Chapter Text
Gina figures it all out not two days later, after Nini once again sends the same boy to pick up the cake instead of coming to get it herself.
All it takes is driving Ashlyn to EJ’s house for their family fourth of July party to realize.
“I’m choosing the music,” Ashlyn decides immediately upon entering her car.
Gina shrugs, not minding too much. “Sure, just make sure the cake doesn’t fall.”
She’s three songs in when something startles her out of her usual autopilot. The person singing the song. The voice. She knows that voice.
Suddenly, her head is spinning.
“Woah, you’re drifting,” Ashlyn says, eyeing the parked row of cars out the passenger window, and Gina shakes her head, adjusting back into the lane before her sudden revelation results in the death of them both.
She’s definitely heard this song before, at least through the wall between her and Ashlyn’s room. But she had never taken the time to think about the person singing.
“Hey Ash,” she asks nonchalantly, even if every part of her is shrieking inside. “Who is this?”
“Gina Porter, there’s no way you’ve never heard of Nina Salazar-Roberts.”
She blinks a few times. Nina Salazar-Roberts. Nina .
How could she be so stupid?
“She just dropped a new album a few weeks ago. Which is crazy , considering she’s in the middle of a world tour. I’m so excited to see how she changes her set in the upcoming US leg, actually! It’s going to start here, on her 21st birthday! I lowkey want to see her so bad , but the only tickets left are like, resale tickets that are a, like, a few hundred dollars.”
“Oh, really,” Gina says, feeling light-headed. She does her very best to keep her face neutral, but considering that the past three weeks are suddenly becoming clear.
Nini is Nina Salazar-Roberts, a well-established singer-songwriter with two albums and a world tour under her belt.
Her party two weeks ago was not her birthday party, but a big album-release party , most likely. Important people had eaten her meticulously crafted cake.
(That thought makes her a little excited.)
When they arrive at EJ’s house, she excuses herself to the bathroom, if only to immediately text Nini about it, face sweating, knees weak, fingers trembling.
Gina: by any chance is your government name nina?
She waits. One minute passes, and then two, and then five, and still no response. It’s fine. It makes sense. Nini’s at a party right now. She has her own life. Even if she normally responds instantly.
A knock on the door makes her jump. She slips her phone in her pocket, suddenly feeling heavy with the burden of having to keep this secret.
She knows a famous pop star. She’s been flirting with a famous pop star for the better part of a month. She’s confessed to liking a famous pop star. Not that it matters to Gina, but how would Ashlyn react?
“Gina, does the cake need to be refrigerated?” EJ yells.
“No!” she calls through the door. “Leave it on the counter! It’ll be fine for a few hours!”
“Okay! Please turn on the exhaust fan if you’re taking a shit. I don’t need you stinking up my bathroom!”
Gina rolls her eyes and opens the door.
EJ blinks at her. “Oh, hi. You look pissed.”
Gina rearranges her face into one of utter neutrality. “No I don’t.” And then she pushes past him.
Admittedly, it’s a little childish to mope around just because Nini hasn’t responded to her text immediately, but her first sign that something is wrong when she checks her phone 30 minutes later is the read receipt.
by any chance is your government name nina? Read 12:48 PM
Gina stares at her phone disbelievingly. She’d held herself off from checking her texts for an torturous 30 minutes, and all she got was left on read?
She shoves the phone in her pocket, turning back to her friends, trying to swallow the feeling of slipping, like she’s stuck in the middle of a steep playground slide, clinging onto the sides because she’s scared of how fast she’ll go when she lets go. But all the while, she’s inching toward the bottom. She might cry when she hits the bottom.
Maybe Nini’s just formulating a response. Thinking what to say now that Gina knows her biggest secret, why she doesn’t show her face. And she’s at a party, so there’s no time for her to slip away and explain.
They’re good. They’re probably still good.
And for now, out of sight, out of mind. (Not really, but she can distract herself.)
Gina throws herself back into enjoying time with her friends and their family because if anything, EJ is most likely richer than Nini, and it’s not every day she gets to casually eat fancy finger foods.
She manages to keep herself from looking at her screen for another hour, and by then there’s still no response. In fact, it gets worse because the read receipt now reads Delivered .
by any chance is your government name nina? Delivered
Nini hadn’t blocked her, but she had taken the time to turn off her read receipts.
Fuck .
It’s over.
Back home that night, Gina wonders how long she should wait before she sends Nini a follow up.
Maybe something like hey, do you wanna talk about it? or maybe nothing’s changed, you’re still nini to me .
A week, she settles on eventually. She’ll give Nini a week to respond before she follows up. Seven whole days should be more than enough for Nini to process that Gina’s discovered her secret and formulate a response.
A week to get over it and return to how she was before if Nini never talks to her again.
At six days, Gina loses all hope. The abrupt shift from talking to Nini almost every day to radio silence for almost a week had thrown her so hard she still felt like she was reeling from it. Some days, she’s still unlocking her phone before she fully wakes up, eager to text Nini good morning, stranger only to remember.
It always drops like a stone, her heart. Drops into her stomach and sits there, burning until she pulls herself out of bed and forces herself to be productive.
“Morning,” Ashlyn says as Gina pads blearily into the living room, feeling miserable for the sixth day in a row. She has a fleeting thought that she’s terribly pathetic for all of this, and then reminds herself that she still has one more day to internally cry about it.
Gina flops onto the couch next to her friend without saying a word.
“So you’ve been weird this past week,” she starts when Gina does nothing but stare moodily at the black TV screen in front of her.
“Time of the month,” she grumbles, letting her head drop onto Ashlyn’s shoulder and closing her eyes.
“Liar, that was two weeks ago.”
Gina opens her eyes, mildly impressed. “You track my periods?”
Ashlyn’s face is just out of her line of vision, but she can practically see her rolling her eyes. “I can see whenever my supply of menstrual products decreases all of a sudden and I suddenly need to buy more.”
Gina makes a noncommittal noise. Her gaze lands on Ashlyn’s phone, which displays an ebay listing. It takes her a few seconds to realize that she’s scrolling through resale tickets for Nini’s show in Salt Lake City in two days.
Her heart pangs.
The other girl sighs. “You’d think that scalpers would get desperate in the days leading up to the concert. I’ve been watching these for months , and they’re hardly going down.”
“Maybe they know that people will buy them last second,” Gina mumbles, somehow feeling worse than she did when she woke up. “They probably drop them after the concert starts.”
“There’s VIP meet-and-greet tickets! Those aren’t even worth anything after the meet-and-greet starts.”
“Meet-and-greet? I thought artists didn’t do those anymore.” Gina sits up, some semblance of sane thought actually coalescing in her mind.
“Yeah,” Ashlyn says, gawking at a listing that is over a thousand dollars. “What’d you say if you could meet her?”
“I don’t know,” she says, throat closing a little. “I don’t know much about her,” she lies.
“I think I’d show her my songs,” Ashlyn continues, oblivious to Gina’s internal turmoil next to her. “She’s such an incredible songwriter, I’m sure she would give me life-changing advice.”
“Mhm,” Gina says, standing up. “Excuse me for a second.”
A lightbulb is pinging in her head, and for the first time in a week she feels excitement rush through her. Ashlyn looks at her, bewildered, as she jogs back into her room.
Gina opens her laptop and then pulls out the envelopes of cash Nini’s friend had dropped off every time he came to pick up an order. It’s definitely enough.
She winces as she purchases two tickets, knowing her bank account will take a hit. But it’s okay, because technically Nini’s the one paying for these tickets with the absurd sums of tips she had gotten for her cakes.
With a deep sigh and budding hope in her chest, she leans back against her desk chair as the purchase is confirmed.
Hopefully, it’s not a scammer.
Thankfully, the tickets are transferred to her quickly since they’re so close to the event.
What would Nini even think? she wonders as she looks into Ashlyn’s room, ready to surprise her. But she shakes the thought. Ghosting her for a week is an asshole move, even if she hadn’t known what to say. Nini could have at least explained that she didn’t want to talk to her anymore, but she had completely disappeared, with no indication she’d even cared except for the fact that she’d taken the effort to turn off her read receipts.
“Woah, Gina, why are you lurking there like a creep?”
Gina jumps, shaking herself out of her reverie to abashedly see Ashlyn standing in front of her. The other girl raises her eyebrows.
It takes her a few seconds to find words. “I… well… I did something.”
“What did you do?”
“I thought you might like it,” Gina says quickly, and then turns her phone screen to face the redhead.
She waits with bated breath as Ashlyn’s gaze flickers over the words on her phone, sees the moment it registers on her face, biting back a smile.
Eventually, her jaw drops and she meets Gina’s hopeful eyes. “You got us tickets to see Nina Salazar-Roberts? How in the world?”
“I know someone,” she says cryptically. Technically, she knows the one, but well, semantics.
“Oh my God,” Ashlyn says, jumping a few times before she pulls Gina into a hug. “Oh my God. I don’t know how you managed to afford them or how you got them, but that’s amazing! You’re amazing! I love you so much.”
“It’s for tomorrow,” she says, grinning. “You free tomorrow night? Delta Center.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter because I’m going no matter what!”
Gina laughs; Ashlyn’s glee is infectious, and for the first time, she feels like maybe she can rescue this situation.
Gina didn’t think she could like Nini more, but when they arrive at the arena after a car ride blasting just her songs and almost missing two stop signs in a daze, she felt wholly and utterly enamored by the girl.
If Nini was a tragedy in the kitchen, it was because all her cooking talent had converted to her musicianship. In her head, Gina had already begun choreographing routines to her songs, stunned by the depth of emotion Nini could somehow convey in her words, music, and voice.
There’s already a line forming outside, but Gina leads Ashlyn over to the side, to another, smaller line.
“Wait, isn’t the line over there? This is the VIP line.”
Gina allows herself a grin and continues walking forward.
“This is the VIP- Oh my God, you got us VIP tickets. Gina, what the heck?” Ashlyn jogs to keep up, having stumbled to a stop in shock.
“I got us VIP tickets,” is all she says, laughing as the other girl’s eyes bulge in surprise, jumping up and down, if only to embody the anticipation currently streaking through Gina’s veins.
Someone scans her phone and then hands them passes to wear around their necks, and then they’re taken inside to another line. Another person, presumably a member of Nini’s team, explains to them that they get a few private minutes to talk to Nini and take pictures with her.
“Let’s be last,” she tells Ashlyn as the line continues to extend behind them, and while she gives Gina a weird look, she doesn’t object, letting the people behind them go ahead.
Half an hour in, Gina is a ball of nerves. Having let other people pass, they had moved forward, but the line in front of them still stretched at least another half hour, possibly longer, in front of them. An intoxicating mixture of anticipation and dread pools in her stomach. She’s had more than enough time to plan out what to say, but somehow, she feels like it’s not enough.
Nini’s the master with words here, not her. She’s the confessional songwriter known for writing relatable music. Maybe she should sing one of her songs. No, ew, that would be awful. She trashes the thought immediately.
“Gina, are you okay?” Ashlyn asks eventually.
Gina glances up at her friend, practically vibrating with apprehension. “Hm? What? Oh, yeah, yeah, of course.”
“You look more nervous than I do, and I’m the super fan here!”
She shakes her head. “Yeah, I’m just feeling a little funny,” she gets out. “I’ll be fine in a bit. Stomach problems.”
Technically, it’s not a lie. The anxiety is tearing her apart, swirling nauseatingly in her gut, pushing her heart into her throat. If the line doesn’t move faster, she might vomit or pass out. Maybe even both.
“Do you want to go sit down then? Do you need to use the bathroom, maybe? Maybe we can ask- HEY MISTER?”
“Ash,” she hisses, dragging Ashlyn’s arm down from where she’d raised to hail a security guard. “Stop it. I’m fine. Oh my God, you’re drawing attention to us. Please stop. I’m begging.”
“Okay, but you’re being weird,” Ashlyn looks at her doubtfully.
“I’ll be okay. I’ll let you know if I’m not, okay? It’s all good.”
It’s an agonizing 45 minutes to the front of the line, throughout which Gina alternates between doom scrolling on her phone and taking deep breaths before deciding that deep breaths aren’t helping and returning to her phone for a distraction.
Soon enough, it’s Ashlyn’s turn.
“Come in with me! We should get some pictures together with her!”
Gina shakes her head, swallowing the nausea crawling up her esophagus. “No, it’s okay. You go and talk to her, show her your music or whatever, first, and you can call me in later.”
Ashlyn gives her another weird look out of the corner of her eye, but allows herself to be taken into the other room, leaving Gina by herself.
“Fuck,” she whispers under her breath, furiously wiping her sweaty palms against her shirt. Her heart hammers against her chest so hard she can see the pulsating motion jolting her shirt ever-so-slightly. Dammit, I should’ve dressed up or something.
The final three minutes are the most excruciating, and she just stands there, clamming up, trying not to look too weird in case someone decides she’s unfit to meet Nini, or maybe she’s just paranoid. She goes over the speech she’d written in her head just in case Nini doesn’t want to see her, or maybe if Nini is mad at her, the one for if Nini is confused why she’s here.
She doesn’t even have time to review the one where Nini is happy to see her because the door opens, and then she’s beckoned in by a staff member.
Gina pads in with head down, trying her very hardest not to crumble from the stress of it all.
“Gina, come here!” Ashlyn says, and so she reluctantly looks up, finally meets the gaze of the girl in front of her.
Her knees buckle, and she stumbles forward to catch herself, muttering a curse under her breath.
Seeing her picture on her phone screen doesn’t hold a candle to seeing her with her very two eyes.
Nini is the kind of beautiful that ruins lives. The kind that makes all rational thought sublimate from her head, dries the words right off her tongue. The kind that will make her toss and turn with remorse and regret if today is the last day she’ll ever see her.
And she looks utterly stricken to see Gina.
But all the while, Ashlyn is waving her over, pointing at the camera. “Come on, let’s get a quick picture!”
Gina walks forward as if controlled by a zombie, incapable of doing anything but walking closer to Nini. She walks as if there is an invisible string tied to her heart, and Nini holds the other end, tugging her closer, closer…
“Stand on the other side, you weirdo,” Ashlyn says when Gina positions herself next to her, and Gina watches as Nini wrenches herself out of her stupor and flashes Ashlyn a smile, a soft laugh that makes her whole being warm.
“Come here,” Nini says, her voice quiet, and so Gina does, compelled to do anything she might say.
And then Nini is wrapping a gentle arm around her waist, tugging her close, until Gina has no choice but to loop her arm around the back, awkwardly resting on Nini’s shoulder and Ashlyn’s arm under her.
Nini touches her so softly Gina can only hope it means that she still wants to see her.
She puts on a smile as a staff member takes a few photos with a camera, and then another few with Ashlyn’s phone.
“Miss, do you want some on your phone too?” the photographer asks, handing Ashlyn’s phone back.
Not trusting herself to speak, she settles for shaking her head, giving him a weak smile.
“Thank you so much,” the redhead says, pocketing her phone, and then Nini’s arm is letting go of her, falling away, leaving a tingling chill where it once was. “Gina, wanna go? We can go find a bath-”
She finds her voice. “I wanna talk to her for a bit, if that’s fine.”
Ashlyn nods, surprised. “I’ll wait for you, then.”
Gina definitely did not plan on having Ashlyn in the room for when she and Nini meet for the first time, but it’s better than nothing. With a shuddering breath, she turns to Nini, who’s fidgeting with her fingers, just like she had been that day when they video called.
“Hey, stranger,” she says quietly, and Nini glances up, revealing the sheen of tears over her eyes.
Nini just looks at her then, gazing over her whole body once before meeting her gaze. Her mouth opens, and then closes, and then opens again, searching for words that Gina can’t quite find either.
“Gi,” Nini breathes, and then she’s throwing herself at Gina. Gina chokes out a laugh, arms circling tightly around Nini’s shoulders as Nini’s loop around her waist, pulling her in so tightly she can’t do anything but laugh in relief, closing her eyes as the tension drains from her body.
Nini is pressing her face tightly into Gina’s shoulder, and when she opens her eyes, she makes eye contact with Ashlyn, who is staring at her like she’s grown another head.
What the fuck, she mouths at her.
Later, she promises silently.
“I’m sorry,” Nini whispers against her shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I wanted to text you back, but I didn’t know what to say, and then I was getting ready to start tour, so I didn’t have any spare second to do anything, but then you didn’t say anything else, so I thought maybe you were mad at me, and I-”
“Shut up for a second,” Gina interrupts. “Just…” She squeezes the other girl for a long second, and then lets go, stepping back. “First of all, happy birthday. Happy real birthday, not the fake album-release birthday. Second of all, I’m not mad at you, I thought you were mad at me. I thought maybe you wouldn’t want me to talk to you knowing who you are and all that.”
“Oh,” the singer responds, aggressively swiping away a tear that finally brims over. “I-”
“Wait, stop, don’t do that,” Gina says, catching Nini’s hand. “You’re gonna mess up your make-up. Which looks beautiful, by the way. Here, let me…” She brushes the wetness from Nini’s face in what might be the most intimate moment of her entire life as the other girl leans ever-so-slightly into her touch, gazing up at her with eyes so soft she promptly melts.
“Thanks,” Nini mumbles, looking away, if only to break the intensity of the moment.
“Oh, I almost forgot, I brought you something.” Gina reaches gingerly into her bag to pull out the carefully-packed box, surrounded in padding. She can only hope it’s survived.
Nini takes it from her with a gasp of delight, pulling away the tape with delicate fingers until she’s presented with a singular cupcake.
“Oh my God,” she says, a pained longing crossing her face. “I can’t eat this right now, but I really, really want to. I’m gonna be on stage in, like, an hour, but it looks so good.”
Nini glances up at her, and then past her, and Gina turns around to see someone point at his wrist. She’s out of time.
“I need to go,” she says in a rush, “but… I’ll text you?”
“Please do,” Gina says, stepping forward to pull Nini into a second hug. “We’re okay, yeah?”
Nini nods against her shoulder. “Yeah.”
They stay locked in the embrace until someone is clearing their throat.
“Wait for me after the show, yeah? I’ll have someone take you backstage. Gotta go over some last minute things.”
“Of course,” Gina says, stepping back as a few staff and security begin to wave Nini away from her. “I’ll see you later?”
She turns around to find Ashlyn, who gapes at her eyes wider than moons.
“What the hell just happened, Gina Porter?” she whisper-yells, grabbing her arm.
Gina lets out a shuddering laugh. “I don’t even know. She’s-”
“Gina, wait!”
She whirls around to see Nini break away from her group.
“Yeah?”
Nini stands there, opens her mouth, closes it again. Gestures with her fingers in front of her incomprehensibly before throwing her hands down in frustration. “Fuck it.”
There’s something in her eyes, something that makes her mouth go dry. Something that stops her instantly in her tracks as Nini steps closer to her, slowly, surely, and then faster, eyes fixed on something just below Gina’s own.
Heart pounding so loud it drowns out any other sound in the room, Gina’s fully prepared to receive with her arms, maybe (hopefully) with her lips, but then she stumbles to a halt.
It’s like a record scratch stop, a moment building, building, building only hit a wall, a hit pause button just before the climax of a song. Gina tips her head.
Nini hesitates then, the steely determination suddenly gone. “Sorry, wait, I- Do you- I mean, I don’t- I want-”
“Yes,” is all Gina says. “Please?”
Nini frowns. “What?”
“I’m gonna go out on a limb here, and feel very free to shut me down if I’m wrong because I couldn’t tell for sure, but for a second there, it looked like you wanted to… kiss me.” The words fall quickly from Gina’s mouth, and her face burns as soon as they’ve made their exit, fully aware of all the other people in the room watching them, waiting for them.
Someone hits play.
Nini kisses her.
It’s like one second she’s walking away, the next Nini’s hands are cupping her face, her skin impossibly soft except for the callouses on the fingertips of her left hand, brushing behind her ear, pressing against the back of her neck.
It’s Nini , everywhere, swamping all of her senses, and she’s acutely aware of all the places they touch, the hips between her hands, the body leaning into her, the barely-palpable-but-definitely-there quick racing of Nini’s heart against her chest, the mouth so achingly good against her own. Nini pulls back first, and Gina chases with an embarrassing sound of protest.
It’s short, just a fleeting kiss that’s hours too short for Gina’s liking, but she gets the time crunch, sort of.
“I gotta go,” Nini says breathlessly, still holding Gina’s face in her hands.
“I know,” Gina breathes, but doesn’t move.
“You’re not gonna freak out now, and be like Oh my God I just met and kissed Nina Salazar-Roberts? That generally tends to be the consensus.”
Gina blinks. “You’re just Nini to me.”
A beaming smile slowly widens across Nini's face, and Gina knows she's said the right thing as Nini darts back in for a chaste kiss.
“I like that.”