The Kiss Ch. 1- How It All Starts

Before you start reading I just wanted to say thank you for clicking on this story. After being on this site for a few years I've grown not only as a writer, but as a person. If you're new to my stories, or an older reader, I'd like to let everyone know about part of the inspiration for this story. My father passed away in March of 2015. It has been really hard on myself, and my family. For a while I didn't even want to go out. I trapped myself in this state of depression that felt inescapable. Now, things are a little better. The pain will always remain, but living day to day isn't such a struggle anymore. I just wanted to address this so you all know where my head has been at for a few months before my return to writing. Also, I wanted to let everyone know that life happens, and when it gets hard there will always been someone there for you. If it feels like there isn't just be confident in yourself and your own power.

With that being said I hope you enjoy. Like my other stories, this is rated M for mature. It's the rating I've definitely grown fond of, it's always a blast to think of something a bit risqué.

It all started with an innocent kiss. Our lives spiraled into this tangled mess of love, lust, and confusion. We were at church, sitting in the same pew. I had seen him at school and a few times at church, but we didn't exchange many words with one another. The only reason I had any knowledge on him was because of Lucas, my best friend, but more on that later.

We were sitting, listening to the sermon and I could feel him staring at me. I looked over at him and he smiled at me, I politely smiled back and continued to listen to the priest. After reciting Apostles Creed everyone was greeting everyone around us, shaking hands like always and exchanging smiles, but suddenly, he gave me a kiss on the cheek. Nathan looked like he was shocked by his own actions and quickly went back to where he was sitting, I had no time to actually respond or comprehend what just happened.

After church ended I wanted to look for Nathan but he was long gone. I guess I had to wait until school to talk to him about it.

After my family and I got home from church we were immediately greeted by Lucas. Lucas was not only my best friend, but Nathan's half-brother as well. And to make things even weirder, they still shared the same last name. Lucas and Nathan didn't share the best relationship. I completely understand, they were practically born as nemeses because of Dan Scott, their father, well Nathan's father. Dan left Lucas' mom before he was even born for Nathan's mom, Deb. The bad blood between the two totally makes sense, but it sucks to see two brothers torn apart from each other. Especially when we live in such a small town like Tree Hill.

It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon so me and Lucas decided to go on a walk. I was contemplating whether or not I should tell Lucas about the kiss. The kiss was weird because I was completely caught off guard. I've never really been kissed before, except for the occasional brotherly kisses on the cheek from Lucas. The more I thought about it the more I started to blush. I wanted to tell Lucas because it felt like I was hiding something from him, and we do not do that to each other.

"Lucas, I need to tell you something but you can't get upset." I started.

"What is it?" he said as he looked me right in the eyes.

"At church, Nathan and I were sitting in the same pew."

"Ok…"

"And when everyone was greeting each other he kissed me, and it felt different, it didn't feel like the kisses I get from you."

"Where did he kiss you? On the lips?!" Lucas said going from 0 to 100 in a matter of seconds.

"No, nothing like that. It was an innocent peck on the cheek." I said quickly regretting telling Lucas.

"It doesn't matter if it was innocent or not, he should not be coming anywhere near you. You know he's just doing that to annoy me."

"His family sat near me, they probably don't know who I am." I added.

"Of course they do, we're in Tree Hill Haley." He said in an annoyed tone just at the mention of his estranged father.

"Just promise you won't make a big deal out of this." I pleaded.

"Why? Do you like him or something?" he said with a snarky tone.

"No! I don't even know him." I retorted quickly.

"Good, stay away from him." Lucas said protectively.

Lucas has always been sort of a guardian angel for me for a long time now. We met when we were in first grade and have been best friends since. But, the reason I know Lucas will always be my best friend is because he is one of the few people who stayed in my life after my father passed away.

During my freshman year, my Dad died suddenly from a stroke. It was… traumatizing. I had a hard time opening up to people and I couldn't accept my reality for a long time. Slowly I lost people I thought would always be in my life. No matter how depressed or angry I would get, Lucas was ALWAYS there for me and my family. For a long time Lucas and his mom Karen, picked up groceries for us because my whole family didn't even want to leave the house anymore. It took a long time, but we pulled through with the love from our true friends and family.

Now it has been almost two years since my father passed away. There are days where all I think about his him, and there are other days where I'm too distracted from school and work. I miss him every day, and if it wasn't for Lucas I couldn't imagine functioning normally. I owe my life to Lucas Eugene Scott.

Walking through the halls at Tree Hill High is like any typical high school. There were the popular kids, jocks, nerds, and the in-betweeners. I bordered nerd and in-betweener, but I proudly think of myself as more of a nerd. My mission for the day was to talk to Nathan about yesterday. I knew it would upset Lucas if he found me speaking to Nathan but I had to in order to appease my thoughts. I could barely sleep last night thinking about the kiss. Nathan was the most known jock at our school. Since freshman year he has been on the varsity basketball team. Now, he's the team captain and dating Peyton Sawyer, cheerleader. I actually adored them. They were like those couples you see on television, but with much different dynamics. Peyton was a tortured type. She reminded me a lot of Lucas. Speaking of Lucas, she was another reason he hated Nathan so much. Lucas had a crush on Peyton since the sixth grade. To know that his brother is with his dream girl kills him so much. Even though Nathan and her were a strange couple, I liked them together. I thought they were cute together.

I was so lost in my thoughts I randomly noticed Nathan at his locker by himself. I ran towards him so I could catch him before anyone from his crew came.

"Nathan, glad I caught you." I smiled at him.

"Haley. What are you doing?" he looked at me confused.

"I wanted to talk to you." I said beginning to explain myself.

"Look- I can't be seen talking to you. I can talk to you later, I'll drop by your place or something." He said to me frantically.

"Wait. What? Why can't we just talk now?" I replied completely confused and caught off guard by his earlier comment.

"Just write down your address in my phone." He said quickly handing his phone to me.

"You know what, nevermind. I don't want to talk anymore." I said handing him his phone and walking away.

I was baffled by the way he acted. It was so arrogant and irritating! Lucas was right for telling me to stay away from him. Just the thought of him kept me seething. I couldn't believe there were people that talked to others so lowly.

Six hours later…

After class I needed to head straight home because I had a shit ton of homework to do. It's really close to the end of the school year and teachers have been packing on the essays, projects, and other bullshit assignments. While I was rushing to my car I dropped my keys along with two textbooks. As I was picking my stuff back up I saw a pair of strong hands helping me pick things up. When I looked up, boy was I in for a surprise.

"Nathan…" I said as I stared right into his piercing eyes.

"Hey, I'm sorry about earlier. I'm just not a morning person." He said as he awkwardly scratched his head.

"Look, you don't need to make excuses." I said as I grabbed my stuff from his hands.

I continued walking to my car and I heard steps behind me as I got into my Jeep.

"What'd you want to talk about?" he said with a gentle smile as he leaned over my window. He seemed weary of his actions, as if treading on dangerous waters.

"We don't have to talk about it anymore, it's fine." I said still upset from earlier. A smile is not going to fix everything if that was what he was expecting.

"Haley, come on. I already said I was sorry."

"Thank you for apologizing but I just don't want to talk about it, we live separate lives and I think it's best if we keep it that way. You made it pretty obvious that you don't want people seeing us speak." I could feel my heart pounding as I said this to him. It was rare that I said anything like this to a person. It was sort of, out of body.

"You misunderstood, I was having a bad morning. I want to hear what you had to say." He said with his hand on my shoulder.

"I don't want to anymore, I got to go." I said as I drove away.

"Haley, I already told you to stay away from him. What don't you understand?" Lucas reacted just as I expected, angry and upset.

"I just wanted to hear what he had to say about it, my curiosity got the best of me." I said as I felt like a child being disciplined.

"And look what happened. I know you see the best in everyone Hales, but he's different…" Lucas spat out hatefully.

"You don't even really know him, why do you think he's such a terrible guy?" I said unknowingly defending "the enemy"

"I can't believe you're asking me that. He's taken everything from me." Lucas said with so much sadness, I felt like the worst friend after asking.

"Hey, hey, I'm sorry." I said as I hugged him.

"If you like him Haley, I wish you'd stop. He's not good for you, believe me."

"Who said I liked him? I'm just weirded out by the kiss. You know I've never been kissed by any guy other than you and my dad…" I said as I suddenly thought about my late father.

"I know, I should be more understanding. I'm sorry. Let's just stop talking about Nathan ok? We have the rest of our messed up lives to worry about." Lucas said as he kissed me on the cheek.

A/N: I hope you liked it! I have great feelings about this story. This work feels somewhat therapeutic to me. Planning on having four more parts to this story. Let me know what you think! Your reviews are always appreciated! -Camille