The Blind Date || Rini AU

19. Meeting the family

Silently, Nini listened to the two boys talking and she couldn't help but grin happily at just how easily it is for Ricky and Xavier to interact with each other. However, at the same time, the knots in her stomach seemed to tighten uncomfortably the closer they got to their destination. She started to drum her thumbs restlessly on the steering wheel.

"You okay?" Ricky asked after a few seconds, settling a comforting hand over hers. She could feel his calloused fingertips and yet still there was this sort of softness about his touch that made her feel so at ease.

She took a shaky breath, glancing over her shoulder at the number printed on side of a house, just a few digits from Ricky's Mom's house. They were very close now, "I'm just nervous."

Ricky chuckled, "You'll be fine."

"Yeah, mama, you'll be fine!" Xavier piped in.

Ricky's Mom lived just outside of New York on a block of land.

At first the view of the house is blocked by two large trees, but as Nini drives down the winding driveway, she is met with a beautiful home that seemed to fit more into the twentieth century than the twenty-first.

Nini was absolutely in love with the house's rustic charm. She could only imagine how pretty it must be in the summertime when the grass was actually green and the garden was in full bloom. She could faintly see a big, beautiful sycamore tree behind the house, bigger than the two trees out front.

"You grew up here?" she asked Ricky.

"All my life, right up until I was eighteen," he answered with an easy smile, already getting out of the car so that he could get Ellie from the backseat. He added with a playful smirk, "I've got the donuts, you get the kid."

They barely had time to make it up the front steps and knock on the door before it swung open and a tall woman came bustling out. She was in her mid-sixties with fairly light hair that fell just below her shoulders, warm brown eyes and a bright smile that seemed to light up her face. She was very pretty.

"We come bearing don-" Ricky began to speak, holding the box of donuts in one hand and Ellie's harness in the other. However, before he was able to finish his sentence, his mom cut him off.

"You must be Nini! I've heard so much about you!" Ricky blushed at that comment looking anywhere but at Nini as she looked at him in question. "It's so nice to finally meet you, I'm Lynne!" she beamed excitedly.

The young mother turned back to Lynne and smiled, replying shyly, "Nini, hi."

"Hello to you too mom," Ricky said finally, a low chuckle leaving his lips.

"Okay, well I think that's enough lolly gagging, why don't you all come inside?" Ricky's mother ushered them in and quickly took the box of donuts from her son. "And who might you be?" she asked Xavier.

He was standing quietly, just a few inches behind Nini, peering up at The woman with big brown eyes that could almost be described as shy. Unlike Nini, Xavier didn't usually have any issues with social interactions, so this scene was definitely a little uncharacteristic for him.

"I'm Xavier and I'm going to be three years old soon!" the little boy said proudly, stepping out in front of his mother, holding up three little fingers. Nini beamed at her little social butterfly, so proud.

"Are you now?" Lynne laughed.

"Yep!" Xavier said with a grin before turning around so that he was now facing Ricky and and Nini. "Can i pwease go pway wif Alex and Maya now?" he asked, but we wasn't talking to Nini. His little fist was tugging on the leg of Ricky's jeans and his big brown eyes we're looking up at him expectantly.