Archive of Our Own ^beta

Gina loves Ricky’s dorm room.

It’s not that its better than hers, in any way. There’s no AC and the faucet in the bathroom they can’t fit in at the same time comfortably is always leaking and driving her insane. Her phone never connects to the wifi correctly when she’s here and his neighbors are the most obnoxious people she’s never met (she times when she leaves to when they’re being their loudest so she knows she won’t accidentally run into them in the hallway, its worked so far.) The elevator is broken at least twice a week, a problem when Gina is here at least double that, and it’d be generous to call his twin bed a piece of cardboard.

She loves it.

She has a sneaking suspicion there’s one very clear reason why she puts up with the garbage truck that backs up right outside his window at six in the morning.

But it’s a thought for another time.

Because right now, all her energy is focused on which hoodie to steal for her walk home. His rickety closet has the best selection.

“Do I look good in green?” Gina turns to face him, clutching the large, deep green sweatshirt to her chest for the effect of wearing it.

“That’s a trick question.”

“Is it?”

“It is,” Ricky starts, swinging his feet against the far posts of his raised bed, “Because you know my answer is gonna be you look good in every color, and you’ll say that means—“

“I can keep it?” she smiles cheekily, hugging the hoodie to her closer.

He flops backwards, having walked right into what he’d tried to avoid, and his voice is bright, albeit muffled while she pulls the sweatshirt over her head, “I actually really like that one, and now I’ll never see it again.”

“What are you talking about, you’re seeing it right now?”

“And every time you wear it after that?”

“See,” Gina hums, pulling the hem down long past her waist, “He can be taught.”

“I don’t remember it becoming a requirement that you need to take a shirt of mine every time you’re over.”

“I told you to read the fine print closely, but you insisted all terms and agreements are pointless,” she jokes, taking a step towards his bed.

“They are,” he grumbles, still laying down, but somehow managing to find her hand without looking up once. It’s kind of magical, Gina thinks, as her stomach cartwheels.

“It’s not a requirement,” she says softly, thumbing over the back of his hand, “But it’s cold outside.”

“So?”

“Making me walk home in the cold might force me to rescind your world’s greatest boyfriend mug,” she crosses her free arm over her chest and leans forward on her elbows.

He rolls his head over to face her, “You wouldn’t—“

“Let me take the hoodie,” she shrugs back.

“Since when is it cold outside?” He counters, “It was like 80 degrees when we walked here.”

“And, now it’s nighttime, its colder,” she explains, knowing she’s being a bit dramatic. If you knew what her boyfriend’s cologne smelled like on a hoodie, you’d lean into the dramatics too. “So unless you want me to shiver the whole way home…”

“Who said that’s the only solution?”

“I don’t want your denim jacket, Ricky,” she rolls her eyes.

“Stay.”

Her brows bounce up.

“Don’t walk home in the cold,” he drums his fingers on the mattress beside him, “Stay.”

It’s not that she hasn’t stayed over before, and it’s not that she’s particularly against it, that stuns her into silence.

It’s the ease and familiarity, the way she fell into his orbit a few years ago and has been circling this happy glow since, his soft smile right now the perfect indicator. It starts bubbling to the surface again, why she loves Ricky’s horrible dorm room so much. It’s not that she can’t stay, it’s the that she doesn’t have to think about a million reasons why she shouldn’t.

Well, maybe one or two.

“You have class tomorrow morning.”

“You know my schedule?” He props himself half way up by sitting on one elbow, but still has his other hand lazily draped over hers, “Do you like me or something, Miss Porter?”

“If I stay, we’re gonna sleep late and you’re gonna convince me to let you skip class,” she reasons.

“You don’t know that—“

“It’s happened twice this semester already, Ricky.”

“I’ll promise,” he holds up a pinky, and how ridiculous she feels, itching for that little extra bit of contact already.

He takes her hazy smile at his anticipating pinky as hesitation, and adds a Hail Mary, “If I sleep in, you get to keep the hoodie.”

She was always planning on staying, really, because he is the easiest yes in the world.

But she can’t help it if the sweetest boy in the world has a knack for sweetening the deal.

“Fine,” she huffs, like it was some hardship, and lets Ricky’s excitement sway her towards him, feet still planted on the ground, but now meeting him halfway, leaning forward so his hands can hold her cheeks, “I pick the movie too.”

“Like you ever weren’t,” he hums sweetly, places a neat kiss on her forehead.

“You don’t know that—“

“It’s happened twice— no, three times? Four? Dare I say fi—“

“Enough,” she swats his face away to shut him up, but the way she keeps her hand by his cheek probably betrays any annoyance she had tried.

She forgets this started over it being cold outside in the nighttime air, because the way he looks at her, so close, so open and wholly, it feels like the middle of the afternoon again. She’s bright and warm.

“Gina Porter,” he is an inch away from sighing dreamily.

“That’s my name,” she squeaks out, the intense scrutiny of his feelings for her heating up her cheeks another degree or two, “You gonna scoot and let me join you up there, or…”

“Yes, yes, but first!” Ricky seems to snap out of his sweet daze quickly at the sound of her voice, and he hops off the bed, “Now that I’ve convinced you to stay…”

“Been scheming this all day, huh?”

“Try all week,” he shrugs, points to her with a cheeky smile, “I missed you.”

She crosses her arms, trying not to let him know how flustered he still gets her.

“I got you something, I’ve been meaning to show you,” Ricky starts zig-zagging through his room, “Been waiting for the right time, if I could just… find it…”

“Every time I tell you to clean up you insist it’s organized chaos,” Gina points, resisting the urge to giggle at Ricky’s bounding energy.

“It is, it is, I know its…” Ricky trails off, rummaging through a bag, unsuccessful, and hops to his desk, wrong again, to the drawer on the nightstand, “Here! Here, Gi, close your eyes.”

“Ricky—“

“C’mon, it’s a surprise!”

“You know how I feel about surprises,” she purses her lips to one side, Ricky hiding one hand behind his back as he walks back over.

“I know,” he says, but wraps an arm around her shoulders and puts his hand over her eyes anyway. Forget cartwheels, her stomach back hand springs. The big surprise must be small, because she doesn’t notice it in his hand anymore when he uses it to guide her forward.

“Why are we moving?” She tries to ask, knowing he won’t give it up, even if she just needs to be patient for like, thirty more seconds.

“It makes more sense if we’re in the right setting!”

“Your room is like, 2 by 2, where could we possibly be—“

“Ta da!” Ricky yells, removing his hand with a flourish.

As Gina blinks the world back into focus, she notes the fluorescent bulbs of Ricky’s bathroom, the smell of his shampoo bottle a few steps away, and then she sees it.

She catches his smile in the mirror, moves her eyes an inch down, and sees he’s holding a pink toothbrush.

Gina knows exactly what it is, but it doesn’t stop her short-circuiting brain from asking quietly anyway, “What’s this?”

“I got you a toothbrush!”

She’s known Ricky since he was seventeen years old. She knows what dumb, lovesick teenager Ricky sounds like. He’s twenty now and the way he says that, I got you a toothbrush, sounds like he’s still eighteen, asking her to the prom again.

“I can see that, but why—“

“You needed one, for here, you know?” He nods, just as bright and excited, “I can’t have us going another night where you blame me for your deteriorating dental hygiene, because you’d threaten my status as world’s greatest boyfriend again. Which— speaking of…”

His rambling slows as he reaches forward and moves a small white mug with simple black lettering on its front from the ledge and gives it a new home on the sink, then puts the pink toothbrush in, followed by his own blue one. He finishes the motion with an adorable wave of his hand, like he’s showing off, then turns his head slightly to face her.

Ricky got her a toothbrush. Her own toothbrush. To keep at his place.

He’s not wrong, it had been an issue for a while now, one that could have been easily solved, but never was. She’d remember to bring her own sometimes. She’d gotten better at remembering too, well into this college dynamic by now. But on an off chance, she’d complain, trapped in his arms and obviously forced to stay over, that he was the sole reason she was gonna get a cavity (she never did, but she was ready to blame him whenever the time came.) She’d dodge his kisses because she had nothing to fix her morning breath with and would run home, with giddy laughter and a hoodie, and without minty fresh breath.

But she’s standing here now, and this boy has gotten her a toothbrush to keep, a permanent fixture, at his place.

We’re past cartwheels, we’re past back hand springs—her stomach is winning gold for a floor routine in the summer olympics.

Gina looks at her little pink toothbrush sitting next to her boyfriends blue one and feels like she could burst into tears.

She can’t explain it.

Maybe its because she’s never felt like she’s had a place of her own. Maybe it’s because she’s had to share so much, moving around. Maybe its because she likes the color pink. Maybe its because she can kiss Ricky tomorrow morning now. Maybe its because no ones ever had something and not made her fight to fit into it before.

Maybe, probably, its a thought to overthink later.

Because her mind is running at a weird pace, and she hasn’t paid one second of a thought to what her facial expressions are doing while it happens, but it must not be good because she sees Ricky’s fall.

“Do you not like it?”

“No—“

“Because I couldn’t really decide either,” he shakes his head quickly, letting his arm drop from around her shoulder and turning to leave the small bathroom, “So I bought a pack of four, and I pulled the pink one out first, but I also have orange, and yellow, and green, since we know today you like it—“

“Ricky!” She grabs his arm to stop him, spinning so they’re face to face, and smiles the way she had been meaning to the minute she saw that toothbrush.

“Do you want the green one?” He asks, shyly.

“Its not my color,” she shrugs.

“Only when you’re looking to steal something it is,” he says.

“Such a baby,” she shakes her head, endeared anyway, “Thank you for the toothbrush.”

“Yeah?”

Ricky looks worried still, trapped between her and the narrow doorway, like maybe he jumped a line too soon. For all the unspoken between the two of them that they always get right, because they get each other, theres always a little room for error. His brows scrunch together, like he worries he’s misread, and maybe Gina doesn’t want to cross the line, to have this act of permanent fixture in his life.

She has been searching for permanent her entire life, only for it to show up in the form of a flimsy pink toothbrush.

“Maybe we should test it out,” she suggests with a shrug, and sighs in relief with him when he realizes he did okay.

“Yeah?” He repeats, his giddy energy reappearing almost instantly.

There are perks to dating an upperclassman, which she thought were just his better meal plan and knowing his roommate and not having to run down the hall to the communal girls bathroom like last year. But seeing a toothbrush of her own next to his proves to be the best perk yet, surprisingly, this simple, mundane thing.

Because yeah, she is so happy.

She loves how she gets jostled straight into the wall when he comes bounding back in because the bathroom is the size of a shoebox, and she loves the way he still hasn’t replaces one lightbulb because it makes his hair such a pretty color, she loves how she could probably shatter the counter beside the sink just by leaning her elbows on it, and she loves the leaky faucet Ricky makes up songs to the beat of as he looks for the toothpaste.

She loves him, probably, which is again, something to overthink later.

“Just bought a new one,” he shakes the tube of toothpaste towards her before uncapping it, squeezing a bit onto his own brush first.

Gina quirks her head down and to the side a bit to try to read the label, and squinting skeptically, she reads, “Arctic fresh?”

Ricky hums confirmation, gestures for Gina to hold her toothbrush out to him.

“What is that even supposed to mean? What does arctic fresh taste like?” Gina questions with a laugh, “Like, a cold front or something?”

“I imagine it tastes fresh.”

“What happened to like, peppermint?” She accepts the enigmatic flavored toothpaste anyway, and stifles a giggle as her boyfriend immediately starts vigorously getting to work on his teeth, “I liked the mint one you had last.”

“It had snowflakes on it, Gi!” He yells, not unlike a child, through a mouthful of toothpaste.

“You like the taste of snowflakes?” She quirks, bumps her shoulder into his to fit in front of the very small sink, then thinks better of it and holds a hand up, “You know what? Hold that thought ’til you’re done.”

“What?” He completely ignores her, and she flinches half an inch away, their shoulders still touching.

“Focus!” She instructs, and tries to start brushing her teeth too, but it proves difficult amid giggling at the adorable faces she’s seeing him make in the mirror.

“Almost done—“

She breaks her own rule to scoff, “You just started, that wasn’t long enough!”

“I sang ‘happy birthday’—“

“You did not—“

“Again?” He finishes their very messy and muffled conversation by humming the tune of the birthday song cheekily, which only intensifies Gina’s giggles and she rushes to wipe toothpaste off the corner of her mouth.

Gina can’t believe she lives in a world where this is where she is happiest.

Where you keep your toothbrush isn’t something most people remember. But hers was almost always in a travel case. She woke up in an unfamiliar place more often than not, went to bed in a room that didn’t feel like hers after brushing her teeth with some boring toothpaste flavor and left it on the ledge by itself.

She is sure if you looked up home in the dictionary this is what you’d see. Brushing your teeth shoulder to shoulder with the love of your life. Pink toothbrush. Arctic fresh. Ricky Bowen.

“Gi, I just got a crazy idea,” he says, which sounds like ‘ee, uh ju gah a razy uh dee’. She gets it though, and quirks a brow up, awaiting this crazy idea of his.

“What if we kissed,” he smiles, and it makes the toothpaste run down his chin, grossly, (adorably, please don’t ever quote her on that but she does think it), “Right now?”

She responds by pushing him away, a hand on his chest. He leans back in, his smile dissolving into the sweetest laughter ever, and Gina fists his shirt in her hand where it rests on his chest to hold him back while she leans forward to spit and rinse. She has very little strength at the moment though, and he leans down just milliseconds later.

“God, I hate that noise,” she cringes, as Ricky spits out his toothpaste then starts to run the water to wash out the sink. They’re both still hunched forward a bit, Gina’s hand an iron grip on the front of his shirt.

Her eyes track up and down his face, the smirk unable to leave her lips and it seems not his either.

“So, was that a no?” He says, pursing his lips cheekily, “To the kissing?”

“Yeah,” she whispers, already leaning in.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” it comes out as barely more than a breath, her nose bumping against his and his pretty lashing fluttering shut, and then she kisses him. His lips are as soft and assured as ever, gentle and borderline heart-attack inducing at just the briefest half-second of contact. She hears the worst faucet in the world, smells his cologne on the green sweatshirt she stole, and he tastes like—

“I gotta hand it to arctic fresh,” she says softly, as Ricky blinks back to life.

“Told you you’d like it,” he says, just as quietly, but with that little knowing lilt in his voice that makes Gina feel like a swooning leading lady, “I picked it just for you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Didn’t I already say?” Ricky twists the faucet off and it resumes its pestering drip, “The snowflakes.”

Her brow furrows, and she tosses her toothbrush back into the mug with a clink.

“Anna loves the snow!”

“Does she?” Gina giggles at his seriousness, “Also, dude, when are you gonna let that go—“

He laughs so loudly it bounces between the walls.

“I walked into that one,” she nods.

“I got stopped in the dining hall literally just yesterday asking me about the doc,” Ricky explains, “And last week my TA said she heard a rumor my ex girlfriend Gia started school in the same city, and wanted to see how I was coping.”

“And how are you, coping with that?” Gina points, “I heard the same rumor. Thats gotta be, pretty cold.”

“You know what?” he nudges her aside and places his toothbrush in the mug too, “You’re very lucky I never bought you a greatest girlfriend mug. It’d be gone.”

“Greatest ex-girlfriend, you mean?”

“Stalked me to my city college and tricked me into buying her four toothbrushes.”

“Four? That should probably last her long enough to get over you.”

“You think?”

By way of answer, Gina leans up just a smidge on her tippy toes to lean her chin on Ricky’s shoulder from a step behind him. She smiles brightly at him in the mirror.

“My Anna.”

“My sweatshirt supplier,” she kisses him exaggeratedly on the cheek when he rolls his eyes, then whispers, “I love you, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” the side of his head knocks gently against hers and his curls tickle her sweetly, “Look how cute they look in there.”

“The toothbrushes?”

“Yeah, yours, mine,” Ricky drawls, content, then winces slightly to add, “And Carlos’s.”

Gina swears her giggle ruffles his floppy curls. Ricky drops a purple toothbrush into the mug.

“Just what I always wanted, to share a toothbrush holder with you and Carlos.”

“We only have room for one container on this insanely small sink,” Ricky says, still sinking his weight comfortably into Gina’s, “And I was so committed to the worlds greatest boyfriend mug bit, that this is just the way it has to be.”

“All that for a title that isn’t even yours anymore,” she balks, then separates from Ricky just a smidge to look at him and ask, “Speaking of, where is the roomie tonight? I’d hate to spend my time picking a good movie for us to watch just for him to get home and have you let him overrule me.”

“You don’t know that—“

“The only person you spoil more than me is Carlos,” Gina states, turning to lean a hand on the small ledge of the sink to watch Ricky roll his eyes and head back out into the room, “Its already happened once, twice this semester?”

“Whatever,” he tries to wave her off, passing through the doorway while reaching up and hitting the frame on the way out, and Gina’s eyes dangerously flit to how it lifts the hem of his shirt before her cheeks go brighter than her new toothbrush, “I like his taste in movies!”

“And not mine?”

“I like you.”

“So corny,” she hums, smiling, trialing behind him, “Maybe I can fit in like, one episode of something before he gets home and takes over.”

“If you weren’t so busy trying to pit me against my two best friends,” Ricky says, and how insane just that flips her insides, “You’d have let me finish and say he won’t be here tonight.”

“What?”

“Visiting Seb this weekend,” Ricky answers, “And he doesn’t have class tomorrow, so he left today.”

“You really have been scheming this all week, huh?” Gina grins, “Do you like me or something, Mr Bowen?”

“Was that not clear?” Ricky pulls her flush against him, their hips close together and his fingers fidgeting sweetly on her forearms, “Pink toothbrush? Anna toothpaste?”

“You’re a menace, you know?” She kisses him as she pushes him back onto his bed.

“I know,” he breathes between kisses, “I love you too.”

(The next morning, Gina squeezes Ricky’s hand tight as they skid to a stop 2 minutes late to his lecture hall, and uses her free hand to wave to the TA from the window before kissing his arctic fresh lips and turning to leave, the smell of his cologne on her well-earned green sweatshirt the whole walk back to her own campus.)

Gina has always prided herself on being an efficient studier. Up until her sophomore year of high school, she never knew what material she’d be learning next, bouncing around schools, so she got good at always being prepared.

Preparation flies out the window the minute Ricky Bowen sits down next to her.

“Would you describe us more as two peas in a pod or two puzzle pieces that fit perfectly together?”

“What?” Gina drops her pencil to look at her hyper-focused boyfriend, his finger scrolling on the pad of his laptop.

“Me and you, peas in a pod or puzzle pieces?” He repeats, peering at her over the top of his screen, “I’m stuck, because my gut is telling me puzzle pieces, but peas in a pod sounds—“

“This is your student teaching homework?” Her brows furrow in confusion, her notes in front of her an inch away from abandonment.

“I’m trying to see if I can drop out before I have to write another lesson plan,” Ricky leans on the back two legs of his chair, “Because seriously, I don’t think I’m making it out of another one alive.”

“I’m still not—“

“I need to know its safe for me to drop out and pursue a successful, full time career as your trophy husband.”

“The words trophy husband did not just come out of your mouth.”

“You are going to be like, the world’s biggest superstar dancer! If, let’s see,” he squints at the screen and reads, “If ‘my current crush is the one for me’, why should I continue this torture?”

“You are the most ridiculous boy I’ve ever met.”

“Peas or puzzles?”

“You’re gonna trust Buzzfeed? When I’m sitting right here and can just ask me?”

“Can I drop out of school?”

“No.”

“Buzzfeed it is,” he pouts, balancing one foot on the side of her chair and getting back to work. She rolls her eyes, and can’t say she does the same. Her work will most definitely not be getting finished tonight.

Fuck it, she thinks, “Puzzle.”

“Yeah?”

She nods, “That sounds like a ridiculous quiz though, you should pick a different one.”

“Like I haven’t already done four others.”

“Four?” She all but screeches, “We’ve been here an hour, did you do any of your homework?”

“I commented on a discussion post,” Ricky nods, a steady click, click coming from his computer as he obviously continues the stupid quiz, “And then I opened the google doc for my lesson plan assignment and felt like crying so… checking trophy husband status it is.”

“The verdict?”

“Well, I planned my wedding to find out my soulmate’s career,” Ricky hums, then supplies the answer, “Doctor.”

“Strike one.”

“Then I planned a picnic to find out that my crush thinks I’m unique.”

“That’s one word for it, yeah.”

He chucks his unused pen at her, and she catches it with a giggle, “I followed up that promising note with buying a house under $5.2 million to reveal my soulmate’s initials. Which are TH, apparently.”

“Shit, I knew this was too good to be true.”

“So to recover I played smash or pass with Timothee Chalamet characters.”

“And that revealed?”

“That I think Timothee Chalamet is hot,” Ricky says, returning his bright gaze back to the screen in front of him, “And now I’m trying to find out ‘if my current parter is the one for me’.”

“Lame,” she shrugs, shutting her own laptop, “I already know the answer.”

“Okay, love expert, come finish it with me,” he beckons her closer, pats the desk next to his laptop, “If you’re so sure.”

“I am,” she huffs, and stands up, crosses the small space between them at her messy and crowded dorm room desk they’ve been working at. She places a hand on either side of the back of his chair, her chin going to rest comfortably on his shoulder.

And it’s like instinct, the way he absently turns to kiss her cheek once its right there. He doesn’t even take his eyes off the screen, continues to scroll. Kisses her like its as mindlessly essential as breathing.

She sinks into him a little more, then reads the next question on the screen, “If someone gave you a million dollars to leave your partner, would you do it?”

“No.”

“But if you had a million dollars though, you’d solve the lesson plan problem on your own.”

“But see, you’re missing the point,” Ricky says, as if its obvious, “There’s no point in not having to work if I don’t get to replace that time with you.”

“And they say romance is dead.”

“Which word best describes your partner?” Ricky scrolls to the next question and reads aloud for her.

“Choose wisely, Bowen.”

“Kind? No, she’s evil, she makes me do my homework,” Ricky shakes his head, and rattles off some of the other options, “Patient? Maybe, that’s hit or miss. Fun?”

“Homework, again?”

“Among other things. She also tells me we can’t electric scooter home together, and I’m not allowed to look up the endings to movies while we’re watching them so I can pretend I can see the future and scare her roommates.”

“One of them sent me a link to a background check website, Ricky.”

“So all that leaves us is calm,” he ignores her cheekily, to finish off the options, “Which could work…”

She turns her chin a bit to face him, and revels in his handsome smirk so close.

“…As long as you don’t get her started.”

“Shut up,” she pushes his face away from her with a scoff as he devolves into the most adorable laughter in the world, “You know, you’re very lucky I’m not doing this about you, because I’m not sure we’d get the answer you’re looking for. I don’t have a single nice thing to say about you.”

“So kind, yeah?” He responds, by clicking the kind answer and scrolling to the next.

He is the most wonderful boy in the world, she thinks, settling back into him, her arms around his neck from behind. But don’t ever let him know she thought that. It’d skew these very scientific results.

“How well do you think you know them?”

“I’d consider myself an expert,” He boasts, already clicking the ‘I know everything there is to know!’ answer, “See, if I could major in Gina Porter instead of early childhood education, we wouldn’t need to be taking this quiz.”

“Let me talk to your dean, I’ll see if we can add it to the curriculum.”

“Okay, just a few more,” Ricky concentrates cutely, his tongue sticking out just a little, “How often do we fight?”

Gina shakes her head with faux despair, “Shit, Ricky, you better get to work on those lesson plans.”

“This relationship has been fun while it lasted,” he continues her bit, “But now that Buzzfeed knows we fight every time you stay at my place over who steals the blanket, I think this is the end.”

“We had a good run,” she nods, “I hope bickering with me over what sauces to get at McDonalds was worth it. Because it obviously makes or breaks our future.”

“Lets not forget how the first five minutes of every car ride is you skipping every good song on my playlist.”

“Buzzfeed hasn’t even heard about when you wouldn’t speak to me for two hours because I said we couldn’t date if you were a worm.”

“We’re obviously incompatible because we end every single night in a fight over who loves each other more.”

“Because its me, I love you more.”

“I love you more-er.”

“And every night, I have to tell you that’s not a word.”

“But every night I love you more-er than the last.”

“See, this is why I make you do your homework, because if you did you might know you literally don’t need to add the -er for that word to have the same meaning,” Gina yells playfully, turning from her spot behind Ricky to now sit, leaned against the ledge of her desk on his left, facing him.

“So you agree?” He says, a breath away from honest to god winking at her, “I love you more.”

“I think you should start canvassing the campus for people whose initials are TH,” she says, leaning in closer to him.

“That sounds like a lot of work for me,” he rocks back on the back legs of his chair and huffs a loud exasperated breath, runs a hand through his hair, then adds, “You sure you don’t wanna be a doctor?”

“Ricky…”

“I think you’re hiding something from me,” he says between bursts of their collective laughter, “You love science.”

“You do know everything about me!”

“Hold on,” Ricky smiles, and flips over his long-forgotten notebook to a blank page, reaches for a pen from somewhere on her desk.

“What are you—“

“Shh,” he holds a finger up to put to her lips to shush her, but he misses spectacularly and ends up tickling the crook of her neck. He smiles at the giggle is earns him, but otherwise remains very focused on the task at hand on the page in front of him, while Gina makes good use of playing with his free hand.

“You switching to an art major or something there, Bowen?”

“No… but you are,” he says softly through a very furrowed and concentrated brow, still scribbling away, then clarifies brightly,  “Changing majors, that is.”

“Am I?”

“Yup,” he grins up at her, before ripping the page out of the notebook and holding it up to her too, his grin only widening, “Congratulations on your medical degree.”

“Ricky Bowen…”

“Gina Porter, MD, baby!” He giggles proudly, placing his haphazardly designed pen on college ruled notebook paper diploma in her lap, “See, we can stay together after all.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Mhm,” she hums, gives in, scoots forward and sits halfway on his lap in the chair.

“You’re a doctor,” his smile sends her into another universe. It has been years, and Gina is sure she will never tired of getting to know the ins and outs of the ways he wears his emotions, especially up this close. The wrinkles on the corners of his eyes are her favorite right now, and she holds his flushing cheeks in her hands.

“We could have saved a ton of time if you had just asked me when we sat down to start studying.”

“If you’d like to become a doctor?”

“If you’re my soulmate.”

“Yeah?”

“I told you, I already know the answer,” she nods, eyes scanning over his face, her voice growing softer, smaller in the breaths between them, “No ones ever fought to say they loved me. And you do it every night. Just to get the last word.”

“Well, I do,” the corner of his lips quirks up in a shy smile, “I love you more.”

“I know,” she looks at his lips, up at his eyes, “And I love you more-er.”

“Who am I to disagree with a doctor?”

“You shouldn’t drop out of school because I think you are going to be the most fantastic, incredible, amazing music teacher in the entire world,” Gina says, and means every word of it, and more-er, “But it doesn’t really matter to me, whatever you do, or I do, or where we end up.”

His eyes sparkle in the crappy dorm room light like magic.

“All I need is you, and me, and—“

“Maddox.”

“Hm?” Gina is snapped back into reality, the dorm lighting looking less magic and more harsh when Ricky says it, and tries to blink into focus.

“Maddox is home,” Ricky nods to the door behind Gina, which swings open to reveal, indeed, Maddox.

“God, you’re here?”

“So great to see you too, Maddie,” Ricky chimes sarcastically, “I missed you.”

Though Gina is still kind of floating in the sweet bubble she had been in with Ricky just seconds prior, she finds it in herself to move to standing, and let Ricky up to say hello to her suite mate, their easy banter already flowing.

“You know, you’re so dramatic sometimes, because you know I didn’t mean it like that,” Maddox rolls her eyes at him as he steps forward to meet her, “I brought pizza for me and Gina, and if I had known you’d be here, I’d have gotten more.”

“Hm, I’m still kinda averse to pizza,” Ricky squints, “Reflexively, it makes me feel like puking.”

“Oh my bad, I should have telepathically known you’d be here,” Maddox quips, placing her hands on her temples and shutting her eyes like she’s concentrating, “And picked something else for dinner!”

“You know what—“ Ricky goes to tease her back, and Gina sees some napkins go flying and laughter follow it as they continue to bicker, and she sits down in Ricky’s seat at her desk.

The Buzzfeed quiz is still open on his laptop in front of her, and before she can think better of it, she clicks through the last few questions. Unfortunately the ‘what do you usually fight about’ question lacks answer choices for blanket stealing, hypothetical worm scenarios, and the use of the word more. But the second to last question asks if your partner gets along with your friends, and based on the fact she can barely hear herself think over how her best friend and boyfriend are giggling with each other over pizza toppings right now, she revels in the fact that she clicks an absolute ‘yes!’

It hits her again, how seamlessly Ricky Bowen fit into her life and herself into his. She would never tell you these mindless quizzes were onto something, but maybe…

She will finish her homework later, when Ricky goes back to his dorm and he insists they stay on a call until the other falls asleep. And he won’t distract her until he’s brushing his teeth with arctic fresh toothpaste and wants to remind her of how much more-er he loves her.

She scrolls to the bottom of the screen.

‘How does the idea of a future together make you feel?’

The choices are terrified, emotional, or both, and she knows, then, that she was right in saying she knew the answer before they even sat down to (not) do their homework.

Because there is nothing terrifying about the assuredness of her feelings for Ricky, and the future she knows she’s going to have with him, no matter what degree it involves.

‘Yes! They are your soulmate!’

Gina’s one step ahead of you, Buzzfeed, but thanks anyway, for the tip.

(The next day she shows up to Ricky’s apartment late in the afternoon, notebook in hand, and as soon as he opens the door flips to the page she’d made with his bachelors degree in Gina Porter, and asks him if he’d like to celebrate the milestone by electric scootering to McDonald’s.)

Gina has had the worst day of her life.

In hindsight, maybe it’s dramatic to be so definitive about it, but sitting on the floor of her apartment kitchen with sauce on her pink ballet tights and beeping she can’t figure out how to turn off from the stove and every ache and pain imaginable after a six hour rehearsal, yeah, worst day in the world doesn’t feel like too much of a stretch.

None of her roommates are home, and honestly she’s glad they probably won’t be for a while on this Friday night, because she doesn’t even know where to begin.

Her music never disconnected from her headphones so it’s just playing muffled from across the room, after she threw them in a fit of rage after discovering they had no hot water and she couldn’t shower this awful day away.

Fine, she thought. She’ll make something nice for dinner. Nothing like carbs to cheer her up.

Which is, of course, what led her here, on the verge of tears in the middle of a splattered and shattered jar, in front of an oven that wouldn’t preheat for the backup frozen pizza.

You’d think the world caved in on itself when she hears her phone vibrate in the distance.

Gina has tossed around the word soulmate before, and never given it much weight. She believed she was meant to be with Ricky, absolutely, and she liked when Ashlyn would explain her and Ricky’s charts and she could see how everything lined up. But this might be what does it. Because Gina is perfectly content to let the phone buzz until it stops, turns off, dies, all of the above. She’s feeling so crappy that should be what she does.

But something propels her to scoot over and reach for it, to see the only person she’d pick up for.

The universe is at play, she’s sure. She’ll ask Ashlyn about it later.

“Oh thank god,” his voice rushes in as soon as she picks up the line, “I got super paranoid I misremembered when your rehearsal ended and I was gonna get you in trouble.”

“No trouble,” she says, in the most unconvincing tone possible.

To no ones surprise, he reads it right away, “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Who said anything was wrong?”

“Gi,” she can picture his eyes when he says it so clearly, “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“It doesn’t sound like nothing.”

“Really?” She tries through a sniffle, “You probably just have bad cell service, if that’s what you’re hearing.”

“Are you home?”

“Ricky—“

“Or are you still at the studio?”

“I swear, Ricky, I’m fine,” she tries to lean back on her free hand, but it goes straight into the spill, which produces another round of involuntary tears, which are very apparent when she says, “I just missed you, I guess.”

“No you don’t,” Ricky’s voice is light, “You told me I smelled last night.”

“You did,” her laughter is stuffy but appreciated, “Did you shower?”

“I did,” he says, just as gently, “Tell me where you are and you can smell for yourself.”

“I’m really okay—“

“Is that your oven?”

“You can hear that?” She asks, genuinely perplexed. The noise was echoing in her brain and driving her to the brink of insanity, but she thought that was just her sleep deprivation talking. If Ricky can hear it over the phone though, maybe she was okay.

“Me and Carlos have the same issue.”

“Right,” she says, wishing she knew what that issue was.

“You know how to turn it off?”

As much as she still believes its the worst day ever, it does still feel a bit ridiculous, when she is faced with the daunting task of explaining it all to Ricky. But his voice alone has literally regulated her breathing pattern in thirty seconds flat, so she huffs a big, loud sigh to the ceiling, and then squeaks out a teary, “No.”

“That’s okay—“

“It’s just,” and the waterworks come in full force now. She gets the rest of her sentence out between hiccups of big, sweeping sobs, “We just moved in here last week and I’ve barely been home the whole time because I have to be at rehearsal all the time, and the semester didn’t even start yet.”

The waterworks open the floodgates metaphorically too, because now that she’s started explaining her horrible day to Ricky she doesn’t feel like stopping, and it doesn’t feel so trivial either.

“And so I’ve eaten out most of the week, or Maddox cooked, and this is the first night I’m home alone and I wanted to feel like a normal person and make dinner for myself but the oven won’t preheat and I spilled that really expensive pasta sauce all over the floor and I really thought I could handle choreography this semester but no ones picking it up fast enough so we’re behind and thats all I could think about while I stared at the pasta sauce on my brand new apartment floors.”

She hears his steady breathing on the other end of the line so she knows he’s still there.

“And we have no hot water! I broke it!”

“You didn’t break it, Gi, hey,” his voice washes over her, “Hey, hey, shh, listen to me.”

“Mhm.”

“You’re okay.”

“Yeah,” she clears her throat, tries to wipe the still coming tears away.

“You’re okay, Gi, it’s okay,” Ricky lilts softly, “Can I hear you say it?”

She tucks her phone between her hear and her shoulder so she can press the heels of her hands into each eye, takes a deep breath out, and says, “I’m okay.”

“Good, you are,” he continues, “Let’s fix the oven first, that sound good?”

“I broke it, Ricky,” she shakes her head, her wet tears sliding off her cheeks, “I broke it and my roommates are gonna hate me, and they’re gonna kick me out and I’m gonna have to live on yours and Carlos’s couch.”

“Though I’m not entirely opposed to that,” he teases lightly, “It’s not gonna happen. The oven’s fine, its just annoying.”

“What do you mean?”

“It starts beeping when it preheats and doesn’t stop beeping until you open the door,” Ricky explains, slowly, “Its the most stupid setting in the world, but we haven’t been able to turn it off. I guarantee that’s what yours is doing too. You don’t have to put anything in either, just open the door and shut it, and it should stop beeping.”

Gina tentatively stands up from her spot and takes a timid step towards the oven. She wraps a hand around the handle, and pulls it open. The heat blasts her, the weight of the day feels heavy on her shoulders and sticky on her tights, but then, miraculously… there is quiet.

She shuts the door with a loud thunk and exhales louder.

“You’re kidding.”

“It’s so stupid,” Ricky’s laughter is like the sweetest medicine in the world, “But see? No couches in your future.”

Gina reels in the quiet for a long beat before Ricky speaks up again.

“You still in your rehearsal clothes?”

“Yeah.”

“Go get changed, and then we can tackle the rest.”

“Okay,” she appreciates the simple and reassuring way he’s helping her walk through everything more than she thinks she’ll be able to communicate to him. Though simple tasks, they sounded so daunting. He makes them sound like tiny bullet points on a list.

“Alright, I will just—“

“Can you stay, actually?” She says quickly, as she crosses into her small bedroom, finds the light switch, “I just mean, uh, on the phone, until I, uh—“

“I’m not going anywhere,” he implores, “Put me on speaker and leave your phone on the dresser, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she obliges, drops her phone and presses the speaker button, “Can you hear me?”

“Sure can,” she can tell he’s smiling when he says, “Hi, my princess.”

“Hey,” she hugs her arms close to her chest and moves towards her closet, her own smile already returning, “I’m gonna put on something comfy.”

“Good idea,” he says, “Look in your closet, all the way on the left, second hanger from the end? Or maybe third? I can’t remember—“

“What—“ she starts to question, but follows his instructions anyway, and pulls apart the clothes hung up at the end of the left side of her closet to find, “Your East hoodie?”

“Comfiest one I own.”

“How did you— It’s my favorite one,” she is in a state between confusion and shock, but it doesn’t stop her from immediately changing into it, along with her favorite sweats.

“Snuck it in there when I was moving you in last week, thought it would be a nice surprise.”

“It really is,” she already snuggled the fabric as close to her as humanly possible, “Ricky this is— I mean you are— I don’t even know what to say.”

“You can just let me win the I love you more game today, yeah?”

“Okay,” she’s still a little teary, but its different now. It comes on the edge of her favorite giggle in the world. “Hey Ricky, feel free to say no, but could you come over—“

Knock, knock, knock.

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything,” he says defensively, and maybe he says something else, but she doesn’t hear. She runs, at full speed, through her bedroom, down the hall, past her disaster nightmare mess of a kitchen, and flings the door open with whopping force.

“Ricky.”

His lopsided smile and floppy curls beam at her from the hallway.

“Turns out I missed you too.”

She all but leaps into his arms, lets her body weight press against his in the most calm and assured hug. One of his hands runs gentle circles on her back, and the other one holds her tighter, lets her sink into the crook of his neck.

The way his voice over the phone had abated her tears, the feeling of his presence brings them back full force, in a good way. She has never felt more comfortable in her life, red East High hoodie be damned, than she does right here. She lets the weight of the day seep out slowly, while the door swings shut behind them and they sway on their feet, like they always end up doing when they hug.

“I think I’m ruining your shirt,” she sniffles, once her eyes start to dry and she feels like she needs a whole box of tissues.

“You can keep it,” he says, leaning back to look at her, face to face, “I smell okay?”

“Yeah, just okay,” she manages to tease, and the pit in her stomach is gone, the shakiness in her voice replaced by the giddy feeling Ricky always brings in multitudes to her, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t ever apologize,” Ricky says, “I’m serious, you’re a very pretty crier.”

She laughs, embarrassed, as he uses one hand to wipe a tear away from her cheek, lets his hand settle there. He kisses the top of her head.

“Alright, I’m better now,” she says with a definitive nod, and Ricky’s laughter lights the room up.

“That’s it? One kiss and I’m off the hook?” He balks, “I didn’t even get to clean up your overpriced tomato sauce yet.”

“Fuck that sauce, Ricky,” she gestures to the kitchen a few steps away, covered in red, “Twelve dollars here, I think its six in Salt Lake.”

“We’re city people now, which, speaking of,” he smiles, and picks up his other hand to show he’s been holding a large plastic bag of take-out, “Your favorite.”

“The fancy stuff, huh?” He giggles, taking the bag from him and walking over to the small coffee table in front of the TV to place it down, “Did you develop a magical superpower to know when I’d be a nightmare in the kitchen? Or is there some special occasion I’m missing— oh.”

“To be fair, I’ve known you’re a nightmare in the kitchen for years,” Ricky shoves his hands in his pockets, and looks flustered by the second half of Gina’s revelation, which is probably why he ignores it, but she continues.

“Oh my god, Ricky, shit, I’m an idiot.”

“No—“

“It was your first day teaching a lesson on your own!”

Ricky’s senior year had started well before her own, and he had been panicking for the past three weeks because he was going to be observed teaching a full lesson on his own for the very first time. It was today. She knows it was today, and she completely forgot. She’s been sitting here crying, when they had planned to meet for dinner and celebrate—

“It’s really not important.”

“Are you kidding? It’s so important,” she pulls him down to sit on the couch with her swiftly, “How’d it go?”

“It was fine, we can talk about it later,” he shakes his head, pulling containers out of the bag in front of him, “Seriously, you first, Gi.”

Be it fate or the universe or the stars, or maybe even over-priced jars of name brand sauce and ovens with stupid preheating settings, something brought Ricky to her. Back in high school, and every day since then. Something makes him show up here, for her, every single day. She always comes first.

Maybe it’s just him.

“Ricky—“

“You, me… and the people who fix the hot water, in that order,” Ricky smiles, “Probably Troy Bolton too, because we watch the same three movies on rotation.”

“You’ll tell me about it later, right?”

“Of course, after we eat, and watch whatever movie you want,” he nods, putting an arm up around the back of the couch which she greedily takes as an invitation to snuggle in, “You can hear all about how Mrs Elliots third graders believe Mr Bowen was never taught his ABCs because he put the letters in the wrong order on the lines of the sheet music, while we mop up overpriced sauce.”

“Sounds like they also want you to do your homework,” she sighs contentedly onto his chest, “You seriously mean it though, any movie I want?”

“Yeah I mean, I’m sure I’ll regret it in 20 minutes when you’re still deciding which High School Musical to put on and the food is cold, but yeah,” he smiles, drops his head to rest on top of hers after handing her the remote, “It’s all you, Porter.”

He has no idea Gina only becomes indecisive around him, trying to prolong the minutes she gets to sit and listen to his heart beat, and know fates and unnamed forces or not, this is real, and this is hers.

“I love you, Wildcat.”

She plants a million sloppy kisses on his cheeks as he navigates to Disney+ without her having to say another word, and despite being her real life and stage Troy Bolton, gets most of the lyrics wrong all night.

Gina finishes out the worst day of her life with everything kind of the best.

(Later that night she wakes up on the couch, blanket draped over her shoulders, and can hear Ricky’s voice distantly from the kitchen, talking to the apartment maintenance team about fixing her hot water. The mop is propped up against the wall by the door and shiny clean floors. There is a shopping bag on the counter with two new jars of $12 sauce.)

“Which ones?”

“I don’t see a difference…”

“You’re telling me you need to own six different pairs of Converse and Vans, but can’t tell the difference between these two completely different skirts?” Gina throws her two black skirt options at her boyfriend’s head, who was at one point very attentive to her questions and concerns over what to wear to Carlos’s showcase performance tonight, but an hour into the fashion show has taken greater interest in the ceiling tiles.

“I’m not the person to be helping you with this.”

“Why not?”

“Because I think you look good in everything you put on.”

“Thats not true.”

“To me it is!”

“Well I don’t have Carlos around for opinions tonight so, you’re all I have to work with,” Gina sifts through another section of her closet.

Every outfit she had imagined in her head to wear tonight was not looking the way she envisioned the second she actually put it on, which was really messing with her. Everything looked wrong. She’s got most of her closet sprawled across the half of her bed that Ricky’s not taking up, being a nuisance. He showed up an hour ago in his black slacks and a cute, very fitted shirt. And maybe if he had had the fashion dilemma she was having and showed up looking a little less wonderful, they’d be a little less behind, for the time she had to spend ogling him and wrinkling his very nice, fitted shirt.

“Gee, thanks.”

“Just, for the next ten minutes, I need you to pretend we’re not dating,” she says to him, throwing the next contender for tops over her head.

“How dare you even suggest that!” She hears him yell from behind her.

“Be objective,” she nods firmly, hopping to put on boots, “You had to think I looked bad in something before we got together.”

The face he makes seems to indacate that was not the case.

“Nothing? Not even the feather duster costume?”

“I had the most massive crush on you, or did you not know that?”

“I didn’t,” she quips, “God, if only there was some way for me to publicly hear that information from the point of view of a bush.”

“Alright, your majesty, I will try to think things look horrible you.”

“Thank you.”

“No one has ever in the history of dating asked their boyfriend to do this you know?” He sits up between piles of discarded wardrobe to look at her, “Like most people would say I’m like, the gold standard of boyfriends for genuinely thinking you look good in everything you wear.”

“And most people aren’t dating you, just me,” she tosses her hair over one shoulder and surveys her work in the full length mirror before spinning to Ricky, “Okay, be honest.”

He nods slowly, and pays attention to what she’s put on for the longest time since they’ve started this. Then, he quirks his head to one side and says, “I like it a lot, but I think you need a darker color top.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere, see?” Gina claps her hands together at the honest advice, which actually made her think of exactly the top she wanted to switch to. She holds it up in front of her when she finds it, “Better?”

“Miles,” he nods, “I’d switch your shoes too.”

“Heels?”

He nods again, “The ones you had on with one of the outfits before.”

“Which one?”

“Brown dress.”

“Oh my god, you really are Carlos’s roommate,” Gina hops over piles of jeans from when she had thought about going for a denim look, and finds the shoes she knows Ricky is talking about.

“That, and, I spend more hours in the day hearing about Kourtney’s fashion design program from Jet on the phone than I know what to do with.”

She giggles as she slips the new shoes on, and the new top, “Were we that obnoxious when we first got together?”

She catches his eyes as soon as she finishes that thought, and stands up to assess the new look. His lips are adorably bit together to stifle a laugh, and she’s about to have to put a hand to her mouth too.

“You know what? Don’t answer that.”

“I was gonna say...“

“We had like, three honeymoon phases.”

“Are you sure we’re not still in one?”

“The only reason we’re not is because you won’t tell me what outfits I look bad in.”

“I swear to god, I’m gonna—“

“What?” Gina teases, crossing her arms over her chest as she moves to stand in front of him. He stands when she arrives, and her heels make her the perfect height to look right into his eyes, “What are you gonna do?”

“I was gonna say you are the most gorgeous girl I have ever seen,” he says softly, “But I had that right stripped from me, a minute ago.”

“I like this outfit,” she shrugs, “So I’ll make an exception.”

“Good, because you, Gina Porter, are the most—“ he leans up and kisses one cheek, “Gorgeous girl,” then the other, “That I have ever seen.”

There is a tantalizing second that he waits, his lips no more than a centimeter from her own, where she can hear and feel his breath, and her body instinctively arches closer to his to bridge the minuscule gap, and kisses him.

She lets his arms go around her waist while hers find the back of his neck, and tickle at his curls while they kiss slowly and softly. He is sweet and warm and takes his time making her feel like the most gorgeous girl he has ever seen. She believes it.

Gina is a blushing mess, to be certain, when they come up for air and she rests her forehead against his.

“Beautiful,” he whispers, and she goes three shades deeper of red.

“God yeah, we are so obnoxious,” she breaks the tension with a giggle.

“I mean, can you blame me?” He echoes her joy, “We just got back together again after you dumped me for two minutes for fashion advice. I think I deserve my fourth honeymoon phase.”

“Well earned,” she punctuates her quip with one more peck, before extracting herself from his embrace and heading for the bathroom, “I gotta fix my makeup, then we can go.”

“Good, because if we don’t leave soon my honeymoon phase will be cut definitively,” Ricky says, staying exactly where she left him, kind of adorably fixing his once again mussed up shirt, “On account of Carlos murdering me for being late.”

“Well I’m gonna be at least ten minutes,” she implores, searching through her makeup bag for the product she’s looking for.

“Alright, if we sprint, that can work.”

“Shouldn’t have called me the most gorgeous girl you’ve ever seen, then,” she laughs, considering not reapplying blush if she’s going to be around Ricky all night.

“And lied?”

“Take a seat, you dork,” she waves him off, pulling out mascara, can still see him in the reflection of her bathroom mirror even though he’s in the bedroom.

“And where would you like me to do that?” He comically twists his upper body back and forth, scanning the room, arms flung wide, “Your closet exploded on every surface!”

“Maybe clean it up for the most gorgeous girl ever?”

“Yeah, so we’re guaranteed to be late?” He huffs but she can see him already bending down to sift through some of the discarded clothing items, “Seriously Gi, this is enough to fit two whole closets full.”

“Well they all came from one, so…”

“Like, two denim jackets?”

“Not everyone has an emotional attachment to the one like you do, Bowen.”

“Three pairs of black boots?”

“Should I bring up the Converse thing, again, or…” she lets her laugh out before focusing on her mascara, listens to Ricky rustle around in the room behind her.

“You know what? I think you really should have two closets—“

“I dont know if my landlord will approve a renovation on my half finished already year-long lease.”

“You should divide all the duplicates up and leave the extras at my place.”

She drops her mascara wand in the sink.

He must not be waiting for an answer, and good, because she’s trying to reboot her brain as we speak, so he continues, “You’re always complaining you never have stuff you need there and you only like, like, a very specific subsection of my closet.”

It’s true. She has an aforementioned emotional attachment to some of his stuff, but the rest isn’t really practical for her to steal. And she hates staying over unprepared.

“So, you don’t need two white tank tops here,” he explains, “One for yours, one for mine.” He tosses the two tank tops onto opposite ends of her bed.

Gina has been waiting for the moment she graduated from toothbrush on the sink to full drawer of belongings at Ricky’s place. And he decides it should be now? While she’s trying not to blink too much so her mascara dries correctly?

She can hear him kind of absently mumbling to himself while he continues to sort, a jacket for here and a jacket for his, a t-shirt, a long sleeve shirt, sweatpants and stolen hoodies.

She has been stunned before by the way they fit into each others lives, like perfect puzzle pieces, but its beyond that now. She doesn’t fit into Ricky’s life, like an extra, an add-on. She just is. She’s part of it. He was thinking about her clothes and what she likes to wear and how that is part of his life. Their life.

She puts her blush away, definitely.

“A rehearsal leotard for yours,” he says, and she spins to watch him in person this time, toss it into a pile on her bed, “And a rehearsal leotard for mine. I like the blue one so I called dibs.”

“Sure,” she shrugs, arms crossed over her chest, leaning on the edge of her sink, thinking of ways to defend herself to Carlos for being late simply because she wants to live in this moment forever.

“You gotta help me on this one, because I don’t know what its counterpart needs to be,” he smiles nervously as he holds up a sparkly fringe skirt.

“Oh, that’s Ashlyn’s from when she visited for Halloween, I gotta send it back with Maddox at Thanksgiving,” Gina laughs.

“Got it, so… yours, mine,” Ricky points to his piles, before dropping the skirt somewhere in between, “And Ashlyn’s.”

“Yours and mine,” she hums softly, thinking Ricky’s right, they’ve been in perpetual honeymoon state forever, and maybe she gets what he means when he says he thinks she looks good in everything, because even in this terrible lighting, with this silly phrase and absurd, life-changing decision he said like it was just any other day, Gina thinks he has never looked better.

“Hope you weren’t planning on sleeping in your bed tonight,” he gestures to the way his attempt at cleaning actually cleaned nothing at all, and her bed is more crowded than before, full of clothes.

She could not be bothered in the slightest.

“We’ll have to grab a pile on the way back to yours tonight.”

“See, you say that knowing I’m gonna have to kiss you for it, and then you’ll have to fix your makeup again, and we’re going to be late. So you want Carlos to kill me.”

“No one said you had to kiss me,” she winks, grabbing her keys from the beds table and heading for the door.

“Yeah, you definitely want me dead.”

(She lets him kiss her in the doorway, in the elevator, at every stop sign and then some, and doesn’t really mind what it does to her makeup, too busy wielding congratulations from every stranger Ricky tells they’re on their honeymoon, forgets phase, so he has an excuse to kiss her again. They’re five minutes late, but Ricky lives to see the next day and wakes her up with another perfect kiss and a t-shirt she gets to keep there.)

Gina loves Ricky.

Its a statement that bears repeating, because she spends the better part of the next hour calling him an idiot.

But she loves him, remember that.

“I hate that we went to school so far away from each other,” Kourtney has to practically yell over the booming music, looping an arm around Gina’s, “I miss dancing with you, and doing makeup on the world’s most flawless skin.”

“Okay, have you looked in a mirror lately!?” Gina giggles, though she spins Kourtney around giddily and agrees, “But they couldn’t keep us apart for long…”

“Sisters!” She squeals, clinking her red plastic cup with Gina in cheers before both tossing another sip back, “Even if this way too tiny apartment has created way too much body heat and melted all of my hard work off our faces.”

“We could do makeup every morning you’re here Kourt, seriously,” Gina nods, holding her best friends hand as they get pushed to the side by the crowd.

“Gina has suggested that,” Maddox appears on Gina’s right, Ashlyn in tow, “Something about roommate bonding if we shared secrets over blush and morning coffee.”

“And I am continually turned down. Maddox doesn’t do well with eyeliner,” Gina leans in towards Kourt, “She blinks, it goes everywhere. We stick to roomie face masks.”

“Oh yes, lets do face masks tomorrow night!” Maddox claps excitedly, and Kourtney laughs with Gina.

“See?”

“I for one think we need to do less talking about my girlfriend’s eyeliner aversion and do more dancing!” Ashlyn yells and spins Maddox under her arm with a giggle, in the little room they’re provided, and who are Gina and Kourtney to disagree?

Kourtney and Ashlyn’s girls trip visit happened to coincide with Gina and Maddox’s other roommates 21st birthday, thus, the booming music, cheap alcohol, and LED lights in their small apartment party. They were proud to initiate Kourt and Ash into it, and had pregamed well before any of their guests arrived, so Gina can say they’re all feeling good enough to make fools of themselves to whatever music is playing that they can barely hear.

“Oh my god, I love this song!” Ashlyn squeals, immediately jumping to the music, her drink sloshing around in her cup.

“I know,” Maddox smiles sweetly, leaning into her.

“Oh my god, did you—“

“Mhm.”

“Bleh!”

“Ugh, couples!”

Gina and Kourtney yell in mock protest at their sickeningly adorable friends, through bouts of laughter.

“You better watch it, Porter,” Maddox fires back through a smile, “This is my one night only of PDA, lest we all forget I literally live with Ricky.”

Gina takes a long, long sip of her drink, then purses her lips together with a gulp, and sheepishly says, “No comment.”

“Yeah, I should probably stay silent too, I was texting her brother thirty seconds ago,” Kourtney says, before they both burst into giggles and Gina had to hide her face in Kourtney’s shoulder.

“You know the music’s not that loud, Kourt, I heard that!”

“Ugh, guys, when did we get so grown up?” Gina says after collecting, an arm around Maddox and Kourt, “I swear we were just humoring Gadget’s scary stories—”

“That’s strike two for you, ma’am, one more and we’re doing a shot.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, Miss CIT,” Kourtney snickers.

“That’s it, round up the troops,” Maddox grabs Gina’s arm, already a hold on Ashlyn’s and nods Kourtney to follow to the kitchen.

“We’re literally all right here—“ Gina starts, but Ashlyn waves her off, and they both have to bite back giggles at Maddox’s determined path to the alcohol.

“Everyone have empty cups?” Maddox grabs something that Gina knows tastes cheap and horrible, and starts to pour into Kourtney’s cup, then Ashlyn’s. Gina quickly finishes the last of what she had before slamming her cup on the counter to be followed by Maddox filling her own.

“Is this tradition?” Gina teases, already regretting the tiny bit of clear liquid in her cup.

“No, just payback.”

“Then why are you also doing it?” Ashlyn asks tentatively.

“I like to be included,” Maddox shrugs, and gets a sloppy kiss on the cheek from Ash for the response while Gina glares at her cup and Kourt giggles excitedly.

“Let’s get this over with.”

“Now or never.”

“Hold up—“ Maddox holds out a hand to stop them, just as Gina has steeled herself to take the plunge. Her phone blares to life, the screen bright in the dimmed kitchen, and Maddox points Ito down so the whole group can see, “Speaking of my brother.”

“Jet!?”

"I still cannot believe we managed to accidentally plan our girls weekend the same exact date the boys all went to visit Jet’s school on the opposite side of the country,” Kourtney says, peering over to see his contact picture lighting up the screen, showing a FaceTime call.

“Answer him, Maddie,” Ashlyn yells, “They can do the shot with us!”

“Ooh!”

Maddox rolls her eyes, but her smile is unmistakable as she swipes to accept the call.

Even though it’s loud, they all yell hellos and greetings even louder when Jet’s face appears on the screen.

“Maddie, where’s Gina?”

“Well hello to you too little brother!” Maddox yells, “We’re having a great time here, thanks for asking!”

“Yeah, yeah, have you seen Gina? She’s not picking up her phone.”

“Hi Jet!” Gina leans over Maddox’s shoulder to wave to him. She thinks he says something but she can’t hear him well, “Sorry, what was that?”

“Did you post a Tik Tok, earlier?”

“Yeah,” Gina shakes her head, confused. The four of them had made one while they were getting ready before. She has a decent amount of followers, so she saw well before she pocketed her phone for the night that it was already climbing in views, but she didn’t think anything of it. “Why?”

“Someone random commented something about wanting to date you?”

“Right,” Gina affirms again, she gets those comments a lot, asking about her relationship status even years after the documentary’s release. She ignores most of them, but every once in a while, responds, “I said I had a boyfriend.”

“Mhm, well, Ricky saw that.”

“That’s weird, he’s never been jealous over stuff like that before,” Gina brings the phone up closer to her ear so she can hear, and her friends follow, huddling into the quietest corner of their kitchen.

“Its not jealousy, really its…” Jet’s voice trails off, and Gina eyes him, perplexed.

“What do you mean?”

“He heard you have a boyfriend and burst into tears.”

See? Idiot.

Maddox grabs Gina’s arm and bends over with cackling laughter when she hears Jet, and Kourtney tries to explain it to Ashlyn who couldn’t hear, but has trouble getting words out through her own laughter. Gina hasn’t been able to move the hand she immediately threw over her gasping giggle.

“He did not!”

“It’s been ten minutes,” Jet nods, “I keep telling him it’s him, but he doesn’t believe me.”

“How drunk are you guys?” Gina manages to gasp out.

“Happy hour was more like, happy many hours,” Jet says, “Wait, Kourt’s there?”

Kourtney has wandered into the camera’s field of vision and waves adorably at their caller, while still doubling over in hilarity.

“Can you talk to him?”

“I don’t think he wants to hear from me that I have a boyfriend,” Gina says, and it’s so absurd, and he’s such an idiot, and she loves him.

“Wait, dude? You called her?!” Gina hears the faintest bit of said idiots voice on the line, sounding a little slurred and way more stressed.

Jet turns the camera away, but Gina can still hear him, “I know Carlos is having the time of his life with this right now, but I was promised a drunk Taco Bell run and then movie marathon so, we need to dry our tears, bro. She’s my last resort.”

She does in fact hear Carlos echoing the cackling happening on their end, even though Jet and Ricky sound distressed, for different reasons.

“Alright, lets break the news to him,” Gina says, gesturing to the phone in her hand, “Maddox, may I—“

“Be my guest, heartbreaker,” Maddox shimmies her eyebrows suggestively, and before she heads for the quiet of her bedroom, Gina tosses back the shot in her cup. It earns her some whoops and cheers from her friends, even Jet mutters a “damn!”

She scurries into her room and flips the light switch, holds the phone up at a better angle once she finds a spot to sit on the edge of her bed, “Hey, Wildcat.”

“Gina, hey, sorry, I told Jet not to call,” Ricky says through the most adorable sniffle in the world. His lips are pursed together like he’s gonna burst at any moment. What an idiot.

“It’s no problem. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he shakes his head very subtly, like one quick movement will open the floodgates for good.

“You having a good weekend with your friends?”

“Yes, mhm,” another very small nod of his head. She tries her hardest not to giggle.

“Me too,” she hums sweetly, looking down at the phone, “I miss my boyfriend though.”

“Really?” His bottom lip juts out puckered, her mind flip flops between he’s so stupid and he’s so cute at an alarmingly fast rate, “That’s uh, that’s too bad.”

“Yeah, he went to visit his friend in LA.”

“I’m in LA,” he answers.

“Wow,” Gina says slowly, “Maybe you’ve seen him? While you’ve been around?”

“I don’t know…”

“Let’s see, let me tell you about him, see if you recognize him,” she starts, “He has super cute curly hair, kind of messy but I like it. Brown eyes. Always wearing converse.”

She’d been doing a really good job up until then, but a giggle escapes when his head snaps down to look at his feet.

“What else? He’s a good singer. He’s from Utah,” Gina wracks her brain for more very obvious things she can rattle off, “He makes me laugh more than anyone else. He knows everything about me. He’s was the lead in four school plays back to back and twice at summer camp, so he’s kind of a big deal.”

“He sounds great.”

She nods, “I miss him. But he’s having a good weekend with his friends Jet and Carlos, and I’ll see him when he gets back Sunday night, so, I’ll be okay. We’re gonna get his favorite Chinese takeout and watch Disney Channel movie musicals.”

The screen doesn’t get any brighter, but a lightbulb definitely blinks on.

His jaw drops, making his mouth the most adorable ‘o’ shape, and his eyes flit around the screen, obviously looking at her.

“Anything else you wanna know?” She smiles cheekily.

He drops his head into his free hand, wiping a tear.

“Hold on, one more thing,” Gina leans in close to say, “He’s an idiot!”

“Dude—“

“This is going in the hall of fame, Bowen.”

“LA alcohol is crazy, Gi,” Ricky says, obviously still blinking his surroundings back to life, now remembering there is indeed, no reason to cry over Gina’s boyfriend.

“I think alcohol is alcohol, sweetie.”

“I’m losing my mind.”

“Maddox wanted to do a group shot, but I’m making an executive decision,” she finally lets her laughter run free, “It’s water and Baja Blasts only for you tonight, dude.”

“Jet is never letting me live this down,” Ricky shakes his head, his distress catching up to him again, in a different way this time, “Carlos is never letting me live this down.”

“You’re forgetting the fact that I’m never letting you live this down,” Gina says, “Not to mention Maddox, and Ash, and Kourt.”

“They all saw?”

“I’m on Maddox’s phone, Ricky.”

“Well, condolences to you, Gi, because you won’t be seeing your boyfriend on Sunday night. He has passed away. From embarrassment.”

Gina flops back onto her bed, the effects of her own alcohol not lost on her either, and the longer she has to look at such a tiny picture of Ricky and not be able to kiss his precious face makes her dizzy. She holds the phone up above her as she lays back, “The statement still stands, I miss my boyfriend.”

“He misses you,” Ricky says, the syllables not all quite put together in his drunken state, but she gets it, she gets him, always, “Or so I think. I don’t know him.”

“Idiot,” she smiles.

“I liked the Tik Tok, you looked really pretty.”

“Thanks, Kourt did all our makeup.”

“She did a great job,” Ricky mirrors her stance, and seems to lay down on a bed too, “Like you looked so good.”

“Without you here to help me pick out an outfit and everything.”

“You didn’t need me, you looked so pretty, Gina,” he repeats for the third time, and it makes her already hot cheeks even warmer, “I wanted to date you.”

“You’ll be very pleased to know,” she smirks, “That me and you have a date with takeout and my couch planned for as soon as you get back.”

“And Zac Efron?”

“You are the only Troy Bolton I need,” she says softly, “Maybe we’ll watch this little movie I love, Frozen: The Musical: The Documentary, you ever heard of it?”

“Possibly.”

“My boyfriend’s kinda the star of it, not to brag,” Gina says, “He’s very talented in it, also has a super huge crush on me the whole time.”

“I’m your boyfriend,” he smiles, like even though it hit him a while back in this conversation, it bears repeating.

“You’re my boyfriend,” she echoes

“And I’m starving, is your quarter-life crisis over yet?” Gina hears Jet yell from somewhere that must not be too far off.

“Go eat some tacos, boyfriend of mine,” Gina sits up with a grunt and a lot of effort, and smiles into the screen.

“I love you,” Ricky holds the phone up close to face. He looks ridiculous, he’s such an idiot, and yet—

“I love you more.”

“More-er.”

Ricky ends with an over-exaggerated kiss to the screen, and Gina laughs as Jet yells in the background, “Gross, dude, you’re cleaning that.”

“Take care of him boys,” Gina signs off, waving to Carlos and Jet before they wave back, and then hangs up.

She allows herself a moment to kick her feet over the edge of the bed and squeal into her pillow like she’s got a giddy high school crush (and not feelings that have developed into the full-time, monumental, for-life kind.

When she finds her friends back in the center of the living room, huddled maybe even closer together than before, she feeds into the coming-of-age of it all, and runs into their arms, stretched as wide as they could open for her.  She stumbles into Kourtney’s side and leans over giggling to the point her and Ashlyn definitely collide foreheads, and feels Maddox’s hand loop through her own to keep her balanced at the same time.

“How’s the boyfriend?”

“Didn’t know I had one of those?”

“I did,” Maddox mumbles under her breath, earning an elbow to the side from Gina.

“You might wanna not be here Sunday night in that case,” Gina shrugs.

“He’s good then?” Kourt giggles on her right.

Gina doesn’t know how it happened, when they all got so grown up and somehow managed to still be her perfect, high school best friends who tease her mercilessly about her crush that’s way more than a crush.

“He’s an idiot,” she shakes her head, in disbelief, then grabs Ashlyn’s cup and takes a punching gulp, “I think I’m gonna be with him forever.”

(By the end of the night, Gina has not followed the rule she gave Ricky, and has plenty more alcohol funneled into her system, which leads to her drunk dialing his number from memory from her bed, and asking very politely for him to say he’s her boyfriend again, which he does, over and over and between every giggle that’s probably keeping her roommates awake, until her eyelids go droopy and she dreams about him being something more.)

“Your building is a fucking maze.”

“I love you.”

“A labyrinth, Ricky Bowen.”

“I love you more than I have ever loved anyone in my entire life.”

“I’ve been driven to the brink of insanity by the stairwells.”

“You are the love of my life.”

“I’m literally never coming here ever again.”

“Can I kiss you?”

Gina skids to a stop in front of Ricky, who is sitting pretty, unfazed and unbothered, on top of a washing machine in the basement of the world’s most convoluted apartment complex. His smile is brighter than any of the lights in the ceiling, which might not be saying much. She glares with steam coming out of her ears to rival the pipes lining every questionable hallway she took to get here.

She shoves the bag of Tide pods into his chest, and keeps her arms close to her own, with a scowl.

“Detergent.”

“I’m gonna kiss you now.”

The warning is pointless because he’s on her before the words are even really fully out. The bag of Tide pods slips and thunks to the disgusting floor, but it’s hard to pay attention to anything else when Ricky Bowen gets his lips on yours.

He pulls her in by her shoulders, and she instinctively eases up on her toes, settles her hands by his waist and presses even further into a kiss she swore she wouldn’t give into because she was mad at him, dammit.

He was maddening, that’s for sure.

But he time she’s sufficiently dizzy with equal parts rage and desire, she backs up a step and pants for deep, humid, basement laundry room air.

“Your directional navigation skills suck,” she moves back to lean her hips against the other row of machines behind her, and resumes her glare, “I got lost like, six times trying to get down here.”

“But you found me,” he winks.

“No thanks to you.”

“Thank you, Gi,” he tacks on the most sickeningly sweet tone as he hops down from his perch, and tries to crowd her space again.

She buckles under the weight of his gaze and pushes his smirk away, letting her hand stay on his cheek for as long as she can, “Do your laundry.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I swear to god, if this class picture doesn’t get framed and hung over your mantle…”

“I don’t have a mantle.”

“Etched in gold.”

“I’m months away from a teacher’s salary here, Gi.”

“Pasted on billboards at a minimum.”

Gina glares at him as he bends and throws the detergent into the washing machine, which was filled and patiently waiting for her arrival after Ricky called, almost in tears, because he completely forgot tomorrow was picture day at the school he student taught at, and of course he had nothing clean to wear and nothing soapy to make something clean with.

Maybe she was being a bit dramatic. But she’s never ventured into the basement of his apartment complex before, and is sure she never will again. It was dark, confusing, musty. All good things to be for a shared laundry room. She was lost at minimum three times because Ricky couldn’t give directions and all signs pointing here were fading. A mouse ran over her foot on the walk down the staircase here. (Maybe that was a sign.)

So she means it. The class picture better be worth it.

Ricky uses her emergency detergent she sprinted here (and risked her life) for and slams the door shut, the machine whirs to life.

“You have a good day?”

“Fuck off.”

“What did I do wrong?” Ricky laughs, though he’s genuinely questioning Gina’s testy mood.

“I had a fantastic day,” she deadpans.

“Is my laundry room that traumatizing?“

“Maybe.”

“Go home then,” he nods towards the exit, “I’m serious, I owe you, you do not have to sit here.”

She glares between him and the doorway, pouts her lips, and mumbles something so incoherent she’s not sure she understood it herself.

“What was that?”

Another mumble.

“Come again?” Ricky makes a show of putting a hand to one ear, and eyeing her teasingly

“I missed you,” she whispers, looking up from under her lashes, embarrassed at how quickly her outburst turned around by just looking at him.

“That’s my girl,” he reaches far over the gap between them and grabs one of her hands sweetly.

“You could at least humor me and say you missed me too,” she eye rolls.

“Was that not a given?”

“Give me something to do before I punch the smirk off your face.”

“You could kiss me again?”

She shakes her head, “Once was enough, Ricky, I don’t know what lives on these surfaces.”

“Are you implying that my lips have touched objects in this laundry room?”

Though she absolutely did not, her peeved outlook on this dingy excuse for a laundry room in the cheapest building you can find in the city still stands. She runs her hands over her arms and mimics shaking off the grime as she looks around, “I’ve only been here five minutes and I feel like I need a twenty minute shower.”

Ricky looks up at her under long lashes of his own, and closes the gap between them again to hold up keys he pulled from his pocket, “Can you find your way up?”

“To your apartment?” She’s not sure why the information is processing so slowly in her brain.

Ricky wants her to go upstairs and be in his apartment all alone. Use his shower. Change into clothes she keeps there. Hell, maybe she’ll even brush her teeth. Put on makeup. Cook some dinner and wait for him snuggled on the couch to finish his laundry.

“I can wait,” she says simply.

“You don’t have to,” he tosses the keys across to her and despite her mental state, she has the coordination to catch them, “What’s mine is yours.”

What’s mine is yours.

Holy shit.

“I’ll just get lost and cry over the overflowing garbage pails on my way up again,” she insists, “How long until you have to move the clothes?”

Ricky turns and looks at the tiny screen on the washer, shrugs when he turns back, “Only like 20 minutes. Its a small load.”

“Well then,” Gina hops up and echoes his earlier stance, sitting atop a machine, and pats the lid to her side, beckoning him to join her, “Tell me about your day, so I can put names to faces with the picture I get tomorrow that I risked my life for.”

“So dramatic,” he sing songs as he joins her, “I think we’ve got a drama teacher spot open, since you seem so qualified.”

His teasing is familiar and wonderful, and settles her ping ponging emotions from the day, lets her rest her head on his shoulder (and even lean against the questionable surfaced wall behind them) while he fills their twenty minutes with absurd stories and lively anecdotes and more ways than Gina knows how to count that he made her the proudest girlfriend in the world today (missing vital cleaning supplies aside.)

Life with Ricky has picked up over the last couple months. Though they’re still both in school, Ricky steps away from his diploma and Gina not too far behind, living in off-campus apartments has kind of changed the game. They’re closer, in distance and more, and Gina has loved every minute of it. It’s weird, coming from a childhood where she wanted no one close because closer meant more to lose.

Ricky flips every rule on its head for her.

She’s constantly looking for ways to be closer and relishes in every new way she finds. She loves when she finishes a day of class and how quickly she memorized the train stops to get to Ricky’s right after, where he cooks her dinner and swoons over the baked goods she brings. She loves that Maddox has timed how long it takes her to get to Ricky’s from their place so she can stop freaking out when Gina doesn’t text her that she’s arrived safely in the haphazard “I dunno, like ten minutes?” that she initially promised Maddox it would take (its a whole twelve and a half, and Gina is sure to text by twelve and twenty nine every time.) She loves that her mom knows Ricky’s address and sends her packages there because its easier than her apartment’s mailing system, loves how that’s where her mom showed up when she visited and made herself right at home. She loves that she can see this being normal because thats how it already feels.

The building itself may need some work, but her and Ricky are as sturdy as ever.

Gina’s just getting comfortable during a retelling of what happened during introduction to xylophones when the shortest twenty minutes of her life evaporates into thin air and the machine rings loudly to alert her to that.

“Nooo, five more minutes,” Gina whines, covers her ears and sinks further into the crook of Ricky’s neck.

“The sooner I switch it the sooner I get you back upstairs,” he kisses her temple softly and hops with ease off the machines and crouches down to unload his washer.

He pulls some clothes out, and Gina tries to turn off whatever domestic bliss character arc Ricky has turned on in her brain today, because she’s melting at the sight of him picking up his wet clothes and tracking them over to a dryer.

It’d make the worlds most boring movie, but she lets it play.

“When’d you learn to do laundry so good?”

“I haven’t been living at home for four years, Gina.”

“But I mean, I permanently own at least four sweatshirts you shrunk and couldn’t fit into any more,” Gina swings her feet sweetly, her heels hitting the echoing front of the machine, “So when did you get good enough to trust yourself with your professional attire.”

“I have a nuisance of a girlfriend.”

“Is that so?”

“Mhm,” he tugs the the door of the dryer open and leans over to toss the first handful of clothes in, “It was either learn to dry without shrinking, or somehow afford an entire new wardrobe.”

“How lucky that nuisance girlfriend of yours has a whole spare closet of duplicates to offer.”

“Very funny, she’s giving me none of that.”

“You still love her though, right?”

“No!”

Gina pauses, brows scrunched, “No?”

“Noooo,” he drawls the syllable out exaggeratedly slow, back still to Gina, “No.”

“Tell us how you really feel, Bowen.”

He turns to her sharply then, brows furrowed even tighter together than her own, “Someone forgot their unicorn int he dryer!”

Ricky holds up, what could only be describes as, the fluffiest, rainbow unicorn stuffed animal with sparkles in its fuzzy hair. Gina blinks.

Her boyfriend looks alarmingly distraught at his discovery and has abandoned his wet clothes, half still in the washer and the other half now on top of the crime scene dryer, in favor of the abandoned stuffed animal.

“He was just sitting inside the dryer all alone!” It’s said in what Gina has affectionally begun referring to as Ricky’s teacher voice. She heard it whenever he practiced his lessons for her on FaceTime, and sometimes when he told stories about his student teaching days. This might be the best iteration yet though.

“What a shame,” Gina has a problem holding in her giggle. But you have to see the way his face looks at this moment in time. He is the cutest thing in the entire world. And she’s saying this after wanting to murder him for leading her on a wild goose chase through the confusing labyrinth to his laundry room. So you have to know she means it.

“This is not a time to be laughing, Gi,” Ricky says sternly, “Mr Rainbow Sprinkles needs us to take care of him in his time of need.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m workshopping names for us to give him.”

“Us?”

“We have to keep him.”

“Some very distressed child is going to come running down here for it in a minute.”

“And until then, we need to give…” Ricky looks long and hard at the stuffed unicorn in his hands before settling, “Snowball the love and attention he deserves.”

“Snowball?” Gina crosses her arms over her chest and laughs again, “You’re not serious.”

“I resent the fact that you think I’m anything but serious about naming our first born unicorn.”

“You’re a twenty-two year old man.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” He is so perplexed and she in so in love its kind of embarrassing, “What about Barney?”

“The purple dinosaur?”

“You’re right, wrong genre of characters,” he shakes his head, “Olaf?”

“Ricky…”

“Junior?” He tosses the unicorn between his hands, “Flattered, but could get confusing for us.”

“I’m not—“

“Oreo?”

And well, if you can’t beat ‘em…

“What are you, a seven year old naming a Yorkie?” Gina balks, “He’s literally rainbow.”

“So what I’m hearing is we go back to Sprinkles?”

“I didn’t say that,” she teases, “Kristoff.”

“Second option for naming our son after me?”

“He’s not—“ she needs to collect herself while her stomach flips at that last statement, “I just liked you as Kristoff.”

“Oh my god, have you seen that documentary—“

“That joke is dead,” Gina says, nodding towards Ricky, “Like Troy Bolton is going to be if you keep tossing him back and forth like that.”

“A third time?”

“If we had a girl she’d be Gabriella and don’t you forget it.”

“Really?” Ricky places Unnamed Unicorn Son on his left while he leans against the machines across from Gina, and continues, “I always imagined us getting a dog and Gabriella doesn’t seem like a dog name.”

He imagined them having a dog.

Ricky was planning a future with her.

It hits her as hard as the harsh lights of an astoundingly horrible laundry room.

And the fact that she’s still sitting in it when she doesn’t have to be. Just wants to.

This is it for her.

This life-altering realization manifests itself in Gina’s words a simple, calm, cool, and collected, “And Troy Bolton is?”

“I didn’t say it had to be Troy,” Ricky responds quickly, “Hopefully we’d choose it together.”

“Is that not what we’re doing?”

“Not when you’ve shot down every idea I’ve had.”

“Give me a good one and I won’t.”

“Buddy?”

“Generic.”

“Christopher?”

“For a dog?”

“Well, you don’t like Oreo!” Ricky yells, “If you don’t like mine let’s hear yours.”

“Max,” Gina counters with one of her own.

“And that’s not generic?”

“Maybe it should mean something special to us,” she offers, “Other than a character we played.”

“Like… Camp?”

Gina tucks her chin in laughter. Ricky continues, “Homecoming. Susan Fine. Big Red’s Car.”

“Rolls right off the tongue,” Gina says in faux agreement, “Our dog: Big Red’s Car Bowen-Porter.”

“It has character.”

“Be serious.”

“I told you, I am!” Ricky shrieks, “What about East? Its where we met.”

“I feel like there’s something a lot more obvious and a little more suited for a dog if that’s what you’re going for.”

“Hm?” Ricky hums, not getting it at first, and then it settling, “Oh yeah.”

She’s impressed daily at their silent form of communication, unspoken understanding. Today is no different.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Great work team,” Gina holds a hand up across the walk way to give Ricky an enthusiastic hi-five, which of course, as always, he latches on to so they’re holding hands instead of letting go, “That’s exactly how all parents pick out names. Strictly scientific approach.”

“When do you wanna get the imaginary dog?”

“Not when I have to visit him here.”

“So as soon as I move? Because my lease is up soon…” he says, and his eyes light up like she didn’t just insult his apartment building for the seventeenth time in one hour, “Deal.”

Gina has gotten closer to Ricky sure, but she’s even more in awe of how close she’s gotten to the life she’s always dreamed about without ever noticing. She blinked and she was kissing him for the first time. She blinked and she was picking out dog names with him.

So she decides she’d like to blink and kiss him again. But maybe in his actual, cozy apartment.

“Can you hurry up and finish your laundry, Wildcat?”

(A little while later Gina is pulling out dried and un-shrunken clothes from the dryer when a teary eyed little boy comes bounding into the world’s worst laundry room with his dad, and just about loses his mind when he realizes that his favorite teacher in the world Mr Bowen has been taking such good care of Sprinkles the Unicorn the entire time. Gina swears is the mold that’s surely growing on the walls that leaves her teary eyed too.)

The only person it doesn’t surprise that Gina’s a hopeless romantic is Ricky.

Which is helpful, considering she’s checking off like a dozen major rom com points this weekend alone.

“Can you scoot?”

“Literally no.”

“Where am I supposed to—“

“Oh my god its counting down!”

“And you still have not made room for me on the bench!” Gina yells, trying to hike up her long silky skirt enough to not trip over it, crouching into the worlds tiniest photo booth with the world’s least spacially aware boyfriend.

“Gina, it’s starting!!!” His voice is up three octaves with excitement, but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s still trying to find room to sit, the numbers starting to flash on the screen counting down from 5… 4…

“What happened to ladies first?” Gina ducks her head under the low opening to the booth and kicks Ricky’s feet, hoping once again he’ll shove over before the entire photboopth strip is just the back of her head.

3… 2…

“Come on!” He is unperturbed by her distress and very focused on the task at hand, so he pulls her in with a force using a hand around her waist.

She catches herself with one hand on the wall to the side, half on his lap, the brightest giggle in the world as soon as it snaps a picture on 1.

“I hate you,” she says, not an ounce of meaning behind it, with her nose nudging his.

“On a day of everlasting and eternal love, Porter?” He tsks, but pulls her in for an everlasting and eternal kiss as soon as the second picture snaps.

“You dork,” she all but swoons, pulling her cheek flush to his, giddy smiles for picture number three, “Is your hand permanently in the shape of a peace sign?”

And its kind of the most perfect row of pictures in the world when it finishes off with her turned to him to make fun of him, straight to his grinning face.

Gina starts to get up to retrieve the pictures from outside but Ricky tugs her back down again, like he’d done just seconds before, “Wait, lets stay.”

“It doesn’t work like that, Ricky.”

“This is the first thirty seconds all day, no—all weekend—where someone hasn’t either tried to pinch my cheeks, ask me about my post-grad plans, or not known who I was at all so bad that they told me I’m the spitting image of Todd.”

“It’s the hairline, it’s uncanny,” she teases, running a hand through his life-of-their own and very much still there curls, of which cannot be said for Ricky’s new step-father.

“Shut up,” he tries to nudge her away, but she’s insistent, lets her hand fall to the back of his neck, loops a finger lazily around one curl.

“You’re also forgetting family members who skip all three stages and ask me about grandkids.”

“Wait until they hear the name we have picked out!”

She hums content, placing a gentle hand on his cheek, “C’mon, Wildcat.”

“Five more minutes!”

“There’s a line!”

“I’m the son of the bride,” he whines, “That’s gotta mean something.”

“Yeah, it means, you are supposed to be out there getting ready for your big slow dance,” she pats him on the shoulder, hoping to instill confidence in her still, somewhat, choreographically challenged boy, “Lets go.”

“You hate me.”

“Glad you finally noticed,” she smirks, swinging her legs over the side and maneuvering her way up and out of the tiny photo booth, pulling Ricky by the hand begrudgingly out behind her.

Ricky does have a point about the relative peace and seclusion the photo booth provided. Stepping back into Lynne and Todd’s reception space does feel a bit like stepping back into another world. One that is as chaotic as described and full of incredibly invasive family member questions, but also pretty good food, nice music, and the perfect opportunity to swoon over Ricky a million and seven times.

“Only one?” Ricky frowns when the machine produces just one copy of the strip of pictures of them.

“Gimme,” Gina makes a grabbing motion for the strip, and when handed to her, she swiftly pulls and rips it in half. She hands Ricky’s adorably stunned gaze the top two pictures, “Yours.”

She pockets the bottom two pictures for herself, and smiles, “Mine.”

With her arm looped in Ricky’s they slowly make their way towards the dance floor, hoping to avoid eye contact with every great aunt and second cousin Gina will never learn the names of, and for the most part, succeeding.

That’s when the DJ taps three times on the mic to get everyones attention, and Gina can practically hear Ricky’s stomach drop.

“Remember the rules.”

“No phones out while you’re dancing,” Gina recites the very strict rules Ricky has been drilling into her since his mom first broached the topic of a mother-son dance at her weeding, “No laughing.”

“And?”

“Turn to face the windows?”

He nods her on.

“With my eyes closed.”

“Thanks.”

“You are the most dramatic boy I have ever met,” she turns her shoulders square to him, fidgets with his crooked bowtie, “I’ve seen you dance many times. I’ve been impressed by your dancing many times.”

“This is different.”

“How?”

“Just is,” he shrugs, like that’s answer enough, and as if on cue the DJ speaks up.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ll please direct your attention to the center of the dance floor!”

“Someone forgot to tell him the rules,” Gina leans up and whispers in Ricky’s ear, before pushing him off and turning on her heel to face the windows.

She turns back just once to see him staring at her, before he shakes his perfect head of curls and skips out onto the dance floor to find his mom. Gina counts to five, watches until his back is to her, and then breaks his rules.

She migrates to a far corner of the dance floor, hoping to be able to avoid nagging family members while also getting to admire her boyfriend without him noticing she doesn’t have her eyes closed for the entire performance. She’ll keep her phone away though.

The DJ starts up a slow song Gina doesn’t recognize, but immediately thinks sounds beautiful. Maybe she’s biased.

Ricky looks sheepish and embarrassed to hold his hand out to his mom in her simple white gown, but makes a show of being quite the gentleman in doing it anyway. It starts off a little stiff, but its hard to mess up a simple sway and side step in a circle to a generically nice song. Biased or not.

Gina has spent years finding things to be proud of Ricky for.

She was the first person to see his musical talent, and tell him to stay in theater, which has blossomed into the most incredible career waiting for him after graduation that she promises she won’t break another rule to talk about (but know, she’s oozing with pride.) Even when she was mad and confused and lonely she was cheering for him. She remembers the feeling of his ballad in the infamous production of Frozen like it literally happened last week, her heart a mess of emotions she didn’t understand but one she clearly did. She burst into tears before his shocked brain caught up after opening his college acceptance letter. She had, much to Maddox’s dismay, Ricky’s A on his first official lesson plan hung up on her fridge (the tape didn’t stick right and Gina knows she didn’t put it on a magnet, so she doesn’t buy Maddox’s begrudging that much.) She cheered when he learned to do laundry and bragged to everyone she knew about what a surprisingly good cook he was. She doesn’t even mind when people still, years later, ask her about her Disney+ documentary.

She is endlessly proud of the boy that she loves, for a million reasons.

But watching him right now might just be the proudest she’s ever been.

Because she remembers the boy who couldn’t even look her in the eye and say Todd’s name. Today he stood at his mom’s side, bawling like the hopeless romantic she had turned him into because he was so happy his mom was happy again. With all the change attached to it.

He is leaps and bounds beyond the boy she met at East High yet still is him in all the best ways.

Her heart feels cartoonish, like its glowing at the sight of him right now, swaying totally off beat with his mom and laughing at something she said in his ear. Its a side effect of falling in love they never tell you about, the immense and world-stopping sense of pride. They don’t play this scene in rom coms, and she’d know, avid enjoyer of the genre that she is and all.

Ricky has become the absolute best version of himself, and stayed that way for years against all the odds thrown at him. Gina has loved him through it all. How could you not feel your heart expand in your chest at the thought?

She must be so lost in her train of thought that she doesn’t notice until Ricky is right in front of her again, arm outstretched.

“Can I have this dance?”

The song is still playing, and over Ricky’s shoulder Gina can see Lynne waving her to come onto the dance floor, an overjoyed smile on her face.

“My favorite duet of ours,” Gina answers cooly, “Did your mom put you up to this?”

“She doesn’t follow the rules,” Ricky smirks, “Neither do you, though. I could feel your eyes on me and not the windows the entire time.”

“See, I was gonna say you look so handsome right now, but if you’re gonna be a baby about it…”

“Please,” he looks her right in the eyes, and struck again by the monumental weight of his love for her even in the most mundane and meaningless of times.

“Fine,” she pretends to begrudge the decision with a sigh, and takes his hand, stepping onto the dance floor, “I guess I can show you how it’s done.”

“Oh no I actually was referring to the handsome thing,” he says, pulling her swiftly towards the center, “If you could please tell me more about how handsome I look tonight.”

“Ooh, you’re so lucky I love you,” she squishes his face between her hands before settling them around his neck to start their casual slow dance.

“I am,” his voice softens with sincerity.

Pride swells in her chest yet again.

“You did a good job,” Gina joins him in softening her voice, “From what I could see in the reflection of the windows, that is.”

“You may have taught me a thing or two over the years, Miss BFA.”

“No post-grad talk,” she repeats his earlier statement, “Mr Rules.”

“Some post grad stuff is exciting though.”

“Oh yeah, like what?” Gina snarks, “Taxes? Crippling student loan debt? Retirement funds?”

“You.”

If she weren’t Miss Bachelors of Fine Arts in Dance she probably would have stopped dancing, come to a standstill completely.

But she continues their gentle sway as he drops more life-altering statements, as he is prone to do at all times.

“I like thinking about what we get to do next, how things change for us, when we’re not in school, all the exciting things we get to do together,” Ricky elaborates, this far-off wonder in his eyes that makes Gina want to melt as he does.

“Oh yeah,” she repeats, so much softer this time because she thinks if she raises her voice any little bit she might cry, “Like what?”

“Like sending our first Christmas card. The first piece of mail we get with both our names on it, same address. Flying home for holidays together,” Ricky lists, his hands fidgeting nervously on her waist, “But dumb stuff too, like taxes, and needing to pay off loans but still deciding to buy the $12 sauce because its objectively better.”

“It is,” she nods, surely letting a tear run down her cheek by now.

“Having all our laundry smell the same because we use the same detergent, or share the load, taking our hopefully one day no longer imaginary dog on walks together,” he beams, “Throwing parties!”

“Like costume parties?” She giggles at the seemingly random suggestion.

“I was thinking like, a wedding.”

If there is any world where Ricky Bowen doesn’t love her like this, Gina never wants to know.

“Ricky Bowen,” she starts simply, deep breath, “Its like the number one rule of girl code that you can’t propose in the middle of someone else’s wedding.”

“You know me and rules.”

“And I think your mom was just starting to like me.”

“Are you kidding? She loves you,” Ricky says, “Has for years. Not as many as me but…”

“Ricky Bowen,” she says, again holding his face to ground her in the moment, because she feels like she’s floating.

“Gina Porter.”

“Are you actually asking?” Gina is sure she is glowing as she says it, “Because I’ll answer—“

“I’m gonna ask again, like way in the future after we’ve done a lot of that exciting post-grad stuff first. Give you your rom com, I go big you know?” Ricky waves ahead of him, like he’s gesturing towards years down the line, “But I’ve been thinking about this for an embarrassingly long amount of time and yes, I’m excited for things to change now, but with the exception of you.”

At sixteen she would have never believed what she’s hearing. But there is no doubt in her mind after the Ricky Bowen she’s seen him become that he means it.

“There is not a single thing I can think of doing post-this moment right here that doesn’t have you in it,” Ricky smiles, right at her, “So I’d like to pre-propose.”

“Then let me pre-answer,” she cannot fill the space after his words quick enough, “You’ve always been my yes.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she nods, kisses him on the cheek under his glassy eyes that match her own.

He’s suddenly overcome with a burst of joy, and contrary to the slow ballad still playing, picks her up and spins her around. She’s sure everyone is breaking Ricky’s rule and is staring directly at them, but she pays it no mind. All she feels is him, the way he grunts happily as he squeezes her waist and twirls her around, the way she giggles into his ear, the way he doesn’t let her land on her feet because he’s spinning her again, this time to dip her romantically.

She’s gazing up at him, arms around his neck, and is transported immediately back to being sixteen and so confusingly, hopelessly in love with him when she thought she’d never have him, in the middle of summer camp. Today she sees every step of her future with him, says yes to it all, in the middle of the dreamiest rom com ever made, audience of two.

Or maybe a few dozen others.

“Oh my gosh, Todd, when are you gonna learn that move for me?!” Gina turns her head to see Lynne excitedly nudging her new husband.

“Whenever Ricky wants to teach me,” he answers, continuing his timeless classic sway and step.

“I wouldn’t hold your breath,” Gina says, as she’s pulled to standing, “Because Ricky can’t teach what he’s not even fully aware of himself.”

“Wow,” Ricky slow nods, mouth agape, “I see how it is.”

Gina smirks, “I will gladly teach the both of you.”

“Between courses on Thanksgiving?”

“So you’ll teach me, you mean,” Lynne nods, “While Todd falls asleep during the football game.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Gina giggles, accepting a teasing hi-five from Todd across from her.

The song finally comes to an end and The DJ’s voice brings the four of them at the center of the dance floor back to reality.

“Everyone give it up for the family of the bride!”

Applause erupts around the reception space and Gina finally gets Ricky’s rules. She’s never once been stage shy, but her cheeks feel fully flushed with the mix of things that just occurred in rapid succession.

The photographer runs onto the dance floor, hurrying before the rest of the guests food back into the space, “Lets get a family shot?”

“Oh, yes,” Lynne claps, and turns to pull Todd next to her in front of the camera.

Gina takes this as her cue to go, and swiftly begins backing away until—

“Gina!”

She see’s Ricky’s mom with a hand outstretched, across her son, waving Gina back over.

“No, no,” Gina tries to wave back, “Family photo—“

“Exactly,” Lynne shouts again, “Get back over here!”

“She’s no bridezilla, but she will get you into this picture one way or another,” Todd leans ahead of her to add on, and Gina’s flush intensifies.

They want her in the family photo.

Gina thinks, on any other night, she might have fought it more. But she looks at her boyfriend that just turned into something more, and doesn’t know why she ever said anything other than yes.

She runs back over, to cheers from the adults and a world-stopping smile from Ricky, as he puts an arm around her waist and pulls her in close.

Her smile puts the camera’s flash to shame.

Ricky pulls her immediately away from the dance floor when they start the dancing music back up again, some old music neither of them recognize and Ricky insists is going to attract all the great old aunts, and heads for the photo booth instead. He cuts the entire line, insisting he can as the guest own honor, which Gina reminds him is not true the way he thinks it is, but she’s otherwise too buys giggling in every language of love to really put up a fight.

She falls into his lap in the tiny booth again and watches as he wrestles for something in his pocket.

“Got something for you,” he says, and in the small space between them, holds up a neatly packaged ring pop.

“You planned this?” Gina’s eyes go unbelievably wide, “I don’t wanna hear anything about you not liking my rom coms ever again Bowen.”

“When we were at the airport, you told the people sitting across from us at the gate that we were going home for a family wedding,” he makes himself busy opening the crinkly candy wrapper, “And hearing you say that? That we were family? I had to get creative on ways to make it official.”

“You sap,” she kisses him, twice for good measure.

He holds up the bright red candy ring to her.

“One day?

“I thought you’d never pre-ask.”

The plastic doesn’t fit the greatest on Gina’s finger when he tries to put it on her, laughter mixing with another round of happy tears because for as much as they’re about to start big, great adult lives together, they’re always going to be two dumb high school kids in love.

He kisses the top of her hand like a gentleman, then licks the candy like a dumb boy.

He is so, so perfect.

She keeps the photo booth strip in her wallet.

(The flight attendant on the plane ride home doesn’t really buy Ricky’s story that he ate her engagement ring and therefore declines to give them complimentary champagne to celebrate their impending nuptials, but Gina doesn’t mind. Just sitting next to him when he tells the third passenger in their row that they’re gonna get married one day makes Gina bubblier than any champagne they could have been given.)

When Gina walks to Ricky’s apartment in the rain one Wednesday afternoon, she has no idea its going to be the last time.

She is drenched head to toe, the surprise rainstorm meaning she didn’t bring a an umbrella to the theater today, and she was traveling to Ricky on foot, late after a full day of classes and rehearsals for her last college show before graduation. She usually just texts him when she arrives, or enters the building, but she is so exhausted and fed up with the bad weather that she just knocks on his door loudly over and over again until he comes to get her.

He swings it open, and she has no idea what she’s about to say next when she does.

“Let’s move in together.”

“Uh, hey,” he shakes his head as if he’s the one dripping wet, “Do you wanna—“

“All I wanted to do when I got out of class today was see you, but it became a choice between getting to my own apartment, relatively dry because its much closer, or running ten blocks in the rain here instead.”

Ricky swings the door open a little wider, inviting her in, but now that Gina’s started, she’s on a mission.

“I don’t want it to be a choice anymore. I want coming home to be the same as coming to you,” she says passionately, “It was never a fair fight for any other option anyway, because you always win. But maybe we should make your win a definite one. Move in with me.”

“Gina, maybe you should come in and dry off—“

“My lease is up soon,” she further explains, “Maddox has been begging me to ask you this for years because she’s tired of third wheeling and I don’t particularly want to start when Ashlyn moves here soon too.”

Ricky keeps the door propped open with one arm, and leans behind him to give her a dry hoodie he had lying around. She sheds her drenched jacket but keeps rambling.

“Beyond it logistically and financially making sense, I just straight up want to,” she smiles, “I want to live with you, Ricky. My life is with you.”

He gulps audibly, and tries to bring her in once more by pushing the door open again, “Can you come inside now?”

Gina sighs, having wanted an answer to her moving and passionate speech (that was pretty good, she has to brag, for being totally on the fly.) But she steps in behind him silently, and toes off her shoes and drops her wet jacket before following Ricky to his small and messy with clutter kitchen table, where his laptop is open.

She hugs her favorite green sweatshirt to her chest as she watches him spin the screen towards her, wordlessly.

And then she reads it. Its a listing for a one-bedroom apartment.

“You’re kidding.”

“There is something weird going on here,” Ricky taps between his temple and hers, “Because I have been scrolling through listings for apartments for rent since you said you were on your way home and I realized, I didn’t wanna have to ask if you meant yours or mine.”

Gina leans forward and scrolls through the pages he has pulled up. Though she just blurted it out today, she has known this was right for years, and its clear Ricky has put a lot of thought into it too.

“Ours,” he says softly, “Lets get one that ours.”

She leaps up and throws her arms around him in a hug.

“Sorry for getting rain on you.”

“Plenty of your stuff in my closet to change into,” he starts backing her up down the hallway towards his bedroom, peppering her face with short and sweet kisses as he does, “I also cooked dinner.”

“Aren’t I lucky?” She teases, kissing him back, likes how she can even navigate to his bedroom backwards on muscle memory.

“I’m luckier,” he pushes the door open with ease, before a long and slow kiss that warms her up fully, “I love you.”

“I love you more,” she pecks his nose.

“But I love you mo—“

“Do not,” she shushes him with a hand to his lips, already beginning to divest her wet rehearsal wear in favor of anything that’s Ricky’s instead.

“But I do.”

“You won the luckier game so I get the I love you more today.”

“Then I get tomorrow,” he says, pinky up between them.

She links her pinky around his, and beams, looking forward to every tomorrow that is theirs, “Deal.”

(Gina loved Ricky’s dorm room. Remember that?)

Gina loves the sound of her keychain just before she unlocks the door to their apartment. Three years living in it and she has yet to tire of it. She loves the sound, and the way the anticipation of turning the key in the lock makes her stomach swoop still, knowing what awaits her on the other side.

She’s ambushed the minute the door opens, and her keys never make it to their rightful place on the counter, as they’re always knocked out of her hands before she gets the chance.

“At least let me inside first,” Gina hums on Ricky’s lips, welcomed home in the best way ever, three renewed leases and counting. The protest is meaningless because she kisses him too, “Hi.”

“Missed you,” he says, and she can feel him breathing in her scent (which is sweet, but she doesn’t always appreciate at the end of a very long 8 show week.)

“You always do,” she shales her head, draping her jacket over the hook by the door.

“And I’m not the only one,” he lilts, before turning his head towards the couch, “Guess who’s home, Wildcat?”

Their dog, who has yet to grow out of the mind of a puppy (takes after his father), comes leaping off the couch and bounding towards Gina at the door, who is already crouching with eager arms wide open.

“C’mere!” Gina yells as she scoops Wildcat into her arms and stands as he licks all over her stage makeup face to a cacophony of giggles, “I missed you!”

“Aha! Got you!” Ricky yelps, prematurely triumphant.

“No, I was actually just talking to the dog,” Gina turns to Ricky, their dog cradled in her arms and sporting matching puppy dog faces at him.

“Guess I’ll just eat this takeout all by myself then…” Ricky starts to turn and leave for the kitchen counter, which has a bag Gina immediately recognizes as her favorite.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Gina yells quickly, grabbing Ricky by the hand and pulling him back, and letting his knowing gaze take her in.

She looks back and forth between Wildcat and Ricky, “My boys,” she coos, and adds with feeling “Who I missed equally.”

“Mhm, go get changed. I’m heating up dinner,” he lovingly shoves her away towards their bedroom as he heads in the opposite direction.

“Oh my god, my man in the kitchen!” She gaudily teases.

“You know I cook better than you!”

Her laughter Peters out as she heads down the hallway, pats her leg to motion for their dog to follow, “C’mon Wildcat, lets go pick some stuff to steal.”

Gina flips on the light switch to their bedroom and drops her bag by the door, plugs her phone in to charge on the bedside dresser next to her favorite family picture from Lynne and Todd’s wedding she had framed.

She pads over to the closet and slides the door open, watching one of Ricky’s six pairs of converse held at the mercy of their dog immediately.

“I’m not gonna stop you, boy, I’ve been begging him to get rid of those for years,” Gina says, just before he scampers out of the room, and she slides the hangers over to find an outdated East High hoodie that still fits her better than anything else. She tugs it on and crouches to rearrange the shoes the dog messed up on the floor, which included knowing over two of their framed degrees.

Their wall space in their cheap, tiny city apartment was limited, and two degrees had to be shoved away. The degrees in medicine and Gina Porter felt more important to have on display anyway. She stacks the two frames up against the wall of the closet again before sliding  the door shut.

Her last stop is the bathroom, where she pulls her hair up and out of her face after a long two-show day, and rummages through the bottom of the world’s greatest boyfriend mug that proudly houses her rings she cannot wear at work. They glisten in the much improved bathroom lighting once they are on her left ring finger, and she shuts the medicine cabinet on their pink and blue toothbrushes before shutting the door altogether.

“Wait, I almost forgot to mention,” Gina yells as she emerges back down their hallway, “Big Red called me at intermission.”

“Rude, he has hasn’t texted me back all day,” Ricky says, just as he’s eating down the takeout containers on the coffee table in front of the TV. Wildcat has already claimed his spot on the end of the couch (read: a whole half of their couch), which doesn’t bother Gina since she was planning on sitting as close to Ricky as humanly possible anyway.

“Well get this, his boyfriend unknowingly got him tickets to the show I’m in as a surprise for his birthday!” Gina says, the hilarity of the situation still making her laugh, as she ducks to open the fridge and grab a drink, picking up the Christmas card that stays hung up all year when its magnet slides. She finally tosses her keys in their spot on the kitchen table, next to taxes to be done and this year’s class pictures for Mr Bowen.

“Hold on, he didn’t know what show you were in?”

“That’s what you got out of that statement?” Gina laughs incredulously, sitting down, but immediately swapping her boring water bottle to steal a warm and comforting sip from Ricky’s upgraded world’s best husband mug, “Not ‘oh my god my best friend’s coming to visit’ or ‘oh my god my best friend has a new boyfriend’??”

“I’m sorry, Gi, I just can’t seem to wrap my mind around the idea that my superstar Broadway actress wife wasn’t the first topic of conversation between my best friend and his new boyfriend that’s coming to visit.”

“You’re an idiot,” she hums, as he settles an arm around her after handing her takeout and the TV remote, already displayed to Disney+, “Whose turn is it today?”

“Yours, I think,” he kisses her temple, sitting back.

“Good,” she smiles, “I love you more-er.”

(The end.)