Rating: PG

Summary: When a new family moves into Tree Hill, our favorite love rectangle + 1 gets shot to hell.

Disclaimer: You'd have to be completely bonkers to think I actually own One Tree Hill. The only thing I do own are my original characters, such as Len in this chapter.

Author Notes: So, I finally wrote my first One Tree Hill fic. This is a little something I've been tinkering with over the last couple of weeks. I wanted to write a few chapters before I actually posted it. I have the first two chapters done and am in the middle of third, but I'm only posting the first chapter to see how you like it. I know there's another story about a new family moving to Tree Hill floating around, but I swear I thought of this concept way before I read that one. I haven't read much of it yet, but I'm hoping this isn't anything like it because that'd be really lame of me.

Oh, one last thing, this takes place after episode #6-Every Night is Another Story and before episode #7-Life in a Glass House.

Anyway, I'm going to shut up now and get onto the story.


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The hours of Haley James's closing shift at the Café seemed to move excruciatingly slow. In fact the last several days seemed to be sluggish for her. That was probably due to the fact that during those several days her best friend had made a point to be weird around her. In fact, Lucas had been avoiding her like the plague lately, but when she finally managed to corner him, he denied he was dodging her and insisted he had just been busy lately with basketball and stuff. She thought they cleared the air with the whole tutoring Nathan thing. Didn't he understand that she couldn't break a promise she made, even if it was to a jerk like Nathan Scott? If she broke her promise to get him through the semester than she would be no better than the jerk himself.
He's not always a jerk though, Haley thought to herself before she could stop herself. Okay, where did that come from?
So, maybe the whole Nathan situation was more complicated than she let on. In her mind, she knew that Nathan was a jerk who was just using her to get Luke, and in all honesty, she was using Nathan too. She only agreed to tutor the jock so he and his cronies would back off Luke and stop the hazing, which they did. But, with every tutoring session she had with him, Nathan's more redeeming qualities slowly started to shine through. He wasn't always the petulant, conceited jock he made himself out to be. Sometimes, when he let his walls down, he was a pretty decent guy.
And the fact that he isn't hard on the eyes doesn't hurt either.
A frown marred her face as she realized that her brain was working in overdrive and was starting to become nonsensical. She had hoped coming to work would help her take her mind off everything, but since business was so slow that day, she obviously had way too much time to think, considering the random thoughts that were shooting through her brain.
"What is wrong with you, Brain?" she scolded herself quietly. "We used to be rational."
A deep sigh escaped from her mouth, and she glanced over at the wall clock to read the time. It read ten o'clock, which meant it was time to close up shop.
"Finally," she muttered to herself.
She walked around the counter then headed towards the entrance door to lock it up. She turned the lock, and then as she flipped the sign that hung at the window over to say closed, a girl around her age appeared on the other side of the door.
"I'm sorry, we're closed," she apologized loudly through the closed door.
"Please tell me you're joking."
"Sorry," Haley apologized again.
"Please, can you just make an exception this once? I'm totally going through a caffeine withdrawal and I would have just whipped myself a latte but I didn't know which box we had packed the espresso machine in since my oldest brother was the one who took care of all the kitchen appliances," the girl managed to say all this in one breath and loud enough so that Haley could hear it from her side of the door.
Haley stared pensively at the girl for a few moments, and the girl gave her a nice puppy-dog look. She let out a sigh, then after deciding that the girl had been extremely polite, she unlocked and opened the door to let her come in.
"Oh my God, thank you so much. You are so awesome," the girl gushed as she walked past Haley and into the café.
"Don't mention it," Haley replied as she closed and locked the door before moving to get behind the counter again. When Haley finally stood behind the counter, the girl had plopped down onto one of the stools at it. "So, what's your poison?"
"Can I get a large double-caf caramel mocha with extra whip cream, please?"
"Not a problem."
Haley moved to the espresso machine and started to make the girl's drink. A silence filled the café as she made the drink for the girl, but the girl soon ended it.
"Seriously though, thanks a lot for letting me in. Most people would have just turned me away."
"It's really not a big deal. I can tell when someone's in dire need of caffeine. Trust me, I've been there."
"Well, I still appreciate it."
Haley was soon done with the mocha and placed it in front of the girl
"There you go."
"You wouldn't by chance have any regular coffee left would ya?"
"I do, but I'm not sure how fresh it is."
"Could you add a double shot of espresso in it?"
"Sure. What size?"
"Just a small is fine."
Haley quickly made the drink and handed that one to the girl.
"How much is it?"
"Four-fifty."
The girl reached into one of the pockets on her jeans and took out of five and two ones.
"The extra cash is for you," the girl said as she handed the bills over to Haley.
"Oh you don't have-"
"I insist."
"Thanks."
The girl grabbed her drinks and stood up to go. She turned to leave, but turned back as an after thought.
"My name's Len by the way."
"Haley."
Len stuck her hand out for Haley to shake, which she politely took.
"Nice to meet you Haley."
"Same."
"Well, I better get going or else my dad will send out a search party soon. I guess I'll see you around."
"Yeah."
Len turned and started to walk towards the entrance. She juggled the two drinks in her hands, then unlocked the door and opened it. Before walking out, she turned back to face Haley.
"Thanks again for the drink," she said, raising her cup to Haley.
"You're welcome."
And with that, Len breezed out of the café, closing the door behind her. Haley moved from behind the counter and strolled over to the entrance door to lock it up. As she turned the lock on the door, she peered out the window and saw Len climbing into a shiny, silver convertible Audi TT that was parked in front of the café. Her brows creased as she frowned. The car would be hard to miss in a small town like Tree Hill, and she had never seen it before. And just as she had never seen the car before, she was sure she had never come across Len before that night either. In most towns, this wouldn't have meant much, but in a small town like Tree Hill where population is in like the hundreds and everyone knew everyone, even if they didn't want to, this probably meant the girl was new to town.
She did mention something about packing, Haley thought to herself.
Her mind racked up any tidbits of gossip that she may have overheard that week about a new family moving into town, but she came up with nothing. Deciding she'd probably be informed about the Len situation when she got to school the next day, Haley shook off her thoughts and moved her gaze away from the street. She spun around and headed back to the counter to finish the task at hand, all the while hoping no irrelevant thoughts would fly through her mind.

END PART1
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So, what did you think? Was good, was it bad? Did I do a horrible job representing Haley's POV? Let me know, please. I live for my feedback. As soon as I get just one review, I will post the second part, well, as soon as I see that I have a review anyway.