A/N- Sorry it's been such a while since I last updated, but ff has been playing up again and it's really annoying me that I don't get alerts and neither do other people. So hopefully things are back to normal, and I'll get all those story alerts from others that I should have had weeks ago lol. Thank you for all of your reviews last chapter. Hope you enjoy this, and please don't forget to review :)

Nude, With Calla Lilies

Chapter 3: Just Friends

She was beautiful. Lucas couldn't deny that, nobody could deny that, and as she reached the front of the tiny Italian restaurant, her dimpled smile did nothing to make his desire to be near her go away.

"You look nice." He told her a little uneasily. He could hardly tell her that she might possibly be the most beautiful woman he'd seen, so settling for something more on the line of friends (because that's what she'd said she wanted them to be) would have to do. Besides, he was married.

"Thanks." She smiled back at him. "I like that shirt, makes your eyes stand out."

Lucas looked down, a forced smile on his face. "Peyton bought me this shirt."

"Peyton has good taste."

Their table was set at the back of the small building, a little away from the other tables much to Lucas' relief. He hadn't wanted to be recognised from the previous night, and being sat in the middle of the room might have brought unwanted attention.

It was when they were contemplating appetisers that the rock on her left hand caught his eye. It was huge and shiny and everything he'd expect a supermodel to wear. But it was on her fourth finger. And Brooke hadn't mentioned a fiancé.

"What?" She asked, an eyebrow raised at him over her menu as he'd continued to stare at her hand.

"You're engaged?"

"No." Brooke shook her head. "I'm married actually. Have been for two years."

"You didn't mention him." Lucas said, wondering why there was a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Brooke only shrugged. "You didn't ask. It didn't come up."

"But you didn't have a ring on when I saw you yesterday."

"What are you?" She laughed a little. "The jewellery police?"

Lucas shook his head. "Just seemed a little strange that you weren't wearing that ring yesterday."

Brooke frowned at him, her menu set back on the table. "I don't wear it for work in case the stone chips. Diamonds are expensive you know."

Lucas raised an eyebrow at her cocky nature. "So why don't you tell me about your husband?"

-

He'd found out, after some probing and question-avoiding that Brooke's husband was named Chase, and was the air to a fortune built up by his father in the shipping business. Lucas didn't ask for more details, but settled for knowing that Mr Adams was tall, dark and strikingly handsome, (how else would he have caught her eye?) and they had met through friends at one of Brooke's modelling auditions.

"So why the job as a waitress in that coffee shop?" Lucas asked as they walked through the night streets, the late Summer air warm and comforting. "I mean, you're married to a millionaire but you work in a coffee shop?"

Brooke only raised her eyebrow at him, flicking a stray wave of hair behind her shoulders. "I want my own money. I don't free-load off anyone."

"But surely he could help you with modelling jobs and stuff right? I mean, he must know people?"

"Look Lucas, if we're going to be friends, you're going to have to learn not to be so nosy."

"I'm only asking!" He replied indignantly.

So she shrugged then, her appearance smart, yet her mannerisms casual. "Chase isn't that keen on the whole modelling thing so I'd rather make my own way through that career. If he's not involved then he has no say in the jobs I take or the decisions I make."

Lucas was slightly confused as to why the two of them might not share decisions, but thinking about his own marriage, he wasn't one to judge.

"It's good." He told her.

"What is?"

"You making your own career."

Brooke nodded. "It'll be more satisfying if I finally make it."

"When." Lucas corrected.

"What?"

"When you finally make it. Not if."

-

It had been a long day. After completing an article for the company he worked for, Lucas had spent time working on the book he had decided to write in hope of becoming the author he'd always wanted to be. And at many hours past what was accepted as a decent time to come home from work, he'd finally made it back home, the welcome relief of the hallway greeting him like a hot bubble bath.

But she was there. Brooke Davis. (Or Brooke Davis-Adams, he wasn't quite sure.)

"You're late babe." Peyton told him, a glass of wine in one hand, legs folded as she sat on the carpet with swatches of different coloured woods in front of her. "You remember Brooke right?"

He took a breath, not knowing why because he had nothing to hide, (not really) before smiling. "From your painting."

Peyton nodded, standing up to kiss her husband. "Yeah, remember I told you I was thinking about doing a follow-up piece?"

He faked a frown, followed by false-realisation that they had indeed had the conversation she was talking about.

"Well we were just discussing that."

"Your wife's ideas are brilliant." Brooke told him, every ounce of sincerity in her voice hitting him like a slap across the face. He had no idea as to why she was pretending too, but if she was, then he would do nothing to jeopardise this.

"Well I certainly think so." Lucas replied, placing an arm briefly around Peyton's body to rub the small of her back. "I should go have a shower, leave you guys to it."

Peyton rolled her eyes as Lucas left the room, turning her attentions back to Brooke. "Sorry about that, he's probably just tired. He's been working all the time lately." She told Brooke, fingering the coloured wood on the coffee table.

"I know what you mean." Brooke laughed a little. "My husband spends that much time in the office I hardly see him."

"What does he do?"

"His father owns a shipping company so Chase deals with the paperwork and stuff." She laughed again. "I'm not quite sure to be honest."

"Well I'm never really sure what Lucas is writing, but if he wanted me to know I'm sure he'd tell me." Peyton smiled. "So I was thinking that if we do this painting in a poppy field, we could go for either the green edging or perhaps the red?"

Brooke nodded. "Sounds good."

-

"Your ring wasn't on your hand the day I met you." Lucas told Brooke in a single breath as he placed his hands on the edge of the counter. The coffee shop wasn't busy, and luckily (for her perhaps-he hadn't had the time to notice) her boss wasn't around.

"Excuse me?"

"Your ring, the one you were wearing the other night? It wasn't on your hand at the exhibition."

"So?"

"So you said you just didn't wear it for work."

"Lucas, what's your point?" Brooke frowned, notably confused.

"You flirt with me, ask me if my marriage is okay, ask me to meet up, never mentioning a husband, and then all of a sudden you wear this ring and tell me you're happily married."

"I never said I was happily married." She replied. "And for the record, I wasn't flirting."

"Then what are we doing?"

"Well I thought that I said I wanted us to be friends." Brooke raised an eyebrow. "Unless I wasn't clear on that?"

Lucas squinted at her, his blue eyes burning as her hazel ones seemed to stare straight through him. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you want us to be friends?"

"Because I enjoyed your company that night." She replied simply. "Lucas, I'm not sure what you think I want from you."

"Then what was the other night all about? Meeting up at that little restaurant, it's not like it's a casual place for friends to hang out Brooke."

"I like the food there."

He lowered his head, eyes boring into the wooden floor as she stood in front of him, coffee jug in one hand, tongs in the other as she waited for him to say something, hair in a messy bun, face pure from make-up.

"I think we just had a misunderstanding." She tried to laugh, but it came out forced and fake.

"Yeah." Lucas whispered. "And I don't think we can be friends."

"Why not?"

"Because when I'm with you, you give me these feelings that…" He trailed off, realising that Brooke didn't need to any of it, because they wouldn't be anything more than acquaintances.

"That what?"

Lucas shook his head. "It doesn't matter, I should go."

He didn't want to tell her that when she was next to him, his arms would tingle, the feeling spreading over his body, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as her voice filled his ears, raspy echo after raspy echo replaying in his mind. He didn't want to tell her that when he had to leave, he was disappointed, like a child being dragged away from a fun birthday party, or that when he saw her with Peyton, he had a sinking feeling in his stomach, one of guilt that he could even think about betraying his wife. And he certainly didn't want to tell her that hearing she had a husband made him feel sick, that another man could touch her and hold her and have her body to himself, because Lucas knew she was too pure to have dirty hands grazing her skin.

But that was stupid, childish, ridiculous because they were both married, to different people, consenting adults with no need for a connection with each other. But they did, in fact, have a connection (at least Lucas felt so) and he couldn't help but think that she'd wanted to be anything more than just friends.

"Bye Brooke."

The door shut behind him, and the brunette beauty hoped that he would come back, even if it was to be just friends. Sure, she'd flirted and wanted more to begin with. But she hadn't known that he was happily married, and of all people, to the woman who could catapult her career. Yet now that she knew the two of them would never be anything, Brooke couldn't help but wonder what feelings she gave him, and whether they were the same ones he gave her.

And in that moment, Brooke knew that she and Lucas Scott had huge potential to be more than just friends.

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