Lovebirds Since Youth

Chapter 6

When we get there, Aidan tells me that he's going to be with Jane probably for the rest of the day and so I tell him that if he needs me, I'll be practising my lines in my hotel room.

We part ways towards our rooms and halfway through the corridor, I realise I gave him my script because I didn't have any backpack to put it in.

"Oh my gosh," I whisper, "Aidan! Aidan wait! You've got my script!" I scream, jogging and trying to catch up to him.

He turns around and laughs.

"What? What's so funny?" I ask.

"Nothing. I'm just glad that you never stopped being clumsy and forgetful. Here." He opens his backpack, takes out my script and gives it to me.

"Thanks, Ray," I say and immediately regret my words and squint my eyes shut. I hear him scoff in amusement.

"Wait, what? What did you call me?" He says, slightly in disbelief.

I open my eyes, scared as hell. I see he's turned around to face me again. "Ray," I say. "As in Ryan. Your middle name." The words come out carefully, as if they were glass about to break. Meanwhile I fear for my life.

What the hell was I thinking? I bet he doesn't even remember I used to call him that!

"Aww. You still call me Ray like when we were kids. That's so sweet." He says.

Uhm... What?

"Wait, what? I thought you hated it. I thought you hated your middle name." I say, confused.

"Well, yeah. I used to hate that nickname, I'm not gonna lie, but I started to miss it when we parted ways 10 years ago. And I started to accept my middle name too. Besides, I sometimes think it's like more common Ryan than Aidan, but whatever. It's better than 'Nicky, Ricky, Dicky and Dawn'. That would've been too much." He laughs. I laugh and agree with him too.

But man I can't take that smile out of my head...

"Well, okay, thanks for my script again, I'll see you around." I turn around, ready to leave.

"You're welcome, Bunny." He says, slightly louder so I don't miss a word while he ruffles my hair.

Bunny. I haven't heard that name in ages either

"Oh my God. You're joking." I say, turning around with a huge smile plastered on my face.

He scoffs again. "What?" He asks.

"I didn't know you would call me that after 10 years, I'm just so happy," I say.

When we were little, we wanted to have very special nicknames for the two of us. Since he didn't like Ray, I used to call him Greenie, not because he was new at anything but because he loved nature so much and well, nature is green and his eyes are also green so I figured it fit him pretty well. And he called me his Bunny because I loved to jump and mess around just like a rabbit and he said he would always protect me, just like he always wanted to protect nature and animals. It makes me happy to see he's doing exactly that now that he's older. Any person who would hear our names out of context would snigger around us, trying to hide it but always failing.

He would just call me Bunny almost every time, mostly when we were kind of alone together. And I would call him Greenie anytime as well, and Ray when I was kind of mad at him or when I wanted to simply annoy him. But to be honest, now I call him Ray not because I'm mad or to annoy him, more like because it sounds cute and it's a pretty name.

"Of course I remember. I never forgot anything about you. About us." He says, feeling nostalgic.

I can't help but hug him.