A/N: It's taken me so long to write this, it's ridiculous. :P But it's finally finished. Happy birthday to Alex (YouMakeMeBeautiful), and happy belated birthday to Allisa (ChannyFreak)! :D Best wishes to the both of you. Also, this is an entry in camera enthusiast's One-Shot challenge, which I hope is still going on. :P Enjoy!
How (Not) to Propose
Greetings, loved ones. Let's take a journey.
Chad had a tendency to get nervous. Flustered.
But not all the time. He simply became a goofy idiot around Sonny Munroe. As endearing as she might or might not find this, Chad was commonly appalled by his own utter lack of charm and confidence around his girlfriend.
He had learned to ignore it for awhile, seeing as there seemed to be nothing that could cure him of the butterflies in his stomach whenever she smiled at him. It was simply a fact of life.
But those same butterflies made him jittery and confused and altogether ridiculous most of the time, and Chad couldn't afford that happening on a night like the one he was planning.
The night that he would propose marriage to Sonny Munroe.
There were many, many ways he could go about it. Plenty of ways that he had seen in movies, or heard about from someone, or just somehow knew for no apparent reason whatsoever.
And Chad, being the meticulous boyfriend that he was, had gone through many possible scenarios to determine which was the best one.
The first proposal was somewhat childish, but he hoped that Sonny would find that amusing.
Play Hangman and have the phrase be "Marry Me."
"Hey, Sonny?" Chad twirled the pencil between his fingers before drumming it on the table next to the piece of paper he had laid out. "Can you come here for a second?" Sonny nodded automatically, slowly rising out of the leather recliner she had been relaxing in and smoothing down her shirt.
"What is it, Chad? Aren't we going to dinner?" she asked, dropping next to him on the couch and looking at the paper blankly. The constant sound of the pencil tapping caught her attention after a moment, Chad hastily set the pencil down beside the paper, leaving a strange silence in the room. "What's this?"
"Um...Hangman?" he offered weakly, gesturing to the familiar simple gallows and blank spaces. Does she hate the idea already?
"You want to play Hangman?" Sonny snorted, laughing with warm chocolate eyes.
"Um...yes?" Chad picked up the pencil again, absentmindedly beginning to tap it against the table again.
"What happened to 'it's a game for children between the ages of six and ten'?" teased Sonny, leaning forward and resting her elbows on the table, propping her chin up with her folded hands.
"I've decided that you were right, that made it perfect for my maturity," spilled out of Chad's mouth. His anxiety was beginning to show, he knew, and his palms started to perspire. "Can we just play?"
"Pushy, pushy!" Sonny's eyes immediately lit up with recognition as she reminisced about her past days at So Random. "Hey, Chad, we should call Tawni and get together with her and her boyfriend this weekend. Perhaps we could go see a movie together! Don't you think that would be - "
"Fun, yes, it would be. But, um, now, Hangman?" Chad interrupted, causing Sonny to roll her eyes at him playfully.
"Fine. I don't see what's so important about this, but fine. A," she said decisively.
"Just...you'll see. Yes, there's an A." Chad wrote the A deliberately, attempting to make each stroke perfectly straight, much to Sonny's amusement. _ A _ _ _ _ _.
"E." Chad silently wrote the letter, inwardly rejoicing that Sonny seemed to be more interested in the game.
"I."
"Are you just going to list all the vowels?" asked Chad, discreetly crossing his fingers that she wasn't.
"Yup! So I, O, and U. Just do them all at once." Sonny beamed brightly at him, and Chad was forced to weakly smile back.
"Right. All of them." He painstakingly drew in a head, a body, and an arm hanging from the gallows before writing in the letters next to it.
"Wow, none of them? Okay...um, S." Sonny leaned further over the table, studying the puzzle more closely.
"Nope," Chad informed her with clenched teeth, drawing in the other arm. If she didn't get the puzzle...
"T." Sonny frowned, her eyebrows furrowing as she looked at the puzzle that was still mostly blank. _ A _ _ _ _ E.
Chad held back a groan, instead focusing his energy on drawing the first leg. Sonny only had one more chance.
"R."
"Yes!" exclaimed Chad, letting out the breath he had been holding. It wasn't hopeless after all. Surely Sonny would be able to figure out the puzzle now. _ A R R _ _E.
"Oh! I get it now!" Sonny sat up, grinning. She's smiling. She knows the puzzle. That's good. She's going to say yes!
"Then give me the letter!" Chad's knee began to bounce up and down with anticipation. To make matters worse, he could feel the box with the ring inside his pocket rubbing against his leg as he did so, begging him to just take it out.
"It's CARRY ME, isn't it? C!"
Chad's knee came to an abrupt stop. "No. It's...not." The other leg was penciled in, and the game was over.
"Oh. Oh well. What was it, then?" Sonny looked at him inquisitively, apparently still unable to decipher it.
"It was - " Tell her, you idiot! Ask her to marry you! "It was - it was PARRY ME," lied Chad, attempting to keep his voice steady. "I, uh, heard the word the other day, and I thought it was...interesting. I'm not surprised you, uh, didn't get it, though; it's quite uncommon."
"Oh. Okay then. Well, shall we go and eat dinner?" Sonny stood up and reached for her coat by the door, not fazed in the slightest by losing the game. "I'm starving."
"Right. Let's...let's go." Chad got to his feet slowly, a downcast expression on his face.
"Are you okay, Chad?" Sonny's concerned eyes gazed up at him, her worry evident.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," he assured her, plastering a well-practiced Hollywood smile across his face. Sonny accepted this, smiling again and grabbing her purse from the coat rack. Chad wrapped an arm around her waist and walked out the door with her, the box still wedged inside his pocket. MARRY ME.
Chad decided against the first proposal, for obvious reasons.
The second one was altogether more clichéd and cheesy than the last. Which Chad supposed was a good thing, since Sonny loved cheesy things like romantic slow dances at prom and kisses in the rain.
Propose in French, the language of love.
"Sonny," Chad began, using his perfect French accent to make it sound like "Saw-knee." But fancier.
Sonny looked up from the filet mignon that she was cutting, surprised. "Did you say something, Chad?"
"Oui," he replied, gazing into Sonny's eyes. Right on cue, she began to melt, her pupils losing focus and her subconscious pulling her toward him, leaning across the table.
"Wait a second, did you just say 'we' or 'wee'? Because if you need to go to the bathroom, you don't need my permission," Sonny urged him, snapping out of her trance due to disgust at the thought of her boyfriend publicly urinating.
"Non, non, ma chère dame," assured Chad hastily. "Je voulais simplement vous dire que vous regardez ce soir belle."
"That was beautiful, Chad," complimented Sonny. "I didn't know you could speak French! That's marvelous."
"Merci." Chad bowed his head slightly, like a true gentleman. "Maintenant, j'ai quelque chose à vous dire."
"Um...let me see if I can figure out what you said." Sonny grinned sheepishly. "Okay, um...thank you. And then...I have no idea." She let out a slightly embarrassed laugh, which Chad shook his head at ruefully.
"Oui, je leur dis merci." Chad slid his hand across the table, placing it on top of Sonny's. "Mais j'ai quelque chose de plus important à dire." He placed a finger on Sonny's lips, demonstrating to her that she was not supposed to talk.
She nodded mutely, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
"Merci. Sonny, tu es incroyable. Tu es la personne la plus marveilleuse que j'ai jamais recontrè, et je sais que je ne recontrerai jamais quelqu'un qui peut comparer." Chad inhaled slowly, attempting to calm himself, before taking Sonny's hand in his and brushing his lips against it.
"Je t'aime, Sonny Munroe, et je veux passer le reste de mi vie aged vous," he continued softly. "Veux-tu m'éspouser?"
Chad waited for a response with bated breath, a knot of anticipation building in his stomach as he waited for a (hopefully positive) response. The box in his pocket felt unnaturally bulky, making him entirely too aware of it.
"Chad..."
"Yes?" he cut off quickly, switching back to English and feeling beads of sweat beginning to form on his upper lip and palms (one of which was unfortunately in contact with Sonny's).
"I know you're waiting for me to give you an answer," Sonny began slowly, avoiding his eyes and studying the design on the white silk tablecloth. "But..."
"But what?" She's going to say no.
"I don't know a word of what you just said."
Though French was assuredly a beautiful language, it didn't help much if your beloved didn't speak French. Epic échouer.
So Chad moved onto his third option.
Sneak into her home and fill it to the rafters with balloons and/or flowers. Place a teddy bear in the middle, holding the ring and a note asking her to marry you.
"No, no, you stay - right - there. Yes. Don't move!" Chad adjusted the teddy bear one last time, making sure it was absolutely in the center of the coffee table in Sonny's living room.
He was sure that if the teddy was one inch too far to the left, if he tilted it at the wrong angle in proportion to the door and its distance from the table, Sonny would refuse him.
Even if he had the most beautiful roses covering her entire apartment. The florist had even told Chad what they meant. Red, for passionate love. White, for purity. And red and white together meant unity. Perfect.
He had had all of the thorns removed too, of course. It had cost a lot of money to get all these roses - all in perfect condition and free of their nasty thorns - but Sonny was worth it.
Chad heard Sonny walk up to her door from the elevator and pull out her keys, the cheerful jingle startling him. Quickly, he darted off to the side into a tiny cave among the roses that Sonny would never notice, but from which he would have a perfect view of Sonny's reaction to the teddy bear when she reached it.
The door swung open, letting out a soft creak before shutting loudly, allowing Sonny to step through and into the living room. Chad reached to finger the familiar velvet ring box in his pocket out of habit, but it was safely in the teddy bear's grip.
"Oh my...oh, wow...oh my goodness, what is this?" Something was off. Sonny was surprised, delighted, everything Chad could have hoped for...but not quite right, somehow. Did she have a cold? Was her voice different? Or did it just sound that way because he wasn't watching her as he heard her?
"These roses are just beautiful!" Definitely different. In fact, the voice sounded a lot like...
"A teddy bear! Will you marry me? Aw, how cute, little bear, of course I will! And a box with the ring, too? Well, now, let me see this, I bet it's simply lovely."
Feeling extremely suspicious that it wasn't Sonny after all, Chad scrambled out of his hiding place on hands and knees before doing a dramatic Kung Fu move that he was sure seemed threatening.
Connie stood before him, the teddy bear held under her right arm with the note crumpled in her hand while she gazed in awe at the ring Chad had picked out.
"Connie?" Chad said incredulously, shocked.
"Chad?" Judging by the expression on her face, the situation seemed to dawn on her. "Oh my gosh, Chad, this was for Sonny, wasn't it?" She snapped the ring box shut, the snapping sound adding to the dramatic pause.
Before Chad could nod mutely, the front door swung open and Sonny herself walked in.
"Hi, Mom! Chad, what are you doing here? I thought our date was tomorrow." As she took in her rose-covered surroundings, Sonny's perplexity grew. "Um...what's with the flowers?"
"They're...a gift," improvised Chad. "I thought they would be nice. Romantic, you know. Besides, your apartment could use some freshening up." He winced at the last sentence, knowing it wouldn't improve Sonny's mood.
"Oh, is that so?" Exactly as he had expected, she took offense to his comment.
"...no. But let's just go out tonight, what do you think?" Chad hastily asked, stepping in front of Connie.
"Wait, Chad, what about - " Connie broke off mid-sentence as Chad shot her a warning look. "I mean...never mind. You can, uh, do the laundry tomorrow instead." As she spoke, she slipped the ring box back into Chad's pocket.
"Okay," Sonny agreed, picking her purse back up. "I need to talk to Chad about this rose business anyway."
"Right." Sighing dejectedly, he began to walk toward the door, where he held it open for Sonny to step through. The box was still in his pocket. Where it would apparently remain forever.
The third choice was decidedly odd. Teddy bears were so elementary school, as were flowers. And then there was clearly an issue over who would be the first to find the marvelous set-up. Too problematic.
So Chad rejected the idea and continued on.
Pour her a glass of wine with the ring in the bottom of it. When she drinks the wine, she will find the ring.
The first problem with this plan was that Sonny did not drink wine. Nor did she drink champagne. But that wasn't going to deter Chad.
He ordered his private bartender to pour two Shirley Temples instead. Chad hated Shirley Temples. But they were all Sonny would ever drink at parties, or clubs, or any place where most people drank alcohol.
Sonny was unique.
"Mr. Cooper, sir?" The bartender walked into the room, a Shirley Temple in each hand. "I have your drinks."
"Perfect. And did you, uh, add the ring like I asked you to?" Chad fidgeted nervously, his hands gripping the armrests of his custom-made massage chair.
"Of course, sir. Will that be all?" The man set the crystal glasses down on the table next to Chad's chair, the ice tinkling sweetly.
"Um...yeah, I guess so," agreed Chad, studying the drinks. The bartender had added extra cherry syrup, it seemed, seeing as the entire bottom halves of the glasses were flooded with red.
"Very good, sir. And sir, I believe Miss Munroe is just entering the building, I saw her getting out of her car from my window." He bowed and exited the room, leaving Chad to watch drops of condensation slide down the sides of the drinks, feeling beads of sweat simultaneously make their way down the side of his face.
Okay. It's not that hard. Just talk to her. Let her drink. It'll be fine.
"Hello?" Sonny knocked on the door, and Chad quickly moved to open it.
"Hi," he answered somewhat breathlessly, attempting not to sound quite as much as a pansy as he felt like.
"I got your message." Sonny entered, setting her purse down by the doorway as she did so. "You...wanted to have drinks? You know I don't drink, right, Chad?"
"Yes, of course." Chad motioned toward the living room, walking Sonny over. "That's why I ordered Shirley Temples."
"Oh!" Sonny sounded pleasantly surprised as she sank into the leather recliner next to the table with the sparkling drinks on it. "Well then, cheers."
"Cheers," echoed Chad, lifting his glass and clinking it softly against Sonny's before taking a sip so small, it scarcely qualified as a sip. He could have sworn he heard the ring inside hers run into the side of the glass.
As Chad attempted not to gag at the taste of cherries (which had always reminded him of medicine), Sonny drank a couple average gulps, leaving her with about three-quarters of the drink.
"So. What did you want to talk about?" Sonny brought the glass to her lips once more, sipping slowly. Just keep drinking!
"Well...nothing in particular, really," Chad said, watching, transfixed, as Sonny slowly ate the cherry that came with the drink, licking her crimson-stained lips as she did so.
"Nothing?" repeated Sonny, lifting her eyebrows as she took another sip. "That doesn't seem likely."
"I was lonely, that's all." Chad gave a half-hearted smile, attempting to be convincingly forlorn yet cheered by Sonny's presence.
"You were lonely. I see." Sonny's skeptical tone did nothing to assuage Chad's anxiety. The sip that she drank, however, did.
"It's nothing," he argued hastily. "Is the drink good?"
"Mhm." Sonny paused in her sips to look at her glass. "Oh my gosh, I'm halfway finished already!" She set it down on the table, apparently determined not to drink any more. No! No, no, no, no, no, no!
"Wait, why aren't you drinking? Don't you like it?" Chad asked hurriedly, concerned that his plan would never be brought to fruition.
"Are you kidding me? I love these!" exclaimed Sonny, grinning. "I've chugged down entire glasses of these without breaking a sweat. But you haven't even taken a proper sip, and it would be rather rude of me to finish my drink before you even took two gulps."
"You've chugged these down before?" Chad felt his heart begin to pound faster, a dull thump that seemed to get louder and louder. "Prove it."
"You want me to chug this?" Sonny picked up the glass again, considering. "Why?"
"Because...I want to see if you're lying or not," he improvised, hoping it would work.
"I don't lie!" protested Sonny, immediately lifting the glass to her lips and taking large gulps. Chad watched the bottom of the glass eagerly, searching for the ring among the ice cubes.
"Done!" Sonny announced proudly a few moments later, setting the glass down with a triumphant thud. Chad stared at the glass in disbelief. It was empty, save for some ice cubes and a thin layer of red syrup on the bottom.
The bartender pocketed the ring.
"Wow, that was - that was really something!" Feigning interest, Chad stood up and held out a hand to his girlfriend. "Listen, Sonny, I just realized that I have to meet with my agent tonight, he called this afternoon to set it up and I totally forgot. Can we have drinks again tomorrow instead?"
"Sure," agreed Sonny, taking his hand and rising to her feet. "I have some things that I need to help my mom with anyway. See you tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow," confirmed Chad, kissing her lightly. "Love you."
Sonny beamed back as she picked up her purse and opened the door. "Love you more."
The second the door shut behind her, Chad dashed to where Sonny's glass sat on the table, dumping out the contents into his hand. No ring. Although his palm was freezing from the ice.
He quickly dropped the ice and wiped his hand on his shirt, managing to knock over his still-full glass in the process.
Ice cubes poured out from the overturned glass, cherry syrup and soda mixing as they pooled on the table. Chad took one look at it and swore under his breath, in disbelief that the evening could go so wrong.
But wait. Maybe the ring wasn't gone after all. In fact, maybe it had been in the glass after all. Maybe...
It had been in his glass instead of Sonny's.
Chad reached out and picked up the glittering diamond ring from where it lay in between the ice cubes, sticky and dripping with syrup.
It had been in the wrong glass.
Chad clenched the ring tightly in his fist, as if about to break it, before suddenly loosening his grip and rushing to the sink to wash off the ring.
And wash away his private humiliation.
Mixing up which cup is yours and which isn't can be dangerous. It can also be utterly and completely stupid. In Chad's hypothetical (but highly probable) case, it was the latter.
Chad had one last method of proposing marriage. If it didn't work, he didn't know what he would do. So hopefully, it would.
Write "Will you marry me?" in chalk on the street outside her house or apartment in big letters.
"...Chad? Is that you?" Chad looked up from the huge letters he had just written in purple chalk on the sidewalk and found himself face-to-face with none other than Tawni Hart, his former nemesis and current friend.
"Oh, hi, Tawni. I was just - "
"Proposing to Sonny," she finished knowingly. "It's pretty obvious when you're writing 'Will you marry me?' outside her apartment." Tawni's matter-of-fact tone took Chad by surprise, jolting him somewhat.
"...right. So, uh, what have you been up to lately?" He stood up from his crouched position, straightening his cramped legs and wiping a few beads of sweat from his brow.
"Uh, hello! Tawni Hart here!" She gestured to her outfit, all the way from her wavy hair down to her three-inch stilettos. "What do you think I've been doing? I was going shopping, of course. The real question is, what have you been doing?" Tawni looked disgusted as she studied the letters Chad had carefully traced, outlined, and gone over many times on the concrete.
"What, do you not think she'll like it?" Chad's friendly demeanor was immediately replaced with knots of anxiety.
"Well, I suppose it's cheesy enough for her," conceded Tawni, frowning slightly. "The letters are legible, so that's good. But..."
Chad suppressed his surprise that Tawni knew the word legible and pressed her for more opinions on his proposal. "But what? It has to be perfect when Sonny opens her window at 8:00AM like always!"
"Well, Chad, I know you and I share some similarities, so I'm not going to sugar coat it for you. You and I both know a great outfit can do wonders, and you, Chad, are not going to be doing any wonders with those awful clothes on." Shuddering delicately, Tawni covered her eyes with a perfectly manicured hand and avoided looking at Chad and his hideous apparel.
"Really? What's wrong with it?" Chad glanced down at his silk button-down shirt and clean slacks, confused. "I re-created my outfit from our first date!"
"Um, yes, but you had a jacket then! This – this outfit without a jacket! It's entirely incomplete. The jacket transforms a revolting look into a somewhat dashing ensemble," explained Tawni. "Here." Reaching into one of her shopping bags, she pulled out an Armani suit jacket and held it out to Chad. "I was shopping for my boyfriend."
"Oh. Wow, uh, thanks," Chad accepted gratefully, slipping the jacket over his shoulders. Tawni shook her head, disappointed.
"Don't you know how to put on a jacket? Here, let me help. Sonny will never accept you if you have creases by your shoulders." Tawni drew closer to Chad and smoothed out the shoulders of the jacket, straightening them properly.
"Do you think she'll accept?" asked Chad as Tawni continued to make sure his appearance was perfect. Tawni paused in her alterations and looked Chad in the eye, her hands still on his shoulders. Neither one noticed a window opening above.
"Of course. Why would you ever doubt that?" Chad smiled softly, pleased that Sonny's best friend was optimistic about his proposal. Suddenly, a loud gasp was heard from above them.
"Tawni? Chad? Will you marry me?"
"Sonny!" Chad and Tawni stepped away from each other and looked up at Sonny, who had just opened her window.
"Chad, I can't believe you. You either, Tawni. I hope you have a wonderful life together." Tears began to well up in Sonny's eyes, and she slammed the window shut before either blonde had the chance to explain.
Chad hung his head miserably. A lone tear fell from his face and onto the pavement, smudging the W slightly. Not that he would need it to look perfect anymore.
Sonny had misread the situation entirely, resulting in disaster. No, no, that certainly wouldn't work.
Chad sighed miserably, rubbing circles on the black ring box with his thumb. There was no way he could ever use any of those ways to propose. They were all failures.
But he didn't know any other way how.
Slipping the box back into his pocket, Chad decided to wait a few days, in which time he hoped that an ingenious idea would come to him.
In the meantime, he and Sonny had a movie date. Which he was, in fact, ten minutes late for.
When Chad arrived at Sonny's apartment twenty minutes later than he ought to be, he steeled himself at the door for a frigid response. After all, being twenty minutes late for a date with his girlfriend of seven years didn't exactly set up a forthcoming proposal properly.
Not that it seemed the proposal would be coming any time soon.
"You can travel the world! But nothing comes close to the Golden Coast! Once you party with us, you'll be falling in love!" Sonny began to vocalize inside, loud enough for Chad to hear outside the door. Was that...Katy Perry music? Surely Sonny didn't like that stuff.
...did she?
"California girls, we're unforgettable! Daisy Dukes, bikinis on top!"
Chad twisted the doorknob, hoping Sonny had left it unlocked. It turned easily in his hand, and he stepped through the doorway to find Sonny holding an unplugged microphone to her lips as Katy Perry blasted through the speakers.
"Sun-kissed skin, so hot, we'll melt your Popsicle!" Sonny tossed her hair, whirling around with the music before coming to an abrupt stop as she saw Chad.
"California girls, we're undeniable!" Katy continued to belt as Sonny dropped the microphone and blushed, turning a shade of red that was generally found on kids' balloons. She hurriedly rushed over to the stereo and turned down the volume, the music now at a background level.
"So. 'California Gurls,' huh?" Chad commented wryly, putting his hands in his pockets and strolling over to Sonny with a smirk on his face.
"Yes," she defended herself, crossing her arms across her chest. "It's a good song. And besides, it makes me feel proud to be a California girl."
"Oh?" Chad drew closer, the box in his pocket as painfully obvious to him as always. "Because I thought that you were a Wisconsin girl at heart."
"Well..." Sonny paused to consider. "I've lived in California long enough to be a California girl as well, I should think. Eight years is quite a while."
You can travel the world...
"But it's not enough to make you a California girl," corrected Chad. "You have to be born one. Or you could - " He broke off suddenly, realizing his opportunity.
"I could what?" Sonny wrinkled her nose, confused.
But nothing comes close to the Golden Coast...
"You could marry someone from California," offered Chad as calmly as he could, though he was shaking on the inside.
Sonny stared at him, shocked. "Are you - are you serious?"
This is it. Chad pulled the box he had carried around with him for so long out of his pocket and opened it slowly, displaying it to Sonny as he lowered himself to the ground.
Once you party with us...
"Sonny Munroe." Chad squirmed slightly, adjusting to his position on one knee. "I love you. You're the only girl I want, Californian or not. Will you marry me?"
There was a moment of silence, a moment that stretched across minutes and hours and seemed to last an eternity as Chad waited for his response.
Sonny's eyes sparkled with tears, and a grin began to spread across her face as she gazed at him.
"Yes." Yes. Sonny threw her arms around him, pushing them both to the ground with the force of her hug, and Chad laughed. "I love you," she whispered softly.
He pulled the diamond ring out of its box and carefully slid it onto the fourth finger of her left hand, where it ought to have always been.
"I know."
You'll be falling in love.
A/N: The lyrics are from Katy Perry's "California Gurls," featuring Snoop Dogg. :) Tell me what you think! This one-shot took me a long time, so I'd really like to hear all of your thoughts. Please review. :D