Disclaimer: I do not own High School Musical.
Chapter Seven: After Troy's and Gabriella's Rehearsals
The next day Troy and Gabriella were spending all their free time rehearsing. Now that the school knew about them going through with the musical, there wasn't much hiding it. However many people at East High simply disregarded it as a rumor. When it came to their friends and the Evans twins that was the time to hide. They had spent the whole day avoiding Sharpay and Ryan and minimal time was spent with their friends. Study Hall and Lunch were dedicated to musical rehearsal. Needless to say, it almost gave Chad and Taylor more time to see each other. While Troy was successful in getting out of basketball practice in the morning, Chad wasn't so lucky. When he wanted to sneak off during lunch to see Taylor, he couldn't because the guys wanted him to eat with them as usual. Taylor barely got any free time out of Study Hall because with Gabriella gone missing she had to carry out practice for the Decathlon team on her own. And as if that wasn't enough she had to spend lunch period cramming for a history exam.
Though it was only for the day, it was a lonely period for Chad and Taylor. Sure, they had close enough friends by their side; but they didn't have their best friends with them. They couldn't even take two minutes out of the day to see each other. It wasn't until the end of the day that there was even a shot at seeing each other. Taylor had no Decathlon practice so she took a seat in one of the empty classrooms, deciding to wait for Chad there; with the halls next to deserted after school there was no point in resorting to their closet. Unfortunately for Chad, he couldn't get away from basketball practice fast enough. Zeke and Jason showed up at his locker and kept bugging Chad to go with them to practice; on the way they would stop at Troy's locker and make sure he'd come with them. It took Chad ten minutes to ditch them. That only gave him and Taylor five minutes to see each other before he had to rush off to practice. And as much as Chad tried to get out for a "bathroom break", he wasn't given the chance. That meant he was leaving Taylor alone in an empty classroom after school doing who-knows-what for about three hours.
Unfortunately for Chad, it got worse than that. After Coach Bolton gave the team permission to hit the showers, Troy wandered into the gym. A few members of the team sent him glances, even when he said he would stay and work on free throws. While the coach migrated to his office for a few minutes it gave Chad and Zeke the chance to talk, though Jason remained standing by the door.
"We suck," Zeke blurted out.
"What makes you say that?" Chad replied.
"Dude which team were you watching out there?" Zeke asked. "We spent like half of practice missing every shot. Chad if it wasn't for you knocking some sense into us we would've sucked the whole time and probably have to stay working here until midnight."
Chad shrugged his shoulders, "Someone had to whip you guys into shape. And since Troy wasn't here it had to be me."
Actually, that was only the half-truth. Chad wanted to step in and take control; he could see as well as anyone else that the team was stumbling without their captain. Chad was probably the only other person they could trust to keep them in line. Troy may have been the playmaker, but Chad was the one that kept their energy up and their steam going. But Chad had been selfish in his choice to step up; he had assumed that if he did and the team would get better then they could leave sooner and he could catch up to Taylor. No such luck.
"Either way, we owe you big time," Zeke said. "If Troy ditches us for that weird musical do you think you could take over as captain?"
"Uh…." Nothing more than a test pattern tone escaped Chad. He had no idea how to respond to that. First of all, he highly doubted that Troy would drop the team completely. But the guys and the rumors weren't exactly helping him feel any better about it. Second of all, Chad wasn't captain material. How could he lead a team? Luckily, Jason interrupted before Chad could give an actual answer.
"Hey guys," he called, "you gotta listen to this. I think Troy's got a girl out there."
"What?" Zeke and Chad asked. They walked over to Jason and stared at him in disbelief.
"Yeah, just listen," Jason nodded. The three of them put their heads up against the door; they could faintly hear laughing. Two people. One was definitely Troy. The other had to be the girl.
"Oh crap," Chad muttered to himself. If the coach caught Troy with someone who wasn't on the team out there, he might as well be dead meat. Troy was in enough trouble as it was.
"See?" Jason told them. "What do we do?"
"I'll go get Coach," Zeke piped up. He rushed to Coach Bolton's office before Chad could stop him.
It only went downhill from there. While the conversation between coach and the girl, the guys had finally identified her as Gabriella which shouldn't have even taken them that long to figure out, didn't last long there was sure a bone to pick between the father and son. Coach didn't blow up nearly as much about Gabriella as the guys thought he would. But he sure went off on Troy. The team knew that Coach Bolton didn't treat Troy and differently than the rest of them, aside from getting in more practice with him at home. So to hear an argument between the two of them going down was something else. Chad had heard Coach Bolton and Troy argue before, that was no shock to him; but it was a shock to hear them right outside the locker room right after practice. When Troy finally stormed into the locker room, the team took a few steps back so he could get through. They stared at each other in disbelief before Chad dismissed them.
Chad was the first to leave, not even in the mood to shower off. He changed out of his uniform and grabbed his backpack and basketball before heading out into the hallway. He didn't get very far before Jason and Zeke caught up to him. Both were still in their uniforms so that could only mean they had talked about something and wanted to bring it up with Chad before he left.
"Hey man, wait up!" Zeke called.
Chad sighed and slowly turned to them. He wasn't in the mood to deal with them right now. After the way practice went he just wanted to see his girlfriend and relax with her. Now he couldn't even seem to do that.
"What up, dogs?" he asked.
Jason was the first to respond. "You gotta talk to Troy."
"What?" Chad asked.
"We're off our game without Troy. His head isn't in the game. He's too busy thinking about Gabriella and the musical," Zeke explained. "If any of us try to talk to him he won't listen. Not on our own he won't. Maybe if the whole team talked to him we can snap him out of it."
"So what does that have to do with me talking to him?" Chad replied.
"It's a last resort," Zeke answered. "But if Troy'll listen to any one of us, he'll listen to you."
"Yeah man, you're his best friend. And best friends knock some sense into each other," Jason added. "So go knock some sense into him."
"I'm with you guys on this, we do need to get Troy's head back in the game," Chad agreed. "But what can I say to him that you guys can't?"
Zeke shrugged, "Maybe you can get away with saying more stuff to him than the rest of us? Besides if you say something really mean to him, it'll mean something coming from you. Not from any of us."
"Yeah and we don't wanna come off as jerks to our captain," Jason said.
"So you'd rather I come off as the jerk," Chad said.
"Pretty much, yeah," Jason nodded.
"Thanks a lot man, we knew you'd understand," Zeke patted Chad's shoulder.
Chad opened his mouth to counter, but the two had already gone back to the locker room. He ran his fingers through his hair and groaned. He didn't want to deal with any of this right now. The team. Troy. The status quo. It all sucked to him. All that mattered to him right now was Taylor. He headed down the hall as fast as he could. When he got to the classroom he saw Taylor seated in the same place she was before, scribbling in her notebook. Spotting him from the corner of her eye, Taylor looked up and smiled.
"Hey, how was practice?" she asked.
She had barely gotten the word "practice" out of her mouth before Chad dropped his stuff to the ground and in an instant ran over to Taylor, pressing his lips against hers in a heated kiss. Taylor appeared shocked at his sudden reaction, but quickly returned the kiss. There were only two instances where a kiss that heated, that passionate, came out of nowhere – when they had gone long periods of time without seeing each other and when something was wrong. So when the two of them pulled back, Taylor looked at him concerned.
"What's wrong? Did something happen during practice?"
Chad didn't give a straight answer. "I just really need you right now."
Taylor nodded and wrapped her arms around him in a comforting hug. Chad almost instantly seemed to calm down more when he was around Taylor. He wasn't one to get sensitive easily; but when he did there had to be a reason why. And it wasn't that he was necessarily sensitive about the musical/basketball/status quo/whatever the heck it was ordeal now, it was driving him crazy. He had no idea what he was supposed to do or whose side he was supposed to be on. But if there was one person who would give it to him straight, it was Taylor. While they had argued over the situation it didn't stop them from talking to or caring about each other. And Chad still valued her opinion more than anyone else's. Whether he agreed with her side or not, he knew she would give it to him straight.
After a few minutes, Taylor lightly pulled away and asked Chad softly, "Do you want to talk about it now?"
Chad sighed and sat in the chair next to her. "Troy ditched practice to go do the musical thing or whatever. And the team sucked, like badly. I mean, I stepped in and sorta got them into shape, but nowhere near as much as Troy would have. Heck, Zeke and Jason were so relieved by it that they wanted me to take over as team captain. But then Troy showed up at the end of practice. He had Gabriella with him apparently, and Coach erupted. Now Zeke and Jason want me to talk some sense into Troy and make him focus completely on the team."
"But you don't want to," Taylor assumed.
Chad shook his head, "No. I don't know what to do. Part of me is agreeing with them, that I gotta go talk some sense into Troy cause if I don't we're gonna lose the championship and Troy... Well, I dunno what else. But I know something's not gonna turn out good for Troy. But I don't completely wanna talk to Troy and make him pick basketball. He's hiding something that he wants to do and someone he wants to be with. I get completely where he's coming from. But it's his choice, not anyone else's." Chad sighed and rested his head on the desk. "But I kinda wanna knock some lunkheaded-ness into him just to get it over with and shut the guys up."
Taylor sat down and looked at him sympathetically. She ran her fingers through his curls. Chad smiled lightly; he liked it when she did that, it helped make him feel better. He looked up at her.
"Do you have this kinda problem with Gabriella?"
"Honestly, not really," Taylor admitted. "But you and Troy have been friends forever. Gabriella and I are still getting to know each other. If the articles about her being a genius weren't in my locker I don't know if we would have become friends. You can't compare our two situations because while they may be similar, they're not exactly the same. Your friends want you to take the direct path and confront Troy. The Decathlon team has asked me to do the same with Gabriella, but I'm maintaining a passive attitude. As much as I believe the team needs her, Gabriella will decide for herself if this is what she wants. Unless it somehow gets to the point where it's completely out of hand, I'm not going to force her to make a choice. She can decide for herself, just like Troy can."
"But smartness can't get thrown off. A game can," Chad pointed out.
"It's not a matter of getting thrown off. It's a matter of getting distracted," Taylor corrected.
"Whatever," Chad rolled his eyes. "So what do you think I should do?"
Taylor thought for a minute before answering. "That's not my choice to make. Maybe it would be a good idea to talk to him, but I think the talking you want to do is different from what your friends are saying. It sounds like they want you to push him to choose basketball, knock some sense into him about the right choice. You just want to find out what Troy's thinking, if he still wants basketball or if he's choosing something different. Am I wrong?"
"No," Chad shook his head. He then smiled lightly, "But I can't ever tell you you're wrong. That'd be the saddest day in the world."
Taylor giggled. "But you know what I mean. It's not even that Troy has to choose something anymore, now you have to choose. Does basketball mean that much to you that you're willing to push Troy to stay on the team whether he still wants to or not, or would you rather support your friend in what he wants to do and carry the team yourself? If you didn't have to make a decision like that, it wouldn't be driving you crazy. And you can't keep your anger or annoyance about it bottled up. Maybe let Troy know how you're feeling when you talk to him, so he knows he's not the only one."
"So you're saying I should go talk to him," Chad said.
Taylor nodded.
Chad sat up and his eyes met with hers, though her hand remained in his hair. "So do you think you should try the same approach with Gabriella then? Talk to her like I talk to Troy?"
Taylor sighed, "I really don't want to get in the middle of it."
"If your smarty-pants team means as much to you as the basketball team does to me," Chad started which got another giggle out of her, "then you'll talk to Gabriella and figure something out."
"And on the off-chance it doesn't work out in either of our favors?" Taylor inquired.
He thought for a minute, and then shrugged his shoulders. "I guess we talk it out with our teams, then? Maybe both teams meet up and come up with a mutual plan?"
"Hopefully it won't come to that," she replied. "But I agree."
They smiled at each other and then pecked each other on the lips. Chad brushed his fingers through her hair. He always felt better after talking to Taylor, like something was settled and he didn't have to worry about anything. He had no idea what he'd do without her. "You're amazing, Tay."
Taylor smiled innocently and shrugged her shoulders. "I know."
Chad chuckled. He looked down, then back at her, their eyes meeting once again. "Taylor…. I…" he started.
Taylor shook her head and pressed a finger to his lips. "I know what you're going to say," she said. "You're welcome. And thank you. You can give pretty good advice yourself when you want to."
"Right…" Chad said slowly. He paused for a minute before nodding quickly. "Right. Because I was gonna say thank you and then totally rub it in your face that I used your advice to help you that you used to help me. Right, you got it. That's totally what I was just about to say."
That was so not what he was going to say.
Wow, when was the last time i updated this? It's been longer than i thought. Ok, i really have no good reason for not updating in weeks. I can only blame my laziness and getting distracted. I've been spending more time drawing and seeing my friends than anything else...which really isn't good. i gotta learn to step up my game here. Luckily there are great writers on here with awesome Chaylor stories so if it wasn't for reading like three of them today (whether i reviewed or not, which means i should probably stop checking when i first wake up in the morning) so anyway, if it wasn't for all the Chaylor stories that still exist and are being updated, the Chaylor fans and the awesome Chaylor writers that go with it all, i probably would not even think to update. So let me take this opportunity to say thank you to the writers who set amazing examples by updating...every week, every other week, way more often than i do now... and let me also say thank you to the people who are still keeping up with this story and are patient enough with all the chapters. Hope everyone is having a great summer and keep up the Chaylor love! :)
