The sypnosis from Love is 130:

She was the daring naughty girl of the music world; he was the new country music heartthrob. Humbled from a childhood in the ranches of Kansas, his accent, sparkling eyes, and an incredible way of speaking to women through his music, he had hit it big this year. Her story came from a battle with drugs, rebellion, and a broken family. At sixteen, she had informed her mother of her desires to be in the music industry, sent tapes to the leading hip hop recording labels and moved to New York. Since then, she had been blowing away every critic with her style and music choices. Tonight, for the first time, they would meet in the highest of award shows, and on a spontaneous note, she decides to show him exactly why she is known as the most daring entertainer, in front of the whole world.

Thanks Haily!

Kansas Kisses

"Oh, I'm sorry," Troy 'Kansas' Bolton immediately turned toward the person he had just inadvertently jabbed with his elbow while collecting his knife and fork for his canteen dinner.

A canteen dinner supplied by the 'World Music Awards' show before he had to go on stage and sing, he recounted to himself as he felt the tell-tale nerves creep up in his tummy once more.

But before he had a chance to drown in the moment, a voice broke into his thoughts.

"You will be," twinkled the petite dark-haired Latina at his side. Her eyes were looking directly into his with her teasing threat and he squinted at her tone.

"Ah…I truly am sorry," he repeated with a sheepish blush. His mother had taught him manners, how to treat a lady and back home in Kansas, he wouldn't have expected this reaction from a beautiful bare-faced woman such as the one before him.

Only he wasn't in Kansas anymore, he mused. This was New York. Music capital of the world, and the girl smiling at him had him bemused.

"Wow, you don't get out much do you?" She observed, bemusing him further as he drew back his head in shock.

"I guess not," he drawled, tipping his face down so that his Stetson covered his eyes. "I'm sorry if I hurt you ma'am," he added as he turned to go.

"Hey, cowboy," the voice of the small beauty called him back and he twisted, his shoulders hunched against her next remark. "You have beautiful eyes."

Troy sat with his tray of food and puzzled over the statement from the dark-eyed, dark haired enigma. He'd seen Mexicans, Indians, all races in his line of work but never a woman like her- all curves and tiny temptation. Her hair was long, dark, and wavy over her shoulders. Her eyes feline and wide, and so brown he had wondered where they ended. And yet bare of any make-up, void of any costume, he didn't recognise her.

"It's rude to walk away when a girl is speaking to you," a tray slapped down in front of him and the small bundle of hair and eyes scraped up a chair opposite him.

Troy looked up under the rim of his hat and pressed his lips together. "Do I know you?" He asked instead.

"Not that I know of," she smiled secretly to herself. "But I know all about you, Kansas," she added.

"Do you have a name?" He enquired.

She met his eyes as her lips curved up devilishly. "Gabriella Montez."

He nodded as he took a mouthful of food. "Well it's my pleasure to meet you, Miss Montez," he held his hand across the table for her to shake.

"What, no kiss?" She arched her brow knowingly and he couldn't help but smile self-depreciatively.

He was well known in the press as 'Kansas Kisses' because he made a point of kissing every lady he met. In recognition of her jibe, he turned her hand and kissed her knuckles, something that apparently caught her off guard because she gasped and retracted her hand.

"I guess you're not used to that," he smirked.

"You're the new heart-throb round here," she commented, leaving him nervous as to where she was going with her conversation. "I've been in this business since I left high school- believe me, the gimmicks soon wear off."

"You're in the business?" He was surprised. She didn't look like she was. Her eyes were bright and her skin healthy and she just glowed with something inexplicable. He couldn't see how she could have survived in the music business since she was a teenager and still come out looking so normal.

"Uh-huh," she nodded, dropping her gaze to her food. "Believe me, I've seen it all, been through it all…"

"You sound jaded," he observed with interest.

Again those dark eyes pinned him. "It's not pretty."

"Life never is," he lifted a brow, and then let a small smile creep out. "So, tell me, who are you?"

"You'll see," she smiled that feline smile again. "I don't want to ruin the surprise."

"Come on," he goaded. "Not one clue?"

She shrugged. "No-one ever recognises me when I'm like this."

Her words were factual but the emptiness in her eyes told him so much more and then he realised, she wasn't as innocent and unaffected as he first thought.

"Well you're beautiful," he drawled shyly, giving a one sided smile. "A real natural."

Gabriella let her gaze meet his for a few seconds before she dropped it again.

"Well you are the charmer," she teased him some more. "I've heard 'Make me…'," she referred to his latest single.

He rolled his eyes at her and lifted off his hat, running a self-conscious hand through his no doubtedly hat-messed hair.

"I don't know why everyone's gotta say that," he sighed gently.

"Oh, come on, you must love it really?" She prompted.

"Being known as a heart throb?" He asked himself, and then winced. "I don't know…"

"Oh my god," she frowned with a bemused smile. "You really don't get it do you?"

"Get what?"

"You really don't think you're sexy," she marvelled.

"Ah, well…" he blushed again as his southern roots came back to bite him in the ass. Of course he wasn't sexy; he was just Troy, the horse handler. The farm hand. The country singer who found fame by accident not by choice and who now found himself overwhelmed with the level of female attention his job brought with it.

"We should do a duet." She decided suddenly, folding her arms.

"Huh?"

"A duet," she repeated. "I'm hip-hop raw sound, you're country and…old," she grinned to alleviate her inadvertent insult. "We should mix the two and see what happens…"

"Mix hip-hop and country?" He questioned disbelievingly.

"Oh my gosh, it would so work," she chatted animatedly, gesturing her hands as she went. "Your song, Make me, would sound awesome in a mix."

"It's a love song," he pointed out flatly, not sure about her sudden idea to mix their genres.

"So what?" She shrugged. "It's raw enough to work."

He watched as she began to rap a verse of his heart-felt ballad, then used his chorus in an urban arrangement.

"#Make me...uh uh...make me a better man

Oh, girl I wanna be with you every day

You make me wanna say in every way

Just what, uh, you do to me, yeah

Make me; make me a better man…#"

"Wow," Troy sat back, his mouth open and his brows high.

"Oh god, I'm sorry," Gabriella winced. "I have a real bad habit of doing that."

It was the first time he had seen her vulnerability and he softened his face into a smile.

"I kinda liked it."

"You did?" She darted her eyes up.

"Yeah," he nodded. "I just never heard my words sung by anyone else before, that's all…"

"Well, they're nice words," she complimented with a direct look and a flirty smile.

"Thank you," he couldn't peel his gaze away from hers if he tried but somehow his intended words came out by themselves for which he was internally thankful.

"Mm, well I have to go," Gabriella finished her last mouthful. "It takes me an age to get ready."

"I'm looking forward to seeing your show," he offered genuinely.

"Well save a dance for me at the after-party, Kansas. I'm calling you on it…" She blew him a kiss over her shoulder as she departed- an experience he didn't think he would ever forget.

/

"Oh god, breath in, breathe out…" Gabriella told herself as she waited backstage, her burlesque costume tight, revealing and sexy and her routine practised. All except for one small change she had made to her performance…

"#If I didn't know better, I might have tried to hide

But you're there in the darkness and I don't want to slide

You to me are everything, my sun my moon my stars

Believe me when I say…I'm yours tonight….#."

Okay, so she'd borrowed his song. She'd sang it a million times before, but never in public and now that she'd met him, she felt like tonight should be even more about the music-world's most recent addition.

Troy Bolton was getting kudos where kudos was earned but she hadn't expected him to be so darn adorable, too. She'd almost hoped his quick rise to fame had made him arrogant and cocky and sent him on the same trip she had taken, but she'd be damned if his humble-pie charm hadn't lost any of it's glean and still kept his feet firmly on the ground.

So as she slid down the extra-long pole-dancing pole and moved her body into suggestive poses, she knew that her spontaneous decision to cover his number-one selling single was possibly the best decision she had ever made. It turned his sweet-as-sugar, sentimental love song into a song of something else- a song of sexual proportions no-one else would have imagined if it weren't for her and her stripper-like performance on stage.

"My heart beats, uh uh uh," she bent over and bounced her backside. "Only for you.."

"My heart rages like an ocean so blue…" Her arms rose above her head, she wound her body.

"#In your eyes I can truly see…#" Her hands worked up her sides towards her breasts.

"#The colour of my destiny…#" And then she cupped them, quickly dropping her pose to stalk across the stage and wrap herself back around the pole to sing the chorus she had shared with him in the canteen.

"#Make me...uh uh...make me a better woman

Oh, boy I wanna be with you every day

You make me wanna say in every way

Just what, uh, you do to me, yeah

Make me; make me a better woman…#"

Her lips were red, her hair waterfalled down her back and decorated with a miniature top-hat. Her leotard was black, tight, smooth but the waistcoat sparkling, enhancing her breasts. Her shapely legs maximised in sheer black tights and buckled, platform sandals adorned her feet- a punky-sexy creation that perfectly matched her attitude. Around her wrists lay PVC buckled cuffs, around her waist a matching cinching belt. She was nothing like the girl that sat in that canteen- her eyes now darkened with fake lashes and her face made-up perfectly for the show- but what did she prefer?

She lost her thoughts as she worked the pole, the audience a blur as she performed across the stage with her dancers, the song ending in a soulful a cappella verse.

'#Didn't know you could be mine one day

I never wanted it to end this way

I wanted all of you to be mine

I can't turn back the hands of time

So ohhhh…make me a better woman

Ohhh make me the kind of person I want to be

Ohhh wont you love me for me?

Ohhh…won't you love me for me...#"

Gabriella held her breath for five seconds until the lights came down and then she ran for the edge of the stage, breathless, zinging with adrenaline and scared shitless of the reaction.

"Gabi, do you hear them?" Her equally breathless dancer, Haily asked.

"What?" She looked up, still trying to catch oxygen into her tight lungs.

"The clapping- it's so loud!" She explained and Gabi stood up straight, listening with intent ears for the sound.

"Oh my god," she awed, frowning.

"Look!" Haily pulled back the curtain and revealed the crowd- all on their feet, giving a standing ovation.

"It's not my song!" Gabi gasped, overwhelmed at the reaction to her off-the-cuff performance.

"It should be." A deeper voice broke their short celebration and Gabi looked around to see Troy stood in the wings, his Stetson back on his head and his hands awkwardly in his pockets.

She swallowed and approached him cautiously but they were both told in hushed tones by the stage manager to leave the stage so she grabbed his hand and ran backstage with him, giggling breathlessly as she skidded to a halt in the corridor.

"Your dressing room or mine?" She curled her lips up suggestively.

Troy blinked. "Yours," he offered, feeling nervous sweat sprout on his upper lip and the inside of his palms.

Gabi led him there, her stage attire a definite turn-on this close up, but he still remembered the costume-free Gabriella from before.

"You could have told me you were singing my song, Gabriella," he mused. "I'm kinda beat now."

"It's Gabi," she explained of her name as she took out the top-hat from her hair and then walked right up to him. "Did you like it?"

"I loved it," he assured huskily, the tip of his hat brushing her hair as he looked down on her.

"How much?" She enquired flirtily, running her hands up his chest- a chest he had t-shirted in black and that boasted muscles she could only imagine.

"You're tripping in a high, I'm not gonna kiss you now…" He arched his brow.

Something flicked across her eyes and she pouted. "I'm not tripping on anything, I swear."

"I have to go sing, anyway," he reminded her.

"But I'm not done with you," she whispered, tiptoeing to reach his ear. "Sing to me here…"

"And leave four million people waiting?" He smiled.

"Then I'll wait for you," she swayed over to her large couch and draped herself becomingly on it. "Right here."

"Promise?" He checked.

"Promise."

/

"#What makes a beautiful woman?

Is it her eyes, her smile, her hair?

When I breathe in the scent of my woman

I love the beauty of her heart , oh yeah…#"

Troy was still humming his quickly chosen alternative song as he came down from the stage and back towards Gabi's dressing room. He didn't know if he should have come back or not, but there was something about the bewitching Latina that had him intrigued and tonight was a special night. It may be his only chance to find out anything about her- before they both went their separate ways again.

"Gabi?" He knocked gently on the door and after three tries, gently twisted the handle to see if it gave, and it did, allowing him a peek inside her room.

She was there, on her sofa, only fast asleep and wearing some soft slouch pants and a vest; a sight which had him grinning from ear to ear. God she looked incredible, he mused, all soft and real, no make-up, no gimmicks.

He slipped inside and removed his hat, laying it on her dresser as he approached and crouched beside the sofa.

"Gabi?" He husked in his song-roughened voice.

"I met a cute guy, mom," she murmured in her apparent sleep and he frowned amusedly.

"A cute guy?"

"Mm his name is Kansas, Kansas Kisses."

Troy chuckled at her non-sensical mutterings and wondered what to do- should he wake her so they could talk all night? Maybe more than talk, he grinned. Should he let her sleep- she certainly seemed exhausted? Maybe he should crawl right in there with her, he wondered? God, that seemed like a great idea right now, he mused.

"Darn and hellfire," he whispered as his phone began to chime. "Hullo?" He answered it as he stood and wandered toward the door.

"Troy, it's Chad. You have to come home, dude." His best friend from Kansas said with no mention of the biggest night of his life. It still surprised him how little his friends cared about his music career.

"Why what's happened?" He asked, a little irritable at being interrupted from his rare chance at meeting a girl he actually liked.

"It's Sharpay. She's had a miscarriage."

/

Gabi woke and stretched lazily on her soft couch, frowning for a few seconds until she remembered where she was. Oh, darn. She'd fallen asleep.

But where was Troy? How much time had lapsed since she'd fallen into slumber she wondered? Had he gone without seeing her? Was he still singing?

She sat up and rubbed her face, looking up to find clues and instantly she saw the Stetson on the edge of her dresser. He's been here, then, she sighed.

Been and gone. Typical.

She stood and stretched again, realising she ached so badly because she didn't warm down from her routine properly, she'd merely plopped onto the sofa and invited the strong and adorable Troy with her. If only he hadn't had to perform, she cursed. He would have been hers by now.

She sucked her teeth as she realised she wasn't going to get what she wanted- not tonight at least and she headed toward his token of affection.

A small card lay in the hat band which she picked up to squint at to read.

'Call me, 07865934567' Troy x'

Mm, call me. She'd heard that before and normally she would toss the card over her shoulder and laugh at the idea of her calling anyone who happened to leave a request like that. Only she liked the idea of chasing Troy for some reason. There was something about his sparkling eyes and southern drawl that had her all itchy with attraction. She didn't like how she wanted him, she didn't even know why but she wanted those calloused, large hands that played guitar to play her, too. She wanted to sing with him and hear their voices meld. And surprisingly she wanted to find out how he liked to make love; a random and unjustified thought she couldn't explain.

Must be something to do with his amazingly sexy voice, she mused.

So what to do? She pondered a she held the little card. To call or not to call?

/

WELL READER- YOU DECIDE! SHOULD GABI CALL TROY?