After a few seconds of pure panic, she took a deep breath and opened the door.

Sharpay. Sharpay and not Ryan was standing in her doorway, giving her a sinisterly sweet smile.

"Aren't you going to let me in, Gabriella?" Sharpay asked, still super sweet.

Gabriella stepped back then closed the door behind her. "What do you want, Sharpay?"

"I want to know what you think you're doing with Ryan?" Sharpay replied, looking around Gabriella's house with no readable expression on her face.

"Well I was going to work on a health project with him tonight." Gabriella muttered, putting her gaurd up.

"You know, maybe I was wrong about you. Maybe you and Ryan do belong together." Sharpay practically whispered.

Gabriella was shocked. "OK Sharpay, what do you want! Here to taunt me more? To ruin my chances with your brother? What? I really want to know!"

Sharpay turned around, with a small flicker of what Gabriella thought was hurt in her eyes. "Listen, Gabs, I talked to Ryan earlier and he seems to like you a bit. So I just wanted to make my dear old brother happy! Is that too much to ask!" Sharpay demanded.

Gabriella quickly shook her head. "Oh and if you hurt him, I hurt you. And stay away from Troy Bolton. Got it?"

Gabriella nodded faintly. "Fabulous! Nice chatting with you!"

Sharpay said cheerily and sauntered out of the house.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Later that night, Gabriella and Ryan were sitting on her couch with two different laptops, comparing notes on different brain theories. Gabriella stretched then yawned, she was really tired!

Ryan gave her a sly smirk from his end of the couch, then moved over next to her. She either didn't notice, or pretended not to notice, then absently rested her head on his shoulder while she read what he had written.

"That's grammatically incorrect." She said suddenly, pointing to a sentence in the middle paragraph.

"No it's not!" Ryan replied.

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Ahuh!"

"nuhuh!"

"Ahuh!"

"Nuhuh!"

Then Ryan turned away from Gabriella and back to his laptop, quickly re-reading the sentence.

"Oh, I guess it it..." He murmured sheepishly.

"HA!" Gabriella was victorious! Gabriella really wanted to lean in and kiss him, but had some restraint and decided to lean farther down on his shoulder, so she was under his chin.

He looked down at her and was about to kiss her forehead when he leaped up and pulled his vibrating phone out.

"Speak...Oh hey...no...I thought you were staying longer...but I don't want you to go...listen Erin, I'll be right over...yeah...ok...bye!"

He quickly conversed, then hung up. "I'm sorry but I have to go sort some things out, how about same time tomorrow at my house?" Ryan said over his shoulder while he gathered up all of his stuff.

"Oh yeah, sure!" Gabriella replied brightly, while inside she was hurt.

"See you later then!" He said, rushing out to his car.

Gabriella dragged herself upstairs into bed, reliving the moment between them that had taken place, before stupid Erin had called. She rolled over and drifted off to sleep.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sharpay was shocked when she bumped into Troy in the smoothie line at the mall. She had just come from Gabriella's house, and was now at the mall, hoping to drown her sorrows in material things.

"Oh, sorry." Troy muttered, steadying her on her feet.

"It's alright!" She replied, before she could put up her icyness again.

Troy looked at her in surprise.

"What, no drama?" He asked goodnaturedly.

She gave him a small smile then said: "I don't need to practice my acting on you, now do I?" then turned to walk off but Troy grabbed her arm.

"Do you want to, um, go sit and talk for a little while?" She arched her brow at him then nodded and they set off to find seats.

"So what do you think of Gabriella and Ryan?" Troy asked after a few awkward moments.

"How did you know about them?"

"It was kind of obvious, the way she acted around him. Does Ryan like her back?"

"I'm not sure, he's never said he liked her. Just that he thought she was pretty and really nice."

"Oh, and what do you think?"

"As much as I want to see Ryan happy, I don't want to see him hurt by anyone!"

"Well, okay then. Just asking."

"sorry."

"No problem. Hey, do you want to go for a walk outside or something, I'll walk you home."

"Sure!"

And with that, they abandoned their smoothies and walked out of the mall arm and arm.

I think I'm going to finish this story up in the next chapter. Please review! Let me know what you think! Please!