Too Much Time Together - RINI

chapter six: about last night

The day after the incident at Finn's diner, Ricky sluggishly gets ready in the morning, his mind racing.

"Hey, bud, you okay?" his dad questions, shoving a spoonful of eggs into his mouth. Ricky nods, moving around his eggs with his fork, the metal making a high pitched squeaking sound when it rubs against the plate.

He thinks back to how he handled the situation with Nini last night for the hundredth time. He for sure knows three things from the situation.

One, he has to earn back Nini's forgiveness and trust. Nini has to be mad at him, he did screw up badly, and in response, she ran away from the situation.

Two, he likes Nini. He really likes Nini, like way more than a friend. He wants to hold her hand while walking, kiss the small dimple in her cheek, just be with her.

The final thing he knows is he has to talk to her today. He has to apologize and establish what this thing between them is, and he hopes it will result in friendship. At least for now (hey, gotta be an optimist).

"Can I ask you something?" his dad looks up as Ricky drops his fork, the question escaping him before he can think about it. His dad sets his fork down, eyes focused on Ricky.

"Of course, what is it?" Ricky swallows roughly, seriously questioning if he's actually gonna ask this.

"What do you do when you like someone?" he asks quickly, face heating up. Jeez, who is he? Ricky never thought he would ever mention the idea of liking someone to his dad, let alone asking for relationship advice.

"Awh, so Nini." his dad states, Ricky, choking on supposedly nothing.

"What I-"

"Oh please, it's not that hard to figure out."

The younger boy bites the inside of his cheek at that. Is he really obvious, does Nini know? "So that obvious, huh?"

"Well between the two of you," his dad mutters, shoveling in more eggs. "Yeah."

"I'm letting that first part slide, just because I need... advice." Ricky starts, easing into the discussion of what happened last night. "I kinda messed up last night. So me and Nini went to this diner together, and it was great, really great. We were talking and getting to know each other and I don't know, it was nice"

Ricky blushes at the thought of the very date-like situation, before him fucking everything up. He continues his story though, his stomach dropping at the discussion of the rest of the night. "Well I mentioned her moms being overbearing and hit a rough spot, and well she freaked out and just left. So whatever maybe was between us, it's gone. I wanna fix it."

"Okay well, next time don't mention rough subjects. If you wanna fix it, talk to her today, privately. Just find a way to talk to her without distractions, or the interruption of friends."

"Yeah, okay." Ricky checks the time, time to leave, and hopefully talk to Nini. "Can you drop me off at school?"

"Yep, let's head out now though." Ricky prepares himself on what he's gonna say to Nini the entire car ride, running over different responses and phrases. His nerves build-up at the thought of things going back to the way they were before all this, he can't let it get like that again.

Nini on the other hand seems to make it her mission to avoid Ricky the entire day, he can't exactly blame her though. In their shared English class, she stayed quiet, never looking at him, and leaving before everyone else.

"Ricky, me, and you need to talk about Nini." Gina corners him after lunch, obviously taking in the awkward tension between Nini and him. She was barely eating (which happens when she's super mad or overthinking), barely engaging in conversation, and not once glancing at him.