one time thing | ricky bowen ¹

two

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"nayeli! i really need my flat iron, are you done?" leighton yelled from her bedroom.

the sound of footsteps coming from the hallway and the door opening, appeared the older barrios sister.
"sorry, i tried to hurry but perfection doesn't come easy" nayeli said as she flattened her medium length dark brown hair and winking in the mirror in the room.

leighton rolled her eyes as a small smile cracked on her face. happy to see her sister making jokes after being in a dark and gloomy phase in the summer.

the two sisters quickly finished getting ready and headed for breakfast downstairs. as leighton walked down the stairs she heard a knock on the door. already knowing who it was.

opening the door, ricky smiled with his helmet and skateboard in both hands. "morning leigh" he walked in as she responded back with a 'good morning'.

after that night in the summer, the two friends decided to skip over the events that occurred. neither of them thinking it was worth being weird about. well— that's what leighton thought. thinking ricky was back to the nini phase after he told her they were on better terms.

they walked to the kitchen and ricky greeted nayeli who was shoving her face in the pancakes their mom had finished making.

"good morning ricky, surprised to see you here early. that's something new" liliana said with a chuckle as ricky put on a fake look of hurt. the family and best friend ate their food and bid goodbyes as it was time for the first day of school.

"bye mom! we'll see you later." leighton yelled grabbing her car keys, her being the one driving today. she asked ricky if he wanted a ride, but already knew he was going to catch up with big red and skateboard to the school. after he denied, the sisters took off to east high ready to take on junior and senior year.

—
"okay i'll see you at the first day assembly, i am going to clean out my locker that i failed to do last semester. let's hope i don't find anything dead." nayeli said as she fake gagged and waved at her sister and sauntered off.

leighton shivered at the thought of her sister finding an animal in her locker and started towards her own locker. which so happened to be near nini's who was in the middle of talking to her friend kourtney.

nini and leighton kind of got along, there wasn't any madness or hatred between the two girls, but nini still found herself slightly jealous of how ricky treated leighton anyways. some times throwing in side comments about how ricky might feel about leighton.

"nini! welcome back from camp, you have to tell me about it soon or something." the brunette said as she put her combination in and opened the door.

"of course, i was just telling kourtney how i met someone and he's a senior here at east high." nini stated with a dreamy smile before shoving the iphone in leighton's face with a shirtless picture of the senior ej caswell.

leighton's eyes widened at the mention of nini meeting someone else. she grabbed the phone and examined the picture as she heard kourtney and nini deciding she should make that photo her wallpaper.

"and what does you-know-who have to say about this?" kourtney asked as nini replied with "i'm waiting for the right time to tell him."

before she could question the situation when she thought ricky and nini were good and back on, she heard the voice of her best friend yell across the long hallway.

"yo nini whats good?!" she quickly handed the phone back to nini and proceeded to empty out her backpack as her best guy friends walked next to her. "how do you feel about right now?" kourtney once again questioned.

leighton stood silent, knowing it wasn't her place to say anything to ricky about the previous conversation. no matter how bad she wanted to. instead she greeted big red as the ex couple awkwardly spoke to each other.

"can we talk?" nini asked. and there it was, the cringe line that always lead to something bad.

"i met somebody else at camp." as nini said this, immediately leighton's eyes widened. almost shocked as she was so straight forward.

leighton sort of drowned out the next few words that were exchanged between the two. only hearing how confused ricky was and how he tried to defend himself. hearing kourtney putting some input in to the ex couples situation.

"come on ricky! you know what you did!" nini said clearly frustrated all over again. "or what you didn't do" this made ricky's face confused and ready to defend himself.

"ricky" leighton said but was quickly interrupted with the sound of the intercom coming on for the first day assembly in the gyms.

"i don't believe this, you're blowing me off for some theatre punk you met four weeks ago? at a lake?" ricky said as leighton once again said his name and yanking on his arm to calm him down.

"ricky you did kind of break up with her, how fair is it for you to be mad?" she said as she pulled his arm, looking at big red for help who remained silent just watching. ricky just shrugged her arm off of him, desperately trying to ignore the feeling it brought to him. wanting to focus on this situation.

"yeah, what she said. you dumped me" nini stated already over the whole conversation.

"it was a break. it wasn't a break-up!" he said but followed right after with nini declaring it was officially a break up now. "maybe now i won't be in the way of you and your best friend." the ex girlfriend said as she stared at leighton before the moment ended with kourtney popping off on big red and she and nini headed to the gym.

leighton was taken back and wondered what she meant by that statement. did she know about the kiss? thoughts popped in her head before bit her lip and forgot about it.

suddenly holding back her anger at how ricky could possibly pretend to be the victim when he did oddly end things with nini. "come on, we don't want to be late to this assembly on the first day back."

she grabbed ricky's backpack strap as he grumbled to big red at how things are going to go south now. unaware of what ricky really thought, and why he wanted things to work with nini. to get his mind off leighton barrios.

"it'll be okay ric, you have me and big red here to help you out. you know, like in the summer? when you helped me." leighton said, very closely missing the part about the kiss, that their third friend of the trio didn't have a clue about still.

ricky looked down at the girl and smiled while nodding. knowing she was right about her being there. as much as he wanted to, he couldn't make the mistake of doing what he did in the summer. he almost lost her once because of it and nini bringing up how she wouldn't be in the way anymore seemed to go over his mind.

the trio walked in to the gym all attempting to put smiles on their faces before going back to being relaxed on the first day.

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delia notes: i just can't wait to have better dialogue from leighton. it's only the first like five minutes of the episode. it's going to get better okay.