I'm sitting here on my bed, staring at a picture of the best person in the world, my best friend, Nathan. Nathan Scott. The Big Man On Campus. Starting Point Guard for the Tree Hill Ravens. Son of Tree Hill's Mayor, Dan Scott. But none of that matters much. He's my best friend. My shining star. My family.

He also happens to be the only boy I've ever been in love with.

We've been best friends since, well since practically birth. Our parents go way back. His birthday is only a few months before mine, so after I was born, our families would get together for Sunday night dinners and the occasional summer vacations. Growing up, our parents always had the idea that we'd eventually fall in love, get married, have kids, and spend the rest of our blissful lives together. This was always just a hopeless fantasy, we had assured them time and time again, that we'd never be anything other than best friends. Somewhere along the way however, something changed. Maybe it's because of puberty, all those pent-up hormones finally got the best of me. Or maybe its how he's the only person I know that will stand by me no matter what happens. Or how he's the only one that truly gets me. Maybe it's the way his eyes read not only my facial expression, but also my whole entire soul, or how one simple smile can make my day that much better. I'm not sure how it happened, but somewhere along the way, I fell in love with my best friend.

Mommy and Daddy would be so proud.

Really they would. It's been their dream. I'm pretty sure when I was thirteen, I walked in on them while they were whispering with Dan and Deb, Nathan's rents, about how cute his blue eyes and my honey-colored hair would look on a tiny baby. Talk about pre-determined fate. They never pressured us to be together though; they knew we were best friends, and that's all we would ever really be. And aside from the occasional innuendo or implication, our future life together was never mentioned. Our parents would occasionally hint at marriage, and Nathan and I would laugh about it later.

Fact is fact though; Nathan is gorgeous. He's got an awesome body, all toned and tanned. Probably from all the hours spent playing basketball outside. His hair is raven black, and usually has that casual 'I-just-got-out-of-bed' look. And he has amazing eyes. They are a pair of the darkest, deepest, purest blue you have ever seen. When he's happy or lighthearted, they turn a few shades lighter. And when he's focused, they turn this intense shade of dark blue; so deep in hue they almost look black. In the picture I'm holding, Nathan is laying on the pavement at the Rivercourt, a semi-private basketball court down by the river. Hence the name Rivercourt. Anyway, he's lying on the pavement, shirtless because he just got done playing a basketball game.

Flashback:

"He shoots…He scores! Scott for the win! And the crowd goes wild!!!" Nathan cheers, while I laugh from my seat on a picnic bench nearby.

"Congrats Nate!" I cheer. "Not many people are skilled enough to win a basketball game consisting of one person, and one person only." I mock, glancing around at the solitude that surrounds us. Nathan had wanted to play basketball, so we came here and he shot around while I drew.

"Well it wouldn't have to be a one person game if someone would join in every so often." He teased, moving to sit down on the court.

"You know I suck at basketball."

"Don't worry too much. Everyone sucks when compared to me."

"Cocky much?" I stick out my tongue, standing up from the bench.

"Where ya going?" He questions.

"Right here." I sit down next to him, and he casually moves to lay down on the court.

"It's okay to be cocky when you're the best." He flashes me his trademark smirk.

"Oh. So now you're the best? I'm pretty sure Lucas could beat you." I say, sticking out my tongue again. Lucas is Nathan's older brother, by 3 months. He plays basketball too, but it's pretty obvious to everyone that the pedigree and talent belongs to Nathan.

"Oh yea? Real mature Haley." He laughs, sticking his own tongue back at me.

"Says the sixteen year old that still commentates on his own basketball games."

"Alright, that's it!" He says, reaching up to grab me, and once again I'm too slow. He wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me down onto the pavement, where he proceeds to tickle the hell out of me.

"NATHAN! STO-" But I'm laughing too hard to even speak. He pulls his hands away for a minute, and looks down at me mischievously.

"Say it Haley."

"Hell no!"

"C'mon. Say 'Nathan's the best basketball player in the whole entire world and my very best friend!"

"Nathan's the worst basketball player in the entire-" Before I can finish, his hands are

around my waist, back to the process of tickling me to death.

"OK! Ok!" I gasp between breaths. "Nathan is the best basketball player in the whole entire world and my very best friend!" I scream, and at once the tickling stops.

"There. Now was that so hard?" he mocks, as he leans back down onto the pavement, his hands underneath his head.

"Very much so." I say with a fake pained expression, before smiling and moving over next to him, my head against his shoulder as he moves an arm to wrap around my shoulders. I elbow him. "Jerk. Now my sides hurt."

He makes a pitying expression. "Awww, I'm sorry Hales." His expression turns into a puppy dog one. "Forgive me?" he asks, sticking out his lower lip.

"Oh god Nathan. You know I can't say no to that." I grimace, and get a shiver. The sun was beginning to set and I hadn't brought a sweatshirt to put on over my tank top. Nathan's arm wraps tighter around me, and I snuggle in closer to get warmer.

My leg brushes his and I jump a little at the feel of his cell phone vibrating in his shorts pocket. Rather than pull his arm out from around me, he uses his other hand, causing more of an inconvenience for him, but allows me to remain comfortable. That's just the kind of guy Nathan is. For me anyway. Other girls, Nathan wouldn't even take them to the Rivercourt.

"Hello?…Hey dad…Yeah, at the Rivercourt…Oh course she is…I don't know, a little while…Yeah, bye."

Shutting his phone, he turns his head towards me. "God, I swear sometimes my parents care more about you than they do me."

"It's because I'm just that damn adorable." I laugh, taking his phone from him.

"This is true…what are you doing?" He questions as I navigate my way through his phone.

"Nothing…Smile!" I raise the phone above our heads and lean in as we both smiled for the camera. Well actually, I smiled. Nathan did that cocky smirk of his.

"Must you always do that?" I ask dramatically.

"I must." Nate nodded his head in confirmation.

"Naaaaate. I want a nice picture of us! You always smirk!" I pout my lips like he had just done minutes before.

"Ok first off, any picture of me with my shirt off is guaranteed to be a nice pic."

"Again with the cockiness." I pout my lip a little more. "Please Nate? I'll be your best friend."

"Fuck!. You can't use that face on me! It's cheating! Besides, we're already best friends. And may I just add how completely immature we sound right about now."

Seeing the look on my face, he finally gave in. "Okay, I'll cut you a deal. You do a pic with both of us smirking, and I'll do a pic so that we're both smiling. Happy?"

"Very." I smiled.

So for the next five minutes we took pictures of us smirking, smiling, and sticking out our tongues. Basically a couple of 16 year olds being completely immature, but hey, it was fun.

End of Flashback

My thumb gently graces the glass as I hold the black frame in my hand. Nathan looked stunning in the picture; it's one of my favorites of him. My finger traces the letters that are embossed into the wood. B…E…S…eventually leading to the conclusion of BEST FRIENDS. Yep, that's exactly what Nathan and I are. Best Friends. No more, no less.

I hear a knock on my door and I turn around to get a glimpse of whom it is. It's obviously not Nathan; he hasn't knocked in years. Instead he just walks in as if he's lived here forever. Granted, he pretty much has. Turns out it's my stepsister, Rachel. She and I are pretty tight, though not nearly as close as Nathan and I are. Sometimes we go to the movies, or the mall, all three of us, and just hang out.

"Hey. Can I come in?" She asks, but already knows the answer so she just walks in anyway. "My gosh, looking at a picture of you and Nathan again? Surprise, surprise." She mocks. "It's like a damn shrine in here." But Rachel smiles, so I know she's just mocking. The truth is, my room is like a shrine. Scattered around the room are various pictures of Nathan and I are growing up, or gifts that he bought me, or just stupid stuff that reminds me of him. Hell, he even has his own cabinet of clothes in my dresser when he stays the night.

I throw a pillow at her and she moved to sit down next to me on the bed, propping a leg up under her as she did so. Let me back up here, and start to explain everything to is to know about Rachel…

…Ok, so there isn't much to know. Her dad married my mom when we were both young. I think I was five, so she must've been six. Anyway, her mom had died, and my dad had walked out on my family before I was two years old, so there had been a lot of hurting between the two families. Anyway, our parents met, fell in love, and now they basically travel all over the country, for business purposes. He's a pilot, and she's a stewardess, that's how they met. It's like fate had written it in the stars…or clouds, but that sounds like a pretty bad pun.

Anyway, this leads me to Rachel. A year older than me, but we're both juniors because she flunked a grade awhile back. She's tall, green-eyed, redheaded, fair-skinned, and totally busty. In other words, she's beautiful. She has a ton of confidence, is sexy, and hell yeah, she knows it. Me on the other hand, I'm somewhat short, amber-colored hair, brown eyes, and a little curvy. In other words, I'm completely average. I'm not exactly shy, but I don't stand out just for the hell of it. Rachel's got the beautiful genes, while I've got the smart ones…yea, I know that stepsiblings don't actually share genes, but you get what I mean. At least, I hope you do.

"Earth to Haley." Rachel mocks, drawing me out of my trance. "Fantasizing about Nathan again?"

"Eww gross." I exclaim. "He's like-"

"My brother." We finish together, and I can feel the blush rise to my cheeks.

After a few moments of silence, she begins to speak. "So the parentals are MIA again. Any idea where they went to this time?"

Nodding my head, I answer. "Yeah, they went for pleasure this time. Second Honeymoon; remember? Maui? Ring a bell? They told us last week."

"Oh right. I zoned them out…isn't this like their fifth Second Honeymoon?"

"Nope. It's their sixth."

"Sweetness! Party time!" She grins, and I roll my eyes. Hitting me lightly on the shoulder, she stands up. "Okay, well party time for me. You can do whatever." I stuck my tongue out at her and she gave a small grin.

"Anyway, I'm going to work out, so I'll be back later. Don't wait up!" In other words, she's going to have sex with her latest boyfriend and she walks out of the room, raising her arms above her head, so that she's doing what I can only imagine is a dance.

The truth is, my parents are pretty much gone every other week. Between business trips or personal vacations, which I'm proud to say they never take us on, they are hardly ever home. It sucks, because we're pretty much two teenage girls living on our own half the time anyway. Rachel doesn't mind, and for the most part neither do I because I've got Nathan with me usually anyway.

I glance over at my clock. 5:30, Okay. Nathan is coming over at six, so that means he'll be here at 5:45. It's weird that Nathan is actually early when he comes to my house, nearly everything else he is late for. Even basketball, occasionally. But not to come over here, usually he's on time, if not early. Not that he comes over at designated times, which rarely happens. But usually he's here earlier than I expect him to be.

I go downstairs into the kitchen to get food out. Tonight he's coming over for movie night. We're conquering the SAW trilogy, and maybe all the Hannibal movies. We've had movie night every Friday for as long as I can remember. Even when we were younger, we'd stay at each other's houses and watch Land Before Time or Scooby-Doo. Of course, as we'd gotten older, the movies developed into our own personal tastes. Chick flicks for me, and scary ones for him. It's very Dawson/Joey-ish, but I love it. This week is obviously Nathan's pick of movies. I haven't seen any of the SAW movies, and have had no desire to. But Nathan loves them, so it's just a small price to pay to see him happy.

I look over the food scattered on the table. Pizzas, chips, popcorn, and a couple Smirnoffs. Nathan should be here any minute, so I head upstairs to change quickly. He knows to let himself in. Hell, he's been doing it for years. I open my closet door to figure out what I want to wear. I opt for a fitted shirt and a pair of shorts. The weather had been unusually warm this week, and the air conditioner is broken. Go figure that the rents aren't around to get it repaired. I had just pulled my shirt off over my head, when Nathan walks in, while I'm standing around in a bra and underwear.

"Hey Hales." He moves over to lie on the bed, acting completely indifferent to the situation. Nathan and I had seen each other naked more times than I can count. By now it's completely normal for us. I pull a tank top over my head and throw on a pair of shorts.

"Hey yourself." I say, and then proceed to tackle him. After a few minutes of wrestling, he finally pins me down onto my bed, holding my wrists.

"You suck. How does this always happen?" I ask, staring up into those dark blue eyes that I love so much.

"I'm not sure. I think you just like the feel of me on top of you." He grins. "Not that I blame you, I mean, if someone as hot as me was a sprawled on top of me…" As he smirks and raises one eyebrow suggestively, with one of my legs, I knee him hard in the ass.

"Ow, fuck!" He winces, moving a hand to the sore spot.

Using my free arm, I snaked it around his neck, and lightly brushed my hand against his skin. It's the one spot when Nathan is ticklish at, and his body jerked in response, causing him to release my other arm. Suddenly I moved out from under him. "Haha sucker!" and took off out my door and down the stairs. "Oh you are so dead!" I heard him call as he took off after me.

Once again I didn't think this through. As I hide out behind the granite island in the kitchen, I hear him sneak into the living room, a few rooms away. The rooms separating us being the entryway and the dining room. Quietly I try to formulate a quick plan in my head. Luckily, it works. I credit it to my amazing problem-solving skills. I've always been pretty quick on my toes, either for comebacks or just solving tricky math problems. Nathan always picks on me because I've solved some pretty difficult calculus problems in my head faster than he can do it with a calculator. Anyway, back to the present situation.

I turn my head around the corner of the island. The door of our stainless-steel fridge was about 4 feet away, but right next to the entrance. Meaning I'd have to be extra sneaky if I didn't want to get caught.

Edging my body around the island slowly, I quietly edge around it and scuffle across the floor, hoping the sound of my body dragging was not noticeable to Nathan. I slowly open the fridge door, holding it wide open as the quest begins to find my weapon. Reaching in, I grab exactly what I'm looking for, and put one arm behind my back as the other closes the door, only to reveal Nathan standing directly behind it, smirking widely.

"Holy shit Nathan!"

Nathan glances down at me. "What's behind your back?" He asks suspiciously.

"Nothing." I try to look as innocent as possible, but I can tell I'm failing miserably.

"Riiiiight." Well obviously he doesn't believe me. He unlocks his eyes from mine for a split second, and I begin my attack. The completely full can of whip cream first hits him on the cheek.

Nathan looks shocked for a minute, a huge glob of Redi-whip smeared on his cheek. Then he springs to action. Just like my problem-solving instincts, Nathan has trigger-fast athlete reflexes. He arms lunge for me, grabbing me by the waist, as my hands freely spray whip cream all over him. We begin to wrestle backwards until I'm pinned up against one of the cupboards. Nathan positions his body up against mine as he uses one of his hands to grab the can from me. "I'm screwed." I privately think. Not that I mind…did I mention his body is pressed against mine? Nathan is smiling, and the cool whip makes him all the more gorgeous.

Taking the can from me, he positions it right next to my face. "Nate, don't you dare!" I caution menacingly. Apparently my threats mean nothing, because suddenly I feel a cool sensation on the side of my cheek. I stare up into his eyes, seeing them spark up teasingly. A split second later, whip cream is all over my hair. I push Nathan away and try to run, but he grabs onto me again. I move to run, but we both end up slipping on spilled whip cream.

Next thing I know, we're wrestling on the floor of my kitchen, both covered in whip cream, and fighting for the can. Somehow I ended up with it, and semi- on top of Nathan. Catching his eye, he hesitates, and at once I get lost in his deep, playful eyes. Brushing it off, I press down on the nozzle.

Nothing.

The can gives a soft hiss and a few watery droplets of whip cream before completely fizzing out. I look at it for a minute and begin to laugh. Nathan starts to laugh too, using his finger to wipe whip cream off of my face, he puts it in his mouth.

"Mmmm. Delicious." He smirks again.

Have I mentioned I love him?