Forward: This chapter is all Peach and her friends, shorter than the last chapter. Added a few things here and there recently, including the entire ending, so I hope its not horrid.
Anyway, thanks for reading last chapter. I really appreciated all the great reviews, thanks for helping me out.
Disclaimer: I don't own anythingin this chapter except the chapter itself. :)
Princess Daisy's tennis shoes smacked the false grass as she raced to greet a tennis ball. SMACK! Her racket made contact. "A-hall right!" Daisy jubilantly shouted. She boastingly leaned over the net towards her wheezing opponent. "Whatchu think of that, Luigi? Daisy, Fourty-five. Luigi, zip!"
"I think….that we-a…should take…a break." Luigi grasped his stomach and looked longingly at the princess.
Peach smiled from her lawn chair, sheltered by a large pink umbrella. "Daisy, I think you're going a bit too hard for the kid."
Daisy shook her racket at Peach and Mario in the shade. "Just be glad I'm not playing you two lazy bums."
Peach placed her delicate hands on her hips. "Excuuuuuse me? Lazy bums?"
"You heard me! Sittin' under there, drinking your slushies, it bores me just looking at you two!"
"Fine then, Mario and I challenge you and Luigi to a race around the castle."
Mario stared at Peach. "We do?"
"I know a short-cut," Peach mumbled out of the corner of her mouth.
"Make it the entire castle grounds!" Daisy challenged.
"Even better."
"Losers buy lunch for the winners- resturant of winner's choice. And by winner I mean us."
"AND losers, and by losers I mean you two, have to sing the order.."
"You're on."
"Daisy…." Luigi groaned. In response, Daisy grabbed his wrist and tugged him towards the castle's garage.
"Come on, Mario."
"Coming, Peach." The two groups hurried to choose the Two-Rider gokarts, Peach and Mario settling with a fire red one, Daisy and Luigi with a round orange car. Daisy and Mario placed themselves as drivers, Luigi and Peach taking the peddler spot. The two cars lined up and Daisy counted down.
"1….2…3!" The two cars revved and zoomed out on the road. Peach slowed hers down while Luigi and Daisy sped ahead, unsuspicious.
"Turn left, Mario!"
"Peach, those-a bushes."
"And I planted them; I should know what's going on. Turn left!"
Mario obliged and the team pushed their way through the foliage, suddenly taking a drop lower…and lower.
"Where are we-a going?"
"Just keep moving straight. We're under the moat. When you come to a red mushroom, turn into the right tunnel. It'll take us into the Slide room."
"Okey-doke." Mario followed her instructions and the two were soon in a huge room with a twisting ceiling- the giant slide!
"Go straight, and then we're going to start climbing a hill."
"Want me to pedal?"
"I'm fine, Mar." The team continued in silence until sunlight began flooding their car again. Mario glanced at Peach as the she propelled the car forward, steering hardly an issue when going straight. Peach wiped a sweat drop from her face and they landed back on the road. Peach ignored Mario's glances, as well as her growing fatigue, and sighed in relief as Mario rounded the shortcut's last turn.
"The finish line! Brillante, Peach. Luigi and Daisy aren't even half done yet!"
"I know." Peach slowed her pedaling to a cruise and turned to Mario.
As the car slid over the finish line, Mario turned and smiled at Peach. "What-a now?"
"Now we wait." Silence fell over the car until Peach spoke up again. "Do you have any plans?"
"Plans for what? The trip? Or…what?"
Peach looked at her feet uncomfortably. "Us."
"Oh." Mario could feel his face flushing red as he looked back at the princess. "I was thinking…we would play it by-a ear. See where life takes us the next-a few years. If Bowser doesn't disturb the Kingdom again, then…"
Peach looked at Mario hopefully. "Then…?"
Mario shrugged. "Maybe, if your-a father approves, we could…get…married?"
The conversation, though extremely awkward, was one Peach had silently been hoping for. "You know, you're no prince."
"But I am a human. One of the few in the city. That's gotta give me some status with-a your pa."
"That's true. And we're still planning that trip to Grand Canal for this week, right?"
Mario looked over at Peach and flinched. He had completely forgotten about their plans to meet his parents.
Peach read him like a book. "You forgot?" As Mario nodded, Peach sighed. "You have new plans, don't you?"
"Plumbing convention."
"Are you free week after then?"
"Um, I think so. I'll pick you up same time, same place. Just-a different day."
"Great. I've been looking forward to this." Peach looked up at the sky and smiled. It was true, Mario wasn't exactly handsome, nor rich, and not even very charming. He certainly wasn't the prince Peach had dreamed of all her younger years, but she knew him like a brother. He was her best friend. She loved him, he loved her. Although he had never said it out loud, he didn't really need to. Peach looked at Mario, his eyes turned toward Peach's mighty castle. It would be nice to just hear him say it someday…
Suddenly the rev of an engine awoke Peach from her daydream. Of course! Daisy and Luigi. She turned boastingly towards her cousin and her partner as the approached.
"Ah, Man! You beat us!" Daisy yelled as her car slowed to a stop.
"By a mile."
"We didn't even see you pass!"
"Maybe you ought to look harder then, Daisy," Peach told her with a smirk. She turned to Mario with a bit of a grin. "What would you say sounds better…Lumati's House or Hot 'N' Ready?"
Mario simmered in his own delight of the win-win option. Gormuet, all-you-can-eat pasta or the spiciest of meats and sauces? He snapped his eyes open from his daze. "Lumati's. And I want Luigi to be the one to order."
Luigi rubbed his temples in disgust. "Muma Mia, can this day get any worse?"
Daisy laughed and dragged the plumber. "Com'on, you. We've gotta get there first!"
When the group arrived at Lumati's and was seatedby a handsome young toad, adorned in a black cap and suit, several velvet menus were placed in front of them. The waiter told them his name, the specials, and a few other things Peach wasn't paying attention to. Her eyes were searching the expressions of her companions. Daisy was trying hard to appear as if paying attention to the waiter toad, Luigi was glancing from his menu, to the waiter, to Daisy, to his menu again, and Mario seemed enthralled by his menu alone. His mouth seemed to drool at the pages of food and his eyes were held with such rapture to the color photographs he didn't even hear the toad ask for drinks.
"Sir? Sir? Sir?" The toad was obviously impatient, so Peach lifted her dress just a tad and gave Mario a firm, hard kick on the shin from under the table.
Mario stared up at Peach. Years of being battered around by Bowser's minions and less-than pious princesses had given him nerves of steel. Peach mouthed "drink" to him very impatiently and nudged her head towards the waiter, now tapping his pencil on his notebook.
"Um, Water."
The waiter closed his eyes in displeasure at the thought that he had waited so long and so patiently for um, water. He decided then and there that the posh ladies and their plumbers better hand him a hefty tip. He gave a tiny bow, his thanks, and left the table.
Luigi and Daisy restarted their rapt conversation, Peach listening in and adding her own bits, as she usually did. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Mario, doubtlessly in the dessert section by the infatuation in his eyes. Daisy and Luigi's chatter turned to buzz as her mind set back on the possibility that Mario didn't love Peach- at least not in the way she desperately wanted. And needed. He expressed more love towards a menu, for goodness sake, than he had ever toward Peach.
No. I'm being silly. Peach closed her eyes, tucked her blonde hair behind her large blue earrings and took a calming breath. He's just being the adorable little man I love him for. I know he loves me as much as I love him.It's one of his little…imperfections that makes him so perfect.
Peach nodded to herself and rejoined Daisy and Luigi's conversation. But the nagging thought remained in the back of her head, this time, unlike so many other times before it, refusing to leave.
Author's Note: Right, this chapter wasn't all that grand. Sorry about that, ut I can promise- Chapter 3 is much better! I honestly love it...probably the most of all I've written thus far. But you know the deal...no reviews, no posting. Blah blah blah.
Razzi