Ricochet Chapter Thirteen

Rick was sitting in his trailer, strumming on his guitar moodily, when there was a timid knock on the door.

“Rick?”

“Door’s open, Matty.”

Matt pushed the door open and stood there, looking anxious. “Do you want me to go? Only I’m worried about you, and everyone’s freaked out and kind of scared of upsetting you, so if you’d rather be alone…”

“Scared of upsetting me? Shit. I didn’t know.” Rick put his guitar to one side. “Look, I’m sorry, Matty. The only person upsetting me is me. I know I was just a total dick.”

“Well… yeah. Kind of.” Matt closed the door behind him and came into the trailer.

“I saw this magazine article,” Rick blurted, much to his own surprise. He hadn’t realized he’d been brooding on that so much.

“Which one?” Matt sat down on the couch beside him.

“Torn between two doms?” Rick raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, that one.”

“You knew about it?”

“Yeah – I read it earlier when I was in make-up. What a load of shit.”

“You didn’t say anything to me. I mean, you didn’t bring it in, like last time, and rant about it.”

“Well, like you said, it’s all crap, isn’t it? I don’t know how they make this stuff up. I didn’t even know anyone had taken a photo of me and Karl at his birthday thing. We had a good laugh about it earlier.”

Rick frowned. “You had a good laugh with Karl about the article?”

“Yeah. He liked being described as a smooth and sexy Brit, or whatever it was they said about him.”

“I bet he did.” Rick felt absurdly annoyed about that. “Why didn’t you show it to me, Matty?”

“Well…” Matt hesitated, making a face. “I was going to, but… to be honest, Rick, I wasn’t sure you’d see the funny side of it. You’re so on edge these days, and I didn’t want to make things worse for you. I know life’s getting you down at the moment. With the… you know… lack of spanking and all.” He bit on his lip as he said that, and Rick had a suspicion that he was being mocked.

“Okay. Whatever. Look, I need to learn my lines, so…” Rick grabbed his script.

“Oh. Right. Okay.” Matt patted his arm awkwardly. “So, we’re good?”

“Sure, buddy.” Rick didn’t look up from his script as Matt left.

“What the fuck was that about?” he growled to himself after Matt had gone. “Why didn’t you show it to me, Matt?” he mocked in a whiny voice. “For fuck’s sake, Rick! Get a grip. You’re turning into a total asshole.”

He got up and gazed at himself in the mirror. His reflection gazed back, looking sad and wounded with one fake bruised eye.

Rick sighed. How the hell was he going to make it all the way to hiatus?