Hey! It's me again! Sorry for taking so long to update everyone… but I think you'll find it was worth it… I really like writing this chapter and I think you're going to like it too!

CHAPTER 9: SURPRISE!

Gabriella shut her eyes momentarily in frustration, 'You have got to be kidding me! Two seconds! Two seconds is all I needed! Thanks a lot mum!" She looked over at Troy, who was staring at the ground, a slight blush on his cheeks. Gabriella turned to look at her mum, putting on a half smile.

"Hey mum…" she said, slightly glumly.

"Hi honey… I'm not interrupting something, am I? It's just I thought I heard you two out here, so…" replied Ms. Montez, unsure of what to say.

"It's okay mum… you're not interrupting… we were just… we were…" started Gabriella, slightly embarrassed.

"Erm… I-I took Gabriella for some shopping and a movie, and well we just arrived back here…" continued Troy, not really looking at anyone… 'Why does this always happen? Why can't we have like two minutes alone, without anyone or anything interrupting?'

"Yeah… erm… Troy was just going to bring in my shopping… but... you know what?" said Gabriella turning to look at Troy, "… I think I can take it from here… I'm sure Troy's got plenty of other things to do… thanks a lot for today Troy… it was wonderful…"

Gabriella held her hands out for Troy to pass over her shopping bags and Troy looked up at her, uncertainly…

"Well… um… actually… I-I don't… I-I was going to… erm…" Troy looked over at Ms. Montez, silently appealing for her help… Gabriella was unintentionally sending him away.

"Actually Gabriella… I thought Troy could stay around for a bit… there's something I want to show you…" spoke up Ms. Montez, looking over at Troy, and Troy thanked her silently. Ms. Montez just smiled at him, before turning back to Gabriella, "Come on honey… there's something that you should see…"

Gabriella looked at her mother and then over at Troy… she was unsure of what was going on, but she was fairly certain they were both in on it… Troy was looking away again… suddenly fascinated by the glow from the front light. Gabriella rolled her eyes at him, wondering what he could possibly be up to now, before turning back to follow her mum inside, Troy following after. Her mum led her down the hall and over to the direction of the lounge room, Gabriella furrowed her eyebrows in confusion… 'Why are all the lights off?'

"Mum… how come there aren't any lights on-."

"SURPRISE!" yelled several voices at once, causing Gabriella to jump back in fright… jump back right into the arms of Troy, who held onto her to stop her falling over.

Gabriella clutched onto Troy with one arm, putting the hand of the other up to cover her racing heart. Her action was met with waves of laughter as everyone laughed at her reaction to the surprise… she looked up at Troy to see him grinning at her, laughing along with everyone else… Gabriella turned back to look at everyone… the whole group was there Taylor, Chad, Kelsi, Jason, Zeke, Sharpay and Ryan.

Gabriella disentangled herself from Troy, walking forward towards the group, a smile spreading on her face as her initial shock was replaced by realization, 'Oh wow! A surprise party!'. She looked around the room, suddenly noticing the decorations… there were balloons floating in the air, and a big banner reading 'Happy 16th Birthday' in big colourful letters.

"Oh my goodness! You guys! You didn't have to do all this for me!" cried Gabriella, putting a hand to her mouth in shock.

"We know we didn't, but we wanted to… we know you haven't been in Albuquerque long and we're probably the closest friends you have so… we wanted it to be special!" replied Taylor, on behalf of the group.

"Oh my goodness… thank you all so much! It's fantastic, I love it!" said Gabriella, walking forward and pulling Taylor and the other girls into a hug.

"Really Gabriella, it was nothing…and well… as much as we'd like to take credit for all of this… it was really all Troy's idea…" spoke up Kelsi, after Gabriella had released them from her hug.

"Yeah… we really only came to set the place up, while Troy kept you busy for the day… so you should really be thanking him…" added Sharpay, grinning broadly.

Gabriella raised her eyebrows at this, and whipped around to face Troy.

"You… did this…? This was your idea?" asked Gabriella quietly, walking slowly towards him. Troy dropped Gabriella's shopping next to the wall and took a slow step toward her, shrugging his shoulders slightly and nodding.

"You really thought this whole day through… you planned a whole day for me and also planned a party too… all for me…" Gabriella now stood right in front of him… looking into his eyes… the rest of the room was silent, watching the interchange between the two, 'almost' sweethearts.

They could have been as noisy as animals in a zoo, for all the notice Gabriella and Troy took though. They had completely forgotten that anyone else was in the room. Troy looked at her silently… tracing her features with his eyes… he shrugged again, not trusting himself to speak.

"The card… the breakfast… the concert… the mall… and now… this…" continued Gabriella, almost whispering now.

A small smile spread onto Troy's lips as a thought occurred to him.

"I didn't plan everything… I didn't plan the photo booth…" he said softly, blushing slightly, "… that one was a spur of the moment thing…"

Gabriella giggled slightly as she remembered the photo booth… she subconsciously brought her hand up to her lip, running her finger along it as she remember the feel of Troy's lips there… Troy watched her, as she caressed her lip… he was barely breathing now, his heart was thumping… he wanted so bad to just kiss her right there.

Gabriella looked at him, her eyes locked with his… she slowly moved her finger from her lip and put her hand up to touch his cheek… she could feel her heart pounding as she slid her fingers gently down his cheek, before allowing them to trace a soft path along his lips the same as they did hers, just a second before.

If Troy wasn't breathing before… he definitely wasn't now… he closed his eyes momentarily as he felt Gabriella's fingers on his face… his skin heating to her touch. He felt her hand brush back up to cup his cheek and he opened his eyes to see her lean slowly towards him… he could feel her breath, soft on him, as she opened her mouth to whisper…

"Troy… my answer is yes… I'd love to be you're girlfriend…"

Troy felt his heart stop at her words, a smile playing softly on his lips. Gabriella smiled too… moving her hand up behind his head and pulling him towards her. Troy stepped closer to her, wrapping his arms around her waist and gently pressing their lips together. Gabriella brought up her other hand to lightly caress his cheek, before wrapping both her arms around his neck… deepening the kiss as she did so.

The two stood there, together, kissing in the middle of the room… having blissfully forgotten that they shared the room with eight other people… all of whom had stood silently, watching the whole display…

Wow… that was a little intense, lol! Tell me what you think in a review everyone! I love hearing from you all!