Okay, so in a review, someone mentioned the song One of Those Girls by Avril Lavigne. It is really uncanny considering the fact that I've never heard the song before just about two minutes ago. It seriously would sum up the whole deal with Sharpay. Especially because in the bridge, it goes 'you know it's a game, you know it's a game'. I never really planned for this to be a man eater with a heart of gold type thing, I was sort of going for a John Tucker Must Die sort of thing, but then as I was planning it out, it just sort of morphed into the story that you guys are reading now. I'd say this chapter is somewhat eventful. You get to formally meet Shay, Sharpay's "best friend".

And also, THERE IS ACTUALLY SOME TROYPAY IN THIS CHAPTER!! So read and enjoy...

Troy's POV

"Hey dude... what happened last night? Taylor said you ditched Gabriella and when she found you, you wanted to leave." Chad asked. We were walking over to my locker. "You didn't make a fool of yourself on front of Sharpay... did you?"

"Actually... we talked." I said with a shrug.

"And...?"

"And what?" I asked.

Chad looked at me like I was an idiot and rolled his eyes. "Did you get any action, did she hug you? Touch your arm? Was she playing with her hair a lot?"

"She kissed me on the cheek, does that mean anything?" I asked.

"Dude... that's farther than anyone has ever gotten. She actually kissed you! And you didn't even ask her out yet?" Chad slapped me on the back.

"It was on the cheek." I pointed out, just incase he didn't hear right.

Chad gave me another one of those, 'are you insane?' looks. "But that was Sharpay Evans, man! She has never had to say anything to a guy to convince him to go out with her. And she kissed you out of her own free will. Now what does that tell you?"

I looked at Chad incredulously. "Dude, there is seriously no way that one little kiss on the cheek could mean all of that..."

And that's when it happened. The halls started to part and I looked toward the doors, where Sharpay was making her entrance. Sharpay looked simply radiant as she entered the hall. She walked with complete confidence, she smiled and waved as usual to all of the people who she knew. And then she stopped on front of my locker. "Hey Troy. Thanks for coming to the party last night. I had a great time."

I smiled at her and leaned against my locker. "Hey Sharpay." I smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, I had a good time too."

"I heard you left right after I did, why didn't you stick around and meet some people?" Sharpay asked.

I shrugged. "Gabriella wasn't feeling well so we just took off."

Sharpay nodded and smiled. "Hey, my friend Shay from West High and I are planning this party. It's going to be really huge and everyone at school is on the guest list-"

"The ShayPay party... yeah, I was in the cafeteria when you announced it." I said.

Sharpay blushed. "Oh, cool. Well since everyone is invited I know that there's no need to personally invite anybody... but I just wanted to let you know that I'd personally be really happy if you came."

I was smiling. I couldn't help myself. Could you blame me? No, no you couldn't. "So you want me to come?"

Sharpay smiled. "I guess you could say that I'm double inviting you."

"How could I say no to that?" I asked.

"You can't, that's the point." Sharpay said, flipping her hair.

I heard a loud, fake cough. I turned to see Gabriella, with Taylor trailing behind her. Her arms were crossed, her foot was tapping, and she was staring straigh at me. "Excuse me Sharpay, but I believe that my boyfriend and I are both unable to attend your party."

Sharpay smiled politely. "Are you sure? It'll be really fun. Shay and I wanted to end our final year with a blast, I mean, I don't want to give it away, but we even got a performer-"

Gabriella rolled her eyes. "Yeah, sure, sounds fun. But does that really justify the fact that you're promoting crude behavior and sex between teenagers? And what exactly is it with you and my men? Is it some kind of a sick fetish? Luckily, I'm with someone with more class than Zeke Baylor. Maybe you should have stayed with Zeke, I mean, he seems to really like you for who you truly are. Maybe you two could both get married and raise a few psychopathic tramps of your own. Just make sure that you don't screw them up like your mom did. I mean, one kid is a whore and the other had to be sent away." It was that moment that I truly realized that Gabriella had stepped over the line a long time ago. "What? You didn't think that people talked about it? Yeah. We all know about your screw up brother who your mom didn't even want."

This time, Sharpay didn't smile. She didn't pretend like Gabriella said nothing. She just stood there, her face completely blank. Then a few tears welled up in her eyes. At first, I thought that there would be a full on cat fight right than and there. But then she just walked away, moving in the opposite direction of where we were standing.

I looked at Gabriella. "What the hell was that?"

Gabriella tried her best to duplicate Sharpay's signature smile (which, might I add, was not working out well for her) and flipped her hair her shoulder. "Oh come on Troy, she was obviously trying to steal you last night at the party. And at least now she knows not to mess with my men. Forget about her Troy. She's just a high school slut who will eventually wash out by the time she actually has to get a real job. We're the ones who will end up happily together-"

"You know what Gabriella? This is it. I don't care about who will end up where in ten years, I don't really care what your plan is, and I don't care if Sharpay stole your boyfriend two years ago. You're horrible to her! And I'm done pretending like I want you to be part of your stupid plan." I shouted.

Gabriella's eyes narrowed. "Better to be part of my stupid plan than part of her stupid game!" I didn't even respond. I just started walking off in the direction which Sharpay went. I heard Gabriella calling after me. Something about not meaning it and just feeling so attached. I didn't care. And I really didn't want to pretend to care anymore.

XxXxX

Sharpay's POV

Okay, I get that she thought I was a slut. I get how she thought that I was out to steal her boyfriend. I even get how she thinks that I'm just out for attention. But how could she possibly drag Ryan into this? What did I ever do to her to make her turn against my brother of all people? I was in an empty classroom, crying. I couldn't even remember that last time I've cried, and yet there I was, bawling my eyes out. I felt so pathetic, like I was yelling at myself to stop, and yet, the tears just kept flowing freely down my face.

"I am so sorry." I heard a familiar voice say... It didn't even take me a second to figure out that it was Troy. "That was totally horrible of her."

I looked away, trying my hardest to hide the fact that I had been crying. I quickly wiped the smudged eye makeup off of my face. "Troy... I'm fine, really."

Troy didn't listen to me. He walked into the classroom, and looked me straight in the eye, something that people here didn't really do. "You were crying." He stated, now looking incredibly guilty.

I looked up at Troy and glared at him in my best attempt to silently convey the message that I wanted to be alone. Even though I pumped as much ice as I possible could into the glare, he seemed to remain firm in his decision not to leave. He looked me straight in the eye with complete fearlessness. And complete fearlessness was something that didn't occur very often in Albuquerque. I won't lie, it sent a chill down my spine. Luckily, my mind worked fast, and when plan A failed, I switched to the freeze out technique. I looked down and fumbled with my purse and pulled out a compact, coolly inspecting the damage that my crying had done. "I'm fine Troy. I just need a minute. You're in my homeroom, right? You mind telling Darbus that I'm just going to be late?"

"Why won't you talk to me? Come on Shar, yesterday I you talked to me." Troy stared at me with this look... like he was looking right through my freeze out tactic.

I pulled out some eyeliner from my bag "I'm talking to you Troy. It's not like I'm mad at you or anything." I said with a shrug as I carefully applied some eyeliner. I looked up at Troy. "Hey, is this too much eyeliner? I think it isn't, but some people tell me it is. I need t from a guy's perspective though, I mean, you can tell a lot about a person solely on eyeliner. I don't want to give out the wrong impression."

"Sharpay... you know what I mean." He said, now sounding a little annoyed. "Look, I know that you must hate me right now for not saying to Gabriella, but please, at least just say something."

I looked up from my compact. "I don't hate you Troy." I said, dropping the act.

"Then why won't you talk to me?" Troy asked.

"Because if I do, then she'll be right about me. Okay Troy? She'll be one hundred percent right about the girl who can't stay away from some other girl's boyfriend." I blurted out, as soon as the words came out of my mouth wildly blushing. Troy just looked at me incredulously. "And now you think I'm a total psycho... great."

But instead of cautiously saying that he had to get to class and walking off like I had pretty much expected, he stepped closer to me. He lifted my chin and looked me straight in the eye with his new found confidence that sent chills down my spine yet again. "You're not a psycho." I could literally feel the heat of his breath on my skin.

You know how in the moments before your first kiss with a guy, you're supposed to feel like your heart is beating in your ears. You're supposed to be lost in anticipation, wondering what's going to happen and praying to god that something stupid will happen, like he'll have bad breath, or try to suffocate you with his tongue, or worse, he'll slobber all over you. You awkwardly edge closer and closer, hoping that one of you won't miss, then your lips touch, and you spend one beautiful, carefree moment of sheer bliss, before pulling away shyly. This was not like that. We were on the same page, there was no sweet moment when we both realized that we were about to kiss, it just sort of happened. Our lips collided together, and the rest was just a rush. I was pushed against We eventually give in to our need for oxygen and had to stop (which –trust me- was truly unfortunate).

This would most definitely be classified as the best first kiss of my entire life. Hands down. "So what happens now?" Troy asked. Apparently that whole total and complete confidence thing was only temporary.

I smiled up at Troy mischievously. "Now, you kiss me again."

xXxXx

I sat in my room holding my cell phone. I dialed Shay's number quickly out of reflex. As the phone rang I thought about what had happened earlier today. After Troy and I stopped kissing (and yes... we did eventually stop kissing), we talked. We decided to only show up at school together the next day, that way it wouldn't seem weird that Troy dumped Gabriella five minutes before we got together. Also, partially because I wasn't so keen on facing Gabriella right at that moment... I mean I really did feel bad about how crushed she was over the whole David Carlton thing, and she really didn't need another reason to hate me. And trust me, if I was in this situation with some other guy who Gabriella liked, I wouldn't have given him a second look. But this was weird. Like no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make myself care about what Gabriella thought. We also managed to work in a little bit more kissing before we finally realized that we were about a half an hour late to homeroom. But I'm pretty sure that we both figured that it was worth it.

"Hey, it's Shay, how may I service you today?" The voice knocked me out of my thoughts.

I rolled my eyes at my best friend. "God Shay, phone sex operator much?"

"Hey! You get dates your ways and I get them my way." Shay said with a laugh. "So what's up?"

"I want to talk about the game. I mean, we made it to senior year, isn't that close enough?" I asked.

"Okay, Pay, I realize that your conscience or whatever is finally starting to kick in whatever, but seriously. You can't just try to bail every time you meet a remotely nice guy." Shay sighed, we'd had this conversation before. "You know what I think? This isn't even about the whole 'nice guy' thing like you keep on saying it is."

"Oh really? Then enlighten me Shay, tell me what exactly is this about other than the fact that we're hurting perfectly innocent guys?" I asked sarcastically.

"Simple." Shay said with a giggle. "This is about the whole 'no sex' thing, isn't it? Because really Shar, you know that rule is just for appearance. I mean, I personally break it all the time. So really, if you have an itch, feel free to go ahead and-"

"Okay Shay, this conversation has officially gone too far." I said, sounding exasperated.

"Okay, I didn't want to have to bring this up, but what about the deal?" Shay asked, and my heart immediately stopped beating as soon as she mention it. "I mean, you do know that I'm the only reason that your brother can stay at the Kelvin Center right? I mean, all it takes is one phone call and he's going straight to military school just like your mom intended."

"Shay, can't we just drop this whole thing?" I asked. "I mean, you're my friend."

"Yes, and friends sometimes have to realize that it's not all about them." Shay said, using her Dr. Phil voice. "Sharpay, do you even realize what would happen to me without the game? I mean I'd be just another rich slut. I need my wing chick. You know I love you Pay, which is exactly why I'm doing this. Would you rather be all heartbroken over some jerk that used you and ditched you? At least now you're in control."

"Are you seriously saying that by blackmailing me by threatening my brother, you're protecting me?" I asked.

"That's exactly what I'm saying. You'll thank me in the long run." Shay said. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a few male suitors coming over in ten minutes and I have to somehow get my non-English speaking nanny, Maria to leave the house. Love you, bitch." Shay said, and then hung up.

I threw my cell phone down on my bed and huffed. This wasn't exactly how I hoped that conversation would go. I had a heavy sinking feeling inside of me when I thought of exactly how this would turn out five days from now.

Don't you just love the bitchy best friend? There always had to be one. It was originally going to be Gabriella, but I decided that I needed Gabriella to be the somewhat psychotic example of a victim of the game. And the Troypay kiss was in the chapter. I was going to wait until later, but trying to stop a Troypay kiss from happening is like trying not to cry at the end of the Notebook (I know... I'm a sad, sad human being). I would also like to formally apologize for the crappiness that was the Troypay kiss, I misplaced my copy of Fluff for Dummies. I just suck at the whole love scene thing, you know? Writing stuff about how 'their tongues lightly caressed each other as they moved as one in a mixture of love and lust' is simply not my forte. So unless I can learn to do the whole kissing scene thing, or I enlist someone to write them for me, you guys will have to put up with whatever I wrote. Sorry.

Keep reading anyways. Bye! - LL4E