complicated love

Chapter 9: Nice Try

It was a couple days after Ricky and Nini's first kiss. They were inseparable and so happy. Now...it had become so obvious that they were falling for each other. They still didn't want to admit it though.

Ricky has been watching the Ethan dude very closely. Whenever Ricky went with Nini to the coffee shop, he made sure to put his arm around her or rest his hand on her to remind Ethan that she's his. And only his.

Ricky had basketball practice this morning and Nini's moms went out shopping for the day, so Nini was home alone. She was going to write a song but felt low on inspiration. She chose to go to the park and sit on a bench to think.

She talks to herself, "This bench should do it."

She sits down and messes around on her uke, writing melodies and sketching down lyrics. As she's repeating some of her lyrics, she hears a familiar voice.

"Nice voice you have there...", a boy says. She looks up to see Ethan smiling at her. Nini starts to get a little nervous and chokes up on her words.

"Oh...ha...uh thank you." She answers.

"Mind if I join you?" Ethan asks.

Before Nini could answer he was sitting next to her on the bench. She scoots a little closer to the edge of the bench, away from Ethan.

"Hey...I never got your number that day? Can I get it now? Or at least your snap?"

"Oh...uhm...sure I guess...here." Nini shows him her snapchat user and he friends her. She really didn't want him to have it but...the pressure got to her and she was too stressed to say no.

"Did you know you're a really pretty girl?" Ethan says, smiling at her.

"Thanks..." She replies, nervously laughing.

Ethan continues having conversations and Nini slowly starts getting more uncomfortable. She didn't like him one bit...she honestly found him a little odd and pushy. She wanted to be alone but was too nice to ask him to leave so she came up with another plan.

"Hey uhm...excuse me one second." She says as she gets up and walks to a nearby tree.

She immediately messages Ricky. She knew he wasn't done with practice until 30 more minutes but...she'd take any chance to get away from Ethan.

She texts, "Ricky...I know you're at practice and everything, but Ethan is here at the park with me. He's making me uncomfortable. Help please." She nervously types, looking up at Ethan occasionally who's just staring at her.

A few minutes later she gets a reply from Ricky.

He replies with, "That jerk. Nini I'll get there as quick as I can, okay? Just take some deep breathes and stay calm...it'll be alright."

She responds, "Okay thank you."

She walks back over to Ethan.

"Who was that?"

"Oh, it's nobody...just Ricky."

He turns towards her, "That loser? You really need to get with somebody better...like me." He smirks.

"Don't talk about him like that! He's an amazing person."

"Probably not as amazing as me." He says sighing. "I bet he doesn't play baseball?"