I couldn't think of a song, or chapter title for this chapter, because, frankly, I think it sucks. I wish it wasn't like this, but it is. It's a transition, and a sucky transition at that. Sorry for the long wait, and I assure you it wasn't worth it, because this chapter sucks, I wish I didn't have to say that about my own story, but I had to have this transition so that I could get to the good stuff in the next couple chapters… Again, sorry for the wait.
Chapter seven:
Haley walked slowly, but surely towards the familiar car. She knew exactly who it belonged to; and you probably do too. She knocked on the dark tinted window, and waited for the occupant to lower it, or get out of the car. He did the former. "Why are you sitting out here? I never took away your key."
He chuckled, and showed her the house key attached to his key ring. "I thought that would be kinda scary for you to come home and find someone in your house." He sighed, and looked away from her, towards the house. "And besides, I'm not exactly the most welcome person in your house." He looked scared. And that was what really convinced her to say what she said next.
"You can come in Nathan." She told him softly and walked off towards her front door, slipping the keys out of her coat pocket as she heard the heavy door of the SUV slam shut. He came up behind her as she opened the door, and slipped inside, leaving the door open behind her for him to come in and close the door behind him.
She headed towards the kitchen, but before she entered the swinging door, she heard him mutter something. "It's like a freaking time capsule in here."
She laughed as she slipped off her shoes in the kitchen, and headed towards the fridge. "Funny. That's what I thought about the computer room in your house." He laughed and headed towards the cabinet, knowing full well what she was getting to eat.
He placed the bowls on the island, and sat in one of the stools as she turned and placed the whipped cream and caramel on the table. "Do you still put Pop Rocks in it?" She smirked as she turned from the freezer holding a gallon of vanilla ice cream. She placed the tub on the counter, and went to the cabinet above the cutlery drawer, and pulled out a large box that held different colored pouches in it. She turned around holding two of the colored pouches. She placed one in front of him and proceeded to dish out the ice cream into the two bowls he had already taken out. "Wow. I'm honored; you actually gave me the red Pop Rocks."
She laughed. "Don't be too honored, I switched my favorite to the blue about six months ago." He gave a fake hurt expression.
"Ouch. That hurt Hales. Right here." He patted the spot on his blue polo right above his heart. She gave a small chuckle, and shook her head as she handed him his bowl. He took it, and poured the red crystals over the ice cream and mixed it together until it was almost a milk shake.
"Look" she started, but wavered, not sure if she was ready to open this can of worms yet. "I need to ask you to do me a favor." She hadn't looked up, she was just mixing the whipped cream into her ice cream; but when she did look up into his eyes, he was staring at her. He nodded his head for her to continue, and she did. "I was wondering if we could pretend to be friends. For Brooke and Lucas. And for our parents." He looked beyond wary, but also a little hopeful. "I'm not ready to forgive you. I don't know if I ever will." She told him hastily, she didn't want him to get the wrong idea from this arrangement "But I feel bad that this has affected our friends. And my parents just annoy me when they actually choose to be around; so I want to fake them out. They won't know the difference, they don't care enough. They want us to get married and have perfect little Stepford babies, and I'll admit that scares the shit out of me." He laughed.
"Does having kids with me really sicken you that much?" He asked with a sarcastic laugh.
"No, but that's the problem. A kid really would look cute with your eyes and my hair." She said completely seriously, and locked eyes with him over the counter. She couldn't help but notice that his eyes had gotten more than a few shades darker over the past few years. They used to be a deep sea blue, but now they were navy, almost black.
He cleared his throat after their eye contact broke. "I think we can do that." He said simply. Her eyes went wide and questioning. He started laughing at her expression. "No, I meant about the being friends for our friends thing. Not the kid thing." She laughed along with him when she realized that she had overreacted yet again that night.
"Thank you Nathan." She said simply as she went back to eating her ice cream.
"I don't know how you can eat these almost every night and not weigh a thousand pounds." He said off-handedly. She scoffed, and laughed along with him.
The next week…
"Where are they, they should have been here a half hour ago." Nathan whined as he stood in front of his car, constantly shooting a basketball through the hoop on his driveway.
"Calm down Nate. This is Brooke we're talking about. She'll probably be another hour, so don't have a coronary yet." Lucas said from under the hoop as he threw the ball back to Nathan.
"Yeah, but Haley is never late."
"I know, that's why I say that they'll only be another hour." Nathan gave a chuckle at his brother's view of his own girlfriend, and tossed the ball back through the hoop.
"That's so friggen annoying man."
"Not when you reap the benefits too." Lucas gave a suggestive smirk, and walked towards his brother, dribbling the ball expertly. He checked the ball, and then shot it right over Nathan's head into the net for a three.
"For that, boyfriend, you are so going to get the benefits!" Brooke squealed as she jumped out of her car wearing a light denim mini and a midriff bearing singlet. She bounded up to her boyfriend and threw herself into his awaiting arms.
Haley rolled her eyes, and then looked over at her friend. Then rolled her eyes again. She was dressed almost identically to Brooke, except for the shirt she wore was a gray-blue, and she was very uncomfortable in the outfit. She kept pulling at the bottom of the shirt, hoping that it would magically grow three inches, but of course it was fruitless. She stood close to Brooke's small car, trying to look at anything other than Nathan or her best friend sucking face with her boyfriend. She finally just rolled her eyes again and turned to the boot of the car and started to unload the two girls' many suitcases.
Nathan rolled his eyes along with Haley, and turned towards her. She was grabbing suitcases from the back seats and trunk of the car. But while Haley was bent into the trunk of the car, Nathan noticed something he hadn't seen in years. "Haley," She turned back towards him with a questioning glance. "You never got it removed?"
She followed his eyes to her backside. "Um, no. Why would I get my ass remo—oh." She stopped talking and continued to pull suitcases from the car, not wanting to talk about what he was. She knew her face was scarlet, and she particularly didn't want him to see how flustered he could make her with one simple question.
Nathan's heart was pounding out of his chest. He could feel the pressure against his skin, and the sweat forming on his forehead. He thought for sure that after all this time of hating him, she would have gotten the tattoo of his jersey number removed from the small of her back.
"Wait." Haley quickly turned around, and hit roughly into Nathan's hard chest. Her eyes were set firmly on his, and didn't waver at their proximity. "How did you even know about it before now? I never showed you." She was angry. She had gotten that tattoo the day before her fifteenth birthday. The day before Nathan had betrayed her trust. Or at least the day before she found out that he had betrayed her trust.
"I knew the day you got it Hales. You weren't very discrete in hiding it." He chuckled a little at her indignation about him knowing about her tattoo. She pouted slightly, and crossed her arms over her chest as Lucas and Brooke attempted to join in their conversation like they hadn't missed anything. "You were in your cheerleading uniform that day. It wasn't like I stripped you to find it… Although I did see it again…"
He was interrupted by Haley clearing her throat loudly at his slip. She shot daggers through her eyes, and grabbed suitcases, throwing them into the back of Nathan's big SUV. He smiled again at her anger. They hadn't had that friendly banter in forever.
"Okay, can we get on the road already? The parentals are going to think we're up to something if we're too much later behind them." Surprisingly it was Brooke who spoke those words. All of her companions were put into shock by Brooke's sudden urge to be prompt. "What? I don't want them thinking that we're getting it on in the back of the car!" Haley coughed madly as she choked on her laugh, trying not to get any mental pictures that had suddenly stuck into her mind.
"Brooke, I am sitting in the back with you. I REALLY don't want to be looking in the rear-view mirror every five minutes to see if you're actually doing that." She shivered involuntary, and suppressed a shudder as she saw the disappointment in Lucas' eyes.
The four teenagers pilled into the car, and were half way to the highway when Brooke spoke. "Wait, how far away is Clifornia?"
Haley gave her a dumb-struck look, and tried not to sound condescending when answering. "It's the big state on the other side of the country Brooke. You know, the one with earthquakes all the time?" So much for not sounding condescending. Nathan muffled a snort in the drivers seat, and adjusted his wait, trying to make it so he couldn't see the Bevin-like expression on Brooke's face.
"I know that! I meant how long to get there!" She rolled her eyes and tried to face Haley better on the back seat.
"Oh! Thank God!" Haley breathed a sigh of relief that she had understood the question wrong, because even though the thought of Brooke being dumb enough to not know where California was, was hilarious, it was also kind of frightening. "It's about thirteen hours, more or less."
"Haley, can you switch seats with Lucas so we can have road trip sex? I know I'm going to get bored!"
"NO!" Came both Nathan and Haley's yells of disgust.
A few hours, and a few fights later… Actually… 14 hours, twenty four minutes, and fourteen seconds later… Haley had counted it…
"Oh thank God! If I didn't get out of that friggen car soon I would have killed Brooke!" Haley yelled enthusiastically, finally being able to use her full voice when not in the confines of the car. She kicked her legs around her, and jumped up and down, trying to relinquish the tingling feeling she was feeling through her body because of the lack-of-use her muscles were suffering from.
She ran up the steps to the large white house enthusiastically, dragging Brooke along beside her, wrenching the door open to her already liquored-up parents playing a rather disturbing game of naughty-charades. Haley cringed, and ran up the stairs, trying to find the room she had had the last time she had been here.
She finally wrenched open the door of the room furthest down the hall, and visibly cringed at the memories that filled her mind at the sight. Brooke looked at her concernedly, wondering what had suddenly stolen the excitement from her friends face, but the only expination she received was five words. "You can have this room."
Brooke just shrugged, noticing the pictures of Nathan and Haley scattered around the room that all seemed to be taken before freshman year; which made absolute sense, because they hadn't been there since then… But one picture in particular caught Brooke's eye. It was resting on the nightstand beside the bed in plain, thin, red fabric frame. In the picture, Nathan and Haley were snuggled together in bed, and Nathan wasn't wearing a shirt, and it was hard to tell, but it didn't look like Haley was either. Brooke just smirked and opened the side drawer absent-mindedly.
Her eyes bugged out of her head at the site that met her. "What is it Brooke?" Haley came over to her friend and nearly fainted with shock at all the condoms that were strewn in the drawer. "Ew." Was all she could manage to say before she ran out the door and down the stairs to where her parents were all sitting. "What the hell?" She asked, flabbergasted.
"What are you talking about sweetheart?" Her father slurred from his seat in an armchair.
"I'm talking about the batch of two-hundred condoms that has some how made it's way into my dresser drawer." She yelled, gaining the attention of a red-faced Nathan, and sniggering Lucas and Brooke.
It wasn't your dresser; it was your side-table. And we just want you to be safe. We're not stupid Haley-bub. We know what happened last time. But we're leaving, we're going to be in the house next door. Call if you need anything." Her mother told her giddily as she stumbled from the house on the arm of her husband, with the Scott's at their heels.
"Why are they sleeping in the other house?" Nathan asked hurriedly, trying to distract their friends from the inevitable question.
"I don't know, but I think that more important question is, 'what did you guys do in this house that involves about forty boxes of condoms being necessary?'" Brooke asked, trying to keep a straight face.
A.N: I've never tried Pop Rocks in vanilla ice cream, but doesn't it sound good? I think I'll buy some next time I see them… Anyways, this chapter was meant to be a transition to the vacation. I know it kinda sucks. I didn't like it at all while I was writing it. But I also have had writers block, and this was just so that I could give you guys something, and get to the better chapters to come. The next chapter should be up pretty soon though, because I have most of it already written, and it will be a pretty long one (that's if it goes by the plan I have right now). The next chapter (or the one after that) (should) reveal (most) of the secrets that I have been hinting at for awhile now… Yeah, I can't wait for reviews of 'the betrayal'… I swear I should re-name this story to be called The Betrayal, because it seems that I write it a lot in my author's notes when I am referring to that certain event in Nathan/Haley's history…
Keira sends her ultimate love; awaiting reviews and trying to make herself feel better because she feels like her chapter sucked… Man, I need to STOP talking in third person… It's kinda creepy…
P.S. the return of the mysterious picture in this totally suck chapter. I bet everyone knows what it is by now, especially with one of the HUGE hints I dropped, but I'm going to tell you anyways… either in the next chapter or the one after that. The next two chapters are interchangeable as of now, so I have to decide which one I want to put in next. Both of which hold large flashbacks that I think will be interesting, and that I have been working on since I started writing this story nearly a month ago.
P.P.S. I am sorry again about my HUGE delay in updating… I have had a HUGE writers block, but after looking around the fanfiction site, I decided that I didn't want to enrage my readers any further at my lax updating, so I just went for having a sucky chapter. Sorry about that. I hope I don't set you off of the story all together, the next few chapters should be better. I think there will be another five chapters (maybe), and then I'm moving on to the sequel. I'm not so sure about the sequel yet, but I have a few plans for it. When I start to write it out, I'll post a summary to ask if you guys even want one… lol.
PPPS. Also, the tattoo… I just love the tattoo… I had to put it in here somewhere… hope it didn't piss people off… I'm pretty sure that I'll probably explain later how/why Haley got the tattoo without Nathan knowing/not wanting him to know…
I'll stop talking now and let you people get along with your lives… lots of love
