Life As We Know It
Chapter 1 ~ Minus the Love

August 2007

Haley glanced at the clock on her bedside table as she applied a final coat of gloss to her lips before recapping the tube and setting it back on her vanity. 6:23 pm. Her date was supposed to be picking her up at 6:30 and the closer it got to that time, the more nervous Haley was becoming.

She didn't even know the first thing about the man who was taking her out, besides his name- Nathan. Against her better judgment, Haley had allowed her friend Brooke to set her up with an old friend of her boyfriend's, who had apparently grown up in Tree Hill before moving away for awhile. He was back in town and looking for love, as Brooke had said. Haley wasn't so sure he was going to find love on his date with her, but she figured it couldn't hurt to do her very best friend a favor. How bad could it be?

The clock was now reading 6:27, so Haley took one last glance in the mirror, made sure her honey brown hair was still falling in perfect ringlets around her shoulders, smoothed out the invisible wrinkles in her plum colored dress, and made her way into her living room to wait on Nathan, who would be arriving at any minute.

Or so she thought. The minutes passed slowly as Haley anxiously focused on the digital display of her cable box. 6:30, 6:31, 6:33, 6:35, 6:40, 6:50, 7:00, 7:13. At 7:15, Haley allowed herself to be pissed at him for being late to pick her up for their first date, Brooke for setting her up with someone who couldn't even show up to pick her up on time, and herself for agreeing to go on the blind date in the first place.

He was going to stand her up, but maybe it was for the best anyway. Haley wasn't really looking for a relationship. She was focusing most of her time and energy on her business, a small cafe in downtown Tree Hill that she had been running for the last three years. Her success with the cafe was growing and she was looking to expand the tiny little coffee shop into a full restaurant, so she had very little free time to devote to dating.

Haley sighed as she leaned back into the chair and kicked off her heels. It looked like she would be settling for a night in with a bottle of wine and a movie on Netflix, which was perfectly fine with her. She shuffled into her kitchen and had just pulled out a bottle of wine and a glass when her doorbell rang. The digital numbers on her microwave told her the time was 7:26.

She thought about ignoring it and going to slip into her pajamas, but decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he was late for a good reason and not just because he was a jerk who thought that a woman had nothing better to do with her time than wait for him. She took a look out her peephole and saw the tall, dark, and handsome man with the chiseled facial features and piercing blue eyes that Brooke had described.

"Hey, um, sorry I'm late," he mumbled when she opened the door, not looking apologetic in the least. "I um, got held up, in um, traffic."

Haley narrowed her eyes at him, knowing immediately that he was lying, a fact that infuriated her. She hated being lied to, especially when it was such an obvious, bad lie. "Oh, really? Well, you're just an hour late, no big deal," she said, waving a hand flippantly. "I guess we missed our dinner reservations, so we'll just have to reschedule some other time." Fat chance, she was telling herself. She would never let Brooke set her up with a "great guy" again.

"Reservations? I didn't make reservations anywhere." For the first time, Haley noticed that while she was dressed up in a beautiful plum cocktail dress complete with a ruffled neckline, her date had shown up in jeans that looked like they were past their prime, a beat up leather jacket over a plain white V-neck T-shirt, and motorcycle boots. Evidently he didn't believe in dressing to impress.

"I just figured we could go out for coffee or something," he was saying. "Maybe grab some fast food if you're hungry?"

"You've got to be kidding me," Haley said with a groan. She sighed as she looked back through her house to the wine and glass sitting out on her counter, then back to the man who actually was starting to look a little sheepish. She was hungry, having had a light lunch in preparation for what she thought was going to be a nice dinner date. "Okay, well, let me go change into something a little less dressy, and we can go to the Five Guys downtown, okay? Come on inside."

She left him standing in her living room as she went back to her bedroom and quickly dressed in a pair of jeans with a white tank top underneath a taupe colored cardigan. She slipped her feet into black flats and pulled her hair back in a low ponytail, feeling angry that she had spent so much time making sure the curls were just so. When she walked back into the living room, Nathan was standing uncomfortably in the same place she had left him, his hands buried deep into his jacket as he rocked back and forth on his feet. He was studying an assortment of framed pictures she had grouped together on the console table just inside the door.

"Let's go," she said, grabbing her purse from the coffee table and her keys from the hook by the door. "Where's your car?" she asked, looking up and down the curb in front of her house, not seeing any motor vehicles except for the old motorcycle parked by her mailbox.

Realization hit her as a lopsided grin formed on Nathan's face and he tossed her a helmet.

"Oh no," Haley began, looking up at him in horror. Did he really expect her to ride on the back of a motorcycle? Did the other girls he dated enjoy riding on that death trap? "We'll take my car," she added quickly nodding toward her driveway where her red VW Bug was parked.

Nathan took back the helmet and hung it on the handlebar of his motorcycle as he shrugged and followed Haley to the car. "Can I drive?"

Haley just ignored him and climbed into the driver's seat. It was a short drive to downtown Tree Hill, spent mostly in silence- until Nathan's cell phone rang, filling the car with lyrics that Haley did NOT want to hear. "You get it wet enough and I might lick it up. Licky, licky, licky, like a peppermint swirl. Lick that-" Haley shot him a disgusted look as he finally pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and flipped it open.

"Yeah?" he whispered. "Right now? I'm, uh, kinda busy right now. No, I'm not. Of course I do, baby. Oh my God. Okay, well what about around 10:30? Yeah, okay, that sounds good. Okay, see you later."

Haley stared at him, her mouth hanging open, as he continued his conversation. Was he seriously talking to another woman while on a "date" with her? Was he seriously making plans with another woman for later that same night? Nathan being a womanizer was not something that Brooke had mentioned about her boyfriend's old friend, but it was certainly something that Haley would have appreciated knowing before agreeing to go on the date with him. Suddenly she had lost her appetite.

Nathan cleared his throat as he flipped his phone shut and shoved it back into his pocket. "That was, uh, my, uh, grandmother..."

"Unbelievable," she hissed, tightening her grip on the steering wheel. "Listen, Nathan, I don't think this is going to work out. In fact, I know this is not going to work out. You are possibly the biggest asshole I've ever met, and that's saying a lot considering my track record with men." She pulled into the next parking lot and turned around, intent on heading back to her house and kicking Nathan to the curb. She did not want to spend another second in his presence. She pulled back into her driveway in record time, jumped out of the vehicle, stomped back into her house, and slammed the door shut without saying another word to Nathan. Locking the door behind her, she jerked her Blackberry out of her purse and hit the "B" to call Brooke.

Brooke answered on the third ring. "So how's it going, Hales?" she asked, excitement in her tone.

"Brooke Penelope Davis! Do you not know me at all? Or are you trying to find the hugest asshole in existence to set me up with? I tell you one thing, I will never go on another blind date again, and certainly not one set up by you! In your description of "tall, dark, and handsome", you failed to mention "prick" and "disgusting" and "manwhore"!" Haley ranted as she paced around her living room. She yanked her hair out of the ponytail, then raked a hand through her hair. "If I ever have to see him again, it will be too soon!"

. . .

Unfortunately for Haley, that disastrous first date was not the last she had seen of Nathan, who she later found out was not just a friend of Brooke's boyfriend, Lucas, but also his half brother. Nathan Scott had moved back to Tree Hill, taking a job with a local radio station as a sports commentator, and had moved himself into Haley's life, much to her chagrin. Being best friends with Brooke meant having to put up with Nathan, and her relationship with the girl she'd known since kindergarten meant more to her than her hatred of Nathan.

Nathan wasn't exactly singing Haley's praises, either. After their first date, he had complained to Lucas about setting him up with an "uptight prude" and "control freak", not to mention a "frigid bitch". Unfortunately for Nathan, he didn't know many other people in Tree Hill besides his half brother and his girlfriend, and it seemed like Haley came with them in a package deal. He simply ignored her as much as he could, but not without trying to piss her off every now and then. If Nathan were to describe their relationship, he would say it was one of love/hate.

Minus the love.