Get'cha Head In The Game!

16. the aftermath

It had been exactly a week, eight hours and thirty minutes since Chad and Ryan had started dating. Chad was keeping score of the time. The weird thing? Not Chad's obsession with Ryan, but the fact that no one knew they were. Neither of them were closeted, and they weren't hiding it, if for hiding you meant refraining from making out in one of the bathroom stalls on the first floor. Two times. But no one had asked about it yet. And that pissed Chad off.

Why couldn't someone just ask him? When Troy and Gabriella got together they were the talk of the school and everyone in their friend group kept on bombarding them with questions about their relationship, and everyone told them they looked so good together and Troy was so lucky and he was a nice guy and Gabriella was so pretty and. Why wasn't this happening to them? They'd held hands a couple of times when Troy and the other guys were around. Kissed, even, once. Ok maybe it was just a kiss on the cheek but still. Chad was certainly feeling a little jealous of 'troyella' (as Taylor called them), but he was mostly worried about the implications of the treatment he and Ryan were getting. Maybe his friends weren't asking about it because they didn't like that Chad was dating a man. Maybe they were annoyed or slightly disgusted by it so they were trying to ignore them. And that pissed Chad off even more.

It had been exactly a week, twelve hours and thirty four minutes since Chad and Ryan had started dating. Chad was tapping his right pointer on the cafeteria table repeatedly and rubbing his chin with the other hand, Ryan was feeding him a sandwich by taking little pieces apart with his hands and taking them to the brunette's mouth.

Chad stopped tapping his finger and distanced himself from a floating piece of sandwich. "Ok guys." Troy, Gabriella, Kelsi, Zeke, Jason, Taylor and Ryan all turned to him. "Why aren't you guys saying anything? You haven't been saying anything. You've been saying nothing. At all."

Troy swallowed the pasta he was chewing on. "Chad, my beloved, could you be a little bit more specific?"

Chad turned towards Troy and squinted his eyes. "You know what I'm talking about, Bolton."

Troy chuckled. "I really don't, Danforth."

Chad sighed. If they weren't gonna say anything about it, he would. "Hello? Me and Ryan? Ryan and me? Chad Danforth and Ryan Evans? Famous and talented basketball player Chad Danforth and his counterpart award winning dancer, singer and actor Ryan Evans?"

"If you're being so dramatic it has to be something serious."

"Of course it is dude! Are you stupid?"

Taylor brought a hand to her forehead. "Chad, for the love of God, will you just tell us what you're going on about?"

"You guys can stop being assholes. Can you seriously just stop? I'm obviously talking about me and Ryan dating."

"What." The entire table gasped.

" 'what'? Guys.. I'm feeding him a sandwich. With my hands. I'm wearing his ugly worn out basketball hoodie."

"So you guys are together." Zeke laughed. "And you were mad at us because we didn't assume you guys were dating?"

"I mean-"

It was Jason's turn to laugh now. "What, you thought we were like- homophobic or something? Half of the people sitting at this table are queer."

Ryan patted Chad's back. "I told you they wouldn't care."

"But- but when Troy and Gabi got together you guys were all like happy and up in their business!"

"Well Chad, if maybe you had, I don't know, TOLD US, we would've been!" Troy shook his head.

Chad crossed his arms and mumbled something incomprehensible.

"You don't seem surprised." Gabriella turned to Kelsi.

"Oh, I already knew about it, Ryan texted me immediately after they kissed with a bunch of typos and keysmashing."

Ryan made himself small in his seat, red as a pepper.

"Well," Zeke said to divert the conversation "how long have you guys be going out?"

"A week, twelve hours and forty two minutes."

The whole table turned to Chad. "You've been counting the minutes?!"

"That's actually so cute." Ryan chuckled.

Lunch was over, class was over, rehearsal was over. Sharpay was sitting on the piano on stage, Kelsi was scribbling on a piece of construction paper.

"So." Sharpay started, a bundle of nervs. "We've kissed two times."

Kelsi smiled. "We sure did."

"So I was wondering... how about we do like Ryan and Chad?"

Kelsi looked up from the scrap of paper.

"I mean... like... we get together? Like 'dating' together?"

Kelsi's face lit up. She couldn't believe it, it almost felt surreal. To somehow reach that unobtainable girl she had dreamed about holding for so long. "Yes. That would make me so happy."

They kissed again for the third time on that stage, near that piano. And it was perfect and it wasn't rushed or awkward, it was just what Sharpay had wished her third kiss, and all the kisses after that to be like.

"Oh God. This means I'm gonna have to reject Zeke."

"You haven't done it yet?!"

"I just.. don't know how to tell him."

"Well, I think 'I'm a lesbian' could be a good starting point."

A/n
Hi friends, it seems we've reached the end! This was not the longest of stories compared to the average length of a fanfic, but it was my first so I don't think it's too bad. Thanks for taking your time to read my stuff, I hope you enjoyed it and let me know what you think!