Nathan leaned casually in the doorway and guzzled a bottle of Gatorade while he watched his parents drive off. He couldn't believe his mom had convinced his dad to take her "antiquing" and that his dad had even suggested a place they could start. They were obviously getting up there in age, no matter what they said to the contrary, and this totally proved it. With a smirk, Nathan set the Gatorade aside, then shut the door behind him and returned to the basketball court outside to shoot more hoops.

Lucas wasn't with him yet, but that was cool. It was Saturday after all; let him sleep in. Nathan could just pretend he had the house all to himself like he used to before Big Brother moved in and the 'rents were away; he could shoot and miss as many baskets as he wanted to without an audience nearby judging him from the sidelines. Of course, he wasn't actively planning to miss any baskets, and so far this morning, he hadn't.

Every time he sank a rock he imagined he was an NBA player scoring in front of a hysterical home crowd, a crowd that had Haley in the stands cheering him on with her wedding ring back on her left finger. In all his fantasies, Haley's brown eyes were riveted exclusively on his, and her love for him was plain to see since she was right in his sightline, hollering his name. For sure Chris Keller was not around, not in the stands, or in Tree Hill or anywhere in the state of North Carolina. Hell, he wasn't even in the United States of America. In Nathan's fantasies, that meddling jerkweed was destitute and talentless if he was anything at all, a never-been musician no one ever heard on the other side of the Atlantic. Or maybe he was never born. It didn't really matter to Nathan, so long as Haley never met him and hadn't run out on their fledgling marriage to pursue a music career with him.

For a while, Nathan practiced his mid-range shots while he tried to forget the last words he'd told Haley right here in Tree Hill that drove her to leave him. He couldn't, though, and now those shameful words kept repeating themselves louder in his mind, reinforcing the colossal mistake he'd made in giving the love of his life an ultimatum. Soon after on the court, Nathan began to fall short. It was inevitable, really. Whenever his mind dwelled on that night, his game suffered and his concentration tanked, forcing him to botch far more baskets than he made. Nathan watched his latest shot rebound off the rim, then hit the ground and bounce its way into the grass, but he didn't chase after it. He couldn't bring himself to care anymore. He stood where he was, breathing heavily, and looked at the ball without really seeing it, thinking one thought only.

God, he missed her.

He missed Haley James Scott.

He missed his wife.

Maybe he told his friends, when they asked, that their separation was for the best, and maybe it was true that in public he acted like it was no big deal, but that didn't mean he believed his lies deep down or that Haley wasn't often on his mind. She was on his mind, especially this last month. Nearly every minute that Nathan was awake now and more often than not in his dreams, Haley was there, haunting him almost everywhere he went no matter what he was doing. He didn't know for sure why thoughts of her were plaguing him 24/7 out of the blue like this when they had been separated for nearly half a year at this point, but he was starting to have an idea that he hoped wasn't wrong.

Haley was coming back to him.

Okay maybe not today, and maybe not this month, or even the rest of this year, but she was coming back, and she was coming back to see him.

Nathan had to believe it.

Suddenly driven to check his phone in case she had called him, Nathan abandoned the basketball court to head inside the house. He knew he was behaving irrationally – Haley hadn't called him since June right before final exams – but he didn't care. He took the stairs two at a time and made a beeline for the night-stand to the right of his bed where he usually kept his phone.

It wasn't there.

Nathan frowned and turned to his dresser to scan it quickly, but he didn't see his phone lying in plain sight, so he turned back to his bed and ripped the sheets aside.

Still nothing.

He checked his dresser a second time and looked more carefully this time in between the gazillion trophies, his keyring, two watches, and some loose change, but he wasn't going blind. His phone really wasn't anywhere on the surface. He dropped to his knees and studied the floor beneath his bed, but it wasn't there either, or in his backpack, or in the jeans he'd worn yesterday.

Where the hell was it?

Was it in Luke's room maybe?

The chances of that were actually pretty high, considering how much time he spent in his brother's room and vice versa, so Nathan strode across the hall and entered without knocking. Eight feet away, a bare-chested Lucas was asleep on his stomach with the sheets kicked off and one arm draped over the left side, but he didn't stir an inch as the door opened. Nathan spared his brother a glance, then inspected Luke's night-table first, followed by his floor, his dresser, his bookshelves and his desk.

Naturally, since Luke's desk was the last place Nathan looked, that was where he found his phone: right beside his brother's, hidden and forgotten beneath an open compendium on Greek mythology.

Cursing under his breath, Nathan snatched up the device and checked the logs first thing to see whose calls he had missed. There was one from Ashley at school, two more from her fellow cheerleaders, and a couple from Tim, but there were none from Haley and no text messages either.

Disgusted with himself, Nathan sat on his brother's desk top and put his phone back down, wondering why the hell he'd bothered to check it in the first place. Was he some kind of glutton for punishment, one of those lovesick losers who couldn't figure out when it was time to move on? Obviously, he must be. He was hopeless.

Nathan took a deep breath and shut his eyes. He thought of calling Haley anyway to see if they could maybe have a meaningful conversation for once instead of him always getting her voice mail, but before he could gather his courage to do it, his right butt cheek began to vibrate. Nathan's eyes sprung open as he snatched up the phone, but when he looked down it wasn't his own making that noise; it was Luke's. Without really thinking about it, Nathan picked it up and got ready to answer, figuring it was Karen calling her son like she usually did every Saturday some time before noon.

It wasn't Karen though and she wasn't calling.

It was Haley and she was texting her best friend.

Nathan sucked in a breath as he read then re-read what his ex-wife had just typed.

"u there? passing thru town tonite. have bout 90 mins 2 spare. can we hang?"

Nathan knew he should be honest. He should tell Haley upfront who was reading this and why Lucas wasn't, but if he did that ... maybe Haley would change her mind about coming to Tree Hill.

He glanced over at his sleeping brother then typed exactly what he was certain Lucas would if he were conscious. "definitely Hales. whr + whn?"

It was almost a minute before Haley's reply came through. "burning man dock. 7ish k?"

Nathan couldn't stop grinning. "gr8. will bring nate."

This time Haley's reply came within seconds. "no! no wy luke! 2 awkward!"

Nathan lost his smile and felt his face redden at being rejected so blatantly, but he also didn't hesitate as he keyed then sent. "pls hales. he needs 2 tlk 2 u."

No reply.

"hales?"

Still no reply.

Nathan shook the phone in frustration and was about to type Haley's name again when she finally decided to respond.

"k fine but u cant bail 2 give us alone time, k? if nate shows + u don't, im leaving + ur dead!"

Nathan could live with that. He thumbed out a promise on Luke's behalf to stick around and then he signed off, after which he did a jig around his brother's bed that proved once and for all he couldn't dance to save his life.

He didn't care and he couldn't stop smiling either.

He memorized Haley's first text and experienced a euphoria he hadn't felt since his wedding night, almost like he was eight years old again on Christmas morning and faced with a mountain of presents that were strictly for him. He was seventeen, of course, only a week away from starting his senior year in high school which meant guys his age are supposed to act cool about things like this, but no way could Nathan manage it. He studied the entire string of correspondence one last time, danced some more, then kissed Luke's phone and pumped the air with his fist, needing to share his good news with someone before he popped. And since the only person around was his brother, it was high time that Lucas joined the land of the living!