AN: Thank you to all who reviewed. This chapter isn't quite as long as the last one, but I like it, even though not much really happens in it. And I am so, so sorry it took me so long to update.

Chapter 4

Troy and Gabriella were now stronger and better than ever as the school year ended. The school year finished easily or easier for Troy than it had the previous years. And he started to feel better than he ever had since Andy had left. He still had bad days where something just hit him and he was in a funk. But other days were good days or above average, he wasn't sure about the word good yet. But the above average days came to outnumber the bad days.

Summer brought the heat and days were spent either in the pool or someplace cool while nights were spent beneath the stars. "Troy, could you grab the mail while you're out there?" His mom asked from the kitchen. She was home for lunch from work.

Troy was at the front door greeting Gabriella with a light kiss, "Yeah mom," He grabbed the mail and led Gabriella inside. He flipped through it as he walked to the kitchen. Bill, Bill, a lot of advertisements, a letter from Great Aunt Roseanne, a letter for his dad for something. He handed everything to his mom, "We're going to go downstairs and watch a movie ok?"

"Yeah, you know where your dad is?" Sara asked ripping open an envelope addressed to her.

"Hardware store, needed some more caulk or something for the bathroom," Troy said.

"Ok, I'm going back to work in about twenty minutes," Sara called after the two teens as they walked into their downstairs that was like a home theatre.

Troy and Gabriella picked out a movie and put it in. They made up a line up of movies that would last most of the day going into the night. About halfway through they heard Jack call down to say he was home. And then a few minutes later he opened the door again to say, "Troy can you come up here for a second?"

"Yeah," Troy looked at Gabriella, who grabbed the remote and hit the pause button. He walked up to where his dad was standing, "What's up dad?"

"Read this," Jack handed him a letter.

Troy skimmed the letter; it was about a coaching clinic and convention in Dallas for five days the third week of July. "Dad this is great, you are going right?"

"I would love to go, but it is five days in Dallas. And I can't just leave you here for a week. Your mom is at work all day, and you are not staying here alone. Now I know your mom is going to be very against it unless you and I can find a solid place you to stay while I am gone. Then I can talk her into it," Jack said. Both Troy and Jack knew that Sara had already scheduled all but two of her vacation days.

"Well what about Chad?" Troy said like it was really obvious.

"That's the obvious, but Tom is against it because he is going to be gone on a business trip and I agree with him on not putting both you and Chad on Judy. Judy says it's ok, but I don't want to do that to her," Jack said referring to Chad's parents.

"What about one of the other boys?"

"You really want to tell them why you can't be home alone?"

"No."

"And don't say Gabriella, that is a definite no."

"I wasn't going to, what about grandma and grandpa?"

"They decide to extend their RV trip to all summer instead of just June."

"Dad, you have to go to this, you can't miss this opportunity just because your son was an idiot."

"You are not an idiot, you just made some mistakes."

"Mistakes, yeah, what about Aunt May?" Troy asked thinking of Jack's sister.

"She'll be five months pregnant then you know. I can't do that to her with Henry in Iraq," Jack was talking about his sister and brother-in-law, who was in the army.

"Talk to her, what will it hurt? And I can help her with stuff around the house and getting it ready for her baby," Troy said.

"It wouldn't hurt to ask I guess," Jack said.

"No it wouldn't," Troy nodded.

"I'm going to go talk to her in person, tell your mom I'll be back by dinner and to maybe set an extra place at the table," Jack said, "Now go be a teenager."

"Yes sir," Troy made a little mock salute and went back down to the basement to finish watching the movie with Gabriella, filling her in on what they were talking about.

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Another day that summer just a week after the previous, Troy, Gabriella and Chad were all in Troy's car on their way to Taylor's house. Taylor had to baby-sit her younger brother until about 4:30 when her mom got home from work. So that meant the four teens were meeting at her house, if they could find it. "I think your short cut got us lost," Troy said from the driver's seat to Chad, who was located in the back seat.

"Maybe we turned a street to late, it looked the same, but then again, the last time I took it was in the middle of the night," Chad said.

"Why were you going to Taylor's in the middle of the night?" Gabriella asked.

"Shut up," Chad said, "And we are not lost."

"Well I don't know where we are," Troy said.

"I do, there's Uncle Robert's house," Chad pointed out a gray house on the left.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot he lived around here," Troy said.

"Who is he and which is his house?" Gabriella asked.

"Andy's uncle, we spent a lot of time there, he had a pool and basically let us do anything. If we couldn't do it at our house, we went to Robert's and did it there," Chad said, "It was the one with the moving van in front."

"So he is moving?" Gabriella asked.

"I bet to Phoenix," Troy said, "He was always there on business trips, not that we told our parents that, they wouldn't let us go there unsupervised."

"He'll be the last Anderson to leave the state," Chad said, "The family has had like an exodus since Andy left."

"Did you just use the word exodus?" Troy asked.

"Yes I did, I'm not an idiot," Chad said, "Why does everyone think I am?"

"I shouldn't do that, I know he's not an idiot," Troy directed towards Gabriella.

"Turn here to get on to a main street," Chad said.

"I know, I've been here a million times," Troy said turning, "I am not an idiot."

"Sorry, next time, I won't help you," Chad said.

A few short minutes later, Troy pulled into Taylor's driveway. "Finally, what took you guys so long?" Taylor asked coming out into the front yard.

"Your boyfriend got us lost," Troy said.

"We were not lost," Chad shot at Troy before kissing Taylor.

"Ooooh, your boyfriend's not suppose to be here," Said a little boy who only slightly resembled Taylor.

"Shut up Theo, it's not just him, it's him and my friends," Taylor said, "Go watch TV or something, just stay out of my hair."

"Having trouble?" Gabriella asked.

"He's so annoying, I hate eight-year-olds," Taylor complained.

The group went inside and lounged around a bit trying to find something to do, when Chad found some bags of water balloons. This ensued a comical war in Taylor's back yard. Half the balloons didn't break on contact with a body but did after hitting the ground. First it was Troy and Gabriella versus Chad and Taylor until the girls pulled a Benedict Arnold and came together against the boys. After they ran out of balloons they collapsed, laughing, on Taylor's deck.

"Weren't we going to do something like that senior year," Chad asked Troy after their laughed died down.

"Yeah, me, you, and Andy, guess what year we planned that?" Troy said.

"Eleven," the two boys said together. Troy was ok with talking about Andy as long as it all stayed in good memories and thoughts. It didn't faze him too much as long as it stayed good and was on an ok day. Bad days, any mention of Andy put him in a funk. But that didn't matter because today was an ok day, it was all positive memories, nothing talking of her leaving.

"Who's Andy?" Taylor asked.

"Old friend, moved away freshman year," Chad answered, knowing he would have to be the one to do it.

"I don't remember an Andy," Taylor was trying to put a face with the name.

"We had a lot of things planned for senior year," Chad continued on.

"Yeah we did," Troy nodded in reminiscence.

"Like what?" Gabriella asked.

"Teepeeing some of the rooms like the office and the gym maybe some other places too," Troy said.

"And you guys were going to try out for the musical and purposely sing really bad just to annoy people," Chad added.

"Well I did that," Troy said, "We were going to pull the fire alarm on underclassmen last day, so we would have already graduated."

"Paint the lunch tables with our names all mixed up so if they wanted to pin it on us they would have to work at it," Chad said.

"Skip through the halls to every class one day and see how many others would start too after we told them it was national skipping day," Troy laughed at the thought.

"Sing Christmas carols badly on the first and last days of school."

"Make fake snow and have a snowball fight on the day before winter break."

"Have the paper football championship during free period the Friday before the super bowl"

"You and I were going to dress and act gay for a day."

"Randomly yell April Fool's all during November."

"And a few other too," Troy started.

"But it would become very long and boring so," Chad continued.

"We are stopping here," Troy finished.

"That worked so much better with a third," Chad said.

"I know, I had to think about what the words were," Troy said.

"You guys would be in detention every day," Taylor said.

"We actually looked in the rule book, and only some of them are actually out of line, some are totally allowable," Troy said.

"It's not like we are bringing a weapon to school," Chad said, "It's harmless fun."

"I think that most of them sound reasonable," Gabriella said, "But not all like the painting and fire alarm and teepeeing, that is obviously outside the rules."

"I can't believe you are condoning this," Taylor said.

"It's not like they've done it already, it was ideas to do," Gabriella said. Taylor did a little 'humph' and crossed her arms.

The four teens lay in the sun for about another hour to dry off before picking up the big pieces of water balloons that lay on the ground and throwing them away.

"You know what I think would be fun to have at school one day during free period?" Gabriella said as she and the boys were driving back to Troy's house, "A tag game or hide and go seek or some child's game. You know like red light, green light, red rover, mother may I, something like that."

"I think I am a bad influence on you," Troy laughed, "But I think it is a good idea. Like if we could get a ton of people to play sardines."

"Like when we played with all my cousins on the 4th of July in '01," Chad said from the back seat.

"Yeah, that was fun," Troy nodded.

"Hey, whose car is it in front of your house?" Gabriella asked, pointing to a car in Troy's driveway.

"My aunt's, she's probably talking to my parents about that coaching thing for my dad," Troy said pulling up next to the red car. The three teens got out and went inside. And as predicted, Troy's parents were talking to a woman who had a striking resemblance to Jack in the living room. The three adults were talking, but abruptly stopped when the teenagers entered the house. "Hey Aunt May," Troy kissed her cheek, "Mom, dad," Troy nodded at them. Gabriella and Chad gave their own greetings and then they said they were off to the backyard. Troy pulled out a basketball and a wacky game of 'Horse' followed. Chad and Troy tried to show off, but missed almost everything. When they did make it though, it was hilarious to watch Gabriella try. Just before 5 PM Taylor walked into the yard and Gabriella announced that she quit and sat in the grass with Taylor to watch the boys. The boys messed around in a one-on-one game before quitting too.

"So now what?" Chad asked.

"You know what I haven't played in like forever," Gabriella said, "BS."

"I use to love that game!" Troy exclaimed, "We used to stay up so late playing that until one of us would shout too loud and our parents would get mad at us."

"Who's 'us'?" Taylor asked.

"Me, Chad, and Andy," Chad said, "We had all-nighters playing it."

"I think I have a deck of cards up in my room, come on," Troy said getting up and offering Gabriella a hand up too.

"He of course helps her up," Chad said standing up by himself, but offered a hand to Taylor too.

"And you are only doing it because he did it," Taylor said taking his hand.

"Thanks for thinking so highly of me," Chad said as they walking inside and up to Troy's room. They all sat down on his floor in the middle of his room while Troy searched around in a few drawers before pulling out a deck of cards. He counted them quickly to make sure that it was a full deck, which it was.

"Ok, so this is the lying game right where it is basically how good you are at lying?" Taylor asked.

"Don't tell me you haven't played," Chad said.

"I have, it was just a few years ago in the middle of the night half-asleep," Taylor said.

"You got the right game," Gabriella said, picking up her cards as Troy was dealing.

"Who starts?" Troy asked after he finished dealing.

"I've played it that whoever has the two of spades plays first," Gabriella said.

"Ok, two twos," Chad placed two cards down face down in the center.

"One three," Gabriella played a single card.

"Three fours," Troy said. Chad looked at him and Troy gave him a look, daring him to call it.

"One five," Taylor put down her card.

"One six," Chad said.

"So when you don't have something that is when you lie right?" Taylor asked.

"Yes, three sevens," Gabriella said.

"BS," Troy called.

"You really want to look at them?" Gabriella said flipping over three sevens.

"Ok, ok, can't always be right," Troy picked up the stack of cards and organized them into his hand, "Some one has been lying, there is face cards. Ok what am I on? Two eights."

"One nine," Taylor said playing her card.

"Three tens," Chad said.

"BS," Gabriella said. Chad picked up the cards already knowing his bluff. He shot a look at Taylor as Gabriella played, "One jack."

"Four queens," Troy played.

"Two kings," Taylor said.

"BS," Gabriella called on her friend.

"I was so going to do that," Troy whined as Taylor blushed and picked up her cards.

The game continued on until Gabriella came out the victor. They continued to play until they had all won at least once. "Where'd you learn to play this?" Taylor asked Gabriella.

"8Th grade in Chicago. It was basically all we did in math class. We'd copy down notes and then just play this. The teacher was a bit of a push over and she said it actually had some math to it with like odds and probability and that sort of stuff. I think she even gave us cards once or twice," Gabriella explained.

"You were so lucky, our teachers were that cool," Troy said.

"Mrs. Miller was a bitch," Chad nodded.

"Don't call your teacher a bitch," Taylor scolded him, hitting him on the head.

"Ow, well it was the truth," Chad said rubbing his head.

"She was a bitch, everyone hated her. Everyone wanted the other teacher, Mr. O'Gronal. He was cool."

"We of course didn't get him," Chad said.

"They totally had it stacked against us," Troy said, "And by they I mean the computer program that makes up the schedules."

Chad started to laugh, "Chad get your head off my legs and by Chad I mean Troy," Chad mimicked.

"These M&Ms are good, and by M&Ms I mean Swedish fish," Troy did his own imitation.

"That cat is so cute, and by cat, I mean dog," Chad said laughing.

"There are like a million balloons over there, and by million I mean like seven," Troy said, "Was it balloons we were talking about?"

"Yeah, it was balloons. It was that party at my house when we were fourteen and we all slept in my living room. And if it was my house, why was I the one sleeping on the floor?" Chad asked.

"You were too lazy to go up to your room," Troy said, "And too nice to kick either me or Andy off the pull out couch bed thing."

"Well it is too gross to kick Andy off and share it with you. And too dirty to kick you off and share it with Andy," Chad said, "I was being a nice guy."

"And a lazy one."

"Besides I know you guys fought over the covers all night."

"I've heard of you eating in your sleep. And I know you talk in your sleep," Troy said.

"Shut up dude," Chad pushed him, but Troy didn't really go anywhere.

"What did you say? 'Lava rings, when's the maid?' or something random like that," Troy recalled.

"You sneeze in your sleep," Chad shot back.

"I was awake for that, because I had just woken up cold because Andy took all the covers," Troy defended himself.

"Well I heard a loud snore coming from you a few seconds later," Chad said.

"That was Andy, Andy snored, and so do you."

"I think I had a cold that night thanks to you."

"Andy gave it to me."

"Well that is your fault for catching it."

"Ok, I can't really deny that," Troy said.

The girls had sat back to watch the boys argue in that way only old friends could do, "Do you get what they are talking about?" Taylor asked quietly to Gabriella.

"About half of it," Gabriella said.

"It's like an old married couple," Taylor said louder for the boys to hear.

"Hey!" The boys objected together.

"Sorry, old gay married couple," Taylor corrected.

"They can't get married, I thought it was outlawed in like all the states and it like a civil union or something else like that," Troy said.

"Whatever, it's what you guys seem like," Taylor said rolling her eyes.

"But if we were, we couldn't be with you guys, our lovely girlfriends," Chad pointed out.

"He actually has a good point," Gabriella said.

"What do you know, my boyfriend is actually right for a change," Taylor teased him.

"Why does everyone think I'm stupid?" Chad complained loudly.

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AN: Yes, I know it has it has taken forever for me to update. And I am really sorry, school starts in two weeks and things are started to get a little hectic. Please leave me a review telling me what you think. And the next chapter is quite long so it will take me I think about four or five days to type unless I decide to split it in two, because I know there is a good place I could split it if I have to.