The Blind Date || Rini AU

12. Traffic

It was almost 8:30 and Xavier was fast asleep, she carried her phone and laptop into the living room and plopped down on the couch, deciding that tonight she wouldn't do any homework.

She was going to watch a movie on Netflix instead.

Too tired to clean up after dinner, the dishes were still in the sink and a lot of Xavier's toys were littering the living room. Nini stared at the mess from the couch and wondered if she'd ever be rich enough to afford a maid.

She put on one of her favourite movies to watch whenever she just wanted to feel fun and dorky. Rapunzel and Flynn Ryder appeared on the screen and soon enough every thing she had to was long forgotten.

She wasn't too far into the movie when her phone started to vibrate. She picked it up off the coffee table and saw Ricky's name.

She answered without even thinking about it.

"Hey Nini," Ricky greeted her, his voice on the other end immediately causing her face to break into a smile.

"Hey! What's up?" She asked as she paused the movie. She crossed her legs under her woollen blanket and snuggled into her pillow.

"So I've got my niece and nephew all day Saturday, I was wondering if you and Xavier might wanna come hang out too? I'm not sure what we're gonna do yet, probably go to the park or something like that, but Alex is the same age as Xavier so they could play together."

"Yeah, that'd be great!"

"We could have dinner at my place afterward," he suggested

"Oh? Are you gonna show off your cooking skills Mr Bowen?" she smirked.

"Sure am," Ricky replied. "Is Xavier a fussy eater or do I have free reign? I know his love for pizza but that's pizza."

"Oh, um," Nini said thinking of her son. "He's not fond of avocados, but I'm sure he'll eat whatever you make, don't worry about it," she beamed.

"Great," Ricky said and she heard his hands clap together once. He seemed a little further away from the phone too, so she wondered if he had her on speaker.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm just working on homework," he said.

"Do you have class on Fridays?"

"Yeah, just a morning one, I'm free the rest of the day after that. Do you?" he asked, turning the question back on her.

"No, I'm off on Fridays," she told him.

"Mhm, lucky you, you get to sleep in, or... as much sleeping in as you can get with a kid," he chuckled. "Anyway, I'll leave you to do your thing, and I'll get back to mine," he added.

"Okay," Nini nodded, not quite ready to let him go just yet.

"Goodnight Nini," he said.

"Goodnight," Nini replied and waited for him to hang up first.

She put her movie back on, but it was a little hard to concentrate with Ricky fresh on her mind.

***

Ricky stood in his sister Lauren's house with a bouncing five and a half year old girl in his arms and a guide dog sitting patiently on his right.

Maya was a cute kid, always ready for the next big adventure. She was born early and still today remained quite small, just barely making it into what was considered average for the height and weight of a child her age, but what she lacked in size she made up for in energy.

"Where are we going today Uncle Ricky?" she asked in her bubbly little voice.

"It's a surprise," Ricky reply dramatically.

"What kind of surprise?" Maya asked in excitement.

Maya looked up at her grinning little brother and watched him interact with their mother from her crouched position in front of Alex, who had remnants of his breakfast still smeared all over his face.

"You're not feeding them junk food all day just to have them come home tonight and be hyper, I'm warning you Richard," Lauren said sternly, pointing a finger at his chest.

"Oh come on, have faith in me," Ricky huffed. "Would I do that to you? Would I really do that to you?" he asked.

Lauren snorted, "Yes".

"Yes," Maya echoed.

Okay, I'd totally do that to you, but not today! Swear on my life," ricky said, but Lauren wasn't going to be holding her breath. She fully anticipated having two very hyper children after her catering event was over last night.

Really though, all joking aside, Lauren wasn't worried.

Some might not trust a blind man to take off with two toddlers to run around the streets of New York, but she's known him her whole life and practically helped raise him. He was responsible and very self-sufficient, and whoever said anything about her brother could just go fuck themselves.

After making sure the kids were all set, Ricky gave his sister a one-armed huh and told her he was going to behave himself, then proceeded to steer the kids out of the door and onto the front porch.

"We're not listening to mom, right? We're gonna get junk food?" Maya asked.

Ricky smirked, "Of course we're gonna get junk food."

Maya sighed with relief, "Thank God,"

"I really want ice cweam," Alex piped in.

"Make sure you're holding your brother's hand, okay Maya?" Ricky warned. As he had to walk around holding onto Ellie's harness, he only had one free hand. He'd resorted to holding Alex's hand and trusted Maya enough to hold onto Alex's other hand not stray too far away from him.

"I am!" Maya said quickly.

"She is, don't worry Uncle Ricky, I won't let go of her hand," Alex grinned.

They walked for a while, the park wasn't too far away, but they did have two intersections to cross before getting there. At the first, Ricky stopped at a red light.

"Red light," he said to Alex and Maya, making sure they were both at a full stop too.

"How do you know that?" Maya asked him, glancing up at the red light preventing them from moving forward and frowning.

"Yeah, how do you know dat?" Alex repeated.

"I listen to the traffic. The traffic parallel to us is stopped and the traffic in front of us is going ahead," Ricky replied.

"Ohhh, that's smart," Maya nodded.

They crossed the street together only when the light turned green and the traffic parallel to them started to move once more. They did the same for the next intersection and then only had to walk a block before Alex and Maya grinned at each other.

"I know where we're going," Maya told Ricky.

"Oh? You do, do you?"

"We're going to the park?" she asked, and when Ricky confirmed it both her and Alex began to cheer excitedly.

"You're gonna get to meet another little boy too, him and his mom will be coming to hang out with us," Ricky said with a wide grin, glad that the kids were excited for what he'd planned. "He's the same age as you, Alex."

"What's his name?" Alex asked.

"Xavier," Ricky replied.

Maya then exclaimed, wanting to feel included in the conversation, "I have a boy in my class named Xavier! He's really funny!"