Chapter Text
Maddox barely knew Ricky Bowen, really – he had become much closer with Jet than with her – but there he was knocking at the door of the Honeycomb bunk, drenched apart from his shirt (she assumed from EJ’s picture thing) and clutching his Frozen guitar, asking her to pretty-please give him some advice on a song he wrote last night.
“Please, Gadget, I can’t ask anyone from East High and you seem like you know what you’re doing.”
“Debatable,” she said, cringing at the idea that her little kerfuffle with Madison today had involved any ‘knowing what she was doing.’ She stepped out of the door to meet him and shut it behind her. “But I’ll try my best. Let’s go somewhere out in the forest so we don’t wake the others.”
“Cool. Cool…”
Ricky didn’t say much else as they walked, so all Maddox could listen to were the sounds of earth and leaves crunching beneath their feet and the sounds of her own thoughts. He seemed nervous, based on how much he was swinging the guitar around, but Maddox’s arguments with Ashlyn over the last few weeks were more than enough to teach her a lesson; she kept her mouth shut and didn’t pry. After a few more minutes they found a clearing in the woods with some decent-looking rocks and sat down.
“It might be terrible, by the way,” Ricky said, getting out a whole mess of papers (lyrics, Maddox guessed) and laying them out in front of him. “So, like, sorry if–“
“It's totally fine, Ricky. If it sucks I’ll tell you after, but I’m not judging before I've even heard it.”
Ricky nodded and started to play, eyebrows furrowed harder than any Maddox had ever seen. Soon enough he started to sing, too, about… smoking…? She didn’t want to interrupt him, but made a mental note to ask him about that after, as any drugs were firmly against Camp Shallow Lake Policy.
“All that we are is all that we’ll ever be, ‘cause he’s the one waiting at home,” he sang, starting off the chorus. Maddox had to start fiddling with her rings at that line, hoping the shiny things might distract her from the hydraulic press Richard Bowen was taking to her chest. It did not work. He kept singing and her chest kept getting crushed.
His voice was really nice, at least. This wasn’t news, not after all the Frozen rehearsals, but that didn’t make it any less true. And he was a good songwriter too, apparently. And he knew how to play the guitar (also not news, also thanks to rehearsals). Trying to think of fun facts about Ricky Bowen became her new favorite pastime as he kept singing about… well, whatever issues he had going on in his personal life that made him bummed out like this. It was easier to think about that than Ashlyn. Ricky kept on singing.
“Addicted to illusions of a love that never was and never will be anyway.” God, did he write this fucking song about her? Well, obviously not, that would make no sense. She hadn’t even told Jet or EJ, let alone one of the new people. He must have something else of his own going on, but–
“Hey, uh, Gadget?” He asked, waving his hand in front of her face. He seemed worried and was, she realized, no longer holding his guitar. How long had she been zoned out? “Does you not talking mean it sucked? Or…”
“No, uh,” Maddox started, trying to buy herself time while she gathered her thoughts. “It was really good, actually, I liked it. You should put it on Spotify, teenagers everywhere will eat that shit up. Very relatable lyrics. And whatnot.” The words fell out of her mouth before she could double-check that they wouldn’t cause her any trouble. She tried to save it: “You know, relatable for the teenagers on Spotify.”
He chuckled a little. “Relatable, huh? Got anything you want to talk about?”
Shit, why did she say all that? “Only if you go first, you wrote it!” she blurted out, almost yelling. That should work to get her out of talking about her feelings, right?
“Nuh-uh, I am not going first. I already did a hard thing by playing it. Your turn now.”
Ugh. She couldn’t come up with a way to deflect again, though definitely not for lack of trying. The best she could do was sigh, and avoid any eye contact as she spoke.
“I’ve got a teeny-tiny crush on Ashlyn, if you absolutely must know. Not that it matters, since camp’s over tomorrow and I’ll probably never see you guys again anyway.” She decided to ignore the way her voice shook a little and turned back to face him, wondering whether he was going to ignore it too.
Ricky just stared at her for a few seconds, and Maddox started to become seriously concerned that he might like Ash too, or something. It didn’t really make sense to her – she remembered how weird he was during rehearsal in the scenes he had with Gina – but then again, the blank stare didn’t really make sense either. What if, and this seemed like it’d be even worse, he was about to ask her if she was doing okay?
“That’s awesome,” Ricky said, now smiling. “I mean, or not, because she’s still with Big Red, but I guess that’s why you thought it was relatable. But I didn’t write it about that.”
Of course he didn’t! Just as she had thought all along (one day Maddox would learn her lesson about not jumping to conclusions). “You wrote it about Gina?”
“Man, it was that obvious? But yeah, pretending to be her ‘jilted ex’ all summer wasn’t exactly hard for me. Channing actually caught me telling Carlos about it on camera, so I’m going to have to tell her before the doc comes out, I guess. I wrote the song to try to de-stress before I started thinking about what to say to her.”
“You were really obvious, yeah. Sorry to have to break it to you.”
“Hey! As long as it isn’t obvious to her it doesn’t matter. Anyway, between you and me, Ashlyn was yelling at you all summer, too, not just Val. Not to like, get your hopes up too much or anything. Big Red’s my best friend and I probably shouldn’t root against him like that.”
“Insane thing to say, but go off, I guess,” Maddox said, trying to hide any signs of excitement. “For what it’s worth, Gina and Rocketman broke up earlier, right after prom ended. Don’t tell her I told you, though.”
The news seemed to unsettle him, but Maddox chose not to say anything, hoping he might explain if left to his own devices. “I see. Well, thanks for hearing me out, Gadget. And I don’t smoke, for the record. I just needed something other than being bummed out to talk about in the song. Plus it made the rhyming work better.”
She laughed at that, having totally forgotten about the whole thing. “No problem, Ricky. Thanks for following the camp rules. And good luck asking Gina out – which you HAVE to do, by the way. That and put your song on Spotify so I can loop it when I get really depressed about missing you guys in two weeks.”
“Okay, okay! I will, just not while we’re still here. If they just called things off, might not be cool of me to swoop in before it’s even been like 2 hours. I will text you to let you know how it goes when I do it though. Ugh, and I can’t even make you ask out Ashlyn to get you back, that’s illegal. What a nightmare. Anyway, good night, dude. Thanks.”
“Good night, Ricky.”
As Ricky picked up his many papers and guitar, Maddox drew her knees in close to her chest. What a nightmare indeed.
Two hours after the Frozen documentary premiere, her phone buzzes.
Hey. It’s ricky
She asked me first(!!!) so I guess anything can happen
You doing ok? i didn’t think channing was going to get you too
Maddox smiles at that – as much as she usually hates people asking if she’s okay, it’s almost nice knowing Ricky’s so worried.
I didn’t either
Kind of just hoping she thinks it’s the editing
please don’t tell her
I wont