Until the End of Summer (Rini Through the Years)

2. (Pov. Nini)

"What about this one? You never wear this." Kourtney stood in the doorway of my closet holding up a blue, buttoned down shirt.

"Um yeah that's fine. Goodwill." I said, eyes glued to the screen of my phone.

Kourtney threw my shirt into the goodwill pile. She then began searching through my closet again. "Ooh Nini! I didn't know you had this. I think we should put a cute pair of jeans to go with this shirt on the list." Kourtney paused realizing I wasn't paying attention to her. "Nini hello?"

Startled, I looked up. "Er- sorry. Kourt school doesn't start until a month and a half. Do you really want to spend this time worrying about back to school shopping?"

Kourtney pouted as she hung the shirt back up. "Yes actually I do, but we can worry about this another time. Besides, your phone is a distraction for sure. Whatcha looking at?" Kourtney stayed where she was and waited for me to answer.

"Oh it's nothing." I could feel my cheeks warming up.

"Yeah I'm not buying it. Scooch over." Kourtney came and sat beside me on my bed and tried to take my phone out of my hand. She won. When she saw what I was looking at, she made a face that told me she didn't approve. "Boys? Nini!" She shrieked.

I tugged at my earlobe, not ashamed at all. "They're just boys from our school. What's wrong with looking at the Instagram pages of boys at our school?" My cheeks were still red.

"You mean what's wrong with stalking the Instagram pages of boys at our school?" Kourtney raised an eyebrow. Okay maybe she had a point.

"Nini if you're going to spend your precious time stalking boys, which I highly do not recommend, make sure you're stalking the right one."

I looked at her confused. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. I'm just saying that one particular boy wouldn't be very fond of your particular actions."

"Um okay you're acting weird. Who are you talking about."

Kourtney looked me dead in the eyes and gave me an are you serious face. "Nini you know who I'm talking about." I shook my head.

"Ricky! I'm talking about Ricky Bowen." Kourtney sighed, relieved that those words finally came out.

"What?" I stretched out that word, shocked at the words I just heard. "No way Kourt. He doesn't like me like that. He's Ricky! Video games and skateboarding loving Ricky. And I don't really like him like that..."

"Okay so you didn't notice how upset he was a few days ago when you mentioned that you were gonna audition for our school's next musical?"

Of course I noticed. Ricky despises musicals. He didn't want to have to sit through another performance where I played a non-talking character. A fork for example.

"Yes I noticed. He hates musicals so it makes sense why he would be upset I guess."

"It does?" Kourtney wasn't convinced, but she lowered her excitement anyway.

"Yeah it does." Can we please talk about something else? I'm done worrying about boys." We both laughed.

Ricky Bowen. The boy I've known since kindergarten, the boy who ate my science project about moldy bread in fourth grade, and the boy with the gorgeous curls and the adorable smile. Ricky and I haven't always been friends, in fact, we hated each other. Well...it was mostly I hated him, but you get the point. I don't know why, but I always thought something was off with Ricky Bowen. The puzzle pieces never fit together with him.

I remember a time in first grade when he yanked on one of the braids of my hair, I was so upset and ran crying to the teacher. I definitely didn't pity him at all when he got in trouble. There was also a time in fourth grade when he ate my science project about moldy bread. I didn't get a good grade on that one, the bread was an important aspect.

However, I also remember how year after year, I would keep bringing up all of the stuff he did to me, and he would apologize over and over again, but I would rarely accept them. You would think that as crazy of a child Ricky was, he never apologized, but that wasn't true because he always did. Even to this day, his apologies were always from the heart, and he never meant to do this, but his apologies made you feel bad for not accepting them. I kind of liked that about him.

My point is, we've had our ups and downs, and nowadays we always laughed about how ridiculous it all was. I can say we've come a long way because never in a million years would I have thought Ricky would be one of my best friends. Well, my best friend actually. "No one can beat you and Ricky's friendship," Kourtney had told me once. Which surprised me because she new me and her were each other's ride or die. She was right I guess. Ricky was different and pretty amazing.

We hung out all the time. He would teach me how to skateboard and always took me to his favorite place to practice. I think the fact that I couldn't skateboard was starting to frustrate him. It's not that he was a bad teacher but because I wasn't gifted in that area. I was okay with that. There were a ton of other things
we did together.

He was Ricky Bowen, and even though he was attractive, really really attractive, I didn't want to ruin what we had by, I don't know, dating.  I knew he felt the same. Besides, I was sure he had other things to worry about more than girls who never got the lead roles in musicals. I was positive.