After the events on opening night of East High's production of Beauty and the Beast, Ricky Bowen decides to call Lily. Lily attends North High, and their friends are practically sworn enemies. Most of it is the fault of Lily's. After Ricky's parents...
"Hey Ricky!" Lily excitedly exclaimed, though her eagerness was leaning to being terrifying. Ricky, though, didn't notice. He was ready to put himself out there and go on a date with no way of messing up a friendship.
"Hey." He replied, watching her get into his car. He smiled. "How are you?"
"I'm good!" She smiled back, buckling in her seatbelt. Ricky began driving, a slightly awkward silence until Lily spoke again. "So, um, how are you?" She asked, somehow unsure if that was even the right thing to say. You would think for a girl trying to seem nice she would be able to mask how unsure of herself she was.
"I'm good. Done anything this summer yet?"
"Just resting after the Menkies."
"Yeah, congrats by the way." Ricky said. North High had won the Menkies, and after the news came out some of the East High kids were slightly jealous again. "I'm sure being Belle is hard. Ashlyn seemed to struggle with it."
"Oh, I found it pretty easy. Guess it depends on the person." She made a small shrug, easily accepting this as her simply being better than Ashlyn.
"That's cool, you're really talented."
"Yeah, you are too." She looked over at him, giving him heart eyes. Nonetheless, her smile always managed to look slightly like a smirk, or at the very least looked forced.
"Thanks." Ricky smiled. "People are wrong about you, Lily."
"Hm?" She tilted her head, acting intrigued.
"People think you're rude, from all I've seen you've been absolutely nothing but nice. And you're so incredibly talented, you're pretty, I don't understand what people don't like."
"Oh, thanks." Her blush was almost genuine. She, obviously, wasn't pure evil, and her negative qualities did push back the amount of compliments she received. It still wasn't a good reason to do what she tended to do.
"You're welcome." Ricky spent her a small smile.
"Er... how are your friends?" She asked. Having been around anyone but Ricky, she probably wouldn't handed the word 'weird' somewhere in the sentence, and it's not hard to tell where.
"They're pretty good, besides a few of them."
"Oh... how come?" Lily questioned, not very intrigued, but enjoying watching Ricky.
"Big Red and Ashlyn."
"Oh, right, them." She nodded, rolling her eyes on the inside. "Something with their relationship?"
"No, we're just not on good terms. It's upsetting, but I really don't understand what I did wrong."
"Yeah, I'm like that a lot. What do they want me to do? Give up?"
"Well... yeah. I mean, I guess we have some fairly different problems, but I see what you mean."
"This was a good night." Ricky said to Lily.
"I agree." She said, looking in his eyes.
"Again sometime?"
"Yeah, sure." She agreed, wanting to continue their relationship. Somehow, despite her genuine interest in Ricky, she subconsciously had ulterior motive (also known as messing with the way Ricky thought).
"Good." He kissed her, who kissed back and smiled.
"Will you be my boyfriend?"
"Yes." He agreed with no hesitation.
He should have had lots of hesitation, not to mention he should have said no.
———
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Scrolling through his Instagram, Big Red sighed. Ashlyn, coming into the room with a glass of water, sat down beside him. "What's up?" She asked.
"It looks like Ricky's date went well." He handed her his phone.
"Things will work out, babe. Things get bad before they're better sometimes." She pecked his forehead.
"I love you." He smiled.
"I love you more."
"You gonna be alone all night?" He asked, squeezing her hand. It was hard for her to be enthusiastic about her parents' jobs when they were always out of town.
"Yeah." She confirmed sadly, leaning onto his shoulder.
"I'm sorry."
"Used to it." She shrugged. A thought Big Red had managed to push out of his mind came back in as they talked about the following night.
"Lyn?" He started. He didn't use that nickname much, but she enjoyed it, no one else used it. "Ricky's dad is out of town, which doesn't happen much, so Ricky's never home alone and— Ricky is staying at my place tonight."
"Aw, love, how come you didn't tell me earlier?" She hugged him tightly.
"I kinda forgot, and I didn't want to think about it much."
"Maybe you'll work things out tonight."
"I don't think so."
"I'm sure my parents wouldn't mind if you stayed the night in the guest room, if it's really upsetting." She offered. "I'd offer the same for Ricky, but I can't really kick him out of your place." She kissed his cheek.
"Nope, I just gotta suck it up."
"Alright." She sadly smiled. "It'll be okay."
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess so." He said, becoming more optimistic. "Where's Sunny?" He asked, noticing the cat that had been sitting on his lap not long ago was no longer there.
When Ashlyn's family had adopted it, they had no intentions of getting a pet. But little 9 year old Ashlyn immediately had a connection to the white-spotted ginger cat. She had definitely taken a liking to the girl's boyfriend.
"She's sleeping in the kitchen." Ashlyn smiled.
"Mkay." With a small, he left, quickly coming back. He sat by Ashlyn, petting the small cat. Ashlyn joined in, she loved how much they got along. "Why's she so cute?"
"She takes after me." She joked.
"She's not as good as singing." He joked, smiling at his girlfriend. "But you're definitely cute."
"I'm just glad she cheers you up."
"She's a good distraction from..."
"She tends to be a good distraction from a lot, yeah." Ashlyn agreed, not making him finish his sentence.
"I should be home in an hour."
"Okay." She nodded, holding his hand that wasn't busy petty Sunny. "God, you two or way too cute."
"Sounds like you."
"Fine, cutest trio." She kissed him. "Let's stop being cheesy. It takes a lot of work." She yawned.
"I can leave now."
"Absolutely not." She pouted.
"Okay." He laughed, stroking her hair similarly to the way he was stroking her cat. "This feels so right."
