(A.N. Here is the next chapter of Tomorrow's Another Day. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed / given their feedback, I really appreciate it! And thank you to everyone who has been reading Tomorrow's Another Day. Let me know what you think of the chapter / story. Hope you enjoy :) )
Gabriella walked downstairs on Saturday morning to find the Boltons in the kitchen. "I'm meeting the girls at the mall to look for dresses for homecoming, I just wanted to make sure that was ok."
Jack smiled. "Of course Gabi."
Troy looked over to his girlfriend. "Do you need a ride there?"
"It's ok, it's not too far, I can just walk there."
The boy shook his head. "No absolutely not, I'll drop you off." She looked at him disbelievingly, causing him to soften. "Just let me drop you off, you shouldn't be walking around the streets by yourself."
Gabriella relented. "Ok, if it's not too much trouble."
"I'll finish this and get changed then we can go."
Lilliana came up to Gabriella's side and tugged on her arm so she would lean down. "Can I come with you?"
"Go ask your parents and if they say yes, then absolutely."
The little girl turned to her parents. "Can I go with Bria?" The parents nodded and Lilliana grinned. "Thank you." She grabbed Gabriella's hand and pulled her to go upstairs.
The junior leant down to her sister. "I just have to talk to Troy for a second, how about you go get ready?"
Lilliana nodded and went off to her room. Gabriella quietly knocked on her boyfriend's door before going into the room, looking down slightly as he stood in only his jeans with his t-shirt in hand. He walked over to her side and tilted her chin up with a boyish smile. "You don't have to be shy Baby, you're allowed to look." She met his eyes and he took her hands, pulling her back so that he sat on his bed and she stood between his legs. "I'm sorry about before, I'm not trying to control you, I just - I'm trying to protect you 'cause I don't want anything bad to happen."
She moved her hands up to her shoulders, gently rubbing them. "No I'm sorry, I should've been more conscious of your feelings. I know why you're protective and your reasoning behind it as you have every right to be. I'm sorry if I overreacted."
"It's all good Brie." He sighed. "This is getting harder to pretend that there's nothing going on between us."
"Yeah it is."
Their conversation was interrupted by a knock on the door. "One second." Troy quickly threw his shirt on and the juniors put some distance between them. "Come in." Lilliana stood at the door. "Alright let's head off, you girls can head down to the car, I'll just get my keys."
The drive to the mall was quite short and Troy stopped the girls right as they were about to get out. "Hold on." He pulled some money out of his pockets and Gabriella immediately shook her head. "It's alright, take it."
The girl shook her head. "Troy, no -"
"It's from Dad, he wants you to take it." He saw that she was about to deny it again. "He knows that it's gonna be a while until Lilly goes to homecoming and he's excited to get the chance to do the homecoming thing with a daughter. He wants you to have the homecoming you've always wanted, we all do."
Gabriella relented, taking the money from his hand before placing a kiss on his cheek. "Thank you."
"Text me when you're finished and I'll pick you up. Have fun with the girls."
Both girls responded. "Bye Troy."
They met the girls in the centre of the mall. "I hope it was ok that I brought Liv along, she wanted to come." The girls looked at each other confused before Gabriella realised her mistake. "I still call her Liv."
The juniors nodded, Kelsi responded. "Of course, it's no problem. Do we want to go look at dresses first or get some food?"
Sharpay jumped around excitedly. "Let's go get our dresses!"
The girls laughed and walked off to a store. They looked around for a few minutes before grabbing a few each that they liked that were within their price range. When all the other girls went into the changing rooms, Lilliana looked around at the seemingly empty store nervously before looking at Gabriella. "Bria, where do I stay while you're getting changed?"
"Just come in with me, I don't like the idea of you staying out here by yourself."
Each of the girls tried on all of their dresses before picking their favourite to show to their friends. They all peeked out for the curtains to see their friends' dresses. Sharpay was the first to show her dress which was a strapless lace candy pink dress that stopped just above her knees. Taylor was next and her dress was a satin red with an empire square neckline that reached down to her knees. Martha wore a long lilac chiffon dress with thick straps. Kelsi came out wearing an off-the-shoulder lace baby blue dress which was a similar length to Martha's. Finally, Gabriella wore a white satin dress with a lace-up back and a beaded sequin bodice with a dark blue beaded sash around her waist.
The girls all gushed to each other about how pretty they looked and how gorgeous all the dresses were before making their decisions to buy their dresses. Just as Gabriella was about to get changed, Lilliana tugged on her hand. "You look beautiful Bria."
Gabriella smiled and leaned down to kiss the little girl on her forehead. "Thank you Sweet Girl."
After paying for their dresses, the girls decided to go to the food court for lunch. They got their food before sitting down at a table, conversing. It wasn't long before the subject of Troy's homecoming promposal came up. "So Gabi, were you surprised by his promposal? Did you know it was happening? Did he talk to you about it afterwards? Do you know why he waited so long?"
Gabriella's eyes widened. "Geez Shar, I can only answer one question at a time." The girl's glare made her continue. "I had no idea that he was doing it, honestly, I'd kinda given up hope that he was even gonna ask me but I'm glad he did and it made sense why the house was so empty that morning. And in hindsight, I'm glad that he did wait because he put so much thought into it." They asked her to elaborate. "Well that night we were talking and I asked him about it and he really thought everything through." She looked to her sister. "Apparently Miss Livie here told him that roses were my favourite so he used the bouquets but he actually really put thought into it. He told me that red roses symbolise love and the pink roses symbolise admiration." The girls 'aww'ed in response. "And then he gave me this necklace." She showed the girls both sides of the pendant.
Martha smiled. "He really went all out for you Gabi."
Gabriella smiled to herself, thinking about her boyfriend. "Yeah he did."
The girls spent the rest of their time at the mall talking and enjoying each other's company before they eventually parted ways for the afternoon.
That night during dinner, conversation went as normal before the parents brought up a subject they wanted to discuss. Lucille started the conversation. "So Jakie and Lilly, it's your birthday soon and we wanted to know what you'd like to do to celebrate."
Jacob immediately started to rattle off ideas. "We could go to an amusement park or laser tag or Dave and Busters. We could go to Sky Zone or go bowling or rock climbing."
Jack laughed. "Easy there Kiddo, do you wanna give Lilly a chance to input too?"
Lilliana looked at everyone nervously before looking at Gabriella for help, the older girl holding her hand before responding. "We never really had the opportunity to have birthdays or parties or anything so she's not really used to this."
Troy looked at his sister, hoping to help her. "Well usually for our birthdays we have to choose. We can either go to a big place as a family like an amusement park or sky zone or you can have a party with all your friends doing something smaller at a park or at home or something." Lilliana nodded. "Alright so do you and Jakie want to choose which you'd prefer?"
Lilliana looked at her twin. "You can choose Jakie."
"Can we have a party with our friends at the park?"
Jack looked to his daughter. "Are you happy with that Lil?" The little girl nodded. "Alright then, we'll have your party at the park."