Loaded dice.
Tree hill high school, it was just like your high school. On paper, its purpose was education, in reality, it was all about socialising. At least to the people that mattered anyway.
It had its fair share of cliques, starting at the top there were the elite, then you had the run of the mill jocks and cheerleaders, followed by the drifters, the stoners, the nobody's and the nerds. It was a simple hierarchical chain that existed in every aspect of the world, from the food chain to the way a country was run, why should high school be any different?
The rules were simple, stick to norm, keep with your clique and everything would remain running as it should. And it worked perfectly for years, everything run smoothly as long as nobody upset the hierarchy.
And just like your high school the pupils that resided there were bored. And born from that emotion came the jaded proposal set up on that fatefal warm day from five teenagers who decided it was time to mess with the hierarchy.
Brooke Davis stretched her lean legs out across the bench; displaying a generous amount of her bronzed tan off to the 3 boys she sat with.
"I'm bored." She whined, directing a pout at her curly haired best friend who sat opposite her, letting the dark charcoal in her hand stain her fingertips as she furiously brushed it against the tattered crème pages of her art book. She puffed a blonde lock off her voice by exhaling her breath.
"That makes two of us." Nathan Scott declared as he eyed up a passing redhead in a tight white mini-skirt.
"Three." Jake and Vegas chimed in together as they studied Brooke's legs, not even bothering to note the jinx they made.
"So whose gonna do something about it?" She looked at all four other occupants of the table individually with her mischievous brown eyes, outlined in a thick coating of mascara and highlighted by a dark brush of eyeliner along the lids.
Jake responded with a shrug whilst Vegas muttered a crude proposition to her to which she responded to with a rude hand gesture of her own.
"I bet I could bang her." Nathan declared, watching as the girl in the white mini joined a group of girls and began to giggle, enjoying the attention being obviously bestowed upon her by a member of the elite gang.
"Well duh." Brooke sighed, flipping her dark locks over her shoulder and cringing at the unsubtle way which the girls behaved in. "It's pretty obvious from her reaction that it wouldn't be difficult."
"So?" He tore his blue eyes and focused his intense stare on her hazel eyes.
"So where's the fun in that?" She shrugged. Brooke Davis loved the chase, although she didn't have to do much running. Boys generally came to her, giving her whatever she wanted with a click of her manicured nails. "Don't you like the chase Nate?" She teased, running her tongue along her ruby red lips, enjoying the sensation of him watching its trail with fascination.
She let her tongue slip back into her mouth and his eyes snapped back into focus. "I wouldn't know." He smirked cockily, stretching out his long legs and reaching out his arm to let it rest on Peyton's shoulder. She shrugged out his touch and shot him a look of distaste before resuming her sketching. "Girls flock to me."
Brooke rolled her eyes at his attitude whilst he enjoyed a chuckle with the boys. "How tedious." She feigned a yawn.
"Well there's not a lot I can do about it Brooke." He snapped back at her, before slipping back into his usual cocky demeanour. "I can't help that I'm this hot. I'm irresistible to women."
"Not all women man." Jake commenting with a laugh.
"Lesbians?" Vegas chipped in, earning him a slap across the head from Brooke.
"No." She bit. "Just women with standards." She sniped, throwing Nathan a condescending smile which her smirked back at in return.
"Well then I guess that rules Peyton out." Vegas joked, earning him another slap across his shaven head, this time from the curly Blonde.
"What?" Jake broke in confused, darting a look between the other four who all seemed in on the joke.
"Peyton and Nathan got it on at Tim's party last summer, remember." Vegas recalled the moment in his mind and then quickly pushed it back into the recesses where it belonged.
"Whatever." Peyton sniffed, pointing her chin upwards in a sign of superiority. "I was drunk and it was a momentary lapse in judgement. I claim insanity. I don't know what your excuse is though?" She shot Nathan a dirty look which he returned with as much vigour.
"It wasn't that I was into you that's for sure." He bitched back at her. "It was for the 200 Tim bet me."
"What?" Peyton bristled, taking in the faces of her four friends.
"Yeah." Nathan gloated. "Tim bet me 200 bucks I couldn't get you to hook up with me. It was the quickest 200 I ever made."
"You're an ass!" She snapped, slamming her art book closed and causing dustings of coal and chalk to splatter over the wooden table.
"An ass who got 200 dollars richer thanks to you." He grinned. "Shame, I could do with that cash for this summer." He cocked his head to the side as he considered the state of his finances and the summer vacation he was in danger of having to cancel since his father cut him off for quitting the basketball team.
"Your dad still refusing to pay for you to come to Tijuana with us?" Jake remarked emphatically, genuinely sympathetic for his friend's family troubles. It was well known that Dan Scott was a control freak who loved to lording his power of his son.
"Yeah." He sulked, disliking the thought of spending the whole summer alone with just his father for company whilst his friends enjoying partying and boozing in Mexico without him.
"Oh I am a genius!" Vegas declared, breaking the contemplative silence of the group and disrupting a eavesdropping group of first years into hurriedly rushing away for fear of being bitched out at being caught.
"Hardly." Peyton replied in monotone, instantly disregarding any idea he could have come up with.
Vegas flipped her the bird but pledged on before she could disrupt his announcement with more of her snide remarks. "This is perfect, we get some entertainment, Brooke gets a chance to be proven right and Nathan gets some cash. Everyone's happy."
The four other occupants of the table all sat staring at him curiously. "How so?" Brooke hedged, arching a defined eyebrow up at his declaration.
"I got the idea from the Nathan/Peyton saga." The two bristled at the conjunction of their Christian names with distaste. "I propose a bet."
"A bet?" Nathan scoffed cynically.
"Yeah." He nodded, completely confident in his idea. "Brooke thinks you can't get just any girl, you do." The two brunettes shared a glance with each other before focusing back on Vegas with curiosity. "So I'm willing to agree with Brooke on this one." He sent his best friend an apologetic shrug as his mutter of traitor when he saw Peyton nod in agreement. "So I propose a bet that you can't get a girl from another clique to sleep with you by the mayor's ball." The mayor's ball was then fanciest black tie extravaganza that took place within the small town every year, it was an occasion that saw the old money mix with the new in an interesting spectacle all five had been forced into attending since they hit puberty.
"What do I get if I win?" He narrowed his eyes at his friends who all seemed enthralled by the possibility of something new.
He shared a hurried, whispered exchange with the others that resulted in four rushed nods of agreement.
"We pay for your trip to Tijuana, with expenses." He included.
Nathan contemplated the sparse information that had been divulged and picked up on the part he found most intriguing "Just any girl from another clique?" Nathan spoke up, his curiosity peaked.
Peyton scoffed in an unladylike manner at the idea. "No." She dismissed. "We pick the girl." She gestured between the group and they all beamed wider at the idea, Vegas already doing a quick scan of the vicinity for available girls.
"No lesbians!" Nathan exclaimed, foreseeing the possibility before Vegas could propose it.
"Of course not." Brooke smiled devilishly just as the bell rang out signalling the end of lunch. "So, you in?" She asked, the five of them remaining where they sat whilst everyone else scuttled off around them.
He contemplated all his other possibilities in his head before finally deciding on his answer.
"I'm in." He nodded in agreement, reaching out to shake each of their hands individually, their unique way of committing to a 'contract.'
"Great." Peyton graced them all with the irregular sight of her genuine smile. "Because I happen to have just the right girl in mind."
Nathan didn't have a good feeling about this.