A/N: This is the first ANYTHING, except for like 3 whole reviews, that I've posted. So far it's gotten a positive response. Thanks to those of you that reviewed. You have noooo idea how much that meant to me. Now I know why all the stories posted have the "Thanks" at the beginning. I'm starting to feel like this impossible dream, never-gonna-happen thing called my writing may not be so impossible and may in fact happen. Again, if you don't like it…..TELL ME. I want to hear the 'it sucks' and 'you suck', as long as you tell me why it or I suck. Tell me I misspelled cheese in the last paragraph and I forgot a period. Tell me that my writing could use so-and-so or whatever. I WANT your opinion. Please.

Disclaimer: Sadly I do not own One Tree Hill or any of that other good stuff associated with it. Especially not James Lafferty.

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Sleep: 3 A.M.

I thought about all the girls I'd had been with before her.

They were nothing.

There had been a few but they didn't even come close to Haley. I mean even a simple kiss from her changed everything for me.

I look at her as she lies beside me. She sleeps like a dead person. I've told her that before.

She had been nervous. I had expected that. I also expected her to say what she had right before. She had looked me straight in the eye and said, "This doesn't mean I'm not scared. But I'm going to have to get over it. Obviously." I'm sure she meant that as a joke, but I didn't give her time enough to laugh. In that moment I had to kiss her. It was what had pulled me in. Her straight forward, take no bull attitude. She didn't care who you were or what you did. She told you what she thought. I believe her words were something along the lines of 'math don't care, and neither do I'.

I felt her reach out under the covers. Her hand hit my stomach and she inched closer. It reminded me of all of those times I knocked on her window at 3 A.M. After the parties settled down and even after I stopped Tim from throwing them I would go over. I would reach for her, realize she wasn't there, wake up and not be able to get back to sleep. I would toss and turn until I gave up and went to her house.

I remember the first time I had done it. She had been so mad. She had gone on and on about how I could have broken my neck trying to get to her window. How if her parents caught us we would be dead. Twenty minutes later she was in my arms dead asleep. I eventually fell asleep. It took a while because I felt like I couldn't let the opportunity pass; being in the same bed as her and not taking the time to soak her sleeping form in.

It happened the same every time. I would knock and she would simply throw off the blankets and slump over to the window. I would climb in, no 'hello' or kiss (she had refused, citing bad breath), close the window and follow her to bed. Sleep would come so easily for me after that-almost instantly. As soon as I saw her through the window a sort of calmness would sweep over me. I'd like to think it was the same for her. The way we just fell into bed together; like it had always been that way. It still feels that way.

She kept her distance. Always within reach but hesitant until I pulled her close. Like now; aside from her curled up fist against my lower stomach we weren't touching. My right arm was pretty close. It lay just above her head. I couldn't resist stroking her hair, not that she noticed or even cared. She had the softest hair I'd ever felt. The softest skin. The softest lips. The softest everything.

If I didn't have the urge to watch her sleep as strongly as I did, she would have been in my arms a long time ago. It's still so weird to me how I can't seem to get enough of her. When I was with Peyton it seemed like I could spend a couple of hours with her and I was okay if I didn't see her for two or three days. But with Haley…sometimes it's like I can't go a few hours without hearing her voice.

She tilted her head to one side before relaxing back into the pillow. I leaned closer, placing a kiss on her forehead. She's slept through all the other kisses so far. I lift my left arm off of the bed to run it through her hair. I move closer and kiss her again, this time full on the lips.

She let's out a sound I can already tell I'm going to love. She opens her eyes slowly, almost painfully so.

"Hi."

Nothing. Her eyes closed almost as soon as I said it.