Nini&Ricky post second break up

It all happened so fast, Carlos wasn’t entirely sure how he ended up at the skateboard park with Ricky Bowen of all people. Well - if he was to walk foot near this park, it would most likely be with Ricky of all kids, the only other person he knew that skateboarded was Red; and he had barely ever held a conversation with Red before.

Observing the area, it was definitely different from the dance studio Carlos was used to - he barely even knew this park existed until Ricky brought it up. He was excited to be exploring a new hobby? Sport? Talent? Honestly, he was entirely unsure of what skateboarding even was, he just knew it contained a board with wheels.

Minus all the gaps in his knowledge, Carlos was excited to try something new out - he didn’t expect to pick up a new interest, or to be good at it. But it seemed rare he did anything other than dance, or something else theater related, and now he stood in a skateboard park watching Ricky show off the tricks he knew.

“I am pretty sure this is going to end in my death - but let’s try it!” Carlos spoke unsure, he really did want to try it, but all the terrible endings that could occur played in his head. But he was Carlos Rodriguez, and he’d be dammed if he stepped back from a challenge.

“Yeah, alright let’s try this! Just be careful, please?”

Carlos clearly wasn’t the guy who usually hung out at a skate park, but Ricky thought it would be fun to show him a little glimpse into his world. Carlos had, after all, been teaching him about dance and their own world for a while now, so Ricky wanted to return the favour.

“Psh. no one will die. I can’t explain that to Miss Jenn and the rest of the gang.” He then chuckled as he picked up the helmet and handed it to the other, safety first, really. Besides, Carlos was a dancer, so he had great balance, which definitely came in handy with skateboarding. He wouldn’t just fall off the board right away, and the rest? Yeah they could figure that out later.

“Of course, I wouldn’t let you hurt yourself.” He then smiled, holding out his hands for the other to take. Once that was done, Ricky nodded towards the skateboard. “You just step one in, like you’d go up on a step. One foot, then hold the balance and the other follows. Once that’s done we’ll get to the moving.” he explained, “Alright, ready?” He then added, holding onto the other’s hands, while he used one of his feet to block the wheels, so the skateboard wouldn’t move before Ricky allowed it to.

“film, television and the theatre has had the most epic confessions of love. it is a tell tale of an amazing actor if you can nail a stellar romantic admission.” miss jenn was practically beaming. “your assignment today is to improv a fake confession of love to another person. more specifically, someone you pull from that hat.”

“this is so dumb!” ej called out to miss jenn, crossing his arms as an added sign of disapproval. he wasn’t the only one, the class murmuring about the exercise she had just assigned. he was suspicious about this lesson to begin with, as it began with a video montage of famous confessions of love from the fault in our stars, friends, wicked, casablanca, beauty and the beast, hell – even star wars was included. it was evident where the lesson was headed, and though ej had no problem assuming a character, he was more upset that they had to choose names from a hat. it was as if the fates had it out for him, because of course he pulled the slip reading ‘ricky bowen’, probably the one person he really did not want to do this exercise with.

now, ricky and him were… friends. from taking him out for ice cream, ricky attending his water polo games, to texting each other everyday — they were basically the very definition of the word. there was just one problem. ej’s stomach did funny things whenever he was around the curly-haired boy. he still didn’t necessarily understand why. he was over their feud, nor was he ever annoyed at the other… could it be jealousy? there was no way. nini was a friend, but no longer someone he liked in that way. not being able to understand his feelings frustrated ej to no end, because he genuinely enjoyed spending time with the other.

they were the final pair and after what seemed like a lifetime, it was finally their turn. with a heavy sigh, ej made his way to center stage, glancing quickly at ricky opposite him. “honestly, let’s just get this over with.” he looked down at the slip in his hand, and couldn’t help but smile reading the name again. he took another deep breath as he looked up, locking onto ricky’s eyes before taking a step toward him.

“y’know there’s just something about you that makes my heart do flips in my chest. maybe it’s the way you smile at me when you’re happy, or maybe the way you seem to genuinely care about my games, even though i know you have no idea what’s going on. maybe it’s your voice when you’re singing and humming randomly in my car, or maybe it’s in your laugh when you’re actually laughing at my cheesy jokes.” ej paused, a smile tugging on his lips ever so slightly before falling. “or maybe it’s that i hate to see you sad, and even though you never tell me, i can feel it. maybe it’s the way i want to protect you from the world, and shield you from ever feeling hopeless again. maybe i don’t want you to ever feel alone, and maybe i want to be the one to make sure that that feeling lasts forever.” ej took another step towards ricky, closing the gap between them, as he placed one hand on ricky’s neck, gazing fondly at the other. “maybe i love you. wait – actually, that’s probably the only thing i know, ricky. i love you.”

the moment held on, maybe much too long for a drama assignment, but it wasn’t even a couple seconds till their fellow drama club members were atop their feet praising ej for his scene. even miss jenn had a look of shock. ej’s hand dropped to his side, a sheepish smile now painting his face, tints of pink coming through his cheeks. “hey, sorry.” he whispered to the other, before walking back to his seat.

maybe ej sort of understood his feelings now. and maybe he wasn’t acting at all.

The thing was: Ricky had been through a lot of weird theatre exercises during the past couple of months. He wasn’t even sure what half of them were for, but this one? Well it made sense in its own kind of way. Not that he understood why they had to come up with their own love confessions. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to play out scenes from movies? Like Titanic, or something? Or maybe Miss Jenn wanted them to be authentic, but how could they be authentic if they weren’t really in love?

Honestly, this whole thing was giving him a bit of a headache, and it wasn’t helping that EJ had somehow managed to pull him from that godforsaken hat. Surely, they had gotten along pretty well over the last couple of days, and Ricky had to admit that he enjoyed seeing EJ’s games and going for ice cream afterwards, but still. 

“Right.” He managed, positioning himself opposite the other boy. He had no idea what EJ was going to come up with, but Ricky was sort of glad that it wasn’t him who had to do the talking. Ricky wasn’t exactly good at talking about his own feelings, and without having a script he wouldn’t even call himself a particularly good actor.

So he left that to EJ, who started talking. For a moment all Ricky focused on were the words coming from the other boy’s lips. EJ was a great actor, but there was just something about the way he spoke that made Ricky’s heart beat against his ribcage harder than it was supposed to. Those were all things they had actually done, and he knew what EJ was saying wasn’t real, but it was getting harder and harder to remind himself of that. 

It was all an act, but then why were those things he wanted to hear? It made his head spin to the point that EJ’s hand on his neck was almost too much. He took in a shaky breath, and was only pulled from his trance when everyone started clapping their hands in appreciation.

“Uh...yeah...no. It’s cool.” he eventually managed as they went back to their seats. Miss Jenn was talking, but Ricky wasn’t really listening. “That was...great. I mean...yeah.” At some point class hand ended, and he had managed to grab his things. Turning to look at EJ the eventually managed a coherent sentence. “Okay, but I do know what goes on at your games. I did some reading,” 

“Do you have a second? I want to give you something.” Nini asked Ricky. It was still before their call time, so theoretically, all he had was time, but Nini was aware how stressful pre-show could be and that sometimes, you just wanted to be by yourself.

But Nini also wanted to get this out of the way so she could focus on the show. Not that she was the lead but still, she needed to get her head in the game. Wrong musical but the point stands.

She tapped her fingers nervously against the neatly wrapped box in her hands. Nini took gift giving very seriously. Gifts were an opportunity to say “I know who you are” and, in Nini’s opinion, should show thought and effort. She normally liked to give things that were personalized or something she had made, like a song, or a craft of some sort. But gifts for the end of the show were tricky because it firstly had to relate to the show and also by the time she got around to thinking about end of show gifts, she was so busy that she didn’t have the time to really make things. And her wrap gift for Ricky at the end of Beauty and the Beast was particularly hard because, well, they had just broken up a few weeks ago and while things weren’t nearly as weird or awkward as they had been at the start of the year (they were actually still friends this time around), it still felt like a lot of pressure and if he wasn’t the Lumiere to her Babette, she wouldn’t worry about it at all but he was Lumiere and she was Babette so… And Nini’s not proud of it, but she took the easy way out: she got him one of those Funko Pop figures of Lumiere. Creatively, not her best, she knows.

She handed him the wrapped box, and fought back the sudden surge of anxiety she felt as he got ready to open it.

The whole rehearsal process and the show had gone by in the blink of an eye. Surely, it hadn’t been easy, even though he wasn’t the lead this time around, but still. Nini and him breaking up this time around had been less dramatic, something he was pretty thankful for, but it had still been a little sad. They were still friends, of course, which was great, but losing a part of his life that had been so important? It wasn’t easy. Especially with the whole EJ thing going on, he wasn’t even sure what it was, and while he wanted to talk to Nini about it he didn’t feel like this was the right moment, not after their break up had only been a couple of weeks ago.

“Of course,” His lips curved into a smile at her words. He wasn’t fully in costume yet, which meant he could still use his hands to unwrap the present she had given him. When Ricky realised just what it was, he let out a chuckle. “It’s perfect, Nini.” It would be something to remember this production by, which had gone by with significantly less drama than the last one. Something Ricky was definitely thankful for.

“Wait,” He then added, moving to his bag to pull out his own present for her. They had definitely thought alike, because Ricky’s present for her was much the same, only that he had the funko of her character custom made, because there wasn’t really a Babette funko to begin with. “Not to brag, but I’m pretty sure you’ll like it,” He then laughed, because they had definitely been thinking alike in this department.