you."

·

When Ryan arrived at the date spot, the AMC theater near Music Row, he saw Abigail get out of the passenger seat with someone beside her.

"She insisted on coming along. Said she wanted to see a movie." Abigail sounded helpless about Taylor Swift's decision to third-wheel them today.

"You've got a man to keep you company. I'm all alone, you know. How can you bear to leave me behind?" Taylor hooked her arm through Abigail's and leaned against her shoulder.

Ryan didn't say anything. The three of them went into the theater together. Taylor was up to her old tricks, wearing a baseball cap and fully disguised.

"I want to see Paranormal Activity!" Taylor shouted as soon as she walked in, pointing at the poster.

"I want to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I want a romance." Abigail chimed in.

The two of them looked at Ryan in unison.

"I don't like either of those movies." Ryan shook his head and raised the three tickets in his hand.

·

"Boom..." On the big screen, Robert Downey Jr., dressed in a suit, staggered as a blast of dust from a missile explosion nearly knocked him over.

The audience laughed.

Of the three, Abigail sat in the middle, with Ryan and Taylor on either side of her.

"Don't look at your phone in the theater. Who are you texting?" Abigail craned her neck.

"Who's Elizabeth?" Abigail's voice suddenly rose.

Ryan immediately turned off his phone and started watching the movie. But Abigail's voice kept getting louder, and she was beginning to disturb the other people, so he quietly explained.

"A fan? You're really nice to your female fans, chatting with them even while you're watching a movie." Abigail sneered.

Elizabeth Debicki had just woken up and sent Ryan a reply. That was all.

Then Abigail turned to the other side and saw Taylor smiling at her, as if to say, "Don't say I didn't warn you."

Halfway through the movie, Abigail got up to use the restroom. Taylor immediately moved over to sit beside Ryan.

"It's time," Taylor whispered to Ryan.

"What's time?" Ryan had noticed that Taylor had been acting strange for the past few days, often saying things that made no sense.

"Set off the bomb! Leak the song! The two of us will be on the covers of the entertainment magazines in no time!" Taylor finally voiced the thought she'd been suppressing for so long.

Her behavior up to this point had been a series of hints. She shouldn't have been the one to bring it up, but with the Harlem shake blowing up, this was a rare window to "set off a gossip bomb."

"What song?" Ryan genuinely didn't understand.

"Don't pretend!" Taylor grabbed Ryan's arm, then turned around. When she noticed Abigail was back, she immediately stood up and returned to her seat.

"What were you two talking about?" Abigail looked at Taylor.

"Her new song."

"I didn't understand what was happening in that scene."

Taylor and Ryan spoke at the same time, but they were saying completely different things.

"I don't want to watch anymore, Ryan. Let's go." Abigail couldn't take it anymore.

·

Late that night, Ryan quietly got up, making sure he wouldn't wake Abigail beside him, and slipped into the bathroom.

"Don't call me anymore. I'm afraid Abigail will get the wrong idea." Ryan frowned.

"Then when are you going to leak that song?" Taylor asked over the phone.

"What song are you talking about?"

"The one I wrote for you. The one called Fucking Afternoon!"

Ryan's mind went blank. In an instant, so many things suddenly made sense.

Why had Taylor given him the song in the first place? She'd done it for this moment!

Taylor had been planning for ages, putting her heart and soul into creating a "topic of discussion."

Was it really necessary?

Maybe it was. The celebrity market had long been saturated. Most new singers went their whole lives without anyone knowing their names, while a lucky few got a moment in the spotlight before being quickly forgotten.

Staying famous took the right time, place, and people. There was nothing wrong with resorting to a few extra stunts, either. Considering some people released explicit videos to get famous, Taylor's plan was small potatoes.

"So, in other words, you already had a plan. I just happened to show up that day, right?" Ryan asked with a mocking laugh.

There was a brief silence on the other end.

"I... That's none of your business. When are you going to leak the song?" Taylor pressed.

"In your next life. I deleted that song ages ago." Ryan smiled with relief.

"Deleted it? Wait..."

Ryan hung up and looked at himself in the mirror, shaking his head.

He'd been afraid that the song might leak and hurt Taylor, so he'd taken care to delete it.

"So this is what the entertainment industry is like?" Ryan scoffed.

He quietly returned to Abigail and lay down without a sound. Abigail was lying with her back to him. Even Ryan hadn't noticed that her eyes had been open the whole time...

·

"Deleted?" Taylor lowered her phone, not even processing what he'd said at first.

She texted Ryan again, but the message failed to send. When she called, he hung up on her immediately. Clearly, he'd blocked her number.

"He blocked me?" For a moment, Taylor's first reaction was an awkward smile. She felt embarrassed.

"He blocked me?!" The next moment, Taylor clenched her teeth in fury. The veins on her forehead bulged, and she balled her hands into fists, swinging her arms down hard as if she wanted to pound on something.

Memories of the month or so since she'd met Ryan came flooding back.

His threats, the way he charged forward while playing football, the flash of surprise on his face when he heard her new song, his cheeky grin, how awkward and nervous he'd been at her house, the fleeting look of surprise on his face when he heard the new song, the song he'd deleted...

"Honestly, I'm kind of jealous of your songwriting ability..."

Ryan's words echoed in her mind.

But maybe she'd used it the wrong way. Taylor gave a self-mocking laugh, then burst into tears the next second. She was making so much noise that her parents and brother were startled and pushed open the door.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" Taylor's mother, Andrea, hurried over to her.

"Waaah..." Taylor threw herself into her mother's arms.

He'd had countless chances to release the song, but he hadn't. He'd secretly deleted it instead.

Then she spotted the Billboard magazine beside her, with the chart rankings on it. Taylor snatched it up, rolled it into a tube, and tossed it into the trash...