Chapter 28: Leaving on a Jet Plane

"You have your own private jet." Troy said, amazed, as he and Gabriella walked out to the plane. "That is so cool."

"It's not my jet." Gabriella told him. "It's the company's."

"But you can use it anytime you want." Troy pointed out. "And that is so cool!"

Gabriella laughed. "I guess it is pretty cool." She said as she led him up the small set of stairs and into the plane. "Well, what do you think?"

Troy followed Gabriella and he felt him jaw drop. His eyes fell upon the burgundy and gold colored cabin that held leather couched and chairs, a large flat screen TV, and many other items that made it not look like a plane. "Is that an X-box?" he asked, still in shock.

"I guess that means you like it." Gabriella said, smiling.

Troy turned to Gabriella, "Do you realize that you live a blessed live Montez?"

Gabriella looked down at her shoes and felt her face flush. "Kind of…"

"Kind of? Gabriella you practically have your own private jet, you can buy anything you could ever want to, and your house is the biggest, nicest house I've ever seen."

"You have a really nice house too." Gabriella told him.

"That's my parent's house. I live in a one bedroom right off campus." He pointed out. "How someone like you fell for someone like me is something I'll never figure out."

Gabriella blushed again. "You don't give yourself enough credit Troy. I fell for you because you were nice, funny, sweet, and pretty decent to look at. Not because I thought you had a lot." She informed him. "But why are we talking about this? We're going on vacation; we should be having fun, not getting all mopey."

Troy chuckled. "You're right. Now let's go check out that X-box."

Gabriella giggled as she watched Troy perch himself on one of the leather couches and pick up a controller.

"Miss Montez?" Gabriella spun around to face the pilot. "We're about to take off, so we need you guys buckled up and the video game off for a few minutes."

"Thanks Pete." Gabriella smiled and walked towards Troy. "We got to turn off the game to take off." She told him.

Troy's face fell. "But I just put together a really good team…"

Gabriella let out a giggle, "You can always save it."

"Fine." He stubbornly turned off the game and took a seat next to Gabriella on the couch slinging his arm over her shoulders. "Hey Gabriella, can I ask you a question?"

"You just did."

Troy sighed. "Can I ask you a few questions?"

"Sure." She said softly as the roar of the airplane's engine filled the air.

"If you can use this plane whenever you want, why don't you use it to get away from your mom?"

Gabriella sighed and looked down at her fingernails. "Even though my mom and I disagree a lot of the time, she's still my mom." Gabriella told him. "I've thought about it plenty of times. You know, my life would be so much easier without the constant battles I have with her, but I always come back to the fact that I love her. And I love her too much to leave her alone. And it makes me realize that I don't want to be alone either."

"But aren't you alone the majority of the time anyways?"

"Yeah, but I always know that she's coming back home. I know it may sound stupid but that's the way it is. No matter how much she bugs me and makes me mad, I just can't imagine living without her."

Troy gently rubbed Gabriella's arm. "It's cool that don't want to leave her. I kind of wish I knew what that felt like."

"You wanted to leave home?"

"More than ever." Troy chuckled. "My dad had been stressing me out about basketball since I was four and after I told him that I wasn't taking my scholarship, I couldn't get out fast enough. We couldn't even look at each other so living in the same house was out of the question."

"What about your mom?"

Troy smiled. "My mom was absolutely amazing. She put up with all of our arguments and was the one who actually got us talking again. But she helped me move into my apartment and taught me how to cook enough to at least keep me alive and she helped me get my life and my future in order."

"That's really cool."

"You're really cool." Troy leaned down and kissed her on the top of the head as she blushed. "You know I think I have a new nick name for you."

"Oh? And what's that?" Gabriella questioned.

"Pinky." He said with a grin.

Gabriella slapped her hand across his stomach. "Shut up!"

"What? I think it's cute that you blush a lot." Gabriella looked up at him and tried not to smile. "And I think it's cute that it is almost impossible for you to be around me and not smile."

Gabriella rolled her eyes and settled into him. "Keep talking and you might end up sleeping on the couch."

"Well that way you described that resort the couch might not be too bad." Troy said, smiling down at his girlfriend. "So do you usually go up with your mom?"

"When I was little I went up with my mom and my dad, then just my mom, then my friends."

"So did you ever bring Tyler up?" Troy asked.

She turned around to face him. "Never."

Troy felt a smile creep across his face. "I can't wait to get to Salt Lake.

Gabriella smiled and rolled her eyes. "You are some guy Troy Bolton, some guy."

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Gabriella fell down on the couch that sat in front of the blazing fire. "I suck." She declared.

Troy walked into the room holding two cups of hot chocolate. "You don't suck. You just need some practice." He told her as he took the seat next to her, handing her a cup.

"You've been trying to teach me how to snowboard for a week and I can't even go down the bunny hill." Gabriella complained. "Why can't we go skiing? You can ski, I can ski, it just seems to make a lot more sense."

"I promise that by the end of the trip I will get you down that hill." He told her. "And we can go skiing tomorrow."

A grin spread across Gabriella's face. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" she leaned over and kissed Troy softly. "Feel like joining me in the hot tub?"

"Do you even have to ask?"

Gabriella giggled and jumped off the couch. "Bring the hot chocolate!" she yelled as she slammed the bedroom door shut.

Ten minutes late Troy was situated in the hot tub when Gabriella emerged from the bathroom. His eyes started at her feet and traveled up her body. She wore a solid, bright red bikini with her long hair tied up in a lose pony tail. "Who are you and what have you done with Gabriella?"

Gabriella smiled and walked over to the hot tub. "You're funny." She said, dipping her foot into the hot water.

"And I never knew that you could look so sexy." He said, still eyeing up his girlfriend.

She felt herself blush. "Have you always been this blunt?"

"Oh yeah." He assured her. Troy stretched an arm around Gabriella's shoulder as she snuggled into him. "I can't believe that tomorrow is already Christmas Eve."

Gabriella let out a heavy sigh as Troy gently rubbed her arm. "I know. It's kind of surreal, down you think?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean were sitting here in a hot tub overlooking a beautiful, snow covered mountain. It's just so neat."

"Haven't you done this before?"

"Yeah, but not like this." Gabriella looked up at Troy. "I'm with someone I love."

Troy leaned down and gently kissed Gabriella. "Me too." He smiled.

Gabriella grinned back at Troy. "You're so sexy with your shirt off."

Troy chuckled. "Yeah you too." He said, letting his eyes wander across her body.

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Troy's fingers were laced with Gabriella's as they explored the snow covered resort. "I'm sorry that we couldn't go skiing today."

"It's no big deal. I mean who could have known that were closing the slopes today." Gabriella said as she loosened the scarf around her neck. "We can just explore."

"Well this place sure is big enough." Troy noted at the couple walked under a deer horn chandelier. "And they really seem to like hunting."

"It's a lodge; what do you expect?"

"I don't know. Champagne and caviar served every hour on the hour?"

Gabriella couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, because that seems like a place that I would voluntarily spend any of my time."

"As far as I know the only places you willingly spend any of you time is at a dance studio or a library." Troy said. "Or at my apartment, scaring my friends."

Gabriella's mouth fell opened. "I went to your apartment and I was a little over enthusiastic about finding you and I might have startled them a bit."

"And then interrogated them and threatened to give them a 'Van Gough' cut if they didn't tell you where I was."

"This sweet little girl?" A deep voice said from behind them. "I can't imagine that she could ever say something like that."

Both Troy and Gabriella spun around to see the person to match the mysterious voice. Gabriella's mouth fell open and her eyes widened.


Yay! We made it to over 20 reviews! Now I know this is a cliffy, but let's try to do it again. And if anybody guesses who Troy and Gabriella saw, I may give you a special sneak peak into another story that I will be posting later this summer or something having to do with this story.

And speaking of new stories, I just posted a new one called Life in a Glass House. It's different than this one (obviously, I can't have two stories that are the same) but I'd really love it if you guys could check it out and leave a pretty review.