Being Neighborly

by CalAbra

Disclaimer: I own nothing

AN:

1. I'd like to say that I fully understand NH would not play out this way in real life. Nor should they. Be wary of strangers storming into your house! Even if they look like Nathan Scott.

2. It will become quite apparent from the get-go that this is a silly nonsensical piece, AU, OOC (for N)

The fuschia walls hurt her eyes. The leaky kitchen faucet dripped in a clipped staccato: drip, drip, drip. The window was drafty as all get out. The cottage cheese ceiling looked like it had expired roughly 2 years ago, give or take half a decade or so. The front yard was overtaken by gnomes and the backyard had a ditch ten feet deep. The front door didn't shut quite all the way. That was going to be a big problem, seeing that Haley generally liked to lock her front door at nights. Preventative measure or something like that.

"It's perfect. I'll take it," the petite blonde beamed at the real estate agent. "When can I move in?"

Ding dong. Ding dong.

"It's open, Luke," a voice shouted from inside the dilapidated shamble of a house. "Just come in. My hands are full."

Creeeaaakkk. Creak creak. The realtor conveniently forgot to point out that the floorboards were a touch squeaky. Creak creak creak.

"Hello!" a male voice greeted loudly upon seeing the short little blonde bent over an opened box in the messy living room. Dang, check out that ass.

"AHHH!" Haley looked up and screamed. She quickly sprung up only to have her leg get trapped by a partially opened box and toppled off to the right over a couch. "Who are you? What do you want? I don't have any money! I mean, I have a little money but most of it went into this house so I can't really give you anything. If that's what you want. What do you want anyways? Who are you?" Her habit of rambling always appeared at the worst of times.

The man standing in her disheveled living room looked thoroughly amused. Did this woman ramble all the time? How cute!

"Well? Who are you? I'm calling the cops in two seconds if you don't speak up!" Haley threatened, reaching for the phone, only to realize that she was still sprawled the on the couch she stumbled into a minute earlier.

That seemed to snap the tall stranger out of his trance. "Don't!" the man urged. "I'm not a crazy person!"

"Yeah, oh-kaaayyyy, non-crazy person," Haley retorted, finally having untangled herself from, well, herself, and stood up with her hands on her hips. Her mother always said it made her look more menacing. Why she always snickered after saying that never made any sense to Haley. "I'll ask one more time. Who. Are. You?"

Deeply amused at this point, the man playfully put up one of his hands up in mock surrender, the other hidden behind his back, and said, "I'm Nathan Scott, your neighbor." There, that should explain everything.

"Oh," Haley breathed. Well, that was certainly far less climactic than she expected this exchange to go. Not an FBI agent? Not a ghost hunter? Not a superstar athlete? "Okay."

"Hi?" Nathan waved for good measure. "I thought it would be the neighborly thing to do. Ya know, come over and introduce myself? I promise I wasn't trying to scare you or anything."

Haley took a deep breathe to steady her rapidly pounding heart. For crap's sake, she thought this strange man was going to rob or kill her. Or both! Taking a good look at the source of her premature heart attack now, she had to admit he was one fine looking man. One very fine looking man ...

"Uh, hello? Hi? I introduced myself. Your turn," Nathan prodded, wide-eyed. This little lady sure was an oddball. A hot oddball, but a little kooky upstairs. He waved his hand in front of her face to make sure she was still in the land of the living.

"Haley!" Haley quickly spit out, tearing her eyes away from his well-toned arms. "My name is Haley. Hi. Hello." She waved too, out of nervousness. It wasn't often that she received such undivided attention from a handsome stranger, much less one who wasn't a killer or robber, standing in her new house. Speaking of ... "Why did you just storm into my house?"

"Wha?" Nathan sputtered. "You told me to come in. You said your arms were full!"

"I thought you were Luke!" Haley defended. Gah, those eyes ... mmm ... wha, what's he saying now? Focus!

"Luke's your boyfriend?" Nathan asked, squinting his baby blues in her direction. "I bet he's an idiot!" WHAT THE WHAT? Why would I say that? Oh god, what if this Luke's a wrestler? I mean, I'm strong and quick, but I can't really throw a punch to save my life! My face!

"What?" Haley asked bewilderingly. "Luke? No! No way. Eww. Yucky. No no." She shook her head adamantly and made accompanying gagging noises.

Nathan nodded in time to her head shakes. Good good. "So what? He's your husband?" he continued to ask, rather forcefully. Now it was his turn to place his hands on his hips as he waited impatiently for an answer. Oh man, you definitely sound like a crazy person now. Way to go.

"Umm ... no," Haley responded, eying him weirdly. She discretely tried to locate her phone in her pocket. This one was turning out a little wackier than she would have liked. "We're just friends. Friends. That's all."

"Okay. So like, like, what? Like friends who do things together? Friends with BENEFITS?" Nathan's voice raised at the end of his verbal attack. There was definitely a healthy dose of disgust and judgment in his voice. Oh please. Please for the love of all that's good on God's green earth, shut up already! You sound like a possessive junkie of a boyfriend!

"NO!" Haley exclaimed. She didn't even bother with discretion anymore as she plainly searched her pockets for her cell phone and coming up short, looked frantically around the room. Where's that pepper spray? "You don't even know what you're talking about. And why would you care? It's none of your business! You're crazy!"

Seeing her eyes dart around the room like a caffeinated chipmunk, he promptly defended, "For the last time, I'm not crazy, okay?"

"Okay," Haley quickly agreed without a moment's pause. She tried to turn to her right, inadvertently giving him a delicious profile shot of her curvy frame. Turning in this direction would prepare her to kick out her left leg if necessary. She had taken some karate classes growing up. Alright, that's a lie. She tagged along to two classes with her older brother, Brian, seven years ago, but still. That counted, yes?

"No, you're just agreeing because you think I'm a psycho," Nathan said. Yeah, it's official. This girl's ass is amazing. Turn more!

"No no, why would I think that?" she fake-laughed a little to prove her point as she mentally planned her next escape route. At this point, Haley had managed to trade places with Nathan and was trying to pace herself to the front door. Heck, psycho (albeit a handsome psycho) could stay as long as he wanted to provided that she wasn't trapped with him inside this deathtrap of a house.

"Look, this is a mess," Nathan breathed out, tilting his head back and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Can we start over? Please?" He smiled wide to show his sincerity, unaware how semi-creepy it made him appear.

"Uh-huh," Haley readily agreed again. Good, keep agreeing with what he says. Psychos like that. This is so not the day for Luke to be late. She didn't bother to consider the fact that had Luke shown up right then and there, this Nathan Scott fella/hunk/madman would win any fight they were to enter seeing that he had probably at least twenty pounds of muscle on her lean (dare she say, scrawny?) best bud.

"Alright then, from the beginning. I'm Nathan Scott and I live next door. I saw that you moved in today. I wanted to be a good neighbor, so I came over and brought you this," Nathan calmly explained, smile still firmly planted on his undeniably handsome face. Taking a step towards Haley, he brought his hand forward and produced a ruby red apple.

"An apple," Haley said while taking a tiny step backwards. He's trying to poison me with an apple? What's next? Singing critters? Points for creativity, although not very effective.

Silence.

Smile.

Haley cleared her throat and tentatively reached for the shiny apple. "Yum," she croaked. Clearing her throat, she tried again, with less fear this time: "Yum!" She flashed him a thumb's up sign with the hand not cradling the poisonous fruit.

"I grew it. It's from my tree in the backyard," Nathan eagerly explained. "My therapist said I needed to find a new hobby to distract me since I obviously couldn't play ball anymore." He gestured to his left knee. Haley nodded, so he took that as a sign to continue, "So I decided to start gardening one day and found that I really love it. Like really love it. My garden is awesome now. It's got all these different fruit trees. Hey, do you like avocados? Those should be ripe any day now. Let's make guacamole!"

Nathan's enthusiasm was met with a furrowed brow. Lamely, he finished saying, "So anyway, that's the first fruit that I've ever grown." The pride of his garden's bounty was written all over his face.

More silence.

"Therapist?" Haley croaked. Oh yeah, I'm gonna die today.

"Don't worry about it," Nathan dismissed. "It's all good now."

"Therapist?" Haley parroted again, still rooted to the floor. How did this day get so weird?

"Yeah yeah," Nathan drawled. "The therapist, her name's Sharon, by the way. Anyways, Sharon says my anger management is under control now and I just need to not get carried away with alcohol and stay away from bar fights."

Silence ensued.

"And race cars," Nathan helpfully added, as if that would aid his case.

Haley's fake smile promptly fell off her face.

Noticing this, Nathan quickly asserted, "But don't worry about it. It's all in the past!" He waved his hands behind him to prove that these infractions against his otherwise pristine character were literally in the past, behind his saintly self now. He nodded towards the apple, "Try it."

Oh boy. "Uhh," Haley haltingly began. "I wouldn't feel right taking this from you. I mean, after all, you worked really hard in your garden for this so maybe ..." Her voice trailed off and she thrust the apple back at Nathan.

"You don't want it?" Nathan asked incredulously.

Sharon coached him to be friendlier to strangers; something about this being the last step to his anger management recovery, and Nathan had thought what was better than greeting the new neighbor with a hard earned apple from his prized garden. Okay, so maybe he had spied the hottie neighbor early in the morning when he came back from his daily run and had spent the whole day peeking from the blinds in his kitchen, but he had a good excuse: this girl was hot. And probably really smart, if the numerous boxes of books were any indication. And let's not forget downright gorgeous, now that he was fully eying her from her messy curly bun to her tiny red-painted toes. Good thing that Luke douche wasn't her boyfriend. He had vigilantly kept an eye out for any suspicious male forms the entire day as Haley was moving (his own stalker ass excluded, of course). Just checking out the competition, if there were any. Seemed like the coast was clear, which was amazing since Haley was adorable, had a smokin' body, outspoken, and ... looking terrified? Uh-oh.

"I'm still scaring you, huh?" Nathan timidly asked.

Haley nodded. "Yeah, a little bit." She held her fingers up to indicate how much he was creeping her out.

"I'm not crazy," Nathan re-asserted.

"Not helping," Haley said, shaking her head. She widened the gap between her thumb and index finger to demonstrate her words. "That only makes you sound even crazier."

"Oh," Nathan replied, dumbfounded. What to say then? He scratched his head.

"Look, why don't we continue this another time?" Haley suggested as she took a step closer to the rickety front door.

"Sorry if I came on too strong," Nathan apologized. "I was trying to be friendly. Sharon said I should work on that. Everyone always calls me an ass. So I don't like to share my feelings, whatever!"

"Yeah, whatever. You should do what you want. Okay, let's walk this way, yeah?" Haley said as she successfully persuaded Nathan to move a few feet closer to the door. Almost there.

"And you're really hot," Nathan continued, not realizing that he was following Haley's lead to the door. "And c'mon, I know I'm hot. We'd be hot together!"

Haley stopped in her tracks. "You think I'm hot?" She couldn't help but preen a little bit. Sure, this hunk might be a killer, but at least he had good taste. He thought she was hot! Wait 'til she told Taylor that. Taylor, her no-good older sister, was always going on and on about how she was the hotter sister, despite the fact that David, her most serious boyfriend in high school, had offered to ditch her if Haley would sleep with him just once. Naturally, she refused.

"Yeah," Nathan said in a "duh" tone. "You know that."

"Not really," Haley demurred. She tried to stop herself, but to no avail. As if on autopilot, she began fluttering her lashes and thrust her chest out a little bit.

"Well, you should. I think you're totally hot and I think you're also really kind and trusting. I mean, you haven't pepper sprayed me yet, which says something. Actually, maybe you're a little too trusting," Nathan continued. "I kinda wanted to ask you out, but I've totally screwed this up already." He looked downright mournful as he took another gander of her shapely behind and fluttering lashes.

"No," Haley rushed out. She was definitely seeing him in a new light now. He liked her! And looked like a model! And sure, he seems a tad bit unbalanced, but who isn't? Quirks are charming! "You haven't screwed anything up!"

"No?" Nathan questioned dubiously. He eyed the uneaten apple in her hand for a moment before shrugging and asked, "So should I ask you out? Maybe tomorrow so we can forget about this horrible first meeting?"

"Okay," Haley responded after a moment's pause. She could always pepper spray his ass and karate chop him back to last week if it came to it. "But I still don't want this apple." She handed the apple back to him. "This could be a really elaborate scheme to poison and kidnap me, for all I know."

"Ha. Ha," Nathan said with a smile to show he knew she was teasing him. "I'll see you tomorrow then, Haley."

"See ya," Haley said sweetly.

Nathan walked through the front door and as he was heading down the porch steps, he turned around and asked, "What made you change your mind about me?"

Haley shrugged and smiled. "Just being neighborly is all."

"And what a fine neighbor you're going to be," Nathan drawled with a wink before turning and heading back towards his property.