Thank God, it's Friday. I enjoy school, but I definitely enjoy the weekend more.

And this weekend's going to be a good one.

Brooke, Alexis, our other friend Taylor and I are heading to Los Angeles for a Carrie Underwood concert and we're spending the weekend there. I couldn't be more excited about it. My favorite friends. And my favorite singer, probably ever. Um. YES.

It would top off the good week I was having, too. I got an A on a test I thought I was for sure going to fail dramatically. I hung out with Troy on Monday, which was fun. A lot of fun, actually. And we talked here and there throughout the week. These boots I've been wanting forever were finally back in stock and in my size which was amazing news. AND my parents just booked my graduation trip to the Dominican Republic. HELL YA.

"Do you have any idea what you're wearing tomorrow?" Taylor asks as we're walking out of class to our cars.

"No idea," I adjust my purse so it doesn't slip off, "I'll probably figure it out tonight or something."

"Yeah, text me it. I don't want to be coordinated or anything like that. I hate going to concerts and seeing girls all wearing the same outfit or basically the same thing. It's really weird," she laughs as she looks for her keys.

Oh, totally. Fuck no. We're not wearing the same thing. "Yeah, definitely. Brooke wants to leave at 11 or something like that, so we can settle in, grab some dinner before and stuff. Do you have a game tomorrow?"

She nodded as we walked out of the school, "yeah, but it's at 8:30, so I should be done around that time. Maybe we can leave at 12?"

"Anything's fine with me," I also search for my keys in my purse, which somehow always get lost in there. SO ANNOYING. "It's only like 2 and a half hours and I doubt there'll be traffic in the middle of the day so we'll be good. We could probably even leave around 2, but Brooke wouldn't want that."

"No, she wouldn't," Taylor laughs and then stops walking, "okay, well I'm this way, but text me later, k?"

"Okay, I will. Hopefully I'll find something."

She rolled her eyes knowing full well I'll find something to wear and laughed, "bye."

I walked the opposite way of her to the parking lot and less than a minute later, I heard my name being called. And I knew exactly who it was. Ahhh.

Troy Bolton was walking up to me, his soccer bag in hand and a book in the other looking hotter than usual. How in the world is that possible? I don't know, but he's definitely doing it. He looks so hot, I couldn't believe it.

"Hey," he smiles at me, "what's up?"

"Nothing," I tell him, like I've been telling him the past few days we've been walking to my car.

Except this time, he's a little later than he usually is. Usually, as we get out of class, Taylor goes the opposite way, but today, she walked with me and then just went around the school to her car instead of through the school. And for the past few days, Troy and I would meet at the front of the school and he'd walk me to my car as we talked about our day, what we're doing, etc. And it was nice. It was a five minute walk of just talking.

And today, it's cut a little shorter. It'll probably be a three minute walk, but whatever. I'll take what I can get.

"So what're you up to this weekend?" he asks, which I think nothing of. I mean, it is Friday. He's just making conversation. Everyone asks this on a Friday.

"I'm actually going to LA for the weekend with some friends, we're seeing Carrie Underwood."

"Oh, so you're not going to be here tomorrow?" he asks, sort of stopping me in my tracks in the middle of the parking lot.

Ummm. No. I'm not. "No."

I swear, he looks a bit bummed about it. But I'm pushing that out of my mind right now. Was he going to ask me to hang tomorrow? I want to keep walking because I do need to get home, but he's just standing there, so it gives me no option but to stand there as well, unless I want to ditch him.

And then he speaks up, "Are you free tonight then?"

Tonight? Yes. I'm free. Excepting having to pack and figure out what I'm going to wear. But I'm free. "Yeah."

"You want to go out to dinner or something?" It seems like he's asking me out on a date, but I'm not going to jump to conclusions. "I've been wanting to try out that new seafood restaurant that opened up at the Gaslamp District. You've heard of it?"

Uh yeah, I have. And it's supposed to be incredibly nice. And expensive. And what the fuck. He wants to take ME there? "Yeah, I heard it's really good."

He smiled and nodded as he unzipped his soccer bag and took his keys out, "yeah, I've been wanting to try it. You wanna go?"

I want to say yes, I really, really do. But now this seems like a date and I honestly don't know if I'm ready for that... with him. Before it was so casual, and now, I'm going to have to dress up and shit and it's just going to feel like a date. I haven't been on a first date. EVER. What the fuck. What do I say?

And of course, I find myself saying yes. It's like I can't say no to Troy Bolton.

"I'll pick you up at 7?"

"Okay," I push some hair behind my ear and smile.

He knows where I live, he has my number from the other day and now I'm free to walk away. So I do. He goes down another lane in the parking lot and I'm walking to my car by myself thinking about how I'm going on a date with Troy Bolton tonight.

I'M GOING ON A DATE WITH TROY BOLTON.

It has to be a date. A nice restaurant. Friday night. 7 PM. I mean... if it's not a date then what is it?

It's definitely a date. And I'm now extremely excited for it. Eeeek.

"No way," Troy shakes his head as he takes a piece of the cheesecake in front of us, "mine was totally more embarrassing."

"Okay, but you were 10. Who cares," I remind him. MY most embarrassing moment happened two years ago when I was a teenager. Uh. I think I win, for sure. There's no competition, "mine was definitely worse."

He laughed and shoved some cheesecake in his mouth before taking a sip of his water, "whatever you say."

I grabbed a piece as well and tried my best to savor every centimeter of it. It was SUCH good cheesecake and I wish I would have gotten my own. But I was full when he ordered it so I didn't think I'd have any. He insisted, though, and here I am, taking some, wishing I had my own slice. SO GOOD.

"Okay, sorry," I push away the cheesecake back to him, "I'm done."

"No, no, it's fine," he tells me, pushing it back my way, "finish it off. I'm done. I'm so full."

Fuck. I want to, but I don't actually want to say yes. So when he basically puts it in front of me, I'm so thankful because I didn't have to be in that awkward position. I was so happy. It's seriously so good. Best cheesecake I've ever had.

I thank him, finish it off, and then wash it down with my iced tea. Which was also the best iced tea I've ever had. This place was something else. So good.

The waitress came, dropped off the check, he immediately got it before I was able to look at it, took care of it and slid it off to the side.

He leaned forward a bit, gave me a smile and asked if I was ready to go. He put cash down so we didn't need to wait for his card or anything. I told him yes and a minute later, we we in his car, driving back to my house.

Normally, I think this would be kind of early for a date to end. It's 10. But he has a game at 8 and he needs to be there at 7 and it's 30 minutes away so it was fine. It was cool that he was dropping me off now. I appreciate his responsible ways.

"So, why'd you ask me out tonight?" I turn the dial down and ask him, something I know he probably wasn't expecting.

"What?" he laughs and glances over at me before coming to a complete stop at the red light, "why'd I ask you out tonight? I thought I made it quite obvious that I want to hang out with you. And that I like hanging out with you."

I shake my head. That's not what I want to know. I'm feeling ballsy tonight. "No. I mean, why. Why did you even start wanting to hang out with me?"

He looked over at me, gave me a weird look but followed it up with a smile, "I told you already, I just..."

"You just wanted to hang out," I repeat his words with an eye roll, "yes, you told me that. But I just don't believe it. If someone would have told me three weeks ago that I'd be hanging out with Troy Bolton, I wouldn't have believed them."

The light turned green so he let go of the brake, made his way through the intersection and chuckled. "Geez, we're not from completely different worlds."

No, I supposed we're not, but enough for it to be weird. "I just don't really get why you keep wanting to hang out with me, that's all."

At this point, we're 2 minutes away from my house so if it gets too awkward or too weird, I don't have to sit through it for long at all. I just... I wanted to get to the bottom of it. I wanted to know why all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he took notice in me. Why he wants to keep hanging out with me and stuff.

"You do remember that you had a boyfriend for two years, right?" he asks me.

Umm. Yes. What does that have to do with anything? "Yeah, so? What's your point?"

He looks over at me, not saying anything, our eyes lock, and then he focuses his attention back on the road, turning right at the next light. "You're single now. So my point is, you're single now and you're free to hang out with some guy that finds you insanely attractive."

Fuck. That's the first time he's told me that. I mean, I guess I could assume, but I didn't want to. And now, I have no idea what to say back. Shit.

"Like you paid any attention to me before we had a class together," whoa, I guess I'm going there tonight.

"No, you're right," he nods, "you're right. I didn't, really. I mean, not enough to be interested. But I definitely knew you were there. And I definitely still found you attractive then. It's just different now. I don't know."

Ugh. I guess that was enough. I don't know what I was searching for. His confession that this is all a prank? Or him telling me that he finds me absolutely beautiful and that's why he keeps asking me out. Didn't he sort of tell me that? I don't know. All I know is I'm dropping it. It was dumb.

And before I knew it, he was pulling up to my house and I was already unbuckling my seat belt. I think I made this an awkward ending to our date.

But he still got out and walked me to my door.

"There's nothing more to it other than the fact that I found you insanely attractive, I asked you to hang out, I liked hanging out with you and so I asked you to hang out again. You need to give yourself a little more credit, Gabriella. If this were some sick joke, I think my friends would pick someone else."

Ugh. I hate myself sometimes. Now I'm embarrassed about this. "Sorry."

He laughed and then pushed some hair out of my face and shrugged, "it's okay. But honestly, I asked you out tonight just because I wanted to and I hope that's enough of an answer for you."

"No, yeah, it is," I'll take it. I'll absolutely take it. It's actually the best answer. "and thank you. For tonight. The food was amazing. And I had fun."

"I had fun, too," he smiles at me, "thanks for coming out."

And now it's the part where we're probably supposed to kiss. And I so badly want him to kiss me. I know I do. And I mean, after everything's that been said, it's safe to assume he will, right? But I feel like it's taking forever. Why isn't he leaning in already, kissing the shit out of me? Ughhhh. His blue eyes are looking into mine and none of us are moving, leaning in or anything. So what? Do I have to do it? Am I really going to take matters into my own hands right now? I don't want to be that girl. I want it to be a romantic moment led by him. NOW.

And then a small smile appears on his face as he's inching forward, "you know I'm about to kiss you now."

"I wish you would hurry up and just do it," is what comes out of my stupid mouth. SO MUCH FOR A ROMANTIC MOMENT.

But he leaned forward, cupped my face with his hands, leaned down and kissed me.

And sparks flew. I swear.

Sparks are flying between us and I don't think I can really breathe right now, but that's okay. Because this is too good. He moves one hand from my cheek to the back of my head and I grab his waist, needing to hold onto something.

And little by little, it gets more passionate, more intense, everything you could want in a first kiss. Which meant no tongue. And I'm so glad. We're not making out, we're just kissing... intensely. And I didn't want him to stop. I didn't want to stop. I wanted to stand here and keep kissing him.

But I knew I couldn't. We had to break apart at some point and we did. And I think I was the one to break it apart.

"Goodnight," is all he tells me before leaning in one more time and giving me one last kiss.

I didn't even have chance to say goodbye, it all happened so fast. Before I knew it, he was walking away and over to his car.

Fucccck. This isn't good. But it feels good.