come home to my heart

i. Eventually

When Nini leaves the dressing room this time a calm feeling passes over him.

It's nothing like the rush of his last opening night. The overwhelming feelings and loudness, rapidness, the urgency. It's all gone. The theatrics that took place off stage culminated with a kiss there last time.

Now it was oddly cold in the dressing room (Miss Jenn should really get that AC checked out) where he shared a bittersweet smile with Nini just moments ago. Just for a moment.

He knows it's better this way, that he's happy now but there's a numbness that passes over him when the sound of her small footsteps stray.

She's gone. Ricky scratches the back of his ear. Something nags at him. Quietly like a faint tapping in the recesses of his mind telling him somethings missing. He feels his brows furrow while he looks around the room. He can't quite place it but something feels off. Slowly he turns and faces the opposite door on the other side.

The curly-haired junior blinks.

It's not quite like opening night. A lot of the things are the same: they'd just finished another show, Nini was just in here with him and left, and he and Gina weren't talking. But everything feels different. Everythings all wrong.

Ricky's hand picks at a loose thread in his jeans while he resists the urge to bounce his feet in anticipation. The junior waits and doesn't even know for what or why. The doorway remains empty, the sounds of family members in the audience, and the cast meeting is heard from a distance. The commotion of opening night continues out in the hall.

Ricky shakes his head and turns back toward the styling chair holding his book bag. What the fuck was that?

"Oh," it's soft and barely there but he hears it and immediately turns his head to follow the familiar sound. A breath escapes Ricky's lips. "Sorry I didn't know anyone was in here" Gina softly says, quickly brushing away a stray tear from her face.

She's crying, He observes. Ricky's eyebrows immediately furrow with concern as he takes a cautious step toward her.

"Hey, no it's okay. Free dressing room right?" Ricky offers, he cringes by the end of it and casts a glance at his shoes. Free dressing room??? he admonishes himself with wide eyes and shakes his head.

"Right," Gina responds coldly, she moves further from the doorway and crosses her arms.

Ricky studies her face while she tries to look anywhere but his. Her eyes are puffy along with her cheeks and the tip of her nose is colored pink.

"Are you okay?" Ricky asks softly, he takes another careful step towards her.

Gina sniffles, "No not really." He stops when he's just a few feet in front of her and his lips part at her abrupt answer.

"You...wanna talk about it?" Gina spares him a sideways glance and she notes his eyes are as careful and soft as his tone is. They haven't had a proper conversation in weeks and now his eyes were fixated on her like what she said would actually hold weight for him as if he cared. Her eyes flicker back up to the rest of his face, reading his genuine expression she exhales.

"I just, I had this stupid plan to ditch dinner with everyone and go get 'risotto' with EJ instead." Gina opts to look down toward her shoes as she says it, shaking her head dejectedly. "Like a date." She quickly adds, his eyes widen in response.

"Oh," Ricky mutters. Gina notes his eyes do that thing that makes him seem like he's thinking about something that puts him a million miles away.

So EJ actually did ask her out.