The Blind Date || Rini AU

09. Toy trucks

After spending a few minutes in her bedroom to collect her wits, Nini takes a deep breath and walks out, hoping she still looks somewhat decent. After the whole dinner fiasco, she wouldn't have been two surprised if her hair had gotten undone and her make up was all smudged.

She made her way across the hall into the bathroom to check on Xavier, but he was nowhere to be found. However, she did find the mess of soapy water he left behind, so she took a few moments to clean that up before before turning off the light and leaving the room.

She stopped and peaked in his bedroom quickly to see if he'd gone back to play, but he wasn't there either. So she made her way back to the living room, pausing at the end of hallway when she heard Ricky's laughter mixed with her son's excited giggles.

Nini followed the noise and stopped dead in her tracks in the middle of the doorframe, staring with a wide grin.

Ricky and Xavier were both on the floor. Ricky was sitting cross-legged with Xavier's green toy truck in his hands, and the little boy was crawling toward his big blue bucket filled with dozens of small Hot Wheels cars.

"Look, this one is a firetruck!" Xavier explained with an excited grin, putting the toy in the palm of Ricky's hand. Xavier took back his green toy truck so that he could fill the open-box bed with the mini cars.

Ricky turned the small firetruck around and felt the lines and bumps with his fingers. They way he moved his large hands was so gentle, so careful, like he was actually trying to remember every detail of that little truck, as if the toddler was going to give him a test later or something.

"Feels like a firetruck," he confirmed with a nod.

"And I have an ambulance, and a police car, and a garbage truck, and-" Xavier was going on and on as he continued to pile tiny vehicles into the much bigger one. He trailed off suddenly however when he spun around and saw Nini n the doorway. "Mama, can we bring out the big track? Ricky said we could!" he beamed.

The older male raised his hands in the air defensively, a sheepish grin on his face as his sightless eyes searched around pointlessly for Nini. "I said no such thing! I said, if your mom wants you to, then you can show me your race track."

"Can I show Ricky my race track?" Xavier asked, grabbing onto Nini's leg and tugging at her skinny jeans.

Nini was too amused by this whole situation, and slightly i. Awe by how well Ricky and Xavier seemed to be getting along. "Yes, of course, you can go get it but only for a few minutes, then it's bedtime for you." As soon as his mother finished speaking, Xavier cheered and ran away towards his bedroom, dropping a toy car on the way there.

Grinning, Nini went to sit on the floor next to Ricky, pressing her back against the couch.

"He's crazy about cars, i personally don't know much about them, I've never even owned one myself," she told him, brining her knees to her chest and watching Ricky roll the toy firetruck around on the carpet, looking like a kid on Christmas with that goofy grin on his face.

"Oh just wait until he's older. You won't hear the end of it then, it'll be all fast cars and freedom and picking up girls," Ricky grinned.

"Oh God, don't even say that," Nini groaned, hiding her face behind her hands, as if shielding herself from the thought of her little baby growing up too fast. "I'm struggling with sending him to preschool in September!"

"Sorry," Ricky said, unapologetically. "So you in college, him in preschool, that'll be fun... I'm assuming lots of late night homework sessions," he added with a playful grin.

"Oh yeah, he'll probably be helping me with my grammar by Christmas," Nini giggled.

They didn't get to chat for much longer before Xavier came running into the living room once more, this time with a big rectangular box that was about the same size as the little boy tugging it along. He dropped it onto the floor and pulled out a rolled mat, which was right and very easy for a two year old to drag around.

"Help!" he beamed at Ricky.

"Sweetie, I can help you," Nini said, looking the boy to the man.

"I want Ricky to help," Xavier said stubbornly, putting the rolled up mat in Ricky's unsuspecting lap. He looked surprised, but composed himself very quickly and planted his signature grin on his face.

"I can certainly give it a go," he said with a chuckle.

"There's a velcro thing you have to undo in the middle," Nini informed him.

His hands started to inch along the rubbery backside for a seconds, until he found what Nini was talking about. He pulled on the top part of the velcro, undoing the binding keeping the mat in a perfect cylinder.

"Hey Xavier, can you make sure you haven't got any cars lying around on the ground that'll get covered by this?" Ricky asked, getting to his knees and unfolding the mat completely.

Xavier scramble so fast to push away all of the cars and make room for the mat to go on the ground. Nini pushed the coffee table to make it a little easier to move around. Ricky spread out the mat onto the floor and Xavier grinned, already crawling onto it with his ambulance in one hand and an old Honda Civic in the other.

"It's a race track!" he beamed.

***

As far as dates went, Nini never would have expected to have so much fun sitting on the floor with her son and a grown man playing with toy cars, Xavier convinced her to let him stay up past his bedtime, but at 8:30 she had to put her foot down and haul his little butt to bed.

She told Ricky to make himself at home and that she'd be back quickly, and then she scurried off to change Xavier into his pyjamas and read him his bedtime story.

"Mama, I like Ricky," he said with a grin as Nini tucked him in.

"Yeah, he's very fun, isn't he?" she smiled, kissing the top of his heads.

"Can he come back tomorrow and play again?"

"Not tomorrow baby, but maybe another time," Nini told him.

"Next week?" Xavier asked hopefully, making Nini giggle.

"Maybe next week. Now get to sleep, otherwise you'll be a cranky little boy tomorrow," she said, standing up and easing her way out of the bedroom.

"Love you mama," Xavier whispered, sleepily.

"I love you too, my sweet boy," Nini smiled, leaving the door slightly ajar and making her way back to the living room and back to Ricky.

Only to be surprised when he wasn't there. All of the toy cars were back in their bucket and the mat was rolled up, leaning against the coffee table. Ellie was taking a nap there, so she knew he hadn't left.

She then heard the sound of utensils clinking against plates and her heart sank. Was he doing the dishes?

"You don't have to do that!" she exclaimed, making her way into the kitchen, finding him at the sink with his hands buried in soapy water.

"Don't worry about it, I'm almost done," he said, nonchalantly.

Her bare feet padded across the linoleum and she grabbed a tea towel from a drawer to start drying the dishes and put them away.

He washed and rinsed, she dried. They spoke sometimes, but mostly they just worked in silence. However, it wasn't the awkward silence of the first night they met. If anything, it was a silence filled with what could only be described as sexual tension. He was just standing there with his hair slightly tousled, and every time she reached for something on the drying rack, she'd try to time it perfectly so their fingers could brush up against each other's.

Whenever they did, she glanced at home and saw a mischievous grin on his face. Nini could feel the night wrapping up with every minute that ticked by however, and while she wasn't ready to ask him to stay. She still kind of hoped that he'd kiss her goodnight and that it'd take a really long time.