Up close she was just as beautiful as he remembered, after years of looking on from yards away he'd forgotten how easily she was about to leave him breathless.
Clearing his throat, he tried to remember the conversation he gone over repeatedly in his head that had now fled from his thoughts.
"Hey Brooke" he managed to get out.
A minute or so passed before the shock wore off and he watch the anger return to her eyes, something that was bound to happen after four years.
"What, Are, You, Doing, Here?" she demanded with anger but not raising her voice to avoid the attention of others.
"I invited him" a voice of explanation appeared from the patio, a tall scrawny man appeared behind
Brooke as Dean's mind made the connection; Clay.
He'd barely knew the guy but Dean refused to pass judgment, which was pretty rare considering he'd do it in a heartbeat to most people with or without a pulse without a second thought.
Waiting for Brooke to connect the pieces, Deans eyes drifted over the nice house and people gathered in the living room, realizing that this could have been his life had he stayed.
"Your kidding me!" her voice broke through the silence that'd settled in the room. Here eyes darted between himself and Clay, occasionally settling on Haley for a brief moment before continue.
Dean knew she wanted some answer, and answer he didn't have.
"You need to go before Jamie sees you." Brooke urged with a bit of sadness but urgency in the plead.
Jamie, Dean thought, his son. It wasn't hard to figure out that Brooke hadn't told Jamie very much about him, if at all.
"I agree" Haley chimed in, trying to show Brooke she took no part in planning this event.
Brooke's hazel eyes had settled on him, burning a whole through his body causing him to feel uncomfortable, possible as uncomfortable as she was at the moment.
"Mom?" the voice from his dreams that cause Dean with wake up from a dead sleep called out.
Brooke's eyes flashed with horror as the short blonde boy turned the corner, ignorant to the tension in the room as he ramble on.
"I'm hungry" he wined before reaching for a biscuit from the counter and turned towards Brooke and gave her the puppy dog face. "How much longer?"
Watching him now, Dean couldn't believe he had allowed so much time to pass before coming back. Not that Dean hadn't been back but this was the first time he'd made his presence known.
The last time Dean had been this close was when Jamie was three months old, the day that Dean walked out the door leaving his family behind. Something that'd tormented him til this day.
No matter the reason for his departure, Brooke would never forgive him and Dean had taken the risk of never knowing his son on personal level.
Sighing Dean turned the stranger who stood next to him on the deck, the man who'd gone out of his way to get a hold of him and invite him to Thanksgiving dinner.
Though Dean was still unsure of his reasoning, he couldn't be more grateful.
"He's a good kid" Clay interjected as he watched Jamie run around the yard, carefree for the moment.
"He looks… happy" Dean paused struggling to find the words that broke his heart. No father ever wanted to believe their child could live without them.
Clay search for the right words before settling, "He is happy for the most part."
"Meaning?" Dean turned curious if he'd missed something over the past few years of his spying and frequent check-ins.
"There are things he doesn't understand" Clay paused before leaning his back against the rail and looking toward Dean. "I invited you because you can't get these years back and whatever the excuse is that your telling yourself, it will never been good enough."
'If you only knew' Dean thought to himself but stayed silent.
His palms were clammy as his eyes stayed glued to the floor when he entered the room, expecting her fuse to blow at any moment, not that'd he'd ever blame her if it did.
"I'm sorry" he attempted to voice as it came out in almost a whisper.
Brooke Davis had the ability to make him feel like a child, as if the wrong word would get him punish when normally he offered no apologizes for his actions.
"For which part?" she question without any sympathy in her voice and yet very little anger which surprised him.
"All of it" he stated as it came out as more of question, not sure what she wanted to hear.
"Four years, four years Dean." Covering her face, he knew she wouldn't allow him to see her cry.
"I know."
"You just left me, you left Jamie." Her eyes search for some excuse in his eyes, something more that what he'd left her with.
'This isn't my life' being the words that haunted her and his only explanation at the time.
"It was complicated" he watched her eyes roll in disbelief as he quickly interjected before she blew him off, "and that's no excuse but believe me when I say I thought I was doing the right thing at the time."
"The right thing?" her voice pitched raised as well as the anger in it.
Wrong words. Shit. Dean instantly regretted the phase but knew there was no back tracking at this point, not with Brooke.
"How is abandoning your son, the right thing?" Not meaning it as a question but more of a are you freaking kidding me way. "You are a sorry piece of-"
"Dinners ready" Haley chimed in from the doorway before Brooke could finish her thought.
