I FEEL ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE FOR NOT UPDATING THIS FOR SO LONG, I'M SO SORRY! I've been working on I Want and the chapter of First Time I posted was so bad and I got like one review and I felt like if I updated this it'd be just as bad. I am so sorry and I hope that people haven't given up on this cause it's still love it to be my big debut into FacFic society.

This chapted is sort of long (for me) so I hope it just sort of begisn to amke up for the horrible thinbg i did by not updating, i have told peopel that i ahve a problem with commiting to stuff and this is just a huge example of that, I am so sorry and I'll really try to stcik with this for as long as it takes to finish. I hope this chapter isn't too confusing and that it's still in a similar style to the previous ones, considering the huge gap between whe i wrote them it could be marginally different.

My (in)famous DISCLAIMER: okay, so I'm sorry but my group of friends (inclduing me) is over Norfy Caz (ie, Zac Efron) now so I can't make my disclaimers all about him. I still haven't put that poster up yet (the one that i mentioend in the last chapter in one of my A/N's, but the one of Jesse McCartney is up now... right above my head (pathetically enough I'm not joking)), but it's considerably smaller than the Zac Efron one and I seriously don't have the guts to put it up. Anyway, i still don't own HSM, and also didn't have the guts to put it on my Christmas list... I'm such a wimp.

Gabriella showered quickly, then stood in her room considering her choices of outfits for dinner. She wanted to look good, but she didn't want it to look like she wanted to look good; how could she do that? Carefully.

She hoisted her towel further up her body, just in case anyone did suddenly walk into her room for no reason. Opening her wardrobe, she glanced through the clothes hanging in it. There was a vast assortment of dresses, some fancy, some sleek, some embarrassing poofy ones that she had no idea how they got there and some casual ones, but none of them seemed to suit the occasion. She closed the door with a slam and turned to the drawers next to it. The drawer slid open easily, and, as if she was meant to find it, a white top sat on top of the mess of shirts, newly washed. Gabriella picked it up, vaguely remembering wearing it to Taylor's house a few weekends ago. She held it out critically, it was reasonably low-cut, so could pass off as semi-formal, but not overly revealing.

Gabriella nodded at her choice and grabbed a pair of black shorts off the floor from the pile of clothes her mum had left for her to put away. Getting dressed swiftly, she studied herself in front of the mirror. She brushed her hair quickly, already having dried it, and pulled it up in a loose, low ponytail.

A sharp knock sounded on the door, causing Gabriella to jump from her state of trance-like obsession with looking at herself in the mirror.

"Gabi!" Her mother's voice came softly through the door. "Gabi!" Gabriella looked at the door, trying to decide whether or not to answer.

"Yeah?" her voice was just as soft and quiet as her mother's.

"Are you ready to go? We're due at Lucy and Jack's in 20 minutes." Silence. "Gabi?" Gabriella sighed, and kept her eyes on the door as it opened a crack and saw Elena's head pop into the room. "Are you alright?" Gabriella shrugged, then shook her head, then nodded.

"I don't know… do I look… okay?" Elena had an understanding expression on her face.

"You look beautiful." Gabriella smiled at her mum.

"Thanks."

"Troy will love it." Gabriella's eyes widened.

"Huh?" Elena's smile grew wider.

"Don't worry, I won't say a thing." She patted Gabriella's hand and left the room again, her daughter gaping openly at her.

"Great… even my mum knows." Gabriella muttered to herself as she stood and followed Elena out of the room, grabbing her bag on the way.

---

Once she'd arrived at the Bolton's house, Gabriella instantly felt embarrassed about her outfit. As un-dressy as it was, she still felt over-dressed in it, and desperately wished that she'd thought of bringing a jacket. Elena sat in the living room, talking with Lucy and Jack lightly, all of the adults completely ignoring the awkward silence between their children.

"So… what are you doing in maths right now?" Troy attempted to start some sort of conversation.

"Um… right now I think we're doing more algebra, but it seems like we're always doing something algebra-related in maths, so it hardy counts as a topic." Gabriella eagerly seised the chance at some essence of normality, and was happily surprised when Troy chuckled lightly, obviously actually at least a little bit interested in the topic of conversation.

"Yeah, we're doing some sort of… wiat, what was it?"

"Knowing what you do in class might actually require listening in class, so it's understandable that you have no idea what topic you're doing." Troy chuckled again and eased himself back into his armchair. Gabriella felt her eyes uncontrollably flicker to the bit of tanned skin revealed at the hem of his shirt before hurriedly tearing her gaze back to his face, disgusted at herself for looking.

"Yeah, probably. But seriously, why do so much algebra; I could swear we've been learning it since pre-school…"

"And yet you still don't understand it. Troy, you probably couldn't even do primary school algebra." Troy put on an expression of mock-hurt.

"Ouch, I feel very offended and betrayed. You call yourself my friend…" he trailed off to muttering incoherently, and the effect may have worked except that Gabriella kept catching random words like "basketball", "hair" and at some stage "toilet". She raised her eyebrows and resisted laughing as Troy's words became even quieter and more random.

"When have I ever called myself your friend?" Troy stopped muttering and looked up, then let a puzzled look onto his face. He scratched his head as if he was thinking hard, counted on his fingers and nodded as if he knew what he was doing. When he'd stopped 'thinking' he put on a serious expression and looked Gabriella directly in the eyes. She knew he was going to say something stupid, she really did, but it was impossible to help getting into a slightly serious mood; after all, he was looking her in the eyes. Troy took a deep breath and prepared to speak.

"Never." Gabriella fell back into her chair shaking her head; she knew it was going to be a stupid answer. But she couldn't help smiling as Troy continued looking at her directly in the eyes, obviously trying to hold back a smile. "I honestly don't think anyone has ever walked up to me and said "you're my friend," but Chad might of… I'm not sure." Gabriella laughed and finally let herself relax, she'd been stupid to think that it' be awkward between them, it was only her with these weird confused half-feelings, so why would Troy have any reason to act awkward?

"Does anyone actually do that, cause if they do then I don't gave any friends."

"Oh, I've noticed." Gabriella glared at Troy as he smirked at his own joke.

"Ha ha ha." She said sarcastically, and Troy just smirked harder.

"But back to the subject of this conversation. When will anyone ever use 12 years of algebra in their later life? When?"

"You said we started learning it in preschool, so it'd be more than 12 years." Gabriella pointed out.

"That's beside the point. When?" Gabriella rolled her eyes.

"In heaps of jobs."

"Like what?" She glared at Troy again and saw an evil smirk playing on his lips; she knew he didn't want her to answer, so began answering.

"Architect, computer programmer, any type of salesman, business manager, store owner, teacher, scoreboard-"

"There's actually a job being a scoreboard?"

"No, that one was a joke."

"Oh."

"Yes."

"It wasn't very funny."

"I know. Shut up."

"But I won't need it if I become a profession basketballer. Is that a word?" Troy glanced over at their parents briefly, then looked back at Gabriella.

"I don't think it is, no. And you will need algebra in basketball."

"Name one time when I'd need it in basketball." Troy challenged, leaning forward again to attempt to intimidate Gabriella more.

"Um, let's think. To add up your score, duh." Gabriella said, emphasising the 'duh'.

"Nup. That's not algebra. Two plus five equals…" He paused.

"Seven."

"Yeah, seven, no algebra there, simple plus."

"Addition."

"Do I look like I care?" Troy pointed to his smirking face and Gabriella shrugged in response to his question.

"What about… if Troy scored four point and Chad scored ten-"

"Chad would never score more points than me." Troy challenged jokingly.

"Well in this hypothetical he can." Troy grumbled to himself but said nothing, further, so Gabriella continued. "-And you need to find out how many points were scored in total."

"What about everyone else on the team?"

"It's a two person team."

"I never play with Chad when we do two-on-two, we'd always win if we did." Gabriella rolled her eyes.

"Troy, it's a hypothetical." He shrugged, obviously thoroughly unconvinced hat such a flawed hypothetical could actually be useful in his life. "So you use algebra to figure it out."

"No you don't, you just do my score plus Chad's, one number plus another number, it's not algebra." Gabriella groaned.

"That's not the point."

"Yes it is." Tory argued, his eyes glinting excitedly as he prepared himself for the argument.

"No it isn't!" Gabriella raised her voice slightly.

"Is!" Troy matched her tone.

"Is not!" She spoke a little louder.

"Is!" again he matched her.

"Isn't!" now Gabriella began to yell.

"Is!"

"IT ISN'T TROY!" she yelled at him, causing all of the parents to turn and look at her. She instantly felt the blood run to her cheeks and looked down at her knees in embarrassment.

"What isn't?" Troy asked innocently, the adult still looking between him and Gabriella.

"Nothing." She mumbled. Troy smirked and settled back into his armchair.

I know that was ultra confusing, but it was supposed to be a playful, friednly arguement, Troy was just windignb Gabriella up, he really does like her I promise. I'm sorry if i've chnaged the characters a little since the other chapters, but i will read over them and see if i can get closer to how they used to be. If you're still reading this after the enormous wait I am so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so grateful because you didn't lose faith in me, thank you!