Thank you so much for all the lovely reviews so far and the follows too, I read them all and they mean a lot. Here's the next chapter for you all, sorry for the length of it, got a little carried away. Anyway, enjoy :)
Picking Jenny up from school after she'd finished work, Peyton got a surprise as she saw Nikki waiting in the playground. They'd come up with a routine for Jenny's time with Nikki. It started off as weekends, but then it increased as Nikki got a better place of accommodation and settled in. As it stood now, Nikki would see her three times a week and every other weekend. Today wasn't one of the days Nikki was due to have her though, so Peyton was confused as to why she was there?
"Hey, has something happened? Did Jake call you?" Peyton asked as she approached her, thinking that maybe Jenny had fallen ill or something and the school had called Jake, who'd called Nikki to get her as him and Peyton were working.
"No, I was just passing and realised the time, thought I'd come and surprise her." She replied and Peyton just nodded.
"Oh right." She said and then stood there in silence waiting for the kids to come out.
"Look Peyton, I need to tell you something and I know this probably isn't the best place to do it, but..." Nikki started and then stopped herself.
"But what?" Peyton asked and Nikki let out a sigh.
"I wasn't going to say anything, but you're a good person and you deserve to know." Nikki said.
"Know what?" Peyton asked, starting to get a little frustrated. "Come on Nikki, you can't start sentences and then stop halfway through them." She added.
"Look I know me and you have never seen eye to eye, but you're great with Jenny, you've done so much for her over the years and I can't keep doing this to you anymore, Jake might be able to, but I can't." Nikki said and Peyton just looked at her.
"Do what?" She asked, fear now breaking through her voice over anger at Nikki's mid sentence stopping.
"Jake and I...we've been seeing each other." She admitted and Peyton guessed something like this was coming, the fear in her voice had already given away that she believed her a little bit, but then was she really telling the truth?
"Nikki, I don't..." She started to say, but a load of noisy kids coming out of the school stopped her and she knew she couldn't question her on this with Jenny around.
"Just ask him Peyton, ask him tonight." Nikki told her and then saw her daughter heading their way.
"Mommy!" Jenny yelled. "What are you doing here?" She asked and Nikki looked at Peyton and then Peyton looked at Jenny.
"She was passing by and thought she'd surprise you." Peyton said with a smile.
"Can she come to ours for dinner?" Jenny then asked.
"I don't thi..."
"Course I can." Nikki answered before Peyton could finish. "As long as it's ok with your Dad though, right Peyton?" Nikki said and Peyton just nodded, not really having much choice.
Jake got in from work an hour after the girls had got home and he was surprised to see Nikki in the front room of his and Peyton's house playing with Jenny.
"What's she doing here?" He asked, finding Peyton in the kitchen.
"She invited herself, she was at the school at picking up time. Reckons she was just passing by." Peyton replied and Jake rolled his eyes and then went to kiss her, but Peyton pulled away.
"What's wrong?" He asked.
"Nothing, I'm just trying to cook our family dinner...well I say ours, but it's more like yours." She replied, muttering the last bit and even though Peyton had turned her back on him, Jake heard her loud and clear.
"Right that's it. I'm telling her to go." He said, not impressed with Nikki's actions, but Peyton turned and grabbed his arm stopping him.
"No don't. Jenny's in there and I don't want you to cause a scene." She said.
"Alright, but one foot out of line and I'm kicking her out." He replied and Peyton nodded before going back to the cooker.
"So how was work today, was that meeting as bad as you thought it'd be?" He asked, sliding his arms around her waist, but he felt her tense up as soon as he touched her. "Babe, what's wrong?" He asked.
"Nothing! I'm just trying to cook the dinner ok?!" She snapped and he turned her around to face him and instantly knew she was hiding something.
"Peyton, what's going on. Talk to me." He said.
"THERE'S NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT! WILL YOU JUST..." She yelled and then closed her eyes, calming herself down. "Will you just go and make yourself useful and set the table please?" She asked in a much softer tone and he looked at her for a few seconds and then nodded, figuring that whatever was going on in her head, she wasn't going to say with Jenny or Nikki around.
"Fine, but you're telling me later." He replied and then grabbed the cutlery and set the table for them all.
The evening passed by slowly and silently for Peyton, she hadn't said more than a few sentences since she'd served dinner, she'd told Jenny that she was just tired from work when the little girl had asked her why she was quiet, but she was secretly observing the little girls parents. She wanted to see for herself if Nikki had been telling the truth earlier, she wanted to see if there were any little winks or signals going off that she'd never noticed before and much to her shock and horror she'd gotten her answer when she'd been loading the dishwasher after dinner itself.
At first Jake had offered to do it knowing that Peyton had already done so much today in taking Jenny to and from school, she'd gone to work and cooked the dinner, the least he could do was offer to load the dishwasher, but she'd refused. Jenny had gone upstairs to her room and Peyton figured this would be the perfect time for Jake and Nikki to be alone if she excused herself from the table too and it paid off.
"You better not have said anything to Peyton earlier." She heard Jake quietly say from the dining room.
"About what?" Nikki replied, obviously playing dumb in front of him.
"You know what! She can't find out about us ok, it would destroy her, it would really hurt Jenny too!" He said and Peyton felt tears prick at her eyes.
"How would it hurt Jenny? She's our daughter Jake, not Peyton's. We were a family before, we're supposed to be a family now. Jenny should have both her biological parents living together, she won't be hurt, she'll be happy." She heard Nikki tell him and his reply broke Peyton's heart into pieces.
"Look I've already said that you can move in here soon, just not right now ok and I know it hurts you seeing the three of us as a family, but like I always tell you, Peyton means nothing to me anymore, whenever we have sex it's you I'm thinking of. I just need to find the right time to break this to her and then we can be a family again. I promise." Peyton heard Jake say and although she felt herself shaking and enough tears building in her eyes to cause a waterfall, she blinked them back, composed herself and strolled out into the dining room like she'd not heard a thing.
"Listen I was thinking, would you want to take Jenny for the night?" Peyton asked, looking at Nikki.
"Course...if that's ok with you?" She replied and then looked at Jake who just looked at Peyton confused.
Remembering how she'd been acting before dinner, he nodded his head and agreed. He also knew Nikki would be thinking this would be the perfect time to tell her of their little secret, not knowing that she'd already told her earlier and he'd already confirmed it with what he'd just been trying to keep on the down low.
"Jenny, pack your overnight back sweetie, you're going to be staying at your Mom's tonight." Peyton called up to her.
As soon as Nikki had left with her about half an hour later, Peyton let all the anger, hurt, venom and betrayal that had been building up inside of her out and she didn't mince her words.
"How long?" She asked bitterly and Jake looked at her confused. "How long have you two been going behind my back and seeing and sleeping with each other?" She added, her face full of fury.
"What?! Where the hell has this come from?" Jake asked, still trying to deny it!
"Nikki may have mentioned something in the playground earlier, but I got most of it from you actually!" She told him and his face dropped. "Yeah that's right Mr whisperer, I heard everything you said to her in the dining room." She informed him. "What I want to know now though is how long and don't even think about lying." She warned, her face serious and her teeth gritted.
"Two years." He answered quietly, but quiet enough for her to hear the words.
"TWO YEARS?! TWO YEARS?!" She yelled. She'd been expecting him to say a few months, not that amount of time!
"I'm sorry ok! I didn't mean to hurt you, but...you're just...you're so wrapped up in your work and...I just wanted some excitement back in my life, I come home all the time to hear you talking about these old, wrinkly people that can't feed themselves or walk or can't even go to the toilet properly without help and..." He tried to explain, but Peyton grabbed the closest thing to her and aimed it at his head.
"No! No don't you DARE bring those wonderful and kind people into this to use as an excuse for you straying!" She yelled.
"I'm sorry ok?" He said and she just shook her head.
"Sorry? You're sorry?!" She shouted. "God, after everything I've done for you...for Jenny! It's her that you're going to need to say sorry to!" She added and for the first time since he'd been confronted, Jake looked guilty. "I need to get out of here, I can't breathe." She said, the smell of his aftershave suddenly making her feel suffocated and she headed up to their room and started packing her things.
"Wait, whoa, what are you doing?" Jake asked as he followed her and found her chucking her clothes into a suitcase.
"What does it look like? You told Nikki she could move in soon, I'm going now so that she can move in sooner." Peyton told him and then felt nauseas as she looked at their bed, images of him and Nikki in it flooding through her mind. "You thought of her every time we had sex." She stated. "Bet you didn't think of me when it was her you were screwing. Lousy was I?" She asked and Jake sighed.
"Well you weren't great no..." He started and then Peyton gave him a hard slap around the face before zipping her case and taking it downstairs.
"Wait, where are you going to stay?" He asked. "Shouldn't we at least talk about this? What am I meant to tell Jenny?" He added and that last comment stopped her from walking out of the door.
"Tell her I'm sorry and that I'll pop by before the week's over and say a proper goodbye to her." She answered. "As for everything else, where I stay is no concern of yours anymore and there's nothing for us to talk about. I've heard enough." She said and with that she was out of the door and out of his life.
Parking her car up after she'd driven away from what she would now have to call Jake's place rather than theirs, she looked at the building and let out a sigh.
Getting her case out of the trunk of her car, she then made her way to the door and rang the doorbell. Thankfully her Dad was the one to answer and as soon as she saw him, she just crumbled. A girls first love will always be her Dad and he was the only guy Peyton felt like she could trust right now.
"Angel, what's happened?" He asked as he hugged her and noticed the suitcase on the floor behind her.
"Can I stay here for a couple of days?" She replied, not telling him what had gone on until he'd gotten her inside and she'd explained it all over a strong drink.
"I'll kill him!" He fumed once Peyton had told him everything and she had to literally grab him and stop him from doing anything stupid.
"Daddy, don't! Please! He's not worth it. Please?" She repeated, tears still streaming down her face and her eyes begging him not to go around there and beat him to a pulp.
"Ok. Ok. I won't." He promised and realised that right now, it was his little girl he should be with, she needed him and for the first time since the two Mothers in her life had passed, he spent the night holding her in his arms and comforting her the way any Father would.
The moment got ruined in the early hours of the morning though when a drunk Cynthia had stumbled in from a night out with friends. She'd found Larry cuddling his sleeping daughter on the couch and he'd carefully slipped his arms from around her and then took Cynthia into the kitchen to explain everything, but Cynthia being Cynthia hadn't shown much sympathy and being drunk hadn't made her quiet either. Peyton woke up, hearing her Step Mother criticizing her and praising Jake for what he'd done!
"She's brought it all on herself! She's working practically twenty four seven in a place that's on the brink of closing, no wonder he's back with his ex." Peyton heard, getting awoken from her sleep.
"Cynthia..." Larry started, but Cynthia just carried on.
"Look at her, twenty four years old and sleeping on her Father's couch. No boyfriend, no husband, no kids, no friends and there'll be no job soon." She laughed and although Peyton heard Larry starting to defend her honour, it didn't stop her from thinking about what she'd been thinking about on her way here and it had just confirmed her answer to it.
Grabbing her cell out of her pocket, she called her boss and after apologising for the lateness or earliness given the time, she told her the main reason for the phone call. "That job in North Carolina? I'll take it." She told her.