The Blind Date || Rini AU

13. The park

When they arrived at the park, Ricky sat the kids down for a moment so that he could text Nini and let her know he'd arrived. When his screen reader read his text back to him and he didn't catch any typos, he pressed send and spun around on his heels to face the sound of the two excited voice chatting animatedly behind him.

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"Alright, Nini and Xavier should be here soon! Until them what do you guys wanna do first?" Ricky asked excitedly.

Alex decided he wanted to go play on the swings, so Ricky and Maya followed him.

"You can go play too, you know? You don't have to stick by me all the time," Ricky pointed out to Maya, who'd latched onto his hand again. "Just don't wander off too far, you know the rules," he added.

The little girl shrugged, "I'm okay."

While at home she could be very loud, excitable and opinionated, in crowds she was a lot different. Ricky could tell the idea of spending time with Nini and Xavier was bothering her a little.

"Come on, what's up?" Ricky asked, crouching so he was down at her level. "Don't you wanna go play? You seemed all excited earlier," he frowned.

"I just wanna stay here with you," she said defiantly.

There was a short silence while Ricky mulled this new development.

"Alright, well you can stay with me as long as you want," he told her, reaching a careful hand out to find her shoulder, which he then proceeded to give a comforting squeeze. "Let's go find your brother and make sure he's not getting in any trouble."

Ricky stood up straight and adjusted his right hand around Ellie's harness, but before he had a chance to take a step forward, the familiar voice of a little boy echoed from a padding of feet behind him, "Ricky!"

Xavier ran into his legs and hugged them very tight, not wanting to let go. The man instantly smiled as he let o of Maya's hand o turn around and reach down to pick up the boy. "Hey little man! How you doing?" Ricky asked as he gave him a hug.

"Good!" Xavier replied, fisting his shirt.

Ricky then realised that he hadn't heard the boy's mother yet. "Nini!" he called out.

"I'm here! I'm here," Nini said panting as she ran over to Ricky. "Xavier! You can't just run off like that! You made mommy very scared," she scolded.

The little boy frowned, hiding his face in Ricky's neck, "Sowwy."

"It's okay, just don't do it again, okay?"

"Okie," Xavier replied.

Nini sighed. "Sorry about that," she said as she gave him a brief, one-armed hug and then moved back a pace.

He regretted not hugging her back or even kissing her, but he didn't want to do anything in front of Xavier, not knowing what Nini was comfortable with and what she'd said to her son about the relationship.

"Who's dat?" the little boy asked and Ricky assumed he was referring to Maya.

"That's my niece, Maya," Ricky said.

Maya didn't speak but instead, Ricky felt her grab his jeans and brush up against his leg as she shuffled her feet slightly.

"It's nice to meet you Maya," Nini beamed at her. "I really like your shirt! Do you like Harry Potter?" she added. Underneath her coat, Maya was wearing a white t-shift that said Mischief Managed in big cursive letters.

Maya nodded.

"You know I can't see your side of the conversation if you just nod your head, right Maya? You're gonna have to speak if you don't want me to think Nini's a complete lunatic talking to herself," Ricky said with his playful grin.

Nini laughed softly.

"Okay," Maya murmured.

"I like Harry Potter too!" Xavier piped in.

"Who's your favourite character?" Ricky asked.

"Dumbledore!" Xavier grinned as both of his fists raised excitedly in the air, almost hitting the man holding him in the face.

"He does have a pretty a cool beard, doesn't he?" Ricky agreed.

Xavier nodded.

Ricky remained waiting expectantly for a response.

Nini giggled, "He just nodded his head. Did you hear what Ricky said, Xavier? You have to speak to him if you say something because he can't see your body language," she explained.

"Oopsie, I forgot," Xavier said sheepishly.

Having spotted the new arrivals, Alex was quick to come back from swinging on swing set. There was another short round of introductions before the two boys scampered off to play on the playground, completely uninterested in what the adults had to say and already behaving like they were best friends.