Thank you for giving this story a try! I'm trying something new here and doing a flash forward to a future Cupcake life. If you don't want to read about CUPCAKE then just don't. Don't comment that this would be better with Ranger. Just read a BABE story instead. -_-. Anyway, I hope to use this fanfic as a first of many within the same universe. Now that the characters in this universe will be set up, I may do some flashbacks in the future too.
This first post may be a little dry since it's basically just character development and not a whole lot of plot. Let me know what you think though and I really hope you all enjoy. I just like to write about some Cupcake moments without all the Babe back and forth, so that's what this is. It is however Ranger friendly.
The title is from Chuck Wick's song Stealing Cinderella and the story icon photo is a standard stock photo but how I picture their daughter.
PSA - I own nothing, I just like to puppet Janet's wonderful characters.
My family is anything but normal, though for the Burg that's not saying much. I come from a small pocket of Trenton, New Jersey called The Burg, where the row houses are modest and your mother serves supper religiously at six.
My name is Gia Isabella Morelli and I'm thirteen years old. I'm an only child and I don't mind it. I was cursed with curly, brown unmanageable hair, a height that was always too tall from age and My parents are an anomaly. They have always kept it weird and refused to let me be normal. My dad is the Chief of Police for the Trenton Police Department and my mom owns a Bail Bonds Agency that was once her cousin Vinnie's. While she mostly does paperwork, she is happiest when she is out doing her own skip chasing.
Dinner is never on the table by six, our cars are frequently blown up and my parents have had fights that could make World War II look like a sing-a-long. Luckily the fights don't happen all that much anymore and my mom taught me how to order Pino's delivery before I was five years old so I'm good to go.
"Goose! Dinner!" My mom yelled at me up the stairs. I didn't realize anyone was home so early so I jumped a little at her call but couldn't wait for dinner. All I had today was a peanut butter and olive sandwich and I was starved.
I ran downstairs knowing full well I could smell lasagna and lasagna always seemed to go too fast in our house. "Ugh, gross!" So much for an appetite. I wrinkled my nose and pretended to barf a little.
My mom was sitting up on the counter being slobbered on by my dad. She quickly jumped off and tried to act normal and he jumped back and headed toward the fridge for what I would guess was a beer. I loved that my parents were still so in love. "That was fast, you never come downstairs when I call you." Mom shrugged and turned around to finish cutting the lasagna. Now I remember why I never came down right away anymore.
There was a lasagna on the stove and I recognized it to be Grandma Helen's casserole dish. "Oh, I love Grandma's lasagna! Did she send pineapple upside down cake too?" I was thankful that I had two Grandmother's to send us food all the time because Mom doesn't cook and Dad just doesn't.
Dad got a cheeky grin and looked over at Mom. "Yeah Cupcake, is there cake too?"
"Nope. No cake. No siree bob." I would have believed her too if I did catch her scowling at my Dad. I knew them both too well. My mom already ate the cake or it was hidden somewhere for her to eat later. Probably in the garage, alone, as soon as she got home. That's where she did most of her secret binge eating.
I rolled my eyes. Maybe I could talk Dad into going out for donuts later. "Hi Daddy."
"Hi Goose. How was school?" He asked, flipping until he found the Rangers game on television. He grinned and pointed to the TV when he saw they were playing the Flyers. We all knew we'd be winning now tonight since the Flyers suck.
He scooted over on the couch and held his arm out for me to come sit by him. I sank down onto the couch next to him and propped my feet up on the table. Oh yeah, I'm a huge sports fan, I grew up watching just about anything they'll play on Fox Sports or ESPN with my Dad.
"Flyers, nice." I cheered and asked Mom if we could eat in the living room. Not that I thought it'd work, but you never know. "Nice try." We both sighed and got up to meet Mom in the kitchen for dinner.
I rolled my eyes at her and went back to his question about school. "School was fine. Uncle Mooch made a couple kids cry in gym today so that was funny."
Dad laughed like he did whenever I told him about seeing Uncle Mooch at school. "What happened?"
My Uncle Mooch had been my gym teacher all three years of junior high. "Some kids were skipping class. I think he's still upset about Aunt Shirley." My Aunt and Uncle were going through a divorce and they mostly just yelled at each other, and apparently everyone else. And Uncle Mooch cried a lot and then made us all run more laps.
I dug into the lasagna. It was melt in your mouth good and so was the bread. Better than Grandma Morelli's but Dad said we're never, ever going to tell her that.
"You need to do something Joe. Go talk to him." My mom ordered my Dad. His head was down, focusing on shoveling as much of Grandma's lasagna into his mouth as possible, just like me.
"Joe! Come on. He's sad, she left him." Mom argued, I think she was worried about Uncle Mooch. Dad didn't seem to really care. It seemed like a lost cost to me too. Uncle Mooch was always going to be Uncle Mooch.
He grimaced. "I don't think so. He'll talk about it if he wants to. Besides, Shirley was a lunatic."
Mom asked him something about how he'd feel if she left him because they argued too much and eventually Dad agreed to check on Uncle Mooch and see if he was ok. I could tell he just didn't want to fight and gave in.
The rest of dinner was pretty uneventful. Mom complained about a lot of paperwork at the office and Dad asked me about basketball tryouts.
He'd been helping me practice my layups a lot recently but we've been playing basketball in the street my entire life. One of my favorite pictures is the one of me on Dad's shoulders getting a sweet dunk. I couldn't have been more than three years old and both of us were grinning from ear to ear.
He had always been my favorite but I'd never tell Mom. I always just felt closer to him and I still loved spending time with him. Whether it was playing basketball, watching sports, sitting down at the station with him or going out on the Ducati. I'd never tell him though, it's not exactly cool to hang with your parents at my age so I have to pretend to hate it the majority of the time.
Mom broke the silence. "I'm going to go bring in Mr. Molnar. He should be getting back from Atlantic City with the senior club tonight and he skipped last week."
Mr. Molnar was one of Mom's regulars and I guess she knew him before she married my Dad. He had parking tickets that collected until he got a warrant and then he inevitably didn't go to court but Mom was used to bringing him in for them.
Dad nodded and started helping with the dishes. I took my plate to the sink and opened the fridge to see if we had any ice cream or other sweets since Mom ate all the cake. Nope.
"Dad, can we get donuts once Mom leaves?" I whispered, looking back at her searching all over the living room for her keys. He grinned down at me like he knew I was going to ask. "Shh." He looked back at Mom and laughed. She was always losing things, especially her keys.
I giggled at his response and he whispered back "Finish loading the dishwasher and it's my treat kiddo."
What did you think? Anything you'd like to see or any comments/suggestions? Thank you again for reading!