Disclaimer: As always, I own nothing
Splashing through the sand bar, talking by the campfire
It's the simple things in life like when and where
We didn't have no internet but man I never will forget
The way the moonlight shined upon her hair
So far Gabriella's summer had been spent in the following ways: A) Sleeping, B) Tanning on the dock, and C) Taking a dip in the lake when she got hot during point B. Not eventful necessarily, but still a great way to spend her summer.
Surprisingly, the time she dreaded spending with her grandparents hadn't turned out to be that bad. During the week it was her and her grandmother and on the weekends her grandfather drove up after work. However, she got a kick out of the stories they told her about high school and how her grandmother had gotten her younger sister arrested. Multiple times.
She struggled not knowing anyone around and in the desolate area it was difficult to shop. Her whole life she'd lived in the city, now she was stationed in a town of less than two thousand people that was mostly composed of resorts for tourists. It was difficult knowing that she couldn't simply drive down the street for Chinese in the middle of the night. It was at least thirty minutes away in 'the city' with was still about a thirty minute drive and the size of a very, very, very, small suburb.
That being said, she didn't mind helping out around the house. She'd spent more time with her grandmother in a week than she felt she'd ever spent with her own mother. They made actual food, with fresh vegetables and watermelon as sweet as candy, not out of a tray with a thin covering of plastic.
Troy had popped up every once in a while, once to fix a clogged toilet and another time to deliver fire wood. It never seized to amaze her how he seemed to be everywhere.
Which would explain why he was at the drug store, at the same time as her, while she just happened to be buying her supply of tampons. Damn, this always happened to her. Two years ago it was one of her father's athletes she'd had a crush on, last year her P.E. teacher, and now the mysterious guy who knew everybody.
She tried to sneak down the aisles, so that he wouldn't notice her. It was difficult though, this was no Walgreens and only had about five aisles. If he wouldn't have found his damn toothpaste so quickly she could have dodged him completely. But alas, here they were, Troy greeting her as a middle aged man stuck her tampons in a plastic bag.
"Long time no see Gabriella," He smiled gracefully over at her. It would be so much easier to believe he was a creep if he didn't look so gorgeous while doing it.
"Not really," She heard him sigh, then grabbed her bag, and moved her feet the hell out of the building. Next thing she knew, he was running down the street calling her name.
"Gabriella, wait up!" He grabbed the door to the pick up truck before she could close it.
"What do you want Troy?" Her hand was braced on the handle, ready to pull the door closed when he moved his hand out of the way.
He shrugged his shoulders, "To prove I'm not that bad of a guy."
Troy could tell that her eyes softened a little bit. Her hand let go of the door and she made eye contact with him.
"Come on," He held his hand out, "There's this great sandwich place a few stores down. I'll buy you lunch."
"Fine," Gabriella took his calloused hand and jumped down from the car, careful not to expose anything underneath the skirt of her dress. The only person she'd ever meet with hands that rough was her dad.
She dropped his hand and followed him across the street. They were in what everyone described as 'town.' It was where the tourists came on rainy days and was one street composed with little shops that suited the area. Nothing name brand, every shop owned by locals and not some chain brand.
"You know that A and W down there?" Troy pointed even further down the street, "It's one of the originals. They still come out to your car with roller blades."
"That's cool," They rounded the corner and Troy held open the door of an oddly shaped round building. It was painted red and the wood on the outside made it look like a barn.
It was fairly empty when they walked in, only one older couple was left in the shop. Troy pressed the top of the bell and a man with grey hair and the charisma of a twelve year old walked out with a large smile permanently plastered on his face, "Troy!"
"Hey Joey," Troy greeted with a warm smile, always enchanting every one he saw, "How's business."
"Starting to pick up actually," He pulled out a tab of paper, "Long winter, I'm sure you know how it is."
"Definitely," Troy nodded, "Let's see, I'll go with a turkey today."
"Usual toppings?" Troy nodded again, "And how 'bout for the pretty lady?"
"Um," She looked over the board, "I'll get a vegetarian wrap."
"Okay," The older man nodded, "Swiss, American, or Provolone?"
"Provolone," She responded and Troy looked at her.
"We've got lettuce, tomato, green pepper, olives, pickles, onions, banana peppers, cucumbers," He pointed at the board, "You name it we put it on. We've also got mayo, ranch, southwest style ranch, Italian garlic, any kind of mustard you want, horse radish, etcetera."
"I'll have lettuce tomato, banana peppers, onion," She bit her lip, the experience was more overwhelming than Subway, "And Honey Dijon please."
"Coming right up," He slid out two cups and passed them to the two.
Troy glanced over, held out a cup, and gave her a half smile, "I'm sorry, I forgot you were a vegetarian."
She shrugged, "It's fine, I still eat sandwiches."
"Okay," Troy went for a coke and Gabriella opted for an iced tea. He slid into a booth near the door. They sat in silence for a moment until their sandwiches were ready and Troy stood up to pay, delivering the wrap to her.
"So are your parent's going to be coming out at all this summer?" Troy struck up some conversation before taking a bite of his sandwich.
"My Dad might make it out," She shrugged, "He's pretty busy over the summer though so I'm not sure if he really will. How long have you been living with your grandparent's out here?"
"Four years," Troy nodded, "I know how it is, my parent's have never been out here to see me."
Gabriella smiled at him, "Is that a good thing or a bad thing."
Troy laughed, "Now that you mention it, probably a good thing. Have you been at least having some fun up here?"
"It's not as bad as I anticipated," She shrugged her shoulders, "You know, this town has less people than my high school."
"I know," He had nearly finished his sandwich already, "It's very different than L.A."
"What's going on over there," She pointed her finger out the window. People were gathered in a line and a truck was nearby with multiple white buckets being sprayed with hoses.
Troy laughed, "After school lets out they have turtle races every Wednesday."
Her forehead scrunched with confusion, "How do they race turtles?"
"There's a bullseye, everyone stands around the edge, and when they say go you set your turtle down and the first one to the center ring wins," Troy explained, "You want to give it a try?"
"Why not?" They finished their lunch, refilled their drinks, and headed out to the town square. The number of people had nearly doubled and they had to wait in line for a good ten minutes before Troy shelled out two dollars and they were given pins with their numbers on them.
"You want 356 or 357?" Troy held out the two buttons for her to choose from.
"Seven's my lucky number," Troy pinned his on his shirt before reaching over, brushing her hair behind her shoulder, his rough hand scraping across bare skin, and pinning the button to her strapless dress.
It was the perfect paradox the roughness of his skin but the gentleness of the touch.
"Um," She tried to remove her mind from the situation, "Is there really three hundred people here?"
Troy glanced up and looked around, admittedly removing his point of view from where he pinned the button close to her breast to the scenery around them, "Yeah, usually brings in a couple hundred people. Last summer on the week of the fourth of July there was almost eight hundred."
"Wow," She shuffled her feet while looking down at her gladiator sandals.
"You want to," He paused and licked his suddenly dry lips, "Go sit on the bench over there while we wait?"
"Sure," And the awkwardness of the situation returned. They sat and watched little kids running around to their parents and looking into buckets, picking the absolute perfect turtle to win the race high off the freeness that entailed with the end of the school year.
"Is there any actual prize for winning the turtle race?" The first heat was starting and a man with a microphone was hyping everyone up.
Troy laughed, "Oh yes there is, your name gets announced on the radio tomorrow morning."
"Of course," Gabriella rolled her eyes and laughed.
Troy spotted a woman with a stroller balancing a small infant on her hip walking toward them to sit on the edge of the curb, he motioned to Gabriella to stand up, and before she reached the curb Troy touched her shoulder, "Ma'am, take the bench."
"No, no, no, I-"
Troy cut her off, "Please, you could use it more than us. We don't mind."
"You know what," She shrugged her shoulders, "I'm going to take up on that, I've been dying to sit down. Thank you, very much." Her eyes glowed with appreciation as the kid began to cry a little bit.
"It's no problem," Troy nudged Gabriella over a little bit so that they stood beneath the shade of a tree.
"Alright, 321 to 340 step on up to the race track," The man in the center ring announced, "You're up!"
"We should probably try to get through the crowd," Troy commented, "We'll be up next."
"Okay," She nodded, agreeing and following his steps. They pushed and shoved there way through the parents trying to keep an eye on their children in the chaos. They picked out turtle's in white buckets and Troy showed her how to pick it up without getting scratched. Troy's was one of the larger, Gabriella's smaller. Some of the kids picked them up and dropped them at the touch and dropped them. Gabriella cringed as she saw them lay belly up until Troy stepped in and flipped them over, telling the kids to 'be careful.'
The announcer called their group of numbers, instructing them to be careful and preparing them that there would only be one winner. Gabriella giggled as Troy tried to sabotage her by bumping her hip, causing her to lose balance, "Watch out, Froggy here's going to win."
That just made her laugh louder, "Froggy?"
"Yep," Troy picked the turtle out of the water, turning it upside down to show that the word 'Froggy' was indeed written on the bottom.
"Oh my God," She laughed, picking up her own turtle who wiggled it's legs quickly at the motion, "I don't know, this one seems like quite the champ."
"Well," Troy stuck out his hand, "May the best turtle win."
Gabriella shook it and he squeezed hard on her hand before the announcer continued, "On your mark, get set," He paused for dramatic effect, "GO!"
They placed their turtles on the line and cheered them on like everyone around them. Troy splashed water on his but the turtle seemed to want to go anywhere but the middle of the circle, "Oh, come on Froggy, go the other way."
Gabriella was pleasantly surprised at the pace of her turtle. There were only a few who went in the correct direction, one of which was hers. Troy sighed and glanced over at hers and finally the announcer shouted, "Looks like we have a winner! Come get your turtles, but don't step on anyone elses!" The man handed Gabriella a sticker and instructed her to put it on her pin if she planned on sticking around for the championship round.
"Wow," Troy grumbled, "I hate to admit it but you were right."
"I'm a winner," Gabriella jiggled her hips a little in a happy dance, "I'm a winner."
"Oh stop gloating."
"I'll gloat however much I want to gloat!" She exclaimed, skipping back to the tree as people began to clear out and others shoved their way in.
"For as many of these as I've been to," Troy collapsed down against the tree trunk, "I've never won."
"Oh cry yourself a river," She giggled plopping down next to him and pulling her curly hair to one side of the shoulder, "This weather does not do anything for my hair."
"Mine either," Troy shook his head, his long locks flailing like dog hair.
"You need a haircut."
"I do not need a haircut," He rebutted, "My hair is perfect the way it is."
"I'm just saying," She messed his hair with her hands, "A haircut might make you look more mature."
"Oh my God don't burn yourself," Gabriella scolded from an Adirondack chair around the fire pit.
"Trust me," Troy continued shifting logs around with his hands, adding some where it needed to be added, "I probably will."
"That makes me feel so much better," She rolled her eyes, swatting at a mosquito. Somehow he'd guilt tripped her into coming over. Actually he'd taunted her with a jet-ski ride. Same thing.
Jet-skiing lead to dinner and dinner lead to a small bonfire with s'mores. And that's how she ended up lecturing him while wearing an oversized sweatshirt. And smelling like bug spray. Lots of bug spray.
"Do you want to play twenty questions?" She prodded him while overturning her marshmallow.
"You mean we just ask each other questions?"
"That's pretty much what the game entails," She shrugged, folding her legs up underneath her, "You go first."
"Okay," Troy took a few seconds to come up with a personal yet not too personal question, "What's your favorite food?"
Gabriella rolled her eyes at his lame question, "Crepes. Favorite band?"
"Hmm," Troy tapped his chin in contemplation, "My favorite band ever is probably Weezer and my favorite band of the moment is Motion City Soundtrack."
"You don't seem like a Weezer fan," She stuck a marshmallow in between crackers with chocolate, "Never heard of the other band."
Troy shrugged, "How about the favorite place you've ever been to?"
"Italy, hands down," She licked some of the stickiness off her finger, "Pompeii is the coolest place I've ever been to. You?"
"Wasn't expecting that," Troy's own marshmallow caught on fire at the moment, "I don't know, I guess I haven't traveled much. One time my parent's took me to Seattle. That was pretty cool I guess."
"I like Seattle, rainy, but still nice."
"Beats the weather here seventy-five percent of the time," Troy laughed, "What do your parent's do?"
"My Dad coaches basketball," She watched Troy's eyebrow's raise, "My Mom's a lawyer. What was your last girlfriend like?"
"Oh God," Troy watched as she smirked at him, "Stephanie Kissing. I really like the girl but she refused to go out with me until I became a born again Christian. She was always complaining about how we would raise our kids and stuff. I didn't really have the dedication for that."
"That's," She paused to find the right word, "Very pressuring? I mean kids? In high school?"
"Exactly why things didn't work out. How about you? What was your last boyfriend like?"
"Don't laugh," Yet she herself couldn't resist, "I was going through my badass stage. He was this really grunge guy who took me to screamo concerts and rode an electric scooter to school because his parent's wouldn't let him drive a motorcycle."
Troy did in fact laugh, "Sounds very badass."
"I thought it was," Gabriella took the time to come up with another question, "Where are you from?"
"Prepare yourself," Troy held his hands up, "Long Beach."
"You're shitting me!" Gabriella exclaimed from disbelief, "So, beach boy?"
Troy shook his head, "Not exactly. You go to the beach a lot?"
"Not as much as I'd like to," Troy could see the resistance she had when she rolled her eyes, "My parent's have a beach house but we don't get to use it more than once a year. Where are you going to college? If you're going to college that is."
"I was going back out West on a scholarship," Troy cleared his throat, "You know, move back closer to my parent's and stuff. Actually I was on a basketball scholarship. But now I'm not so sure."
Gabriella was wary to ask more questions when she heard the way his voice dropped and saw that he refused to make eye contact, staring at the fire, "So are you any good?"
"What?" He seemed to be in a zone that he snapped out of.
"Are you any good," She made actions like she was shooting a basket, "At hoops?"
"I was," His bare toe doodled in the sand beneath his foot.
"If you moved back West, you'd be closer to me," She grinned cheekily, trying to distract him.
He chuckled and nodded, "That I would."
"Do you ever go night swimming out here?" She stood from her chair, brushing a few crumbs off her lap.
"I have," He watched as she inched closer to the dock, "But not really all that frequently."
"Well, what are you waiting for?" She held her arms out before taking off toward the end of the dock.
Troy seemed less enthusiastic until he saw her strip off his sweatshirt and eventually her strapless dress, revealing a basic black strapless bra and matching underwear. His pace started to pick up.
"Come on slow poke," She yelled after diving in, "I didn't just give you a strip tease for nothing!"
"I'm coming!" He yelled back defensively, yanking his sweatshirt and t-shirt off in the same motion. He unbuttoned his jeans, slid them off, followed by a black knee brace. Diving head first into the water, he swam underneath Gabriella, popped up behind her, and squeezed her waist.
And then she squeeled.
Loudly.
"Troy!" She splashed water at him, "You scared me."
"Really?" He responded sarcastically.
"Yes you did," She leaned back to float on her back, exposing the top layer of her body, "It's really pretty out here. All the stars and the lake is absolutely still."
"I know," He backpaddled to the dock, not trusting his knee to keep him up all that long, and rested his arms on the wood to keep him afloat, "People tend to really underestimate the beauty out here, I know I did. It's no ocean or anything but it's still great."
"I definitely did," Gabriella admitted, swimming up to join him.
"You should see it during the first snow fall," Gabriella tried to picture it in the cold. The true cold, not the cold she felt when it occasionally dipped below fifty degrees at night, which was still cold for her. It seemed almost impossible that this lake could be frozen with fifteen inches of snow on top. Troy seemed to be a little scatter brained, "You know there's more lake shore up here than there is ocean shore in California, Washington, and Oregon combined?"
"Really?"
"This is just a tiny bit of nature yet it seems so vast, you know?"
"Yeah, I do," Gabriella pushed herself up on the dock, laying down on it to get a better look at the stars. Troy followed mimicking her actions.
"It's kind of crazy," She pointed up to the north star, "That no matter what day it is, that thing will always be there."
"I know," Suddenly she pushed herself up on her elbows, "Do you have any clue what time it is?"
Troy slid his jeans closer to him, pulling his cell phone out of the back pocket, "Eleven thirty."
"I should probably get going," Gabriella grabbed Troy's zip up sweatshirt she'd borrowed, zipping it up so that you could still her bra peeking out. When she stood it covered that back of her butt. She picked up her dress, folding it.
"I'll walk you to your truck," Troy scooped up her own clothes and they stopped by the bonfire pit to get her purse. She grabbed the keys and Troy opened the door for her, "Send me a text when you get there."
"Oh, I don't have your number," She grabbed her phone from her purse, typing in his name and holding a finger up, "Okay, ready."
Troy listed off the digits, made sure she was fine driving home in the dark, and made her promise to text him when she got back. Finally, he was about to shut the door but Gabriella stopped, "And for the record Troy, I knew you weren't that bad of a guy, but I had fun anyways."
"Good," He felt a little awkward standing in his boxers in front of her and thanked himself for not wearing the white briefs he'd almost pulled out from his drawer, "I'll see you later?"
"Yeah," She nodded, "See you later Troy."
A/N: Wow, first time posting something that wasn't written in the middle of the night by insomnia. So, Good? Bad? Let me know what your opinion is, really I'd appreciate some critisism every once in a while.
And reviewers, great start, keep up the good work. I know how much of a hassle it is to do, but I read every single one and appreciate it so much.