what more can i say | rini au

30.

as nini wakes up, she's reminded of one of the first days of summer, when she opened her eyes and saw ricky right there in front of her and waiting not so patiently for her to get ready.

but this time he's curled up next to her instead, and as her eyes open and she sees him laying there fast asleep, she notices every little detail as she takes her time to truly study him- the way his soft eyelashes lay against his face, the upturned curl of his lips as he smiles even asleep, and god the way those lips had felt against hers.

she was feeling quite blissful herself as she remembers what brought him here to her house, to her room, to her bed.

she's not going to let herself think about their blowout argument of the previous day, just focusing on how absolutely happy she was to love and be loved by ricky bowen. by her very best friend.

she inches closer to him, laying her head on his chest as she exhaled softly, not quite yawning but definitely tired.

the two had stayed up incredibly late after all.

it was all innocent, because of course it was. and nini was so entirely at peace in his arms.

she'll deal with telling her moms about the trellis being broken later, if they hadn't already noticed when they arrived home anyway.

she'll deal with telling ricky he should get his ankle looked at later too. he did take a pretty decent fall after all, and as much as she let him tell her he was fine, especially given she was quite distracted by what he'd said after that fall, she was still worried about him.

none of that was important right now though.

she presses a gentle, butterfly-light kiss to his jaw as she settles into his side, eyes shutting again.

this was true bliss.

she's not worried about telling their friends or  her moms yet about things between them, nor what she would say about it. they hadn't made any real determinations as far as relationship status last night. it was just pure happiness and love between them in their words over the late hours, soft whispers between gentle kisses that seemed to say welcome home.

though considering all that's happened, she feels pretty safe in assuming ricky would be happy if she said she wanted him to be her boyfriend.

ricky really would be her very first boyfriend... just like she always dreamed he'd be.

he's genuinely turned everything around again, put a smile on her face and given her all she could want. she's pretty sure nothing could make this better.

but then he's awake and she hears that low scratchy voice, deep from sleep... "good morning, lovely"

nini's honestly not positive that she hasn't died and gone to heaven.

"good morning." she beams, shifting to face him properly.

"that was probably a weird thing to say wasn't it?" he asks with a laugh, but he's smiling genuinely.

"it feels a bit weird from you, yeah... but i did kinda like it. it's pretty nice to hear you love me." she tells him, blushing a bit at her own small confession.

"well i do love you. and i'm never going to stop telling you now; i hope you know what can of worms you've opened up here neens because you can't put it back in the box now... i love you." he grins, lifting his chin and then reaching over to still her jaw. "i love you. i love you. i love you. i love you." he pecks her gently on the lips between the little statements and nini cannot believe this is real.