Tumbling Etceteras - Chapter Eight
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A/N: So sorry again about the delay in updating: life is crazy busy at the moment! Thank you for all of the feedback so far!
Eyes scanning the blur of people bustling around the room, Gabriella walked through the kitchen of Lava Springs before dumping a heaped armful of towels into the laundry basket in the utility room. Her eyebrows crinkled in confusion when Troy failed to materialise; supposedly he had managed to bribe Chad into switching lunch-times with him so that he could eat with her when she finished her shift. As she reached up to get her time-card, she heard scuffling behind her and had to bite her lip to keep herself from smiling too widely when the scent of that ever familiar aftershave wafted under her nose.
"Miss me?" Troy asked, reaching behind her head for his own time-card. Gabriella's eyes merely glittered as she waited for her boyfriend to fill in the answer himself. "Of course you did?" he completed his well-rehearsed flirtation, a suave hum in his voice, and his girlfriend couldn't hold back the coquettish giggle that bubbled in her throat in response. The hairs on the back of Gabriella's neck stood up as her boyfriend leaned in close to swipe his card, a rosy blush dotting her cheeks, both at the sensation of having him so close and at the memories of a few evenings previously. Before she could fully tip her head back to look at him, Troy had scooted away, a mischievous smile on his face. "Hey, have you ever been on a golf course?" he asked a moment later, and Gabriella could tell by the look on his face that he had something planned. Her skin tingled in anticipation.
Gabriella raised her eyebrow, trying to remain coy. "We're employees, Troy, not members. And I don't play golf."
"Who said anything about golf?"
Gabriella opened her mouth to protest but her boyfriend had already disappeared around the corner. Laughing out loud at his mysterious antics, Gabriella scurried after him. She continued to giggle as he stuck his tongue out at her when he glanced over his shoulder. It only took a few seconds for Gabriella to catch up with her boyfriend; tugging on his hand she managed to coerce him into coming to a stop.
"What on Earth are you up to, Troy Bolton?" Gabriella asked with a sly grin as she leaned into his arm.
Troy just shrugged before leaning down to place a soft kiss against her lips. "Why don't you go and get changed, and get your stuff, and then meet me back here in 5?"
"Do I have a choice?"
Troy raised his eyebrow in amusement. "Do you want one?"
Shrugging, a lopsided smile adorning her face, Gabriella laughed softly. "'Kay, you win. I'll be quick!"
"Good, 'cos I only have an hour!"
Gabriella practically skipped into the girls' locker room, and threw her work clothes into her locker before slipping the pink sun-dress that she had worn to work that morning over her head. She fluffed her hair in the mirror, not that there was anything she could really do to her chlorine-hardened hair at that moment, before giving up and rushing back out into the corridor.
The blue-eyed boy awaiting her arrival pushed off from the wall where he was waiting, letting out a low whistle and chuckling when all that Gabriella did was blush. "Well now I feel underdressed," he joked, looking down at his own T-shirt and shorts.
"You should have kept your work clothes on," Gabriella suggested with a giggle, knowing how much he had complained about the starched-shirt and slacks since they had started work the other day.
Troy picked up on her teasing and merely wrinkled his nose in reply. "Funny." He held out his left hand to her, waiting to see how long it would take her to notice the picnic basket and blanket in his right. "Come on, time is of the essence, Missy."
"May I ask what the occasion is?" Gabriella's soft voice was inquisitive as she took in how much effort her boyfriend had gone to.
Troy shrugged bashfully. "I just haven't been able to spend much time with you over the last few days... you're going home for the rest of the afternoon...it's beautiful and sunny..."
Gabriella tilted her head to the side as his slightly husky voice enumerated the reasons. "And I suppose that you can never have too many boyfriend points..."
"Nope, never," he agreed with a laugh.
As he swiped his card against the door to the golf pavilion, Gabriella frowned, her eyes swirling with curiosity. "Are we really going to the golf course?"
Troy's lips twisted in a smirk. "That's what I said, isn't it?"
"But..." She abandoned her sentence when Troy let go of her hand just before they rounded the corner. "Just stay here for a sec, okay?"
Gabriella didn't get a chance to answer. Troy simply laid the blanket and basket by her feet before jogging around the corner and over to the receptionist. Gabriella didn't catch any of what was said; she merely heard the giggles of the middle-aged desk clerk and before she knew it, Troy had returned, brandishing a key that gleamed almost as much as his smile.
Collecting the picnic items again, Troy grasped his girlfriend's hand and tugged on her arm, leading her out of the pavilion and onto the green. "The fourth green should be a good spot," he suggested casually, avoiding her questioning gaze with a cheeky smile.
"Did you just flirt with that receptionist to get us the key?"
Once again dropping his girlfriend's hand, Troy turned to face her with a falsely-innocent expression on his face. "I would never do such a thing!"
Gabriella burst out laughing at the look on his face. "Oh, Troy," she giggled. "What am I going to do with you?"
His head tilted to the side as he smiled slyly at her. "Whatever you want, babe." A wink was all that was needed to make his intention perfectly clear.
Once again, Gabriella's cheeks burned and she shook her head at his antics. "Oh so this is how it is now?" she questioned in amusement. She bit her lip as she took a step closer to him, hoping her voice sounded more daring than she really felt. "I let you touch my boob once and suddenly the romantic dates go out the window and you drag me off to the fourth fairway to make out?" She dramatically reached the back of her hand to her forehead. "I feel so used," she sighed wearily.
When she looked up again, she was amused to find that Troy was now blushing too. She giggled outright at the slight look of trepidation on his face. "I swear this was me being romantic!" he protested when she carried on laughing at him. "I just thought the fourth hole was pretty because you can look out over the rest of the complex."
Gabriella shrugged impishly, stroking her chin with her thumb and forefinger. "A likely story, Mr. Bolton. I know your game."
Troy's jaw moved up and down a few times before he gave up and scowled over at his girlfriend. "I preferred it when you were all shy and couldn't even mention us kissing without having a hernia."
Laughing, Gabriella shook her head slowly. "No you didn't." She stepped closer to him again. "Because when I refused to talk about us kissing..." She paused and looked up at him, her eyes doe-like and wide, "we most definitely didn't do this..." She punctuated her sentence with a tender but firm kiss, reaching up to run her hands through his hair as it deepened slightly.
Troy pulled back dazedly, keeping a safe grip on the small of her back. "That was nice," he murmured somewhat redundantly, ignoring her giggle. "Next time I should just accost you in the corridor; I mean I thought the golf-course picnic would be a nice touch but it doesn't seem that it's necessary anymore..." He pressed a gentle kiss to Gabriella's forehead, letting her know that he was only joking, before stepping back and laying out the picnic blanket. Plopping down, he patted the space next to him. Troy fished inside the basket for a few Tupperware bowls and brandished them proudly.
Gabriella smiled widely. Impressed, she pressed a kiss to her boyfriend's cheek. "This is a lot of preparation for an impromptu lunch date," she mused.
"Well," Troy responded with a small smirk. "I may have bargained with Chad last night, so I had this morning before my shift to get everything ready."
"And to flirt with the desk staff..."
"Well, of course," Troy added with a shy smile. "Doris couldn't possibly let protocol get in the way of young love, or so she said, anyway," he continued with a wink.
Gabriella bit on her lip as she waited to see whether what Troy had really just said was going to register with him. She hoped that her blush didn't give it away. "What I really want to know," she started up a moment later, before coughing to disguise the crack in her voice, "is how you managed to get Chad to give you his lunch-break, when you have only been working for an hour and he has been there since breakfast..."
"He had been saying that he actually prefers to keep going when he's done the breakfast shift, because he just gets sleepy when he takes a long-break....and then I may have offered to do his breakfast shifts next week..."
"Ouch..."
"It won't be that bad..."
Gabriella snorted, causing Troy to glare at her. "It's not that funny!"
"It kinda is; you hate mornings!"
Reclining on the blanket, Troy covered his eyes with his hand. "Yeah, well not all of us are like you, Little Miss Morning Glory!"
Gabriella lay down next to him and rested her chin on his chest. "Doesn't that mean you'll be doing 5 breakfast shifts next week?"
"Yup," Troy agreed despondently, popping his lips to emphasise the final letter.
"Oh, but I'm on late shifts at the end of next week."
Troy didn't have to open his eyes to see her pout. "Yeah, it kinda sucks. But I figure that it won't really matter because we'll both have the weekend off so we can make up for it."
"I suppose that you do make a very good point, Mr. Bolton..."
Troy shivered over-exaggeratedly, easing Gabriella off his chest as he sat up. "That makes me feel like my Dad," he explained. Opening a bottle of still water, he took a long gulp before offering it to her. "You want some?"
Gabriella nodded, taking a sip as she observed her boyfriend pensively. "So," she began warily. "How's kitchen duty?" She cast her mind back to the first day that the entire group had started work, and to the sparks that had flown. They hadn't really expected the general-manager to be such a stickler for rules.
Catching her implication, Troy just shrugged. "Oh, you know, the team that washes dishes together stays together." He rolled his eyes when she sent him a disbelieving look. "You know the guys: they got over it pretty quickly. And the kitchen staff is really cool so when Fulton's not around, it's actually a laugh. What about you?"
"Well today's been pretty awesome: sunshine all morning." Gabriella shifted her gaze from Troy's face; rather conspicuously busying herself opening one of the containers of food that was laid out in front of her. "And, of course, Sharpay doesn't see fit to arise before midday so it was really rather peaceful and easy work." Troy laughed at her innocent expression, and her speedy diversion. "So, my Mom says that summer jobs look good on college applications," Gabriella swiftly continued.
"All part of the frightening concept called our future."
Gabriella winced: what she had hoped would be a diversion from her mini-bitching session seemed to have struck a chord with her boyfriend. Reaching across, she placed a comforting hand on his arm. "Are you worried?" she asked softly.
"College costs a fortune." His uncharacteristic sigh chilled her ear drums. "My parents are saving pennies compared to the people at this place."
"You're a synch for a scholarship." Gabriella encouraged; and it was true. She didn't know a lot about basketball; at least, she hadn't before she had started being friends with Troy. She would have had to be deaf not to have heard the buzz about him around school though. Whilst his friends took it upon themselves to make sure that his ego did not get unnecessarily inflated, every now and again they would say things that made it hard for even a novice to ignore the fact that Troy had something special.
"I'm only as good as what happens next season." He shrugged despondently as he considered his words. "And, I mean; who says that I have to get into college on my ball skills alone? I mean, I've actually done pretty well at school this year..."
Gabriella beamed, taking pride in the row of As that he had received in his end of year exams. "You did more than pretty well! You did awesome!"
An uncharacteristic blush stained Troy's cheek at her praise. "I didn't even have to work Tu,that hard. I mean, sure, I had you to help which played a pretty major part..." As his girlfriend scoffed, Troy purposefully avoided her gaze. "For my whole life, it's been Albuquerque this and New Mexico that; but now I'm thinking that maybe there really is an opportunity for me to look elsewhere." He only paused momentarily before a frustrated sigh seeped past his lips. "But then we get around to the money thing again so..." He looked shyly over at Gabriella, slightly embarrassed of his rant. "I guess what I mean to say is that I always liked the idea of being in charge of my future; until it started happening."
Nodding along encouragingly, Gabriella let him finish before reaching over to squeeze his hand. "So let's just think about right now," she suggested with a warm smile, one that dropped slightly as she pondered her next words. Playing with Troy's fingers absent-mindedly, she timidly added, "because I've never been in one place for an entire summer. And that means a lot to me." Mere seconds passed as Gabriella took a breath, forming a natural break in her speech. In those mere seconds, her eyes met her boyfriend's. Recognition glimmered in his blue orbs, recognition that was dimmed by nervousness. Gabriella's mouth opened to complete the sentence, feeling more than a little boosted by the knowledge that Troy felt the same. "Especially being here with..."
"...such an amazing PB&J sandwich maker..." Troy didn't know why he had interrupted. All that he knew was that a split second later his heart had sunk, partly in recognition of the fact that he had blown a perfect chance to maybe test the waters with the 'l' word – here his heart sank again: was that really what it was? On the other hand, though, his heart was dragged even further down in his chest by the sheen of embarrassment, and -was that disappointment that he detected?- that was glossed over his girlfriend's usually glowing eyes. His cheeks burned at his lack of tact.
Gabriella ducked her head, feeling slightly rejected. At first, the proclamation had merely been instinctive, something that felt right in the moment. Behind it, Gabriella was well aware, something bigger, something more profound, had been lurking. It had felt like the moment to test the waters. His interruption had suggested that perhaps it hadn't been. Nevertheless, she had been surprised when Troy refused to let go of her hand when she tried to make pretence of opening her sandwich bag. Realising that he was probably waiting for some sort of reaction, she bashfully lifted her eyes. "I want to remember this summer, Troy," Gabriella stated simply, hoping that her meaning was clear. When she met his eyes again properly, she was surprised to find more understanding in them than his prior interruption had suggested.
Smiling softly, embarrassment circling his own features, Troy leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers. "Me too."
As he pressed their lips together, there was no mistaking one simple fact: he wasn't just referring to the summer.