"Nate," he feels a scratching sensation on his lower back. "Nate, c'mon," the voice persists. Arising from sleep with half shut eyes, he makes out a figure. Haley. Which in turn, Nathan knows one thing. He's overslept. Turning to the left side of his bed, he grabs his alarm, peers at the bright green 6:30 and his thoughts are confirmed. "Sorry Hales, last night was a mess," he begins.
"Oh, don't I know it," the brunette laughs. "I believe I had a phone conversation with drunk Nathan last night, surrounding a certain half brother." The way her eyes light up as she speaks to him on the end of his bed could make him forget about the night before.
"Don't remind me Hales." He flips onto his stomach and digs his heels into the bed frame. "You do realise you won, correct?" She questions and he can feel her make her way farther up the bed to his shoulders. The touch of her hand at the scruff of his neck, could make him lose all his previous inhibitions but he has a full proof method of shut down at this point. As soon as she leaves, he'll listen to some Eminem, hop in the coldest shower of his life and try to think about anything other than Haley Bob James.
"I get that I won Hales, it's just his face makes me want to punch a kitten!," He peeks out from his pillow fort and spots her face, now just inches from his own. Clearing his throat, he manages, "It'll be okay now. I'm on the team, I'll pretend I'm an only child and after school, we'll go to the dock and educate my dumbass."
In a sincere voice, Haley whispers into his ear, "You're not dumb Nathan." She follows up by jumping onto his bare back and giggling, "Just mathematically inept!" In the midst of their friendly patter, Nathan turns his back to the mattress and catches Haley's hips in a fight for her to stop jumping. "C'mon Nate, scared I could whoop your ass?," she taunts with a sly grin only Haley James can make endearing yet terrifying. He stutters, tears his hands from her hips and sits up. "Deathly Hales, now wait a sec so I can put something decent on?"
She drags her denim jean clad legs off his bed and saunters to his bedroom door. Staring him down, Haley can't help but note her best friend's beauty. His black scruff of hair, blue eyes and angular face structure, she's confused why no girl tries to go after him. Of course she knows why. Lucas Scott wouldn't allow that. He'd been making Nate's life a misery since they all entered High School. Any girl with an interest in Nate had been told a well constructed lie and ergo, the youngest brother was lacklustre of girl attention.
Clearing his throat in an attempt for Haley to come back to the world of the living, he can't help but question what goes on in her mind. She's an intricate person, he's known that ever since the 5th grade when she explained to him in explicit detail why she loves strawberries but hated strawberry milk. Things had definitely gotten more complicated since then, but even so she still wouldn't drink strawberry milk. Their friendship had started in the fourth grade. Haley decided that he looked lonely, told him she had enough siblings as it were and he needed one more, so she offered up her services. It was plain sailing from that point on. Even when they started to grow up and morph into teenagers their lives were simple. Just Nathan and Haley.
To his dismay, it all went slightly south after his seventeenth birthday. The two friends had a growing tradition that began in the 7th grade; gag gifts. At twelve, Haley had bought Nathan an electric shock pen. At 15, Nathan purchased Haley rather revealing shorts with the word "'MURICA" printed across the backside. Two months ago, Haley bit back. On the bleachers of the river court, he opened up his gag gift to find a rather explicit electronic model of the male genitalia. Bursting at the seams with laughter, Haley splutters, "You have no idea how uncomfortable it was to buy that thing, I'm sure the guy at the register thought it was for me!" Thus began Nathan's detrimental decline into seeing his lovely, innocent friend Haley in a rather- dingy light. At school the next Monday, he began to take note of the outline of her waist under her stitched poncho. Each time she cleaned a table at Deb's Diner, he found himself lowering his vision to her rear. It didn't go unnoticed either. Skillz was the first to call him out on it.
"Dude, so you got the hots for Hales or what lately?"
Coughing up his soda, Nathan tried to formulate an excuse as to why his eyes were piercing into the back of Haley's head as she spoke to the new kid Chase.
"Nah dude, I just- I sort of- You know what, fuck you man."
Smiling to himself, Skillz Taylor knew his two friends would find each other along the way.
Since the incident two weeks ago, Nathan has gotten better at hiding his recent, some may describe it as lust, for his best friend. The showers definitely work. Investing most of his time in basketball too, but Haley soon asked why he was ignoring her and he hated lying to her more than he hated feeling this way.
"I'll go make some toast downstairs with my favourite member of this family and we can leave, okay?," Haley asks. He nods his head and watches her retreating figure as he reaches for his knock off Nike sweats.
"Mornin' Deb!" Haley greets. Deb nods with a fond smile as Haley helps herself to the bread in pantry and puts two slices into the toaster.
"So is my son still sound asleep or?" she ponders. Haley shakes her head as she bites the cap of her pen off and scribbles in Nathan's upcoming math test onto the calendar.
"Sleeping beauty is on his way, !"
Watching Haley make herself so comfortable in her kitchen as she always does, Deb can't help but ponder if she notices the impact she's had on her son. Deb would be lying if she hadn't noticed the recent developments. Nate's been distant to her, wearing a more distinct cologne and their water bill in the last month has sky rocketed. Shuddering at her teenage son's antics, she makes more than amicable chat with what she assumes is her future daughter-in-law.
"Any update on the boy field, Hales?" She asks inquisitively.
"Not in the slightest Deb, your boy happens to be taking up the entire pitch at this rate," Haley laughs off. Not without a notice of underlying annoyance.
"What did he do now?"
So with a deep breath, Haley begins. "CHASE WAS TOTALLY INTO ME UNTIL YOUR WRETCHED SON SCARED HIM OFF WITH THAT LOOK HE GIVES. You know the look right? The "I'll not only fight you but I'll also fight your entire family" look."
Sauntering into the kitchen, Nathan speaks up. "Oh this look?," accompanied by the biggest smoulder Nathan Scott could pull off. Deb laughs at the two's banter whilst Haley questions if Nathan's aware of what he does to her. Even with his over exaggerated facial expression, he still manages to pull it off. She didn't care that Chase had backed off. Quite thankful really. She had a whole lot on her plate as it was and didn't require any extra boy drama. And of course, Nathan's "look" definitely got her hot and bothered- not that she'd admit it to him or to herself.
Saying their goodbyes to Deb, Haley pulled Nathan by the backpack into his truck. Bringing her feet to the dashboard and swinging her head to look at Nathan, he presses play on the his CD player and to the anthems of Tupac, they begin their drive to school. Haley can feel his tension as he takes the last left before they drive into the parking lot and watching his knuckles tighten around the wheel reaffirms her thoughts.
"You okay?" Haley brings her hand up to his shoulder and tries to decipher what he's thinking behind those blue eyes. "Yeah, I'm fine," He lies to her as he unbuckles his seatbelt. Not having it, Haley brings her hands to his face and mutters the four words he needed to hear to release.
"You can tell me."
Sighing, he tries to put his thoughts into words. "I don't want anything to change Hales. I won the one-on-one with Lucas last night and I'm on the team but- I don't know if I can handle it. The whole basketball thing- it comes with a territory. The partying and the chicks-"
"I know where you're going with this guilt trip Nate. You won't lose the river court okay. You'll take us with you the rest of the way- you're loyal like that." Haley recites as she stares past his eyes and into something deeper.
"It's not just that.. I'm gonna have to see Lucas and Dan more than I care for and you know how my mom gets? I don't want her to go back to the way she was, Hales!"
Calming him down, she unbuckles his seatbelt. Nathan's eyebrows draw up in confusion as Haley explains. "You're gonna get your butt out of this car, go to class and be the kid for once." Trying to protest, Haley shuts him down, "No, I'm not taking anything but a walk into math first period as an answer." Reaching over his body, to open his car door, Nate's body stills. In the past month, she's not been that close to him before and he knows seeing Lucas is now the least of his worries.
For once in his life Nathan had found himself doing the one thing he had never thought would be possible. Cancelling on Haley. After being chased after by Brooke Davis in her agonisingly short cheer uniform, she informed him that Whitey had called an emergency practice after school to fully introduce him to the Ravens.
"You sure you're okay walking home Hales?" He questions. He hates that she'll have to but he knows she'd rather be revising for their calculus exam next week than watching him sweat on a court for god knows how long.
"Nate, go ahead! I'm a big girl, I can take care of myself," she kids back in a condescending manner. He knows she's strong and can take care of herself, hyper aware of it actually. He'd just rather be doing the caring is all.
Searching through the back of his truck in a fight to find his spare basketball shorts, he's unwillingly attacked. Craning his neck to the side, he sees her. Clinging onto his back for dear life is his Haley. Her face construed in a way he's never seen before and wishes to never see again. "Hey, what's up?"
With a breathe in and a smile tugging the edges of her lips- lips he wished were his to explore, she whispers. "Nothing Nate. Good luck ok. Of course you won't need it!" Towards the end of her revelation she morphed back into the Haley, that reminded him of grade school. The over exaggerated, ever optimistic and loving Haley. In a daring move, he uses his hand to comb through the parting of her hair and turns back to the school, feeling much less courageous.
Opening up the boys locker room, Nathan is greeted with emptiness. Dropping his gym bag onto the bench, he runs into the gym. Hoping to a greater power that practice hadn't already started, he is once again welcomed by the same silence. The balls are still stacked in their railings and no signs of half filled water bottles are to be seen.
Backtracking into the locker room, he notices two things. First, is his gym bag. The contents of which have been trailed across the floor, leading towards the showers. Second, a Brooke Davis. The vixen is holding his basketball shoes in only a towel and the grin on her face could put any boy over the edge.
Brooke Davis begins her stalk to towards him. If his breath was not caught in his throat before, it definitely was now. In her five foot six glory, she makes him feel tiny. Propping herself up on her tip toes and using the lockers behind Nathan's head for balance, she breathes past his ear. So soft he didn't think he caught it correctly, Brooke Davis murmurs, "So you got quite big feet Scott." In one smooth motion, she drops her towel and all sense of reserve was lost. Throwing his head up to the ceiling, Nathan groans.
"Excuse me?" Brooke screeches at an inhumane pitch. Picking up her towel from the ground, Brooke looks almost everything but pleased.
Questioning the sudden change of demeanour, Nathan follows after her past the other lockers. "You can't do that to a guy, you know that right?" He bellows behind her.
"I was stark naked in front of your tight ass and you have the audacity to moan another chicks name?" If looks could kill, Nathan would be dead a thousand times over. "Who the hell is Haley?"