Not a Love Song | Ricky Bowen [1]

05

'' You look terrible like seriously EJ dont look at me I might gag."

"Coop if you don't shut the hell up I'm pushing you off the steps."

Sloane, EJ, Ashlyn, and Cooper all sat in the stairwell as they listened to EJ's rant about stealing Nini's phone and how he felt horrible.

Sloane sat on the steps behind Ashlyn while Cooper sat beside her on the steps behind EJ.

"Ok, but you do look terrible," Ashlyn said, briefly glancing up to look at her cousin from her laptop.

Sloane had her headphones on, soft music playing as she randomly doodled on her journal

"Yeah, I feel guilty."

"Wow, that's not an emotion I knew you had," Sloane muttered with a small smirk, EJ turned around to face the girl with a deadpan and she placed her hands up in surrender.

"Guess now I do."

"I never should have stolen her phone." EJ sighed.

"Ya think?" Cooper said.

"It's not the person I wanna be, it's not the person Nini thinks I am,'' EJ said. Sloane frowned slightly, EJ seemed to be beating himself up over this.

That's new.

Suddenly EJs eyes lit up and he lifted his head to face both girls, "you know what I should do?" EJ said.

"Apologize?" Sloane and Ashlyn responded in unison.

"I hate that the two of you became best friends, you guys keep ganging up on me. Also yes, but first I have to come clean. And if I'm gonna own up to this, I gotta do it in a way she hears." EJ said as he looked at the three of them seriously.

"What are you thinking?" Cooper asked cautiously with a frown.

"Hear me out. She wrote a song for Ricky so I should do that." EJ said.

Sloane let out a snort of laughter and continued to laugh as Ashlyn looked at EJ quizzically "you wanna do what now?"

"Write a song for Nini, to tell her the truth and say I'm sorry and show her how much she means to me- Sloane stop laughing, what is so funny," EJ said as he turned to face the girl.

Sloane shook her head and pointed her pen at the boy," EJ you have never even written a poem, what makes you think you could write a song."

"No but you and Ash write songs, so I was hoping you would help me out." EJ shrugged helplessly

"How fast of a turnaround are we talking about here, I'm studying for an AP science test tomorrow," Ashlyn said.

"Could you guys just loan me a song and ill just change the lyrics?" EJ asked, Sloane, scoffed and pinched his arm.

"That is just wrong on so many levels.'' Sloane rolled her eyes as the bell rang. The siblings and Ashlyn began to stand and head off to their next class but EJ remained seated on the steps.

"I'll send you a track I'm playing with. It's not my style, I was just playing with the software." Ashlyn said as she walked away to her class.

They all began to go their separate ways but Sloane lingered behind for a while," EJ I know you really like her. But just make sure you sing from the heart ok? Don't say sorry just for show, bandaids don't fix bullet holes." Sloane said, EJ just nodded mutely and Sloane headed to class.

🎧🎧

The Richards siblings had never been to Ashlyn's house before but it was lovely. A big warm cozy house that Sloane instantly fell in love with.