Edit: Just out of curiosity, how many people would be in favor of me creating a little scrapbook with photographs that go along with the story?

Venezia

"Sharpay!" Gabriella shouted as the blonde swept past the grass in the backyard towards the Lombardi garage. Gabriella breathed in a heavy sigh as she traced Sharpay's path, knowing her best friend intended to give her the silent treatment for disregarding her warning of staying away from Antonio.

Sprinting toward the direction she saw strands of blonde hair blowing in, Gabriella managed to follow Sharpay's trail.

"Sharpay, stop being so dramatic!" Gabriella called out weakly as she dodged several trees, scavenging towards the garage.

Gabriella heard the slam of the garage door as the blonde entered inside. Gabriella simply blinked and stood there awkwardly for a couple of seconds before the garage door opened. Out of the garage, the engine revved and Sharpay emerged on a pink Vespa, a studded pink helmet grazing the top of her blonde head.

"Get on bitch, we're going to Venice," asserted Sharpay, pushing the designer glasses that were resting atop her head down onto the tip of her ski-slope nose.

"Chad," Bailee giggled as she pulled on the boy's arm in an attempt to pull him off the scooter. "You can't drive! Troy's gonna! He's been driving this since like two years ago."

"C'mon, man!" Chad sulked, staring up at Troy with sad puppy eyes. "I've driven a truck and a golf cart before, I think I can handle a fricken scooter."

Troy raised an eyebrow in doubt, "You drove a truck?"

"Yeah," Chad lied gracefully, playing with the horn on the Vespa, "Under the Lincoln Tunnel. Now hop on and let Master Danforth lead you to Venezia!"

"And let Master Danforth get lost when he realizes he has no idea how to get there then crash my grandfather's Vespa... hop off, Danforth."

Chad gritted his teeth. "Hop off mah dick, Bolton."

"Hey!" Bailee smacked Chad on the forearm with her map of Venezia, "Stop it!"

Before Chad had any chance to retaliate, a loud squeak from the side of the road interrupted the conversation. The two boys blinked oddly before realizing the squeak came from Sharpay's horn.

"Let's go assholes, hurry it up!" shrieked the prissy blonde with impatience.

Upon noticing a little girl clutching onto Troy's arm, Gabriella reprimanded Sharpay, "Sharpay! Don't talk like that around the little girl."

"Shut up, I'm still not talking to you," Sharpay hissed viciously. Tapping her bright red fingernail against the surface of the Vespa, Sharpay checked her hair in the rearview mirror, doublechecking to make sure her hair complied. Smiling with satisfaction, she pressed on the gas and sped off like a devil, leaving a frightened Gabriella holding on for her dear life.

After buckling Bailee in securely between him and Chad, Troy pressed on the pedal and took off, his eyes focusing on the pink Vespa maniacally maneuvering down the road.

Shaking his head in disbelief, Troy muttered to himself. "No wonder it took her four tries and a tip from her daddy to get her license."

Chad grinned, loving the feeling of the wind fluffing out his 'fro. "C'mon, speed it up Bolton! You're driving slower than mah grandma on her elderly scooter!"

Troy shot Chad a bewildered look. "Those things aren't built to move fast!"

"Watch the road!" Bailee screeched as they narrowly missed a truck. Chad let out a girly shriek, higher in volume than Bailee's.

Troy smirked at Chad's yelp. "What's the matter, Chad? Afraid of trucks? Thought you drove them all the time."

Chad reached out to cover Bailee's ears before retorting, "Eff you, Bolton!"

Bailee squirmed under Chad's touch until he released his palms from her ears. She pointed her stubby index finger towards the Pink Vespa cruising around in lazy semicircles. "Look! She looks like she's gonna crash."

Chad grinned with a dry chuckle, "I would certainly love to see that."

"Dude," Troy responded to the jab, "Not cool. Gabriella's on the Vespa too."

Troy, Chad, and Bailee could hear the loud cackle that erupted from the blonde who drove her Vespa wrecklessly.

Chad chortled. "She must be insane like legally."

"Not gonna argue with that..." Troy trailed off.

A few meters ahead, Gabriella screamed at every swerve and bump.

"WHAT THE HELL, SHARPAY? DO YOU WANT TO DIE?"

Sharpay swerved in front of a Tour Bus, causing the driver to honk and skid to a stop. Sharpay merely snickered at Gabriella's fright.

"C'mon, you rode the Kingda Ka with me ten times! We're cruising at about 40 mph less this time around, so chill the hell out!"

"YOU DRIVE LIKE A MANIAC, SHARPAY!" Gabriella screamed. "FOR GOD'S SAKE, STOP TRYING TO CUT OFF EVERY SINGLE VEHICLE ON THE HIGHWAY AND DRIVE AT A LEGAL SPEED."

"Oh honey, this is Italia. Anything is legal."

Gabriella stared at her, baffled. "NO, ANYTHING IS NOT LEGAL. THIS ISN'T LEGAL IN ANY COUNTRY- AHHH!" Her complains were cut short when Sharpay took a sharp turn, the vehicle sliding sidewards to the point that both Sharpay and Gabriella's knees almost touched the road. Within an instant, Sharpay swerved the vehicle in the other direction, setting the Vespa back upright.

Sharpay whistled, "How sick was that... just like those motorcycle races."

"YOU PSYCHO BITCH!"

After about 15 minutes of driving, the two Vespas found a nearby parking space. Sharpay's Vespa halted to a sharp and abrupt stop. Gabriella released a deep breath and folded her hands, whispering a quick prayer to the heavens for letting her survive the ride of her life.

"Oh, stop being so dramatic. I'm not that bad of a driver," Sharpay defended herself, hopping off the Vespa as Troy's Vespa parked next to hers.

"Keep telling yourself that, Evans," Chad quipped. "I'm pretty sure you were the cause of at least two accidents behind you. Just sayin'."

Sharpay slit her eyes, flipping Chad off. Gabriella breathed in and out in an effort to calm herself before hopping off the scooter. Never in her life had she been so relieved to feel the solid ground beneath her feet as she stood there disoriented.

"I can't believe I'm alive..." whispered Gabriella, running her fingers through her wavy locks. "Oh My God, I survived!"

Troy smiled subtly, finding her fretting both amusing and cute at the same time. Noticing the look on his face, Chad elbowed Troy, urging him to break his stare before she noticed. When Troy failed to comply, Chad rolled his eyes and shook his head in exasperation.

Bailee giggled, earning Gabriella's attention.

Gabriella smiled at the small girl, waving. "Hi there. What's your name?"

"Bailee," She answered in a sing-song voice.

"Well, nice to meet you, Bailee," Gabriella grinned at the adorable girl. "I'm Gabriella."

"I know!" Bailee proclaimed cheerfully, "My cousin won't stop talking about you!"

"Bailee," Troy hissed. Bailey merely shrugged.

Gabriella blushed, a pink tint grazing her cheeks as she sent Troy a shy smile.

"C'mon, we have to catch the next boat ride to Venice," Sharpay ruined the moment, urging the group to follow her.

Chad observed his surroundings, his features forming into a grimace. "No offense, but this isn't how I imagined Venice. I thought everything would be flooded."

"It is, Chad!" Bailee explained. "We're technically not in the heart of Venice yet but we will be when we get off the boat."

Gabriella took note of the green-blue tinted water and the startling difference of it from the royal blue color of the Adriatic Sea.

"The water's pretty dark, too," Gabriella commented as the entire group followed the blonde who sauntered amongst the crowd of stereotypical tourists in cargo shorts and oversized cameras hanging down their necks. As they finally approached the broadwalk, they noticed a ferry-like boat among which tourists were boarding for their excursion of Venezia.

"Venice is a pretty polluted city," Troy commented. "The Laguna Veneta (Venice's Lagoon) is a pretty filthy waterway and you can tell from the tint of the color. They've been trying to clean it up a bit, but it's hard since most of the waste and sewage falls directly into Venice's canals."

Gabriella nodded in understanding. "I've heard about that before. That and the the sea's rising while the land is gradually sinking."

"Yeah, a lot of people have already begun leaving Venice because of that. The floods have gotten worse here as of lately," Troy stated as he crossed the gap between the boardwalk and the boat.

"Really? I thought it was something like in the next century, Venice will be nonexistent-" Gabriella paid little attention to her steps and shrieked when she felt her flipflop slip underneath the gap. Luckily, she felt a pair of strong arms catch her by the waist before the impending fall.

"Careful, there's a gap," Troy whispered into her ear, setting her back on her feet, his hands lingering around her waist a tad longer than necessary. Gabriella's cheeks turned crimson in embarrassment at her clumsy nature before thanking him.

Troy then turned his attention towards Bailee, grabbing her hand and helping her jump across the gap.

"Yay!" Bailee squeaked as she made it over the gap before running toward the nearest seat on the small boat.

"Yo! What is this?" Chad complained, throwing his hands into the air. "I thought were were gonna ride those banana boat thingies."

"Gondolas," Sharpay snarled, her hatred for him incredibly evident as she sat herself down in the back nearest to the motor and farthest from Chad.

Gabriella took the seat next to Sharpay, Troy sitting down next to Gabriella, and Bailee abandoning her current seat to move closer to her cousin, leaving Chad alone.

Chad narrowed his eyes, "Oh, I see how it is. Whatever, there's those guys in striped black and white shirts and funny hats guiding the boat or whatever. Why are we in a regular boat?"

"Later," Bailee replied, confusing Chad even further. Focusing her attention back on Troy, she made an attempt to stimulate a conversation, "So what did you and Chad do last night?"

An awkward silence spread upon the four teenagers as memories from the night before flooded into their minds. Troy restrained the urge to groan while Sharpay cackled loudly, "Yeah, Troy. What did you and Chad do last night?"

"Shut up Sharpay."

Bailee scrunched up her nose and quirked an eyebrow questioningly. "Did you get drunk?"

Troy chuckled at the innocence lacing her voice. "No, Bailee. I didn't get drunk."

Sharpay smirked knowingly. "Oh, he would never," Sharpay said dramatically, her voice dripping with apparent sarcasm.

Sensing the need for a change in topic, Chad jumped in to the rescue with another conversation starter. "So, Sharpay! Pushed anyone off a wharf lately?"

"Screw you Danforth!" Sharpay spit in contempt, attracting attention from many of the passengers on the boat as the motor started running and the boat gradually began moving. "And would you move your gigantic head for God's sake, you're blocking the view of Venice up ahead."

"Why should I?" Chad shot back, his tone matching hers. Gabriella sighed at the continuous banter, wishing they would both remain silent as she attempted to admire the view of Venice.

"Oh God!" Bailee playfully smacked her forehead as all the attention in the boat settled on the blonde and the curly haired boy. She stood up, shifting in between the two parties to act as a buffer.

Gabriella smiled, nudging Troy, "She's so cute."

Troy nodded in agreement. "Yeah, she has everyone in our family wrapped around her finger. She's a smart kid."

"Yeah, she seems smart for her age..." Gabriella trailed off as her voice faded. Noticing the boat moved closer to Venice, her eyes instantly brightened and she felt the urge to take a picture. Reaching into her hobo bag, she pulled out her digital camera.

"The view is so pretty from here; I'm going to try to get a picture," Gabriella explained before standing up, steadying herself against the railing as she felt the boat move up and down when it came across every bumpy wave.

"Don't trip," Troy teased her.

Giggling, she turned her head and stuck her tongue out at him, "Shush."

Turning her head back to the front, she turned on her camera and lifted it up to position it in the right spot. Unfortunately, the waves were rather wild, causing the boat to shake and jolt. This made it hard to remain firm while attempting to capture a picture at the same time.

Gabriella glanced at the image shown in her camera, noticing her hands were shaking. "It's really unsteady. I'm afraid it'll be blurry."

"Here, I'll help," Troy stood up, staggering over toward Gabriella and grabbing onto the railing as he neared to prevent himself from tumbling down. He crept up behind her, placing his hands atop hers, their forearms brushing slightly. Gabriella felt a swirl of emotion rushing through her body at his touch, shivering slightly. Lifting up the camera, he steadied her hands and pressed the button, capturing the picture at the precise angle.

"There ya go," He smiled, placing the camera back into her hands.

"Th-thanks," She said nervously, her eyes scanning the picture that displayed the outline of Venice. She finally broke into a smile, "It's a really nice picture. It's-"

A smile grazed his face as he looked down at the beauty beneath him, "Perfect."

AN: Thank you for all your reviews from the last chapter! Suggestions are always welcome :)