Chapter Six - Budding Romance & First Proposal
With everything that had gone on in her life over the past few weeks Chiara realized that she hadn't called her folks in a while. She figured she'd better call them just to let them know that she was still alive. She also wanted to tell her mom about everything that had happened recently. 'Well almost everything' she thought to herself as she blushed.
"Hello."
"Daddy!"
"Hey Li'l Bit!" Her dad said, happy to hear her voice. "How's school going sweetie?"
"It's going great, I've made some friends and my classes are going really well."
Dan laughed, glad to hear that his daughter was fitting in and was doing well in her classes, which didn't surprise him as she'd always been a good student and got along well with others. "You and Annie are still getting along I guess?"
"Oh God she's like the best roommate ever daddy!" Chiara gushed.
"Good I'm glad to hear it baby. Sorry about Thanksgiving honey, I only found out about the conference last week and I really need to be there. I can send you a plane ticket to come out if you want."
"Daddy, you know I hate airplanes!" Chiara replied with a giggle.
"I know sweetie, but it was worth a shot." Dan said with a chuckle. "You'll be okay at school by yourself then?"
"Yeah, they have a dinner here for the kids who can't make it home so I'll be fine. I'll miss you guys though!"
"We'll miss you too. Hold on your Mom's trying to rip the phone from my hand."
"Chiara? How are you sweetie, is everything going well?"
"Things are awesome mom! Annie took me around during Frosh week and some of the guys she knew thought I was cute! I've been on dates and everything!"
"That's great honey, I'm glad you're having fun." Kris said with a smile at her husband.
"That's not even the best part!" Chiara replied. "I was at a Halloween party on Saturday and I met this guy Marc, and he's totally hot! But he's really nice too Mom. And get this, he's Annie's twin brother! Isn't that hilarious?"
Kris chuckled and gave Dan a wink, "Yes that is hilarious sweetie. You are remembering to eat right?"
Chiara giggled at her mom's comment. "Yes I'm eating, Annie makes sure I do it every day."
"Good, you're small enough as it is, I'd hate for you to pop into nothing if you missed a meal!"
"Mom that is SO old." Chiara said dryly.
"I know honey, I'm just teasing. Listen, your dad and I were just getting ready to go out. We'll talk to you soon okay?"
"Okay Mom, I love you. Give Daddy a big kiss from me."
"Well if I give him a big kiss we might not get out sweetie!"
"Eww MOM!"
"Kidding! Love you too baby, bye."
"Bye Mom."
"Well," Kris said as she grinned at Dan.
"Well what?" He asked.
"You might want to flip right by those 'Girls Gone Wild' commercials when you can't sleep at night."
"Hmm, I'm almost afraid to ask, but why's that hon?" He asked.
"It seems our little miss Chiara has become a bit of a party girl Danny. Going to Frosh parties, dating, meeting strange guys at Halloween parties." Kristen said with a laugh.
Dan laughed as well, "Basically doing what we did then. So what was hilarious Kris?"
"Well it seems that she met a 'totally hot' guy named Marc on Saturday. Apparently he's Annie's twin brother. Annie's last name was Montgomery wasn't it?"
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was. Wasn't that Brett and Sarah's last name?" Dan replied.
"Yes, they had twins didn't they? They were a few years older than Chiara," Kris said as she was thinking.
Dan nodded in agreement, "Matt and Amy right?"
"No I'm pretty sure it was Marc and Annie, Dan. What do you think the odds are?"
"Pretty high?" Dan said with a chuckle.
Kristen gave her husband the same impish grin her daughter had, "It would be pretty funny though, don't you think?"
"To quote our daughter, 'hilarious'." Dan said as he smiled back.
---
The weekend came and Marc arrived to pick up Chiara. Annie jumped up and gave him a big hug and kiss, smiling and genuinely happy to see him. Marc returned her hug and kiss, looking a bit surprised but pleased at Annie's welcome. With his arm around Annie's waist, Marc asked Chiara if she was ready to go.
"Just another second," she answered, still stuffing her bag.
Marc shook his head and chuckled then turned to Annie, "Look sis, about our grad, I'm sorry I acted the way I did. It wasn't either of our faults, we were both messed up and shit happened. I can't let what happened ruin our relationship."
Annie looked like she was going to cry. She grabbed Marc into another hug and kissed his cheek again. "Thanks baby brother. I'm so sorry for what I did. But if you ever want to rock my world like you did that night, with Kiki's permission of course, you know where to find me."
Marc laughed and smacked Annie's butt while Chiara giggled from where she was throwing her last few things into her overnight bag.
"Okay I'm ready to go loverboy," Chiara said as she gave Annie a long kiss goodbye.
Annie shooed them out the door and they were on their way to Marc's frat house. Marc watched Chiara for a few minutes as they walked along.
"Judging from your reaction earlier I guess Annie told you about our grad?" he asked hesitantly.
Chiara hugged Marc's arm tight to her, "Yeah she did."
"You okay?"
"Not much I can do about it right?" Chiara asked.
"No I guess not," Marc said.
The rest of the walk over they held hands and talked, stopping to kiss a few times, but never mentioned the grad again.
"So what are you doing over Thanksgiving?"
"Probably just staying here. My dad has a conference in New York and mom's tagging along so I don't really wanna take a three hour bus ride to go home to an empty house. Dad offered to fly me out to be with them but I hate flying." Chiara replied.
"Well then it's settled, you're coming home with me and Annie," he beamed.
"But won't your folks mind?"
Marc laughed, "No they're used to us bringing home stray kids."
"And how do we explain our thing?" Chiara grinned up at him.
"You're my girlfriend right? That's all they really need to know, and besides they'll love you pixie-girl!"
Chiara giggled and twinkled up at him. "Why do you keep calling me pixie-girl Marc?"
"Well you look like Tinkerbell from Peter Pan, I'm just waiting for you to sprout some wings," Marc laughed.
Chiara giggled again and told Marc not to hold his breath if he thought she was going to fly through his window to give him a blow job.
Marc grabbed Chiara up into his arms and started tossing her into the air, shouting "Show me your wings! Show me your wings!"
They were both laughing when Marc set her back on her feet. Some other kids walking the quad were looking at them like they were crazy but they didn't care, they only had eyes for each other.
When they got to Marc's place a few of the guys were playing Guitar Hero on their Xbox and asked Chiara if she wanted to play, figuring her for an easy mark. They had no idea what they were getting themselves into. She asked Marc if he could spare her for a few minutes and took up one of the guitars. After a half hour she'd smoked the guys totally and they looked at her in awe. Chiara laughed and explained that she'd been shredding the axe since she was four and had grown up on her daddy's eighties metal albums. The guys just howled with laughter and her rep in the house went up a few more notches.
"I'd say you were bullshitting us Chiara, but after seeing that I'm not too sure." Marc chuckled.
"Hey if you guys don't believe me I can tell you where you can find my chops on the net." Chiara said with a grin. "You can hear me sing too!"
One of the guys flipped open his laptop and once she told him where to look Chiara's smoking guitar and vocals filled the room. Marc and the boys looked at her with dumbfounded expressions on their faces, asking her why she didn't have a recording contract.