Danny and Riley: Childhood Stories-A Baby Daddy Fanfiction

Chapter 1: Age 7

"Come on Danny! Let's go," Riley says, annoyed that her best friend is ignoring her.

Refusing to be ignored, she yanks Danny's hand and begins running, dragging him behind her. Despite Danny's pleads, she continues running.

"Riley is giving Danny cooties!" a voice shouts from behind them. Riley stops running and turns towards the voice, which belongs to none other than Ben Wheeler.

Ben proceeds to make kissy faces at his brother. Danny tries to ignore Ben and finally focuses his attention on Riley. "Let's go, Riles," he says before hopping onto his bike.

Riley's looking the other direction. Danny follows her stare and notices that she's watching Ben. Just as Ben begins to laugh, Riley lets our a huge sigh. Danny watches as her lips curve into a slight frown and her eyes lose their usual sparkle.

"Riley?"

As if she just woke up, Riley jerks her head towards Danny, eyes wide open. "What?"

Danny chuckles slightly. "Are we going or what?"

"Right," Riley voices before finding her light pink bike. She sighs again as she thinks about the colour of the bike, wishing her mom had listened when she said she wanted a blue one.

"Race you?" Riley's lips curve upwards into a mischievous smile, or at least as mischievous as a seven year old can get.

"With those training wheels you're as fast as a turtle."

She looks at her best friend's green bike and then back to her own. She's been begging her mom to take of the training wheels. Riley already knew how to ride without them-thanks to late night practices with Danny-but her mom is scared that she will fall down and break her head or something.

With one last look back at Ben, Riley zooms off towards the road.

Danny watches her as Riley's hair reflects the light of the evening sun. Everything about her was perfect, from her beautiful yellow dress that goes down to her knees to long fishtail braid in her hair.

Just as the figure of Riley grows smaller and smaller, it occurs to Danny that he should follow her. His feet touch footholds and he begins to pedal as fast as he can, letting the cold evening air run through his hair.

Within seconds he catches up to her, hearing her loud pants as she tries to pedal faster. Riley's breaths are chaotic and desperate, barely exhaling before she takes another breath.

Even though he could overtake her, Danny continues to ride slightly behind his friend. Despite wanting to win, he knows that being close to Riley was more important.

They ride into the shadows of trees, hiding from the rest of the world. There's something about the empty park that made made Riley smile, as if she is a princess and the park is her kingdom.

Just as Riley is unable to keep on riding, Danny sets his bike on the ground and lies down on the grass, staring at the clouds. She soon follows him.

Danny points to a cloud to his right and says, "that one kind of looks like a dinosaur."

Riley follows his finger and find the cloud he was pointing to. "No," she disagrees, "it looks more like a bunny."

"It's totally a dinosaur. Look at those teeth."

"No! Those are whiskers."

Just like always, Danny gives in. "Fine." He searches the sky for another interesting cloud until he finds one right in the middle of the sky. "That one looks like a wedding ring."

"It does," she pauses for a moment. "Do you think you'll ever get married?"

He can feel her large brown eyes staring at him as he thought about the question. "Maybe," he finally answers after thinking about it for a very long time. He shifts to his right so that they're facing each other. "What about you?"

Riley shakes her head. "No. No. No. No. I never ever want to get married."

"Not even to a prince? Then you'll be a princess," Danny jokes.

"I don't need a prince to be a princess. I'll find my own way."

Danny giggles, and Riley-as a result of hearing a boy giggle for the first time- begins to laugh loudly. Danny holds back a grin as her eyes light up and her cheeks turn red.

"I'll become a doctor and find a cure for every disease ever. Maybe I'll save the entire world from an evil monster too. I'll be a princess, but I won't marry a prince," Riley continues.

"That's not how it works," Danny protests.

They continue to argue for several minutes. Riley tries to convince Danny that anyone who cures every disease deserves to be princess and Danny tries to explain how princesses actually work. Their argument bounces off the trees and rings in their ears long after the words are spoken.

Once Riley runs out of things to say, she stands up and makes a distasteful face at Danny. She then runs towards a flock of pigeons, forcing them scurry into the air.

Danny takes a mental picture of Riley in that moment: yellow dress flowing in the wind, her lips so wide that he saw her white teeth, and her hair seeming gold as it reflects the suns rays.

He can't imagine a life without the girl.