for the holidays | rini au

thirty two

"fuck," nini mutters as she trips over one of her shoes, scrambling to the door when she hears a knock.

there's only one person she suspected it could be, her assumption proven correct when she opens the door to see ricky. she immediately smiles as they make eye contact, and he reciprocates with a grin.

"hi," he says, looking at her intently.

"hi," she smiles wider, getting lost in his gaze.

the sound of a closing door from down the hall snaps them out of their daze, and she quickly invites him in to save them from a moment of awkward silence.

he immediately goes to sit on her couch, a normalized routine now that they've become more comfortable around each other.

she silently sits down next to him, playing with her fingers while trying to think of something to say.

"i'll just-" nini starts, motioning to the tv remote. ricky nods his head and she turns it on, logging into her netflix account. she plays whatever episode of new girl she left off on, settling back into the couch.

ricky casually drapes his arm across the back of the couch, discreetly wrapping it around nini's shoulder and pulling her closer to her side. she looks at him for a moment before turning her attention back to the tv and settling into his side, resting her head on his shoulder.

he subconsciously runs his thumb across her shoulder and pulls her closer, forcing her body to flip so she was splayed over his chest, head resting just above his heart.

they sit in silence, watching episode after episode of the show, no words having to be spoken between the two.

"why is your heart beating so fast?" nini says, turning her head to look up at him, her chin resting on his chest. he tilts his head down to make eye contact with her, only then realizing how close they were.

nini's gaze flickers to his lips, rickys doing the same. "oh, uh. i'm just stressed... about school. there's this project i have and it's really stressing me out and-" he cuts himself off when he realizes that nini's looking up at him with a look of extreme adoration.

"what," she chuckles when she notices he stopped talking, "ricky." she lightly taps his chest with her hand in attempts to catch his attention.

he finally breaks out of his daze and makes eye contact with her again, "sorry you just look really pretty right now," his eyes widen once he realizes what he said, "no! i didn't mean it like that. i mean you're not not pretty but i didn't mean it in a romantic kind of way. you're always pretty i just wanted to-"

his rambling is cut off when nini reaches up and grabs his chin, pulling his face down to her lips. ricky allows her to guide his head down, unaware of what was happening until his lips are met with hers.

nini relaxes in his hold as rickys eyes widen, before he settles into the kiss and pulls her closer, if that was even possible.

they're both sucked back into the same world they were brought into during new years, a place where their past doesn't exist and they were able to just be together.

with a sudden gasp, nini quickly pulls away and brings her hand up to her lips, her finger tips lightly brushing over them. "i- i'm so sorry i didn't mean to. you were just talking and i didn't know how else to stop you. oh my god i just ruined everything didn't i. i didn't mean to i-"

with a short laugh ricky pulls her back to his lips, cutting off her words like she had done to him just moments before. he pulls her onto his lap and she wraps her arms around his shoulders, playing with the hair by the base of his neck.

his hand, previously rested atop her thigh, moved up to her chin to tilt her head up in order to deepen the kiss. she sighs and begins to smile into it, pulling away to rest her forehead against his.

"hi," she whispers.

"hi," he whispers back, leaning down to capture her lips again.

when they pull away for the third time, she adjusts herself so her head is once again resting against his chest, her arms resting on his chest. his hands are rubbing her thighs and she's playing with the strings of his hoodie.

"we missed a lot of the show. we're gonna have to rewatch," she says, moving to rest her chin on his chest and look up at him, mirroring her actions from earlier.

"i think it's ok. it's not like we've never seen it before," she smiles at this, leaning back down and nestling her head in his neck. the show had been long forgotten, nini having turned off the tv before closing her eyes and basking in the calmness of the moment they were currently sharing.

suddenly remembering the reason he had come here i'm the first place, ricky quietly whispers, "go out with me."

if it weren't for the silence of the room, nini wouldn't have heard what he said. she abruptly sits up, still straddling his lap, leaning back to make eye contact with him. her eyes flit across his face, trying to read his expression to see whether he was serious or not.

"ricky bowen wants to take me on a date? a real date?" she teases as she leans forward, her hair falling out in front of her. ricky pushes it behind her ears and smiles, "if that's ok with you."

she closes the distance between them once again, "sounds prefect to me," she mumbles between kisses.