Preventing a Royal Engagement
A/N: Thanks for the reviews! On with Chapter 11! =D
Chapter 11: Popping the Question
Ty was leaning with his back against his locker, his arms folded in front of him. After running through some details of his plan with Rocky the previous day and making sure everything would work in his favour, he had gotten straight to work, and even brought Rocky and CeCe along for support. He was constantly on his feet that he did not see Tinka for the rest of the day, mainly because Dina was sent to keep her busy.
"Ty, relax," Rocky reassured her brother from her spot next to him. "Deuce won't lose the package."
"Oh, it's what's inside the package that is worrying me," Ty explained. "I hope Tinka likes it."
"Believe me, she'll love it," Rocky told him. When she first realized that Ty wanted to marry Tinka, she had started ranting, saying things like, "You must be out of your mind!", and "You're too young to get married!". However, while taking the time to catch her breath, she realized how much Ty really cared for Tinka and that he was old enough to make his own decisions. As his sister, Rocky decided to support him. "CeCe and I tagged along to help you pick it out because we know what she likes."
Ty nodded as he watched students pass him by, going in different directions. He tapped his foot impatiently on the tile floor, anxiously waiting for Deuce and Dina's delivery. He specifically told Deuce and Dina to make the delivery early, before school started, so he could hide it before Tinka showed up to greet him like she did every morning. The more time passed, the tenser Ty became.
When Deuce finally appeared from around a corner with Dina and approached him, Ty relaxed slightly. He would not be able to completely relax until the delivery, with his gift for Tinka, was safely tucked in the darkness of his locker.
"Finally!" Ty said, breathing a sigh of relief. "Did you get it?"
"Uh, not exactly," Dina said, slowly. "There was a bit of a delay when it came to shipping it out."
"Don't worry, though," Deuce added, noticing the menacing look on Ty's face, "my cousin, Roberto, will have it delivered to Crusty's by this afternoon. You can pick it up then."
"Dude, I have Shake It Up: Chicago rehearsals later!" Ty cried, furiously. "Tinka will be with me, so I can't pick it up before rehearsals, and I need it as soon as rehearsals are done, you know that!"
"Relax, man," Deuce reassured the rapper. "I'm working later, so I'll keep my eye on the package when it arrives. Just send someone later to pick it up for you."
"Who is someone trustworthy that we can send?" Ty asked the group. "Tinka obviously can't do it, and neither can Rocky, CeCe, or I."
"And Günther and I have to tend to some important business after school," Dina added, giving the other teenagers meaningful looks. She looked to Rocky and asked, "What about Logan?"
Rocky shook her head. "He has a badminton tournament after school. He'll meet us afterwards." She paused for a moment, and then said, "But I think I know who might be able to help us."
"It better be someone trustworthy," Ty told his sister. "The last thing we need is someone going against us."
"Trust me, I know who to call," Rocky said, pulling out her cell phone from inside her shorts pocket.
The school day passed by rather quickly for many students, including Deuce, who soon found himself in the kitchen of Crusty's, wiping down the counter. Every now and then, he would pull open a nearby drawer to check that the package, which had been safely delivered by Roberto, was still there. He did not want Ty to kill him for being irresponsible.
While waiting for the package to be picked up and taken to Ty, Deuce kept himself busy by refilling cheese shakers, dicing pizza toppings, and answering phone calls. He constantly looked towards the stairs as customers descended them, so he did not miss the package's secondary deliverer.
Half an hour into Deuce's shift, a fair-skinned, teenage girl made her way down the stairs of the restaurant and sat on one of the stools facing the counter. Several male patrons eating nearby became speechless at the very sight of her; she was wearing a turquoise blouse with cut-out shoulders, black miniskirt, and high-heeled, leather boots. Her sheet of silvery blonde hair was pulled back into an upper ponytail and kept in place with a turquoise scrunchy.
Deuce looked up from wiping the counter again to find the girl watching him intently from behind her rhinestone shades. He admitted she was beautiful, but, in his opinion, she could never compare to Dina. "Uh, may I help you?"
"Ty sent me to pick up his surprise for Tinka," the girl answered.
Deuce's jaw dropped open as realization hit him. "Oh, sorry, I didn't recognize you!"
"That is the point," the girl answered with a smile. "I want to help Ty and Tinka, but I do not want to draw too much attention from my family to myself when I leave to help."
Deuce nodded, understandingly, and pulled open the drawer that held Ty's order. He pulled out a small paper bag, which was stapled shut, and slid it across the clean counter to the girl.
"Thank you," the girl said, politely, as she slipped the bag into a silver handbag she brought with her.
"No problem, Kasia," Deuce replied. "I wish I could be there. Tell Ty I said good luck."
"I will happily pass on your message," Kasia promised him.
Deuce grinned as Kasia gracefully got off of her seat and made her way to the stairs, oblivious to the few perverted guys who were attempting to take a peek under her skirt as she climbed up the stairs.
The rehearsals on the Shake It Up: Chicago set went fairly well later on that afternoon. CeCe managed to somehow successfully keep Tinka's full attention on the flamenco routine that they were going over with a couple of other female dancers. Tinka was so focused, in fact, that she failed to notice CeCe and Rocky slip casually out of the group, halfway through rehearsals, and run with Ty out of sight.
When Phil finally announced that rehearsals were over, Tinka looked around for any sign of CeCe, Rocky, or Ty, but they was nowhere to be found. After presuming that they were resting in Ty's dressing room, Tinka tossed the castanets, the ones she was using for the flamenco routine, into a nearby basket and went off in search of her friends.
After making her way down several hallways, Tinka came face to face with Ty's closed dressing room door. She clenched her fingers into a fist and knocked gently.
"Come in!" Ty's voice rang out from inside.
Tinka reached for the doorknob and turned it. She pushed open the door and the sight that greeted her caused her eyes to widen significantly and her jaw to drop open in surprise.
The interior of Ty's dressing room was dimly lit by candles in the middle of a round, tablecloth-draped table. Red and pink rose petals were scattered on the table and all over the floor. In the middle of the room, looking as handsome as he did the night of the ball, was Ty.
"Ty," Tinka whispered, softly. "What's all this?"
Ty smiled and gestured for her to come forward. "Come here, baby."
Tinka smiled back and entered the room. She closed the door behind her, before she made her way over to Ty. She let him take her by her hand, and held it gently within his own.
"You know, we've been through a lot during the past two years we've been going out," Ty told her. "The last week, especially, has been quite a roller coaster."
"I know," Tinka said, knowing he was referring to their problems with Anton.
"I can't promise you that things will end well with your parents," Ty told her, "but I can promise you that, whatever happens, I'll be with you. You will never have to face your problems alone as long as I'm alive."
Tinka's eyes brimmed with tears at the rapper's heartfelt words. She wished her parents could see the way he looked at her with adoration and warmth in his eyes. It was obvious that Ty loved her; he was willing to do anything for her.
"You want to be with me, right?" Ty asked, though he already knew her answer.
"For the rest of my life," Tinka answered without a hint of hesitation in her voice. "I love you, Ty."
"I love you, too," Ty said, reaching into the pocket of his tuxedo jacket, "and I'll prove it to you."
Tinka's felt her tears finally spill down her cheeks as she watched Ty kneel down on one knee. The minute he pulled out a small, velvet box out of his pocket, she smiled joyfully.
Although his hands were shaking slightly, Ty managed to open the box, revealing a one-carat, radiant-cut, white and pink diamond engagement ring. The band was made entirely of eighteen-carat white gold. The pink diamond in the center was a squared-shaped stone, surrounded by smaller, white diamonds in a square frame, similar to those which covered the band of the ring itself. In simpler terms, it was totally Tinka.
"Ty…" Tinka whispered, wiping her stained cheeks with her hands.
"Tinka Hessenheffer, I ask you as a man of love, rather than a guy who's desperate to get his girlfriend out of an arranged marriage with a crazy prince," Ty said, holding out the box to her, "will you marry me?"
Every single emotion Tinka could think of was running through her veins at that very moment; happiness, joy, surprise, and love were among them. At this point in her life, she cared less about what her parents thought of her. They had been putting her through hell, trying to control her life and force her to marry someone she did not love, even though it made her unhappy. For once in her life, she was going to do something that she wanted, something that would make her happy.
"Um, Tinka?" Ty said, his bent leg wobbling slightly from the weight he was putting on it.
Tinka giggled a bit at him and said without a hint of hesitation in her voice, "Yes."
"Yes?" Ty repeated with a smile, making sure he heard her correctly.
"Yes," Tinka said, holding her left hand out to him. "I will marry you."
Ty grinned and removed the ring from its box. After closing the box and slipping it back into his pocket, he gently took Tinka's left hand in his and gently slid the ring onto her ring finger.
The minute Tinka pulled Ty into a bone-crushing hug, the lights in the room switched on. Tinka could see over Ty's shoulder that previously hidden in the darkness of the room were CeCe, Rocky, Günther, Dina, Logan, and Kasia, all with identical smiles on their faces.
"Congratulations, you two!" CeCe squealed, happily.
Tinka pulled back from the hug to stare at her brother and friends in disbelief. "You guys knew?"
"Knew?" Rocky scoffed at her future sister-in-law. "We all helped Ty plan the proposal."
"Thank goodness you said yes," Dina said, handing Tinka a bouquet of red roses that she and Günther picked up from a local floral shop on the way to the Shake It Up: Chicago set. "We had trouble getting the ring shipped out. You know security issues and such."
At the mention of her ring, Tinka looked at it and was in complete awe of how beautiful and exquisite the ring was. She stared at the large, pink diamond in the middle, as well as all of the little white diamonds, and silently wondered how Ty could afford something that she knew had to be incredibly expensive. She could see why there were security issues when it came to delivering it.
"You like it?" Ty asked, smiling.
"Yes, of course," Tinka answered, looking up at him, "but how could you – "
"Let's just say my job as host of Shake It Up: Chicago pays very well," Ty said, proudly.
"Ty, you are so sweet," Tinka commented, "but you could have proposed to me with a chewed pen cap and I still would have agreed to marry you."
"No way, baby," Ty said, shaking his head. "My girl deserves the best, no matter what it costs."
"As excited as I am about our engagement, it will not stop my parents from trying to marry me off to Anton," Tinka pointed out to Ty. "We have to be eighteen to get married on our own, don't we? That means my parents still have less than a year to come up with some way to break us up."
"That won't be an issue," Rocky reassured Tinka. "Ty and I did a little research and learned that the age of consent to marry in the state of Illinois is seventeen. You're seventeen and Ty's eighteen. You do the math."
For the first time since the Byalikov royal family arrived in Chicago, Tinka smiled brightly at the thought of marriage. Not only would she get to marry Ty sooner than later, but her marriage to him would prevent her parents for trying to marry her off to Anton. Her parents could not even object to her marriage to Ty because they were both old enough to consent to marrying each other. She hoped this marriage would finally convince her parents to accept Ty as a son-in-law, or lose him and their daughter forever.
"I would like to offer my congratulations as well," Kasia said, reminding Tinka of her presence.
Tinka turned her attention from Rocky to Kasia and her jaw dropped open in surprise. She suddenly realized that the princess had been in the room for the proposal. "Kasia?"
Kasia noticed Tinka staring at her in shock and said, "You must have a lot of questions as to why I am here, but believe me, I have no intention of telling Anton, my parents, or your parents about your engagement until you and Ty give me the word to do so."
"Tinka, Deuce signed for the ring when it was delivered to Crusty's earlier today," Rocky explained to the blonde dancer. "Kasia was the one who picked it up and brought it here for the proposal."
Tinka looked from Rocky to Kasia and asked, "You're supporting Ty and I?"
Kasia nodded and said, "We may have only known each other for a short amount of time, but you're my friend, Tinka. I want you to marry someone you love. Although I love my brother, I refuse to see you marry him when you do not love him in return." She smiled gently at Ty. "Ty may not be a prince, but he treats you well, and I can tell he loves you very much. That is the kind of relationship I am willing to support."
Tinka smiled at Kasia and walked over to embrace her in a hug. "Thank you, Kasia."
"You are most welcome, Tinka," Kasia replied, returning the hug. "You are a good person. You deserve to be happy."
"So, future brother-in-law, what happens next?" Günther asked Ty.
"What do you mean?" Ty asked, confused.
"Once my parents see an engagement ring on Tinka's finger that's not from Anton, they will want answers," Günther pointed out. "How exactly are you and Tinka going to announce your engagement to them?"
"Don't worry, I have an idea!" Tinka chirped, excitedly.
"Does that idea of yours include your future-in-laws by any chance?" Rocky asked, raising an eyebrow at her. "Ty hasn't exactly told them yet that he was going to propose to you."
"Oh, shoot!" Ty muttered, snapping his fingers. He was so busy with planning the proposal that he forgot to mention to his parents that he might be giving them a daughter-in-law.
Rocky glanced at the clock on her cell phone, realized she and Ty had to be home for dinner, and said, "Well, there's no time like the present."
Chapter 11 Up! Questions? Comments? Should I continue?
Please Review! Reviews are greatly appreciated! =D
~TeenQueen661
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