Chapter Seven
"Hey Broody," Brooke smiled at Nathan while he walked into his first period class, "Saved you a seat!"
Nathan took in a deep breath and went to go sit beside the brunette, giving her a tight lopsided smile as he put his binder on the lab bench and sat in the tall stool.
"Good morning," She beamed, doodling on a piece of paper in her binder, "How are you this beautiful morning?"
Nathan shrugged and yawned.
"I don't know how you're always so silent," Brooke shook her head, her innocent eyes widening, "Even when I'm mad I rant- I can't ever be as quiet as you."
"Point shown," Nathan mumbled, turning and smirking at her.
Brooke looked confused for a split second then narrowed her eyes in a playful manner and smirking, "Oh ha ha- I got you to talk though, didn't I?"
Nathan rolled his eyes and faced the board, leaning his elbows on the bench and playing with the pen in his hand.
"Anxious?" Brooke asked, trying to catch his attention.
Nathan snapped out of his thoughts. He glanced over at her with an emotionless face, "What makes you say that?"
She glanced down at the pen he was currently clicking and raised an eyebrow with a smirk, "Point shown."
Nathan narrowed his eyes at her mocking voice and stared at her silently.
"Want to tell me about it?" Brooke stopped smirking and asked genuinely.
He shrugged.
"Is it about Haley?" Brooke leaned on her elbows and towards Nathan, "She phoned me last night."
Nathan let out the breath he didn't know he was holding and glanced at Brooke out of the corner of his eye. He sighed and ran a hand down his face, "I'm… I- I don't know, I'm just confused right now."
"About what?" Brooke asked, leaning her head in her left hand, "You have to be more specific. I mean, it would be about school, your life, why geese fly south for the winter-"
"Brooke," Nathan cut her rambling off and then continued once he had her attention, "What do you think?"
She began to smile, "Really?"
Nathan shrugged and turned to face the doorway, wondering where their teacher was.
Feeling like she should say something to push him, Brooke sighed, "She said you gave her some pointers on basketball."
Nathan raised an eyebrow and turned his head towards the brunette.
She nodded, "And she said that you're really good; that you did a one-handed free-throw."
Nate scoffed, "She said free-throw?"
"No but she meant to," Brooke smirked at her friends lack in sports knowledge.
"Yeah," Nathan revealed.
"So," Brooke started, trailing the vowel out, "Okay, so since I basically just sent the girl-code to hell, I'm going to tell you something;" Nathan raised an eyebrow in questioning to Brooke as she swallowed, "Haley's had some rough relationships. Well, I mean since I've met her. So… I know you're new and all, but I consider you a friend and it's not just because your Luke's cousin- but I'm just saying that if you do anything with Haley, and that's meaning merely being just friends or more," Brooke paused, looking straight in Nathan's eyes and continuing in a whisper, "Just be nice to her."
Nathan stared at Brooke, not knowing whether to take the advice or not. In her long ramble, he was surprised due to three things. One being that Brooke considered him a friend; he's never had a true 'friend' and it being in such a standard sentence as she expressed it in. He's had guy-friends, but they were more along the lines of 'we're drunk and high, let's high five each other!' way. And he knew the word 'friends' actually meant something to Brooke.
The second point being that Haley has had rough relationships. That revelation made Nathan scoff; Haley being in a rough relationship? Who would ever make a relationship with Haley rough? That was an oxymoron if there was one.
The last and definitely least point was that Brooke thought something was going to happen between Haley and Nathan. Nathan won't let that happen; he couldn't do that to Haley because she would actually learn the definition of 'rough relationship'. Nathan was not a relationship guy; he couldn't process in one. He could hardly look at himself in the mirror, how could he love someone else?
The teacher walked in at that moment, announcing they had work to do and began writing on the board. Ms. Palling handed out textbooks and told them to turn to page 211 and copy the experiment down and their predictions before going ahead. He had learned that Brooke would be his lab partner for the rest of their semester and that was his permanent seat.
After finishing the other classes, Nathan walked into the class he was dreading the most. Upon seeing Haley already in her seat, Nate turned around to just skip class but was met with his teacher.
"Off so soon, Scott?" Mr. Tully raised an eyebrow daringly. Nate just stared at him in silence as a couple kids began to whisper, "Take a seat."
Nathan continued staring at him until Mr. Tully shook his head and walked past the teenager and to his desk, placing his briefcase onto the top of it. Nate narrowed his eyes slightly at the closed door and then sighed, turning towards his seat and going to sit down; he didn't need all this drama on the second day of school.
"Alright," Mr. Tully began as Nathan darted his eyes between the front of the class and to a certain blonde who was wearing a Stanford sweater, "We're starting the first unit…"
The teacher continued and walked to the board, picking up a piece of chalk and began sprawling a note, advising the class to copy down his words. Everybody took out their binders and began writing down frantically; everyone besides Nathan who just continued staring at the back of Haley's curly blonde head.
**
That was how it was for the next few days.
The awkwardness never subsided and continued to make Nathan want to rip out what little hair he had. On Thursday particularly, she had glanced at him which caused Nathan's heart to stop for a fraction of a second. After Haley had realized he was staring at her, she blushed and turned quickly to face the board, her hair whipping the smell of her perfume towards Nate.
Now as he lay back on his bed, he stared at the ceiling fan spinning. Nathan had lost count around 196 spins and was just watching it, contemplating on what to do tonight.
He had just clipped off the buds on his plant in the closet and held the black bag loosely in his right hand.
"Nate?" He heard from the door that joined his and Luke's bathroom together, "You good, man?"
Nathan shrugged, still staring at the ceiling fan; he had started counting again and was at 25, now 26.
Lucas noticed the bag in his hand and raised an eyebrow, stepping cautiously into the room that had been tidied. He was still closer to the door as he was to Nathan and glanced to the slightly open doors of his closet in questioning and then back to Nate.
"Dude," He started, staring at his little cousin whose eyes were frantically watching the fan, "How high are you? You cleaned your room?"
"Not high," Nathan finally mumbled, 54… 55… 56.
Luke swallowed with his eyebrow still raised, "You sure?"
"I'd think I'd know if I was high or not, don't you think?"
"Then what are you doing?"
"What's it matter to you?" Nathan shot back, raising an eyebrow and sitting up, forgetting about the ceiling fan, "Do I have to start reporting to you or something?"
Luke looked taken aback as he stared at a suddenly frustrated Nathan, "What's going on with you?"
Nathan stared pointedly at him, like he just made his point and flopped back down on the bed.
Lucas sighed and shook his head, "I was wondering if you wanted to come with me tonight?" He waited for any type of response from Nathan and then continued after not getting one, "It's just a couple guys from the team and we're going to the river court- just to play a couple games. It's kind of like a ritual thing for us, before practice starts back up again we go battle."
Nathan scoffed at his relation of 'battle' to 'basketball'.
Luke chose to ignore it and roll his eyes, "It'd be great to have you there man."
"Why?" Nate asked, letting the black bag out of his grasp.
Luke shrugged, "I don't know, Nate. Look, you don't have to come but I was just hoping maybe you'd like to. You can't shut yourself off forever; I just wanted to show you what I've been doing since we last talked," Nate sighed and set his jaw, trying to ignore the pit in his stomach that had suddenly formed, "I know you don't play basketball anymore and you don't have to. Brooke is going to be there and this guy named Mouth and they're not going to play."
Nathan stayed silent and he sat up, looking at Luke who raised an eyebrow at him.
"Nate, it's actually a lot of fun," Luke tried again, shrugging, "I'm just trying to show you what my life is like now."
Nathan stared for a moment and then sighed, looking away from his cousin, "Okay."
"Okay?" Luke asked in astonishment.
"I'll go," Nathan confirmed, looking back up to his cousin, "But I'm not playing."
Lucas began to smile and he nodded, "Great! Okay, um… get ready and meet me downstairs."
"Okay," Nate nodded, standing up and moving towards the basket by the end of his bed.
"Hey, Nate?" Luke turned back to face his cousin. Nathan stood straight and raised an eyebrow to him, "Thanks."
Nathan furrowed his eyebrows together, "For what?"
He shrugged, "For making an effort, you know?"
Nathan just shrugged and gave his cousin one short nod before turning back to the basket and grabbing a clean sweater.
He slipped on the sweater and headed out to the river court with Luke; they had decided to walk since it wasn't that far. Luke had cleared his throat on more than one occasion while trying to relieve the awkward tension. Finally Nathan had enough and decided to break it himself.
"Brooke's a good girl," He stated, keeping his eyes straight as he felt Luke's attention snap towards him, "I don't know how you could hurt you like that."
Luke took a minute before responding, "You don't know the whole story."
Nathan started shaking his head before Luke was even finished, "It doesn't matter; she didn't deserve it."
"Don't you think I know that?" Luke snapped back, suddenly defensive.
Nathan shrugged, "Then why'd you do it?"
This time, Luke remained silent as the river court came into view. Nathan didn't get a response, nor waited for one as he picked up the pace once he saw Brooke. Brooke grinned at him and patted the space on the picnic table next to her.
"You came!" Brooke boomed, the grin on her face never falter.
Nathan shrugged, "Luke talked me into it."
"How?" She raised an eyebrow, the grin turning into a smirk as she saw her boyfriend walking up to them.
"Hot girls," He nodded and smirked.
"Sorry Broody," She faked frowned, "The only hot girl here is me and as much as I like the idea- I'm pretty sure you and Luke wouldn't care for the whole three-some with your cousin thing."
Nathan shook his head and rolled his eyes, "Surprisingly."
Brooke grinned again and hopped down from the picnic table to go see Luke. Nathan looked around and saw a couple people he recognized from school, other's he had no idea. The person who was sitting on the opposite side of the picnic table was a goofy looking kid, but looked well-mannered and was currently staring at Nathan.
Nathan stared back, raising his eyebrow which caused the goofy looking kid to lean back slightly.
"Mouth," Luke interrupted, "Meet my cousin, Nathan. Nate," He turned to the brunette and waved a hand between the two on the table, "This is Mouth- he runs the basketball broadcasting for the Ravens."
Nathan nodded and kept quiet as Mouth narrowed his eyes at Luke's cousin, "Another new kid?"
Nathan's dark eyes suddenly held a twinkle of amusement as he continued to stare at 'Mouth'. Brooke noticed the abrupt change in his eyes and began to smile. Mouth stared back, narrowing his eyes even more, which made him look even dorkier than he did.
"Nate," Brooke laughed, sitting down next to him and stopping the little stare off, "You're going to love the game."
Nathan's attention snapped back up to the girl whose gaze was locked to the people in front of her, "Oh yeah?"
She nodded, "But I have to tell you something."
Nathan raised an eyebrow at her sudden change of tone. She reluctantly tore her eyes away from the players who had started their first game to look at the brooding male beside her.
Brooke bit her lip and glanced over his shoulder, "Haley's here."
Over the past week, Brooke and Nathan had talked more about Haley- well Brooke had and Nathan just listened. Brooke had known the awkward glances they gave each other and the frustration that overtook Haley when talking about Nathan, and she had relied it onto Nathan in hopes of him ding something about it.
Nathan glanced over his shoulder to see an awkward Haley approaching. She was wearing a pair of tattered light blue jeans with a black one-size-too-big v-neck that was pushed against her body because of the wind coming from the river. It made her tanned skin look even more tan and the soft curves of her body look smoother. She wore no make up and her long, curly blonde hair fell to her back as she made her way over to the picnic table.
Brooke smiled at her best friend, "Hey tutor girl!"
Haley tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and smiled at the three on the picnic table, "Hey Brooke."
It was slightly awkward after that as Nathan stared at the girl who just shuffled her feet. Brooke took in a sharp breath and then let it out, looking at Mouth with a worried expression; he just shrugged and mouthed, 'sit'.
Brooke turned her head back to the two silently awkward people and smiled at Haley, "Hales, why don't you come sit down?"
She glanced at Brooke from the ground and nodded slightly, starting to walk over to the space between Brooke and Mouth. Before she could sit, Brooke moved over towards Mouth to make room between herself and Nathan for Haley. Haley stared at the long-haired brunette and slowly went to sit in between the two brown-haired teenagers.
"Thanks," She mumbled, trying to focus on the game that went on in front of them.
Brooke smirked towards Mouth who gave her a thumb up and turned towards the game. Brooke smiled triumphantly as she glanced at the two beside her.
i never know just why you run so far away,
so far away from me.
--
A/N: Hey guys! so here's chapter seven! hope you guys like it. next chapter, there's more naley-ness! i have it written up, so it all depends on how much you guys love it &tell me! haha.
P.S. my other story, 'My Penguin' is updated, &there's a new chapter every other day. I hope you guys check it out.
Also, thanks for all my reviewers! i seriously love you guys &i hope you guys realize that this is why i continue to write like this! you inspire me. :)
so, once again, thank you so much! &please go check out my other stories- leave a review &tell me what you like. :)
