My One & Only

Ch 21: I Want You Close

There's a tiny itty bitty hint of spicy in this chapter. Enjoy ;)

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A few weeks after that bizarre and slightly eerie outing with Lily, Nini has been avoiding her like the plague. Well, as much as she could. Ricky occasionally brought her around, but Nini would purposely find an excuse to either leave or not speak to her. She only stuck to basic greetings and small talk if necessary, but she didn't go beyond that.

She didn't tell Ricky about the weird, almost threatening words Lily said to her since she didn't have hard evidence of her being sketchy. She figured she'd just keep her distance for now and try to only hang out with Ricky when she knows for a fact he's alone or at least not with Lily.

Nini was walking in one of the lecture hallways when she spotted a familiar head of curls across the hall. Almost as if he sensed her presence, he looked up from his phone and smiled when he saw her. Her heart skipped a beat when she noticed how ecstatic he was to see her.

She guesses she shouldn't be shocked since they hadn't seen each other in three days. They begin walking up to each other, but they're disrupted by a familiar blond blocking Ricky's path. Nini immediately stopped approaching him and watched as they spoke. Her smile falls slowly before she sighs in defeat and turns around.

"Ricky, hey!"

Ricky jumps back a bit, surprised to see Lily standing in front of him. "Oh, hey Lily. Uh, what're you doing here? Don't you need to be on your own campus?"

"Trying to get rid of me, Bowen?" She jokes.

He nervously laughs. "You know I don't mind you being around, but it is a little weird to be here during your school hours."

Lily shrugs. "My class is boring anyway. I was actually looking for you. Wanna hang out after you're done with classes? Maybe we can go to that new Mexican restaurant; I'll pay!"

Ricky peeks over Lily's shoulder to see if Nini was still there. He frowned when he saw her walking the opposite direction.

"Sorry to cut this short, but I actually need to talk to somebody real quick."

Lily frowns. "Oh, okay. Call me?"

"Yep, totally. See yuh!" He begins running towards the exit he saw Nini walk out of and barges through the doors. He looks around and spots her walking to the campus Starbucks. He double timed over to her before she could get any further.

"Nini!"

She was startled by the sound of her name; she looked over her shoulder and was shocked to see Ricky sprinting over to her. She stands still so he can catch up to her. When he finally gets to her, he bends over and rests his hands on his knees as he tries to catch his breath.

Nini chuckled. "Someone needs to work on their cardio. That wasn't that far of a run."

"Fuck off." He says between pants.

"I must admit that I'm a little surprised you're not talking with Lily."

He sits up straight. "Why's that?"

"Because anytime she's around, you kind of have tunnel vision for her."

"Do I? I've never noticed."

"Well, I definitely have. That conversation was a lot faster than I presumed. I'm assuming she wanted to hang out with you."

He nods. "Yeah, she wanted to tonight."

"Are you going to?"

"No, because I wanted to ask you to go with me to this cutesy little thrift store I passed by today. I think you'd love it."