"Hello, this is Pizza Hut, may I take your order?"

Taylor bit her lip to stop herself from talking. This was weird. This was not normal. This did not happen everyday. This was any other way of saying not right. Yet, here she was, calling the pizza place. Despite her top row of teeth clenching her mouth shut she still spoke "Yes, is a Chad working there today?"

"Yes mam, he sure is."

"Do you mind putting him on the line?"

"One second."

She couldn't believe this. She was calling the pizza place to say sorry. She was calling to tell a guy she barely knew that she was sorry how her boyfriend had behaved. This was crazy, and what if he freaked out on her. What if he was angry? What if he stopped coming to her apartment? Even worse, what if he thought this was weird, stalkerish even.

"Hey, this is Chad."

She quickly hung up and threw the phone across the room onto the couch, barely missing Gabriella who had just walked in carrying groceries.

"Woah!" Gabriella cried, "I didn't mean it, whatever I did."

Taylor sighed and grabbed the groceries from her friends arms, "It's not you, that was the pizza place."

"Well what did they do wrong?" Gabriella asked, confused as she walked towards the fridge and opened it, "Raise the price again?"

Taylor glared at that memory, she tended to get angry and lash out at people when things like that happened. It had been a dark day when they raised the prices.

"No, I was trying to talk to the pizza guy that came to our place that one time."

"The one you stripped for?" Gabriella grinned as she placed the eggs in the fridge.

"Yeah that one, well he came again and…" Taylor went off to describe the whole scene to him. Skipping the part before, she knew Gabriella would get really angry if she gave those details. By the time she was done ranting about the whole thing she had washed the dirty dishes, made coffee, and was now sitting at the table watching Gabriella dry.

"I feel like I need to apologize to the guy, Gabriella." Taylor said sipping her coffee.

"Taylor, he is the pizza guy, it's not like you guys are even friends, let alone know each other. What you really should do is smack your lame boyfriend across the head and tell him that you don't come with a collar and leash."

She chose to ignore that comment and went on, "Yes but, he was rude and didn't even tip him. Maybe I should call the pizza place again and talk to him this time." She reached for the telephone, but Gabriella got to it first.

"Helllllz no. You are on 24 hour Phone Watch. What's gotten into you, T?"

"Nothing."

Gabriella eyed her best friend, ""Is this boy cute?" Taylor instantly became defensive, and started wringing her hands thinking about him and how cute he really was.

"What does that have to do with anything!? I'm baseing this off the fact that Cody was rude and I should apologize…and tip him."

Gabriella shook her head, unconvinced. "No, no, you see, Cody is always rude, pushy, even mean, and you always feed these lame excuses out for him. But not this time. This time, all of the sudden, he was out of line. So I'll ask again…is this boy cute?"

"It's not about that. He was nice! Gabriella when he came to the door the first time and I answered in a towel, he didn't even look at my chest! Even YOU would have stared!"

"I stare all the time, they are huge."

"Not helping."

"Sorry. All I'm saying is, you have a thing for our pizza delivery boy. That's kinky. I'm pretty sure there are about 200 porno videos based off of that scenario alone."

"Like you would even know!"

"Just saying."

"He didn't even tip him!"

Gabriella rolled her eyes, "So next time he comes, give him a big tip," she couldn't help but wink after and pucker her lips up.

"Next time, right! I'll just order pizza in a couple days…and then I'll apologize and everything! Gabriella, you are a genius." And with that she leaned over, kissed her cheek, and ran out the door so she wouldn't be late for practice.

The balance beam is the hardest event to do because half of it is mental. That is why it was Taylor's favorite. You had to defeat the bar before you could even begin your routine. If there was any doubt in your mind that you couldn't stay on the bar, you were going to fall. You had to center yourself, focus totally on your steps to stay on. Lately, that had been Taylor's

problem. Every time she got on that bar she became jittery and unfocused, like something was missing. She couldn't even do the simplest trick without slipping, or losing her balance. She groaned as she washed the last of the chalk off of her in the shower, a process that took an hour sometimes. Usually she had something she thought of to calm herself, to steady herself before she started the routine. But lately she had nothing to think of, nothing worked. To cheer herself up, she had given in. She had tried her hardest to hold out but she couldn't any longer. She had ordered pizza. However, the first guy to come was not Chad.

"Hey, sweet cheeks," the random guy with a lip ring and a Mohawk said to Taylor as he handed her his pizza. "That will be eight dollars."

She had looked at him with a blank stare, "Who are you?" she asked rudely.

She guessed that she had looked psycho by the look he gave her, "Uh the pizza guy?" he said motioned towards his uniform, "Did you order a larger pepperoni pizza?"

She started to panic, "Is Chad working today?"

He, at this point, looked uncomfortable. He probably had thought that she was some cereal killer, aimed at murdering pizza boys. "Uh, he was already on a delivery…they sent me."

"That's not my pizza," was all she could manage to say before she slammed the door angrily in his face.

She laughed as she rubbed soap on her sore legs, the poor guy probably thought he escaped torture and being chopped up by a thread. She had gone straight back to the phone and ordered again, praying that Chad would come this time. She had been disappointed yet again when a butch woman with a shaved head answered the door. Afraid for her life, she had literally thrown the money at the woman and slammed the door before she could even be offered the pizza. She thought, as she massaged conditioner into her hair, that she might have gone a little overboard with the next guy that showed. He looked sweet. She also thought she may have gone overboard with ordering pizza a third time. But when he showed up, not being Chad, she temporarily lost it.

"DON'T YOU PEOPLE KNOW WHO TO SEND? I THOUGHT CERTAIN PEOPLE WORKED THE AREA! WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!?"

He looked visibally shaken, "Uh…pepperoni?"

"UGHH!" And with that…she might have thrown the stupid pizza over the ledge before marching back into her house.

She was now on her fourth freaking pizza order. She stepped out and made sure she got dressed before it got there. She also blow dried her hair…and then for some reason put on make up. When the door bell finally rang Taylor jumped and practically ran to the door. She didn't think she would be able to handle it again if it was not him. It was starting to get weird. Nope, she was pretty sure it had gotten weird two pizza's ago. She promised herself that this was her last try. However, when she opened it, a little to eagerly, there he was, grinning at her.

"Word at my work is there is a psycho girl that has ordered four pizza's today and shut the door on three of the guys,"

Taylor was trapped, so she was already known as the psycho girl. She wondered why he didn't look freaked out by that. She decided it was best to play it off so she flung her hands up casually, "They just didn't have what I wanted."

"Pepperoni pizza?" She smiled that crooked smile he showed her last time and her heart jumped a little.

"Ya I guess you could say that." They both stood there, wondering what to say next. She really should have planned this out better. Wrote stuff down on note cards, anything.

"So, is your boyfriend here?' She looked up to see him wink at her. Usually she would have taken that as a guy inviting himself in. However, his tone no where near showed that. So she smiled, "He isn't feeling pizza much these days."

"Well maybe it's for the best, he's a lousy tipper."

She took that as her cue to grovel, "I'm so, so, so sorry about that by the way, that was so rude of me--"

"Hold on, if I remember correctly he handed me the money," Chad said giving her a look. He seemed to be studying her, waiting for what her answer would be. His eyes fixed on hers, staring intensely like he just wanted to crack whatever code held her together.

"Yes but I should have--"

Chad held his hand up, "Don't apologize for him, he was just being…" He searched for a word as to not offend, "A defensive boyfriend. I would be too if I had you."

She tried hard not to smile, but it happened anyway, "You flirt like this with all your customers?"

"Nah, not the guys," He grinned at her again and let out a chuckle. She laughed with him. When she looked up she saw he had a strange expression on his face, she could only describe it as wonder and amazement. It made her try to guess what was going on in his head, why he was staring at her like that. It made her feel uncomfortable, but in a good way. A vulnerable way. Wow, if he did flirt with all his customers like this, he would get into trouble with a lot of "defensive" boyfriends.

Finally, she got to hear his voice again. "You never did tell me your name, unless you were named after your mom's favorite letter in the alphabet, I feel it's unfair that you know mine and I don't know yours."

She smiled, "You could guess. Since you know it starts with a T."

"Oh we are going to do it this way then, huh?" He said playfully

"Yep."

She watched as his face focused in concentration. His eyebrows knitted together and he looked at the floor. A smile tugged on her lips when she saw him, he looked totally adorable. "Tina?" he guessed

"Nope."

'Tanya?"

"Sorry."

"Tia, Tamera?" he seemed to be getting desperate.

"I'm not washed up Disney twins."

"We will be stuck here all day." he threw his free hand up in the air in surrender.

"Well we have pizza, so we won't go hungry." she answered playfully, leaning against her door frame.

Chad smiled, "I would get fired if they found out I canoodled a customer into giving me a slice."

"Oh, well we cant have you out of work can we. How else would we get in touch?"

"I know, with such a lack of technology these days, communication is almost impossible."

She giggled. Gosh, she was starting to feel like Gabriella. She blushed at the thought of her being such a girl. She was usually more confident and together around guys. Who knew all it took was a couple slices of pizza and she was toast. Suddenly she realized he had been holding her pizza the whole time.

"Oh! I'm so sorry, I must be keeping you," She said handing him a stack of bills.

He stared at her deeply again for a few moments, like he had figured part of her out. She found herself embarrassed by whatever he had concluded, like she wished she could be more around him. "Do you always apologize for things that you shouldn't?" he asked her. His tone took on one of frustration, but not of her, of her actions, of her quickness to apologize. He felt it ridiculous

She was a little taken aback by that comment, no one had ever looked or spoken to her like that, "You don't even know me," was all she could think to say.

He let out a small sigh, "I know, that's unfortunate." He looked down and counted the money, his fingers paused, and his eye brows did that thing again, then he counted it again.

"This is way too much." He started to hand her back almost half of the bills but she reached out and grabbed his hand. Though sparks did not fly, nor did cliché bolts of electricity go between them, but there was definitely a fondness and warmth in their touch, which made both of them not want to let go. Taylor spoke first, a little breathless, "No, please take it. Think of it as an apology for last time."

"Don't apologi--"

"Please?" she gave him a look that made his knees shake, and suddenly it seemed like his heart had started beating for the very first time. He let out a sigh of defeat, how could you argue with a girl who was capable of such looks, of changing his mood with one glance, "Fine."

Taylor reluctantly made her way back through her door frame as Chad turned to go. He tucked the pizza case under his arm and stuffed his hands in his pocket. He was about to make his way down the stairs.

"Taylor," she said.

"What?" he turned quickly, almost like he had been hoping she would say something else, prolong the conversation.

"My name, it's Taylor." She watched it register on his face. His smile seemed even more brilliant than she had seen yet. Almost like she had given him a present.

"Taylor…" she liked how it sounded coming out of his mouth, "that was my next guess." And with another wink. He was gone.