alrighty. i'm back. my brother's wedding is done and overwith, so that means no more stress and more time to write for all of you! please review!
The Guardian
"I believeThis is heaven to no one else but me
And I'll defend it long as I can be left here to linger in silence
If I chose to would you try to understand "
('Elsewhere' / Sarah McLahlan)
Gabriella woke up late Thursday afternoon with a smile on her face. She and her friends had stayed up until almost five in the morning talking with Kelsi before she had to leave the next morning. It had been one of the best nights Gabriella had had in a long time. She glanced over at the clock and realized it was almost three in the afternoon. She was lucky she didn't have to work that morning, but instantly felt bad for Zeke who must have only got two or three hours of sleep last night.
She got out of bed and pulled her robe close to her body. She looked around for Jake but figured he must have gone outside through the doggy door on the back porch. She leaned over to start the coffee machine, hoping to clear up some of her grogginess, before turning around and noticing the light flashing on her answering machine.
"Seventeen messages?" She said aloud before pushing the play button. Had she really been that out of it?
She listened as the first five messages played nothing but static. The sixth one was some telemarketer calling to sell kitchen supplies. The next eight also were nothing but static. She smiled as she heard the voice of her best friend on the next message.
"Brie, I know you're home. It's time to wake up. If I'm up and at-em then you need to be too. Brieeee. Wake up Brieee. Alright, well just call me when you get this."
Gabriella laughed each time Troy dragged out her name. She listened to the next message and burrowed her eyebrows when the next two messages played nothing but static. Who would call fifteen times and leave nothing but silence on the machine?
She jumped at the sound of the phone ringing and quickly made her way over to pick it up.
"Hello?"
"Hey Gabriella, it's Adam."
"Oh, hi. How are you?"
"I'm good. Just on break from work. You?"
"Good I just woke up actually." She laughed into the phone.
"Really? It's three o'clock!" Adam chuckled.
"Yeah, we ended up staying really late night with Kelsi. It was a blast."
Adam paused for a moment. "Well, I'm glad you had fun. I was wondering if you would like to join me for dinner tonight?"
"I thought you were going out of town tonight?"
"Oh, yeah. It got pushed back a day. So what do you say?"
Gabriella hesitated before answering. "I'm sorry, Adam. I can't. I have to work tonight. How about when you come back?"
"Yeah, sounds good. I'll be back Monday. I'll call you when I get back."
"Looking forward to it. Bye Adam."
"Goodbye."
Gabriella sighed and put the phone back on it's charger. She walked towards the door, deciding she should probably look for Jake. She opened the door and jumped back in surprise when she saw Troy walking up her porch steps with Jake on his heels.
"So Sleeping Beauty decided to grace the world with her presence?" Troy joked.
"Haha. You know I need at least eight hours of sleep a night."
"Trust me, I know. No one wants to cross you when you haven't." He said laughing.
"Hey now!" Gabriella said hitting him playfully on the arm.
"So, besides modeling bathrobes and slippers, what are your plans for the day?"
"Absolutely nothing. No work, not babysitting, no nothing."
"Wow. That's incredibly boring." He teased.
"Yeah, yeah. What have you got planned for the evening?"
"Well, there's a music festival down over at Santa Rosa and I was wondering if you'd want to join me?"
"Heck yeah I want to join you! Let me go shower first."
"Yes, please do." He joked. Deep down Troy didn't give a damn whether she showered or not. Standing in front of him in her bathrobe and slippers, her a mess and makeup smudged under her eyes, he knew she was still more beautiful than any person he had ever met.
"Man, maybe I won't go with you if you're gonna be like that." Gabriella said sticking out her tongue.
"C'mon now Brie. You know you're gorgeous. Besides, you can't resist a day out with your best friend. Now go shower and we'll go."
Gabriella blushed at his comment before stepping back inside and headed towards the shower.
Gabriella came home later that night to fifteen more blank messages. Shrugging it off, she called Troy and thanked him for a wonderful evening before settling down and going to bed.
She woke early the next morning, hoping to get into the shop a bit earlier than usual and do a cash drop.
She walked into the shop that morning and saw that Zeke was already there making pie crusts.
"Hey Zeke!" She said giving him a half-hug. "Good morning Gabs. How ya doing?"
"I'm good. It's going to be an amazing day!" She beamed making her way over to the cash register.
"Yeah, why's that?"
"I don't know. I just have a feeling."
"Well, if you say so." Zeke laughed as he placed the pie crust onto his famous apple pie and put it into the oven.
"Well, I do."
Troy sat in a wide armchair outside of Chad's office, waiting for his friend's lunch break. Chad had called him saying he was having a panic attack and pleaded with Troy to come in for lunch. Seeing as how he had absolutely nothing to but in the daytime but work out, Troy made his way down to the office.
"Hey Bolton." He looked up and saw Robby Jameson, a tall blonde haired man who played basketball with him back at East High.
"Hey Jameson. How's that little one of yours doing?" Troy asked as he shook his old teammate's hand.
"Getting bigger by the day. Just blows me away. When you headed off to California?"
"Still got a few months here to go. So what brings you here?" Troy said motioning to the office surrounding them. He knew very well that Robby worked in construction, and a lawyer's office probably wasn't his idea of a fun afternoon.
"Oh. Just filing with some case against the contracting company we're signed with. Worker's rights, stuff like that."
"Man that sucks. What are you guys working on?"
"We're repairing most of the bridges downtown. The work is good, the conditions aren't. I've already sent too many guys to the hospital in the last few weeks."
Troy nodded as Robby talked until something registered in his mind. "Wait a second. Do you work for Adam Bell?"
"Yeah. You know him?"
"Eh, yeah. Don't really know him, just acquainted if you know what I mean."
"Yeah. The guy's a real asshole." Robby said with disgust.
Troy nodded his head again before seeing Chad come out of his office. "Well hey man, I gotta go, but it was great seeing you. I hope everything works out with the case and such."
"Hey thanks. If I don't see you before you leave, kick some ass man. We're all proud of you."
"Thanks a lot. Take care of that little one."
They shook hands and Troy went over and met with Chad to help settle his latest crisis.
Gabriella wiped down the last few tables in the café before making her way back to the kitchen.
"Alright Zeke, I'm outta here. When you leaving?"
"Aarons comes in about an hour or so, so I'll take off when he gets here."
"Okay, cool. We need to sit down one day next week and talk about giving that boy a raise. We'd be in serious trouble if he wasn't here to help out."
"I agree. How about Wednesday? That way we can talk to him that night about it." Zeke said looking at the schedule on the wall.
"Yeah, that works for me. I'll see you later Zeke. Tell Shar and Aidan I say hello and I miss them."
"Alright. Will do. Have a great night Gabs."
"You too." Gabriella grabbed her hand bag before she made her way out of the store. She smiled as she saw Troy walking out of Chad's office down the road.
"Troy!" She called, catching his attention. He smiled and made his way over to her.
"Hey there. Just getting out of work?"
"Yeah. Just getting ready to head home. What are you doing in town?"
Troy contemplated for a few seconds about telling her what Robby had told him about Adam. It nerved him out a bit knowing Gabriella was dating this guy, and here Robby was saying how dangerous his work conditions were and how much of a jerk he was. "Well, I went to see Chad. He was having a freak out moment again about the baby."
"Again?"
"Yeah. He thinks he's going to be a terrible father. So I had to pull the best friend card and reassure him that he's going to do just fine."
"Don't worry. I've had to comfort Taylor several times. I'm getting tired of the late night phone calls with her hyperventilating on the other side." They both laughed at this.
"It's definitely going to be a long couple of months."
"Tell me about it. So you want to come over tonight? I was thinking about renting a movie off pay-per-view and order a pizza or something. You in?"
"How can I say no to that?" He chuckled. "Let me go home and I'll come over around six. Sound good?"
"Yeah. I'll see you in little less than two hours then. Bye Troy."
"Bye Brie. See you soon. "
Troy and Gabriella sat on the couch eating the last few slices of pizza, completely ignoring the movie they had rented. They had been engulfed in conversation for the last few hours, laughing and carrying on about their friends, families, and life itself. Gabriella caught herself several times holding Troy's gaze longer, and other times she was distracted by the rippling muscles in his arms. She shrugged it off each time, telling herself checking out her best friend was weird.
"I'm not even lying, Brie. Sharpay really tried to have 'Pink Week' when we were sophomores. She was mad that the basketball team got an entire week of pep rallies and stuff like that leading to up to the winter Homecoming game that she decided the Winter Musical deserved one as well."
"But why pink?"
"They were doing Grease. I guess she related it to the Pink Ladies? Who knows? It's Sharpay. I'll never ask how her mind works."
"Yeah, that definitely sounds like something she would do though. I still can't believe how hard she worked to ruin our auditions Junior year."
"Yeah, at least Zeke has mellowed her a bit. I doubt we'd all be as close if he hadn't." Troy said, pausing for a second. "Hey, I'm going to go get a drink, you want anything?" He pushed himself off the couch and turned to wait for her response.
"Uh, just a glass of water."
"Alright, be back in just a second."
Gabriella smiled and leaned back further into the couch as she waited for Troy to come back. She heard a loud noise and jumped up in surprise when she heard Troy yell.
"Brie!"
She quickly ran into the quickly and her eyes went wide at the scene in front of her. Water was spraying everyone as Troy tried to twist the handle on the faucet to off with one hand and hold the end of the faucet with the other.
"Troy what happened?" She asked as she walked over trying to help, getting completely soaked in the process.
"I don't know! The end of the faucet just popped off. I can't get it to turn off!"
Gabriella thought quickly before running out of the room and coming back with a wrench. "Keep holding the faucet!" She ordered before getting on her hands and knees and trying to turn off the water through the pipes. After several attempts, she crawled back out from under the sink.
"Okay, so that's not working. I'm going downstairs to turn the water off. Just – uh – hang on!"
She ran down the stairs and quickly turned off the water. She hurried back up the stairs to see Troy standing at the sink, completely soaked. The water wasn't spraying everywhere anymore, but looking around her kitchen Gabriella could see that everything in her kitchen had been touched by the water.
Before she could say anything she burst out in laughter. She wasn't sure what exactly was so funny, but before long Troy joined in too. They laughed like that for several minutes, Gabriella wiping away either tears or water that had sprayed on her face.
She composed herself and looked up at Troy smiling back over at her and her breath hitched. She wasn't exactly sure what it was that did it - the chaos around her, the fact that her kitchen was soaked, the lack of air from all the laughter, or the way Troy's wet shirt clung to his body in all the right places - but something just clicked.
She pulled her shirt down and looked up and began to walk across the kitchen to where he was standing.
"Brie, are you-"
He was cut off by her lips crashing onto his, her arms snaking behind his neck pulling him closer.
Troy stood for several moments completely stunned before returning the kiss. He felt Gabriella's tongue graze his lip and he opened his mouth to grant her access.
They stood there for several minutes kissing each other hungrily before they both parted for air.
"Brie, what, why. uh." Troy stammered, breathing heavily. "That was am-"
He was cut off again by Gabriella putting her hands at the bottom of his t shirt and pulling it up over his body. She tossed into the sink before pulling back down to kiss her.
Troy placed his arms around her back, hoisting her up so that her legs were around his back. He took a few steps forward, securing Gabriella against the kitchen wall and began kissing up and down her neckline.
Gabriella let out a moan and tightened her grip on Troy's back. "Troy." She managed to breathe out. "The bedroom."
Troy didn't need to be told twice as he picked her back off of the wall and carried her down the hallway.
alrighty, there you are. like i said before, i'll be updating more regularily now. school's out for summer, the wedding's all said and done and i have nothing else to do but write. plus, i just got a brand new laptop :)