The Know-It-All

Ch. 8

Light.

That's all she saw.

Nini groaned, trying to find the covers to throw over her head to block out the stream of light from the window. She found them and yanked them over her head. Only they wouldn't move. At all. They must be stuck under something.

Nini tried shifting around, only to find herself twisting and turning in the same spot. It was weird. Why was there a fort of pillows built around her?

Her eyes creep open as she spotted a pile of dirty laundry on the floor. A pair of jeans, and a shirt hastily thrown onto the floor. Socks and shoes littering the area next to it. She squinted at the pile. She didn't own a pair of blue high top vans...

Nor did she own a pair of shoes so dirty they looked like they came out of the dump rather than a decent store.

What the hell?

She suddenly remembered where she was. The realization slammed into her like a dodge ball. She was in Ricky Bowen's room. And she was sleeping in his bed. The covers wouldn't move because they were crushed under both of their weights. Her legs felt funny. Like they were restrained by a force. And she felt like she was in a giant hug.

And then it hit her. She was in a giant hug. Because she was spooning with Ricky Bowen. Oh my god, I'm spooning with Ricky.

Oh my god, I'm spooning with Ricky.

OH MY GOD I'M SPOONING WITH RICKY.

His arm was thrown around her waist tightly and their legs were tangled in so many ways she didn't even know where her leg ended and his started. His face was buried into the crook of her neck. She could feel his breath on her shoulder and felt his hair at the back of her neck. She felt the rise and fall of his chest on her back, and she could feel his body weight pressing into hers.

Nini's first instinct was to wriggle the fuck out of there. But then she realized that that would only cause Ricky to wake up and confront the fact that she slept- oh my god- in his arms last night.

Nini tried to wiggle slowly out of his iron grip. But every time she moved, his arm just readjusted around her waist and it became even harder to remove herself from his grasp.

His hand was on her side. If he was awake, he could probably feel how fast her heartbeat was. His arm- surprisingly muscular- laid across her stomach in a way that she didn't even notice it was there.

Except for the fact that now it was crushing the air out of her lungs.

She gave up trying to slowly struggle out of his grip. She prepared herself, then used all of her might to thrash out of his arms. She was successful. He seemed disoriented for a bit, grunting and shifting on the bed before going back to sleeping as if nothing happened.

Nini, on the other hand, nearly fell off the bed. She blinked, failing on the edge of his bed before rolling over completely and hitting the ground with a thud.

Smooth move, Sal-Robs.

She sighed, standing up and checking herself out in the mirror in his bathroom. Her hair was knotty, her neck was red from Ricky's nose, she smelled like Ricky and looked like a mess. Her clothes were wrinkled and she looked as disoriented as drunk Ricky.

Wonderful.

She walked back outside. There was only seven minutes until the morning outing she was supposed to attend. Nini suddenly felt faint. She panicked. She considered her options. She had no clean clothes, no room key, no way of contacting Kourtney to ask for a favor. Of course she could always go banging on Kourtney's door, but chances were the girl was already waiting in the lobby with the rest of the debate team.