can't blame a girl for trying | a rini au

24. (Forgetting It)

when someone tells you to forget something ever happened, that tends to make you all the more likely to remember in ricky's experience.

this late night conversation between he and nini was no exception.

how was he supposed to just pretend she didn't say all those things? he didn't quite get what she was trying to express to him entirely, but he understood that she wasn't feeling good about spending time with him, talking to him like that.

ricky doesn't bother answering her messages until the next day, but given it's the weekend, he finds himself in no real rush.

he doesn't want to start a conversation that he won't be able to properly understand and while he's unclear as to what he's missing, he knows for a fact that something isn't clicking.

he doesn't really hear from kat either that weekend, and while that makes him more than a little uncertain as to how they'd left things the other night, he has to have faith.

ricky truly isn't sure how he could've screwed that dinner up... he'd very much been under the impression it was going well until the end there.

he distracts himself with his friends, going skating with red on saturday and joining his family for dinner again,.

it's hanging out with red and ej at the mall on sunday that brings about an opportunity he hadn't anticipated.

"yo dude it's your girlfriend."

big red points out kathryn across from the food court where they sat. the blonde was coming up the escalator with a girl he now recognizes as sutton davis.

"i'm honestly just hoping she is still my girlfriend." ricky says under his breath before looking between his two friends quickly. "do i go talk to her?"

"obviously." ej shakes his head.

as kat makes her way around from the escalator with sutton, ricky finds himself hopping to his feet. despite his still existing confusion he knows ej's entirely right. of course he should go see her.

she actually seems to have noticed him and his friends too by the looks of sutton gesturing in their direction.

"hey, kat!" ricky waves to the blonde, walking over to where she's standing with sutton right by the pretzel place.

he's got that charming little smile on his face despite the confusion he's still facing at this point, and her bright smile that he receives in return is pretty placating.

"ricky, hi! i didn't think i'd see you today." she says with a giggle before stepping closer as she stands in front of him, getting up on her tiptoes and dropping a kiss on his cheek.

sutton nudges kat's arm and gestures towards the pretzel stand, indicating she's going to leave the pair to their conversation.

"i- yeah... i didn't expect to run into you either. uh- we haven't really talked since the other night. everything okay?" he's not going to just play it off, ricky wanting to get it figured out now that he's got the opportunity.

"i mean yeah everything's fine, why wouldn't it be?" her nonchalant attitude with accompanying bouncy posture is definitely reading more confused than as though she's attempting to deny anything.

admittedly that only serves to confuse him more.

"i mean all of a sudden your parents pretty much tossed me out without warning and i didn't have a ride home... and i haven't gotten a text from you since. that's weird... isn't it?"

her whole face changes, eyes widening and lips falling into a frown as the circumstances dawn on her properly. "oh my gosh wait- i totally left you without a ride home i'm so so sorry ricky i- i completely didn't remember and my mom was-"