underneath the lights || hsmtmts

she can do better | gina x nini

{author's note: i was asked for some gini on ao3 and like- hearing my friend play this song called jessica (apparently it plays a lot at her work)... i was inspired. song's cute- and i enjoy it an excessive amount it's just... a bit silly? idk? so... here we go!

also: eleanor is eleanor from never have i ever and norah is norah from ginny and georgia okay cool enjoy!}

no one gets into a relationship expecting to be cheated on, and nini was no exception to this. she thought she was happier than she'd ever been before with her new boyfriend. summer romance had blossomed and frankly, things were going really well, telling kourtney all about it on their still frequent facetime calls had the young woman unbelievably excited to be in her first real grownup relationship. maybe not quite so grown up given they were still college kids, but- close enough to grown. she was happy, thought things would be perfect, maybe he could even be the one?

that is things were going well until she started seeing signs that something was off. he denied it of course... oh he denied it every single time, made her think she was being ridiculous. paranoid. jealous. all those words he tossed her way to make her feel smaller than herself... it wasn't fair. none of it was fair. college was supposed to be fun, but here she was worrying about what her boyfriend was up to on saturday night when she was meant to be having another super fun girls night with eleanor and norah. but oh he couldn't let her just enjoy one godforsaken evening without hurting her...

he'd said he was out hanging with the guys, and while she didn't have reason to doubt this statement in particular, she was admittedly a bit suspicious of him when he said it. of course he just had to prove her suspicions correct... but then absolutely he should've known better than to take a girl to a place he very much should have known was nini's favorite bar in the city. the beautiful stranger jason was with was tall with dark curly hair; her skin shone under the lights, of course she was pretty... nina doesn't know whether to be just angry or jealous too.

it's norah that points him out first, recognizing the man nini was dating within seconds of their sitting down at their table. "that absolute jerk!" she grimaces, and eleanor's about ready to get up and go off on him when nini settles her down.

"no, no... let him be. let him dig his own grave el. i'll talk to him tomorrow"

"but he's been cheating on you- and you knew it and he's been lying to your face. why should i let him get away with it?"

norah giggles. "we're not going to let him get away with it eleanor. we're gonna make him pay, duh."

"how do you plan on doing that exactly?"

"we're going to make this as painful as possible." norah replies with a sweet smile.

nini agrees, though a bit hesitantly. "i don't know if i can do this... but i guess he sort of deserves it after all these months of pretending i was stupid for thinking he'd be out with another girl."

"exactly neens." eleanor replies. "now... what do you want to do- we want to egg his car? send him mean prank calls? give his email to the scientologists? tp his apartment?"

"no... no... god no i wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy... and no we're 21 not 12."

"doesn't mean it's not satisfying to do some frustrating but not property damaging work on his place when he's wronged you." she replies with a shrug of her shoulders, whetting her lips with a swipe of her tongue.

"i guess it could be satisfying... but no. what was your plan norah?"

"tell her. the girl he's been cheating with. honestly 9 times out of 10 they have no idea he's being an awful two timer. then you both can expose him together."