The Girl Next Door (Chris Evans Fanfiction)

Chapter 23

Chris took a few deep breaths, trying to calm his heartbeat as he stood on the front steps. He tried to go over what he was going to say in his head but the cold December weather motivated him to finally just knock on the door. A minute later, he was met with the tall slim grey haired man who smiled widely, just like Erica.

"Hey Chris," Dave greeted him. "C'mon on in!"

"I hope this isn't a bad time," He said, stepping into the home while Dave closed the door.

"No, it's a great time. I was just going through a bunch of old photos of Erica, a lot of which are blackmail worthy, so you'll love it," He told him, pulling Chris' toned frame in for a hug which Chris happily returned.

Dave led him into the living room where he had a few boxes on the floor and a bunch of photos spread out around him. He sat down on the carpet and Chris sat down near him, resting his back up against the couch.

"Here's a really adorable one of Erica on the first day of Kindergarten," He handed Chris a photo.

"Oh god that is too cute," Chris said through a soft chuckle. Erica's thick wavy curls were tied up in two pig tails while she wore a pair of denim overalls and tennis shoes. Her eyes were squinted up as she smiled widely, similar to the way she smiled now.

The two quickly got lost in the pictures, looking through them all while Dave gave Chris context about them. He even got out some of the home movies they had and the two ended up having a great time laughing over a lot of the footage.

"Did Erica invite you over tonight?" Dave eventually asked, flicking through some of the photos.

Chris wrinkled up his eyebrows, giving him a confused look so Dave explained, "She's coming over tonight to help me sort through all of these boxes of pictures. I have so many!"

"No, she didn't tell me about it," He chuckled. "She probably didn't want me to see all of them."

"Well I'm not surprised, there's some embarrassing ones of her," Dave laughed, digging through the piles.

Chris took a deep breath before he decided he had to say this now and began, "Dave, I came over here tonight because I want to ask you something."

"Ask away," He pushed his black framed glasses on top of his head while moving a box onto his lap.

"Well, I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and I've kind of been reflecting on my life and where I want it going and what I want to do and things like that. As I've been thinking, the one thing that has been more obvious to me than anything else is how much I love Erica. I've never been as happy as I am with her. I never knew that someone could be as amazing as she is and I just love her so much."

Chris took a deep breath, trying to blink back his tears while telling Dave, "I guess what I'm trying to say is I want my future to be with Erica. I want to marry her but I want to ask not only your permission, but your blessing first."

When Dave finally lifted his face to look at Chris, his dark eyes were glossed over as a few silent tears slip out. As soon as Chris saw this, he lost it. Dave pulled Chris in for a tight hug while the two grown men cried together. Dave cried out of sheer happiness, overjoyed that his niece finally had someone to love her, take care of her, and to appreciate all the little things about her. He always had wanted that for her and he was so happy that it was happening.

"God, I've always cried a lot because I just emote so much, but ever since I decided I want to marry Erica I've just been a blubbering mess," Chris laughed, using the edge of his sweater to wipe at his eyes.

"Now you're rubbing off on me," Dave chuckled, wiping his own tears away before he put a hand on Chris' broad shoulder and told him, "Chris, you don't need my permission, you only need hers. But if you want my blessing you've got it."

"Thank you Dave. You mean so much to Erica and you've come to mean a lot to me too and I just couldn't ask her to marry me without talking to you first," Chris was honest. "I know that life with me isn't going to be the easiest with publicity and filming and all of those things but I love Erica with all my heart and I promise that I always will."

Dave smiled widely at the man before telling him, "You're good for her Chris. You challenge her, celebrate her, and encourage her. You're a good man who loves Erica and supports her in every way.... I can't ask for more than that."

"Thank you Dave, it really means so much to me," Chris was honest with him.

The two men got their conversation cut short when they heard the door open and Erica's voice call for Uncle Dave. Chris told him that he would handle this and when Erica walked into the room, he let his acting capabilities take over.

"What are you doing here?" Erica smirked, putting her hands on the curve of her hips.

"I think it's terrible you didn't invite me to come over and sort through pictures with you, I'm just lucky Dave told me about it otherwise I wouldn't have found this gem," Chris held up an awkward pre-teen photo of her.

Erica walked over and snatched the picture from him with a laugh, sitting down between the two men and kissing each of their cheeks. She grabbed a box and started looking through them while muttering, "Well at least you're not looking through them unsupervised!"

Chris just got a big smirk on his face before informing her, "Earlier I did get to see a video of you from about 2001 at a Foo Fighters concert throwing your bra at Dave Grohl on stage."

"YOU SHOWED HIM THAT VIDEO?!" Erica turned to accuse her uncle while slapping his arm, making him howl with laughter.

"Oh yeah!" Chris could barely push out through his hysterics. "I saw you with your crimped hair, an insane amount of self tanner, and you unzipping your tracksuit to get your bra off and toss at Dave Grohl."

"Well he's not the only musician I've thrown some underwear at," Erica mumbled, grabbing a stack of photos to thumb through.

Chris looked at Erica, making a face before saying, "You know what? I don't want to know."

"It's probably better that way," Dave chuckled, patting Chris' shoulder.

"When was this taken?" Chris trailed off, picking up some pictures and seeing her with a neon colored crop top, low rise jeans, longer crimped hair and a face full of self tanner. It was obvious it was from sometime in the late 90's or early 2000's.

She looked over and laughed at the photo before saying, "I was probably around 21."

"Those were from her clubbing days," Dave had to pipe in, earning him a smack from Erica.

Chris tipped his head back, letting out loud laughter as he thought of Erica at a club. He could imagine her tearing up the dance floor and told her, "Well I have to say, if you were 21 in this then I would have been 23 at the time, and 23 year old me would have been very hot for you."

"It would have been the crimped hair that did it for you, right?" Erica snickered.

"No doubt... although the bedazzled jeans were a nice touch," His blue eyes studied the photo before turning his head to give her a smile that made her stomach do flops.

Erica couldn't help but laugh before they kept going through photos as she shared pieces of her growing up years with him. After a while, she found herself thinking and couldn't help but ask, "So Uncle Dave did you really call Chris to have him come over just to to see all these old pictures?"

Dave looked over at Chris, sharing a look as he smiled at him both of them knowing something Erica didn't and he responded, "Yeah, something like that."

Chris looked down, grinning to himself as he thought about their conversation. He was going to ask Erica to marry him... this was the biggest decision of his life but he had no doubt in his mind that it was the right one.