Chapter Text
Lynne Bowen let him take the knitted blanket home. In fact, it was that homemade length of fabric he now considered pulling out of his suitcase to wrap around himself in the cold airport. It was getting dark outside, and the temperature had dropped to match. The thermostat here apparently didn’t get the memo, Ricky thought to himself.
Honestly, he was tired. That song he wrote at his mom’s house – and that’s still weird to say, his mom and him not having the same home anymore – had worn him out. But, in kind of a good way? Today was the first day in a while he’d actually gotten out of bed within half an hour of waking up. He actually went outside and enjoyed some fresh air – and tried some Chicago deep dish with his mom while he was at it.
“I’ll see you in the summer?” he’d hoped aloud when Lynne dropped him off at O’Hare International. He could feel his face flush. Maybe he sounded too earnest? Maybe she wouldn’t want to see him again so soon?
But his mom only looked at him, her eyes wetting a little as they crinkled into her smile. “Summer? I’ll be there opening night.”
That warm feeling from their parting conversation traveled with him all the way to Salt Lake City, at least until he stepped off the plane. Now, he’s cold again. His dad was supposed to be picking him up, but since his flight arrived early, Ricky expected to wait at least a good twenty minutes there – and that’s not accounting for Mike Bowen’s usual lateness.
Settling into a chair by a window, Ricky pulled his phone out of his pocket, dreading the expected torrent of notifications he’d been ignoring most of the break. But, before he could check, he halted at the sound of a very familiar voice.
“I should probably go; my mom says I shouldn’t just spend the night here.”
Ricky’s heart felt like it was going to fall out of his body. Suddenly, he didn’t feel very cold at all. In fact, it was way too hot. He labeled whatever was spiking his body temperature (and blood pressure) guilt, and tried to think nothing more of it. Because that was all he felt, right? Guilty?
But there she was. Her hair slicked back into two fluffy braids, one of her knees resting casually on top of a silver carry-on. Ricky couldn’t help but notice how many stamps it was covered in. 15 times she’d moved, he remembered. It could’ve been 16. But the one time she stayed, he had to be the one to mess it up.
“That’s too bad,” he heard, and his eyes shot back. Whoever she was talking to, sounded very much like someone her age and not a kindly passenger assistant. Before he could stop himself, he got up from where he was sitting, peeping around a tall column.
---
Gina didn’t really want to leave Jack. He reminded her of how she felt that one day in an old friend’s – because that’s what she figured Ricky was now – kitchen, giggling over YouTube knitting tutorials and unpacking home drama. It wasn’t quite the same, but felt miles better than all the conversations she’d tried to start with EJ in the Caswell’s doorway or in his Range Rover after school.
EJ was nice. But he wasn’t the type of guy she could tell things that she didn’t tell anyone else.
“Gina?”
She blinked, looking at Jack again. He had a loose smile on his face, like it was easy. “Sorry,” she licked her lips, absentmindedly reaching for her luggage again. “I was…somewhere else.”
Jack nodded, understanding. “Well…” he started, then reached from behind his back. He had a purple airplane pinched between his two fingers, made of some kind of paper.
“Maybe I can fly there to you.” And he grinned at his own joke, whooshing the plane over to her now-opened palms. She couldn’t help but laugh along. “Smooth.”
---
Who the hell was that? Ricky’s brows were permanently furrowed. Whoever she was talking to, he hadn’t seen or heard of before. Which was strange, because Gina was talking to him as if he were someone important in her life. Someone like he used to be.
The guy had a camping backpack slung over his left shoulder, and was donning some Nike shoes even Kourtney would probably approve of. They were a bit too flashy, for his taste. The guy also kept making these really weird facial expressions, and Ricky couldn’t put his finger on it. He couldn’t put his finger on a lot lately actually. There was something heavy in the pit of his stomach and it wouldn’t go away. Maybe he was just tired…
“I can fly…to you…” Ricky heard, and watched as Gina giggled, accepting a paper airplane. He was blinking rapid-fire now. Who was this?
This was the first time he’d seen Gina giggle like that in a while. Well, selectively. Big Red had been hinting some things to him about Gina and EJ for the past couple weeks, but he’d been ignoring those gestures. It wasn’t his business, anyway. And EJ was going to college soon – there was no way Gina would actually date him. Just like she said last year, in the passenger’s seat of Red’s orange car, Gina Porter doesn’t do dates.
He frowned, feeling again the ghost of the girl’s lips against his cheek, just like he had weeks after Homecoming. She doesn’t do dates…But he thought maybe, just maybe, he’d changed that? He thought, after he’d sung that song to her during the Wildcats’ canceled rehearsal, his fingers playing at the strings of his guitar, her eyes shining with something he couldn’t quite figure out…
He’d thought that was his opening.
“I kinda can’t forget about anything that happened at Homecoming,” he’d said nervously, his feet drawing him closer to her without even thinking. And then he waited.
He waited for what felt like forever - because his chest was pounding so badly, and his fingers were trembling, and he couldn’t quite take being rejected by the first person that ever really got him, so – after about five seconds, he figured that was her answer.
And that was okay, he told himself. That was okay because he felt like she was too good for him to even be his friend. It was okay because even just standing close to her, he felt like his entire body hummed with something he couldn’t explain. It was okay because she was the most beautiful person he’d ever seen, and she liked his song.
And just as he had that thought, Gina turned, indirectly facing his view, and he’d almost forgotten he’d been peeking at the real Gina, the one that hated him now. Eyes refocusing, Ricky’s face immediately burned.
She was wearing a blue hoodie. A Duke hoodie. EJ’s hoodie.
---
“It’s not just a plane, you know.” Gina turned back on her heel to look at Jack, the wheels of her biggest suitcase skirting against the floor as if they were confused. “Oh?” She cocked her head, smiling. She’d been doing a lot of that these days.
“There’s something inside,” he clarified. “But don’t open it until you get on your flight tomorrow. To Louisiana.”
He had a warm look on his face, and for a flash second she started to rethink rejecting his offer to be her first kiss –
“Maybe I’ll see you around someday, Gina.” And Jack turned back in the direction he was going, saving her from herself.
---
Ricky blinked back the flames on his face, fanning them with short reassurances, the types of things Big Red would tell him if he were here: It’s just a hoodie, dude.
EJ practically lives with Ashlyn, they probably all share clothes all the time. And there’s no way she’s replacing you with some random guy she met at an airport. Dude are you hearing yourself? If you try to read his lips, he’s probably saying something like: Wow, Big Red totally did some genius editing on that music video for Miss Jenn –
Okay, that was enough. If he didn’t go now, he might lose his chance. Whoever that was, with the paper plane and the weird facial expressions and the laughs, he was gone. He remembered what his mom told him, after they’d talked at length about his breakup with Nini.
“You know, what I said about your relationship with Nini might not apply to your relationship with everyone else,” Lynne had said slowly.
“Huh?” Somewhere deep, Ricky panicked.
“I mean, you told me that you felt like you needed to hang on to the stability of that relationship with Nini, so you were kind of neglecting your other friends?”
“Oh, right.”
“So maybe what’s best for those relationships would be, maybe not letting go, but letting them back in? And being there for them? And eventually,” Lynne fluffed his curls with one manicured hand. “Eventually, they might let you back in again, too.”
Sorry, there’s just some things that I tell you that I don’t really tell anyone else. The memory hit him again like a shock. Yeah, no, I think…we do that for each other.
Ricky grabbed his bag, ignoring that weird, weird feeling in his stomach, and braced himself to walk over.
“Gina?”