The Art Of Living

You should never look down on a sister except to pick her up.-Unknown

((I don't own anything when it comes to One Tree Hill))

"Lucas, would you just give it up? I'm not gonna let you play basketball so stop trying to get the ball away from me!" Nathan screamed at his brother. Nathan had been playing basketball down at the River Court when Lucas had arrived.

"Whoa, what's wrong with you?" Lucas asked concerned, even though he had some idea of what it was.

"Nothing. It's just… well another one of Haley's sisters is coming down and seeing how well it went with the other one…" Nathan was referring to the infamous Taylor James, the complete opposite of her sister, Tree Hill's very own Haley James.

"Gotcha. Who's coming to town this time?" Lucas asked, pretending to go through a mental list of all of Haley's siblings.

He hated to keep things from Nathan, but he had promised not to say anything. Haley was scared that her marriage was falling apart due to both Chris and Taylor so she had called her sister, and asked her to come down and help her out. Nathan didn't know any of that though.

"Your favorite one." Someone said walking up behind Lucas and covering his eyes with her hands. "Guess who?"

"Ashley." Lucas said with a smile. When he turned around to face the young girl Nathan got his first real look at her. She was younger then they were by probably a year. She shared Haley and Taylor's light honey brown hair and Haley's chocolate eyes. But her face was that of an All-American just like Taylor's. In short she was beautiful.

"Luke!" she squealed jumping into his waiting arms. He spun her around a couple of times and whispered, "I missed you marshmallow" In her ear. She laughed and smacked him.

"Lukie, I told you I hated that nickname." She said rolling her eyes.

"Yeah and I told you that I hated the name Lukie."

"True… so who's your friend?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Hands off Ash. This is Nathan, Haley's husband." Lucas said enjoying Ashley's look of horror.

"Oh my gosh, sorry about that." She said blushing. Nathan found it amazing that she could go from being a vixen to seeming so innocent in such a small amount of time. She was like Haley and Taylor all wrapped up into one. It was really unsettling.

"Don't worry about it." He said offering her an easy smile. She returned the smile and turned to Lucas.

"So what's new with you Luke? Still Mr. Broody Pants?" she asked innocently. Nathan laughed at one of her nickname for Lucas. This girl really was something else.

"Very funny Ash. Yeah, not too much has happened. How bout you? How's New York?" Lucas questioned.

"It's been good to me. No complaints over here. Now are you sure that nothing new has happened? Cause from what Haley tell me you Mister, have had quite the year. Filled with lots of girls and lots of drama."

"You talked to Haley?" Nathan interrupted.

"Yeah…" Ashley said looking confused. She saw Lucas' look of concern she decided that she would have to figure out what was going later. "I went to her place when I got into town. She was the one that told me that Lucas would be down here so I figured I would come and catch up with my favorite guy."

Lucas let out an involuntary sigh of relief. Nathan would be beyond pissed if he figured out that Haley had called Ashley for help and that he had lied to him about it.

"Oh" was all Nathan could say.

"Hey I'm starving. Does your mom still own that café?" Ashley said trying to avoid an awkward pause in the conversation. When Lucas nodded yes she replied, "Great cause I am starving and your mom makes the best food ever. You two wanna come along." When both nodded she began to walk over to her car. She then noticed that both Lucas and Nathan were walking over to Luke's truck.

"Hey Nathan, how bout a ride with your favorite sister in law?" Ashley asked. Lucas told Nathan that he should go, and since he didn't want to be rude, he accepted her offer. Luke drove off hoping that everything went well.

"So…" Nathan started when they were both seated in the car. He had no idea what to say to this strange girl.

"You like Eminem?" Ashley questioned turning up "The Real Slim Shady."

Nathan couldn't keep the smile off his face. It had been so long since he had found someone else in Tree Hill who listened to any type of rap music. They were too punk orientated in this town. The lyrics started drifting through the car and he looked over to see her rapping each line. She was actually kinda good.

He could be working at Burger King, spitting on your onion rings. Or in the parking lot circling screaming I don't give a f with his windows down and his system up. So will the real Slim Shady please stand up and put one of those fingers on each hand up.

She was about to continue when she noticed Nathan laughing at her.

"What?" she asked giggling.

"You're insane you know that?" Nathan said starring at her. He felt like he could be himself around her and joke around with her.

"Aww come on. You know you wanna sing along." She instigated interested to see if he would actually go along with it. And to her surprise he did. So they sat there screaming Eminem at the top of their lungs.

When they pulled up to Karen's Café they were both cracking up.

"Well that was fun." Nathan said. It had been a while since he had acted like a total lunatic.

"Look Nathan. I know about the whole Taylor drama. She is after all my sister too." Ashley said turning serious. "Just, make sure you take care of Haley. I know that's she probably really stressed and confused. Tell her you love her and just, try and understand where she's coming from. She'd dealing with a lot right now."

"Thanks, I'll definitely think about that." Nathan said still not knowing what to make of this girl.

"You ready to go inside?" she asked. She knew there was a lot more to the story, but she figured this wasn't the place for it. She would wait until she fully understood the situation before she made any judgments. She sure wished someone would do that for her.

Nathan found that he didn't want to go inside. All he wanted to do was get inside her head, to know her story. She like every other person in Tree Hill seemed like she had a past filled with loads of skeletons in her closet. 'Eminem would be proud' he thought to the song 'Cleaning Out My Closet' and the one and only thing he seemed to share with this mystery girl; the love of Eminem.

"Sure." He said with a tight smile. This was going to be interesting.

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