Chapter 1

It was another beautiful morning in Tree Hill as Lucas sat on his front porch with a cup of coffee watching the sunrise. He did this every morning, it gave him a chance to be alone with his thoughts and clear his head before the day began not to mention it was beautiful. Lucas was an only child in a single mom household, so she was very protective of him. Now this was only partly due to the only child factor, but mainly due to his moms past with his father. His name was Dan Scott and was the mayor of Tree Hill and his mom was a café owner on main street, sounds like a perfect political family right, well not quite actually it was anything but picture perfect. In this small town the Scott family story is something of a gossip columnists dream, and everyone knew about it.

Back when his mom was in high school she was the captain of the cheerleaders, and she fell in love with the charming and attractive star basketball player Dan Scott. It was all rainbows and candy canes until Sr. year, a month before graduation when she found out she was pregnant with Dan's child. She told Dan, but he had just found out that he was given a full ride to Duke to play basketball. Faced with the choice of two lives Dan made a decision and decided to head to Duke and pursue his dream of playing basketball, leaving Karen, Lucas's mom alone to raise a child or as Dan had suggested to her, have an abortion and end the whole thing before it began. The story gets really interesting when Dan went off to Duke, not even a month after her got there he fell in love with another student named Deb, and by the middle of first semester she found out she was pregnant as well. This time Dan decided to stand by Deb and they moved back to Tree Hill to raise their son Nathan. And alas the gossip of the Scott family was born.

Nathan and Lucas were the same age, and went to the same school, but were not close by any means. Nathan was living the life that Dan had, the money, the girls and basketball, and he made no apologies for the way he acted or who he had to trample over to get what he wanted. Lucas on the other hand was living the complete opposite life, he and his mom worked hard but never had the kind of money that Nathan had, he was basically unknown at school, well other than the fact that he was the bastard son of the mayor. They did have one thing in common however, their love of basketball, although Lucas didn't get to play in Nathan's fancy gym with all the fans roaring. Instead he played at the Rivercourt park with a couple of his friends, who showed up every day to play knowing that they would never be as good as him, of course they would never tell that to Lucas. He had this thing about playing, he felt like if he did play it would bring him closer to Dan and that was something he never wanted, so he swore he would never play in Dan's gym no matter how good he may or may not be.

Lucas looked up from his coffee as he heard the door open and the soft footsteps heading his way. He knew it was his mom, she would always give in a come sit out with him after a while, once she realized he wasn't going to come inside and sit with her. She knew he loved his mornings, but it was some of the only quality time she got to spend with him now that the café had taken off and since he had been gone to the river court every night with the guys. And she would never say this to him but she missed their time alone, and secretly hoped he did too.

"Hey mom" he slid over on the bench so she could slide right next to him," How's your morning?"

"Great," she said as she sat down," other than the fact that I cannot get my son to come inside and eat his breakfast like a normal boy,"

Lucas laughed, he loved how his mom always wanted him to come inside but would always give in and come sit with him after a while.

"Mom you know I love it out here, and I did eat, I'm just faster than you,"

"Well you can't blame your mother for wanting to spend a little quality time with you can you,"

"No I guess not, since I am pretty amazing,"

Karen laughed looking at her son and secretly agreeing with him

"Ya and so very modest," said a familiar sweet voice from down the walkway, both Lucas and Karen knew who it was.

"Oh hi Peyton, a little early wouldn't you say," Karen asked.

"Ya well I was just sitting there alone and decided why bother waiting a half hour to come over here to pick up his sorry butt when I could just leave now," Peyton explained.

Karen looked at Lucas and couldn't help but laugh, he just shook his head in the way he did and then looked up at Peyton with his classic squint and said

"You just couldn't stay away now admit it, not to mention the fact that you can't even cook toast, you must be hungry,"

Peyton rolled her eyes and Karen took her by the arm and led her inside, at least she was still able to take care of someone she thought.

"Lucas why don't you go take a shower and get ready for school while I make Peyton some breakfast,"

"Ya you do kind of smell," Peyton snickered.

Lucas just rolled his eyes and got up, rinsed his mug and headed to his room. He grabbed a towel on the way and jumped in the shower while Peyton and his mom sat at the table chatting and gossiping about anything they could think of.

Peyton was Lucas's best friend for as long as he could remember. Her mother died when she was young and her father worked out of town a lot, so she was alone most of the time, so him and Karen had basically adopted her into their family so she was over there all the time. Most people thought that there was something going on between them in a sexual way, but both him and Peyton laugh off those comments when they hear them. Even Karen saw it sometimes though, just in the little things they did around each other, but after being told many times that there was nothing going on she decided to drop it. It wasn't that Lucas didn't find her attractive, I mean any guy would, she was tall and thin with perfect ivory skin, beautiful big green eyes and blonde curly hair that always seemed to have a mind of its own but looked incredibly sexy at the same time. He thought about Peyton's most infamous quality around school, her long toned legs. He once heard the guys after gym class making comments about her and how they would love to have those legs wrapped around them and he lost it, it was his first of many fights to defend what he saw as Peyton's honor, he would never tell her that though. Although she did have many redeeming qualities, he just simply didn't think of her like that, he was just very protective of her like a big brother would be of his little sister, and besides she didn't have feeling for him anyways.

Lucas got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around himself, wiped the steam off the mirror and looked at himself for a minute deciding if he felt like shaving or not, then he thought about how Peyton would tease him for trying to create a bad boy image if he didn't so he took out his razor and began.

Lucas was tall and slim; he had short blonde hair and a chiseled frame from playing so much basketball with the guys. The thing that Peyton always noticed about him however was his eyes, they were a perfect shade of blue, and so honest that if you look into them you can see into his soul, which was a good one in her opinion. Her girlfriends always talked about how cute he was and how they couldn't believe that she hadn't even tried to hook up with him. Like Lucas, although Peyton could not deny how good looking he was she just didn't look at him that way, she used to when she was younger but not anymore.

Lucas finished up shaving, and ran some product through his hair, threw on a pair of faded jeans and a plain orange tee shirt. He grabbed his bag and coat and headed into the kitchen where Peyton and Karen were still laughing, he couldn't help but smile at the sight of it. Since Lucas never had a sibling, well other than he who shall not be named, it was nice to have Peyton around, it made the house feel more like a home.

"So Peyton, and cute guys you have your eye on this year," Karen quizzed her

She looked over at Lucas who was pretending he did not hear the question, although he did and was secretly wanted to hear who she was looking at so he knew who to keep his eye on.

"Well actually there is this one guy, and he is really cute Karen, you have no idea," Peyton gushed.

Before Karen had a chance to ask Peyton to elaborate Lucas broke into the conversation.

"So Peyt, you ready to go,"

"Um ya," she grabbed her coat and bag, shot Karen a look that said she would fill her in later when they are alone and followed Lucas to the door," Bye Karen, I'll see you later."

"Bye you guys, have a good day at school," Karen said as she looked out the window at her son and the girl she loved like a daughter laughing, wondering when he would realize how beautiful she is, or if they really were just friends like they both claimed.

Lucas climbed into the passenger seat of Peyton's black 69 Mercury Comet convertible. She had the top down and the red interior was glistening in the sunlight. God he loved that car, and he knew she did too. Peyton got in too and started the engine, pulled onto the street and headed towards Tree Hill High school, home of the undefeated Ravens basketball team lead by Lucas's least favorite person, Nathan Scott.

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okay so its my first attempt, so any feedback is appreciated, and i know it has a lot of explanation of background that is probably unnecessary, the next chapters will not be as heavy on it. Let me know if i should do more