Cruel Summer | Ricky Bowen

PROLOGUE

The last day of summer, the day that Raya and Ricky both dreaded to arrive.

The two teenagers had spoken in person for the first time in a year when summer began, started going out a few days after, and Ricky spent more time at Slices to see Raya and a very confused Big Red. And most of the summer, the two stayed at the Caswells beach house, considering the fact that Mike Bowen was working more shifts, Cash Caswell and his wife barely home, and her adoptive brother and adoptive little sister were both away at theatre camp— they both didn't like being alone in a big house.

Ricky Bowen never thought much about being with Raya Caswell, someone who he had always thought of as his best friend.

How can he now when she's being the amazing person that she had always been? With her voice echoing the room as she sang along to that one song by Perfume Genius or anything she had written for her band, and she just sounded so angelic then. She didn't demand him to tell her what she wanted to hear, but wondered if he were comfortable with how clingy she could be, and it only drew him to her again and again though he never even tried to even pull away from her warm and welcoming embrace.

Also, she takes his clothes as if they were hers, always wearing them around the beach house, especially his sweatshirt, and that was something that Nini had never done.

If he was going to be honest, he hadn't really thought about Nini since he and Raya started staying at the Caswell's Beach House, and they got there about a month ago.

If Ricky can be honest, he couldn't get enough of her cuddles, the warmest that he has ever been were in her arms as they watched movies like Mamma Mia or anything Marvel or Disney related movies.

And that would be the only place he'd feel safe in.

Raya Caswell had been in love with Ricky Bowen since the last summer before he went to East High. She may have been in love with him since they were little, but she was sure of her feelings by that time.

He had always been there for her and had helped her through with her troubles at her school, had helped her learn how to play the piano, seeing as that was her weakness in the Music department, and, most of all, he didn't find it weird how she found comfort in Mamma Mia, or any other Disney movie. And with her troubles, she would comfort him when his mother, Lynne, wasn't around, seeing as she knew what it was like to miss a parent like her.

"Hey," Ricky softly said, tapping the girl's forearm lightly.

Raya glanced up at him, smiling at him as she asked, "What is it?"

"Nothing... I, uh... I just don't... don't want this to end."

"It doesn't have to, Rick. Why would you think this would end?"

"North High and East High aren't really... that good with one another, Rachie Rich."

Raya scoffed. "If you want me to give you something at school, I will. I go by sometimes to hang out with Ashlyn anyway."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really."

The boy looked confused. "And none of them mind at all?"

The girl giggled, nudging her nose against his as she whispered, "I've never felt so powerful since I found out how much power my own name holds, Richie Rich."

"You are a force to be reckoned with, Rachel Caswell."

"I try my best, Richard Bowen."

And with that, their lips crashed against one another, soft and sweet, foreheads resting against each other as they smiled breathlessly. They fell in complete silence, holding each other thigh under the bright sunlight at the beach, as if it they even let go, the other would disappear.

But that's just how it ends for them, with complete silence.