"I don't think I want frozen yogurt anymore," Sienna Bolton speaks up from the back of the car, "it's too cold for that, don't you think, brother?"

Brother. That's what she calls him and it's the cutest thing.

Sienna is the cutest thing in the world. And I'm not just saying that because she's related to Troy Bolton. No, honestly. She has straight, honey brown hair that is past her shoulders. She has the hazelest of eyes. And the cutest little smile. She's SO freaking adorable.

Troy nodded as he turned out of the neighborhood we were in, "I think you're right. What do you want, a cupcake? Maybe some apple pie? Or some chocolate cake?"

I couldn't see her reaction, but judging by the tone of her voice, she was excited for all three. "Ummm, I want a cupcake!"

"Cupcakes it is," he glances back at her before looking ahead at the road.

"Is it okay if I call you Gabi?" she asks me, which made me smile like no other. She's such a little adult, I can't get over it. So well-spoken. "Because I like Gabriella but it's too long, don't you think? Gabi is short and cute and my friend's name is Gabi, too."

Well, how could I say no to that? I turned around in my seat, gave her a smile and told her absolutely. "You can call me whatever you want to call me."

She was honestly the cutest thing.

I grabbed my phone from my purse and texted my friends to let them know I was here and so far, so good.

And then before I knew it, we were pulling into the cutest shopping center. A few shops, a few places to eat and a cupcake place. It's so cool how you can just drive somewhere, pull into a parking lot and park your car next to the place you're going. Like, you can't do that in New York and ahh, I just love it.

Since Sienna was on my side, I opened the door for her and she hopped out of her car seat and then out of the car and quickly grabbed my hand to cross over.

Troy grabbed mine and then we all walked across the parking lot, hand in hand.

When we got inside, she ran to the counter and checked out all the cupcakes that were on display. And her big eyes got even bigger. Is it possible for kids to stay this age forever? Because if she's going to be in my life for a while, I'd like her at this age. She's SO cute and so far, so funny.

"I think I want chocolate," she turns around and tells Troy, "or maybe the sprinkle one. I don't know. I'm SO confused, they're all good!"

"Well, you only get one because it's lunchtime soon," he tells her.

She nods and turns around and contemplates it a bit more. She's going up and down, looking at all the cupcakes. I look at some, too, because I want one and I'm in the same predicament as Sienna. They all look SO good. How are we supposed to decide on just one? I have such a sweet tooth, it's absolutely disgusting.

Troy went over to Sienna and asked her to pick one so she just went with the chocolate one. Classic.

I was gonna be festive and go with the pumpkin one. Not only is it festive, but it's SO good. Pumpkin anything is good.

My sweet boyfriend payed for all of us and then we went to the corner and sat in one of the tables. Sienna immediately unwrapped the whole thing and started biting into it. Troy did the exact same thing. And I just carefully took off part of the paper where I was gonna bite it. I take off the paper as I go. And they.. well, they don't.

"My mom told me that you live in New York," Sienna tells me with chocolate all over her face, "I'm gonna move there, too. Do you think people will like me there?"

"Well, I don't see why they wouldn't. You're a nice girl."

She turned to Troy and smiled, "do people like you there? You said you didn't want to go."

Oh really, he said that? He never once gave me the impression that he hated New York or that he was miserable being there. Ha I cannot believe I'm learning this from his little five year old sister. How funny. But I mean, I wouldn't blame him, to be honest. This place looks like it's pretty cool living here.

"I like it now," he tells her before looking over at me with a small smile, "and I'm sure you'll like it, too. You're gonna make a ton of new friends there."

"Yeah, I can't wait to go to grandma's house, I just love her so much."

I bit into my cupcake some more and then put it down so I could wash it down with some water. Troy looked over at me to see if everything was okay, which it totally was. "It doesn't matter that you didn't want to come to New York. It's not like you knew me and still said you didn't want to come."

"True," he looked slightly embarrassed, "no, but yeah, I love it now. I really do. I don't think I would want to move back. I mean, maybe, but I don't want to."

No, yeah, I get it. He has friends here. If he wanted to move back, I want to say I wouldn't take it personally, but obviously it would sting a bit. I wonder why he didn't stay. I mean, he's old enough, right? Wow, I've never asked. Maybe I should.

But as I was about to, Troy turned his attention to two girls walking into this place. And he just stared. He stared but then looked down at his cupcake. Umm.

Okay, who's this? Is this... no. Is it Angela?

"Hey, you okay?" I ask him, putting my hand on top of his.

"Yeah," he lifts his head up and stares right into my eyes, "um, that girl that just walked in with the dark hair is Angela."

Oh fuuuuck. His ex girlfriend. His ex girlfriend who he dated before me. The most recent one. She wasn't paying attention to us, so I quickly looked over at her and got a good look. And yep.. she was beautiful. Long, dark hair. She was taller than me. And she had on the cutest boots. Ugh. I hate her.

No, I don't. But I am slightly jealous that this girl knows Troy better than I do. That they have more history. And that they were probably in love at some point.

And then finally, she looked over here. And our eyes locked. Fuuuck.

I immediately looked back at Troy and he smiled at me. I felt secure. I did. I just, I don't know. Are they gonna talk? Sienna continued eating her cupcake and her back was turned to Angela so she was clueless. And then I looked back up at Troy and he looked like he had no interest whatsoever in talking to her so that's good.

Right? Or no? I don't want to be that girl that prevents him from talking to people who were in his life, or are in his life, etc. But he himself had the opportunity to talk to her and he didn't. So maybe he truly doesn't want to. And I'm okay with that, too.

"If you wanna go say hi, go say hi," I tell him, thinking maybe he wants my approval or something, "I don't mind."

"I don't really want to," he says with a shrug as he eats the last of his cupcake.

Well, okay. I'm not gonna force him, too. I finish off my cupcake and then we wait for Sienna to finish hers. She eats SO slow. But it's cute, so who cares.

And then all of a sudden, Angela is standing by our table, her fiend hanging behind her a few feet away, and she's clutching onto her purse that's draping over her shoulder. She was beautiful. She really was. And it looked so effortlessly which made me sad. But at the same time, I have Troy now. I should be extremely happy.

Troy looked up at her with no emotion whatsoever.

And it looked like she really wanted to talk to him. "Hey."

"Hi," is all he told her.

She looked down at Sienna and put her hand on her hand which made Sienna look up. "Hi, Sienna."

All Sienna did was give her a small smile, tell her hi and then went back to eating her cupcake. And I found it so odd. Kids either love you or hate you. There's really no in between with them, right? And I got the vibe that Sienna did not care for Angela. And not that I'm happy about that because she could very well not like me tomorrow, but I just found it a little bit odd. It looked like she barely even knew the girl. She cares more about her cupcake than her.

"Anyway," Angela shrugs it off and turns back to Troy, "I didn't know you were in town."

"Yeah, I am," Troy told her, matter-of-factually, with no emotion whatsoever. I felt bad for the girl... kind of. But not really since she did cheat on him.

"Oh, well, um," Angela looked at me and I think she was trying to decide who I am. But if Troy told her anything, then she should probably know, right? Maybe she does know by the way she's looking at me. A little bit hurt, a little bit jealous. "Travis is having a party tomorrow night if you're interested. Should be fun."

Troy looks over t me and I don't really know what he's thinking. Obviously, I know we're not going because we have the concert, but I wonder what he thinks about her inviting him. "We have plans already, sorry."

Angela looks slightly embarrassed and I feel for that. It's not easy to get rejected by a guy. "Oh okay, well... this is weird. We can at least be friends, Troy."

"This is my girlfriend, Gabriella," Troy then tells her with a smile on her face.

Angela looks at me, no emotion whatsoever in her face. I knew she probably thought I was his girlfriend, but now that he's actually said something, it's probably feeling real to her. And by default, I don't like her. What she did to Troy was shitty. And really, who likes the ex girlfriend? Not a lot of people, so. No love lost here.

She then gave me the smallest of smiles, pushed some hair back behind her ear and nodded, "Hi, I'm Angela."

"Hey," is all I really tell her, with a smile, of course.

"Okay, well, I guess I'll let you guys get back to your little um... date," she says before turning around to walk back to her friend, but then she stops all of a sudden, turns to face us once again and apologizes to Troy. "I'm sorry. If that's worth anything to you. I hope you know I really mean it."

Troy just nodded and said thank you.

And that was that. She left, we went back to talking and Sienna didn't ask questions.

I felt happy. I felt happy that he introduced me as he girlfriend. I felt happy that he didn't lie to me. You could so tell he didn't see her the last time he was in Chicago because she genuinely looked surprised to see him. And she called it out for being weird. I just felt really happy in this moment. Maybe not for Angela, specifically, but for me. And our relationship together. It shows he's into me. And I'm into him. And gah, I just really like him. I'm happy.

Really, really happy.

"Oh, Gabriella, you have to try the lasagna here," Troy's dad, Jack tells me, "it's the best lasagna I've ever tasted."

I smiled at him and then looked back down at the menu. There were so many options, but that does sound pretty good right now. Or any of the pastas. The angel hair pasta sounds good. All of it sounds good. I'm starving. And I just really want to eat. "Yeah, I think I might do that. I could go for some lasagna."

Jack gave me a warm smile at then picked up his glass of wine and took a sip, "we hear your favorite food is probably sushi, but we couldn't resist bringing you here. Best Italian food in the city."

"No, yeah, this is great, I love Italian food just as much," I grab a piece of bread from the center.

Troy turns to me and gives me a small smile before taking a sip of his water..

This trip is going better than I thought. I had NOTHING to be nervous about. His parents are SO nice. Like, I didn't doubt they'd be nice, but Stacy told me good luck a couple of days ago and I think that just threw me off a bit. It was probably just a general statement, you know? Like, who doesn't tell someone good luck before they meet their boyfriend or girlfriends parents. But then again, the good luck was followed by that they didn't care for Angela so yeah. Stacy definitely threw me off a bit, but so far, so good. They've been extremely nice to met. And I feel like everything's going good.

I mean, Sienna wanted me to do her hair before we left. She wanted it in a pretty braid and Andrea told her she could do it since it was complicated, but Sienna wanted me and that made me feel happy. And it was a bit complicated, but I ended up doing it for her.

"So, Troy tells me your dad is the owner of our favorite hotel in New York," Jack tells me as he also grabs a piece of bread from the center of the table.

"Oh, um, yeah," I always feel uncomfortable talking about my dad and I don't know why. I should be SO proud of his success.

And I am. But it's just.. I don't want to brag.

Jack nodded and looked over at Troy and then back at me, "We asked. Well, we asked about you, and so he told us a bit about your life. Are you thinking about going the hotel route, too? Or do you have other plans for your future?"

"I think about it often," I warm up to the idea of talking about it, "I grew up around it. It's fascinating. I love it. But I also love reading and writing so I'm not sure. Some days, I want to open a restaurant or take over my dad's hotel and then the next day, I wanna write a book."

"Wow, a book" he sounded impressed and that made me happy, "that takes a lot. That's good."

"Yeah, but we'll see. I'm young, still. Anything can happen."

And then in the next moment, the waiter came over and brought us our appetizers. Fried Zucchini which I love. I'm obsessed with zucchini and with fried food so this is perfect for me. And I guess for the, too, since they suggested we ordered it and I was definitely not against it one bit. Ha.

We all grabbed some on our plate except for Sienna who decided she didn't like them. Ugh, she was so cute.

Andrea then turned to me as she was dipping her fried zucchini in the ranch, "How do you like living in New York? You've lived there your whole life, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, born and raised. My dad who is from here actually wanted to move to Chicago and ave me there, but business took off so it didn't happen, but yeah, I love it. It's all I know, though. Sometimes I imagine life in a small town..."

"It's pretty great," she smiles at me, "I mean, I love the city. But being able to go down the street to the grocery store and have it not be a mission is pretty great. I am excited about moving back to New York. We have family there. But I don't think anything beats the suburbs."

Probably not. I wouldn't really know, though. I don't know if I'd get bored, to be honest. But I often imagine myself living in the suburbs, for sure.

Sienna then announced that she was going to be a doctor so she could help all the sick people in the world. And if that isn't cute, then I don't know what is.

"Oh, yeah? Well, I'm sure you're going to be the best doctor ever," Jack tells her with a laugh.

"I am," she says proudly at her dad before turning to me, "Gabriella, I mean Gabi, do you like my brother?"

What? Ha. I mean, this little girl is smart. She is going to be 6, but that's so funny how she just straight up asked me. And now everyone's eyes are on me and even though they obviously know the answer, I feel like they're pressuring me not to answer it wrong. "I do. I do like your brother."

Sienna laughs and sits up in her seat a little bit, "Angela used to like him, too, and now you like him. That's so crazy!"

Jack and Andrea looked at her as if she said something horribly wrong, but I mean, she's six. Who cares. And also, we saw Angela today. It's probably just in her mind right now which is totally okay. I'm not mad.

"Sienna, we don't talk about Angela anymore," Andrea tells her, "she's in the past, okay?"

"But mom, we saw her today at the cupcake store. She said hi to me!"

Andrea looked up at Troy to confirm this was true and Troy just nodded and looked a bit uncomfortable. I don't even know what was going on or why the mood changed so suddenly. What did Andrea do to them beside cheat on Troy? Does Jack not like her, either? Or is it just Andrea that doesn't like her?

Troy took a sip of his water and then pushed it off to the side, leaning forward a bit. "Yeah, we saw her today. She said hi and invited us to a party."

"How was it?" she asked before looking over at me, "I'm sorry, I know you probably don't wanna hear about the ex girlfriend."

Oh um, if Troy was talking about her in our everyday lives in a positive way then I would care. But if it gets brought up in conversation, who cares? I'm not crazy. And I mean, I'm secure about this relationship. He had a second chance with Angela and he didn't take it. So who cares. They can talk about her all they want. As long as they're not saying they miss her. "No, it's fine. I don't mind."

Andrea gave me a small smile and turned back to go, "I actually ran into her the other day, too. It took all my might to be nice to her."

Troy just shook his head, probably feeling bad for the girl. No one seems to like her. Sienna didn't even seem interested in her. "Yeah, I mean, it was fine. She didn't mention running into you, though."

"Poor girl looked like she was trying to get away from me, to be honest," she laughed, "no, I'm not gonna bash her. All I'm gonna say I'm glad she's no longer in the picture. It's just... no, I won't get into it in front of..." she motioned to Sienna who was looking down at her book. "But yeah..."

WHAT HAPPENED? I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. Ugh.

And once they got done talking about Angela, Andrea turned to me, gave me a small smile and told me quite possibly the nicest thing. "I like you, Gabriella."

Okay, that's all it took for me to smile from ear to ear. Andrea Bolton likes me.

That feels SO good.