Best Friends for Life
By: B. Davis FTW
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the ideas in my head :)
To say Brooke was shocked to see her baby completely intact the next morning was a complete understatement. As her car pulled into Lucas's familiar driveway, she expected to be met with Lucas's exasperated appearance with his hair sticking in all directions, spit up all over his shoulder dressed in nothing but dirty sweats and an old tee shirt. Her jaw dropped to the floor when the unfortunate father of her child opened the white door looking, dare she say, sharp.
"Looks like I underestimated you Lucas Scott" Brooke lifted the pink and gray car seat off of Lucas's floor as he handed her the matching white and pink baby bag. "And look at that, she's sleeping too. An added bonus for Peyton and I" Her shock just continued when all Lucas did was shrug.
"It was really nothing," His glance moved down to the little girl by Brooke's side as he bent down, placing a small kiss on her forehead. When he returned to catch Brooke's completely surprised face, he repeated his former motion and just shrugged. "that list you gave me was a lifesaver, by the way. She's a great baby, and I can't wait to see her again next week"
"Uh..ye-yeah. Next week, right" The brunette couldn't help but be speechless. She thought for sure Lucas would've backed out of next week and never wanted to see his daughter again. It was a seldom occasion when Brooke Davis was speechless, and this was one of them.
"Yeah, well I actually have to get going" Lucas pointed outside toward his car, another smile across his face.
"Oh, yeah--of course" Brooke stepped out of his way, and when he locked the front door to his house, she walked with him to the end of the driveway where her blue Volkswagen bug was situated, along with his deep red vintage mustang with the two black stripes running down the hood. "I'll see you around, then" Still shell-shocked, Brooke secured the car seat into the back seat of her car, walking toward Lucas as she put her hands into the back pockets of her jeans.
"I'll be seeing you" He pressed his lips into a flat line, nodding toward her. It's now or never, you ass, he thought to himself as he watched her open her door. He put his hand out, "Hey Brooke, hold up a sec!" He yelled to her, jogging over. "Do you-" He stumbled over his own words, for a guy that wants to be a writer you're pretty bad with words. "What I mean is, do you want to maybe go out for a cup of coffee this afternoon?"
Brooke bit down on her bottom lip, playing with her hands a bit as she tried to formulate what could be considered an appropriate response to Lucas's question. "Look Luke, this whole thing," She motioned between the two of them, "me being nice to you I mean, it's all for Bean." She didn't mean to sound so harsh toward him, but it was the complete and blunt truth. "Plus, you know I'm steady with Nathan, and I really love him. I'm sorry, but we're not even friends, really" She felt a tinge of guilt as she watched his hopeful face turn dejected.
"Oh.." Though he knew she would've probably said no, she didn't know she would let him down that hard. "You're wrong though." He said quickly as she sat down in her car and was about to close the door.
After starting her car, she rolled down the window. "What do you mean by that?"
"My friends call me Luke" He gave her a small half smile before turning toward his car. She watched his retreating figure through her rear view mirror and squinted her eyes as she drove out of his driveway and toward her own house, where she had hoped Peyton was.
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As she stepped out of her car, a smile appeared on her face as she saw that her daughter was, in fact, awake. She opened the door carefully, leaning down to kiss her daughter's cheek lightly. "Hey babygirl" She grinned, putting the baby over her shoulder "I hear you were pretty good for Daddy last night. You're such a good girl, you know that Bean?" As the duo stepped into the house, Brooke quickly scanned it for Peyton. "Ay! P. Sawyer! Where are you?"
"Living room B!" The wavy haired blond called back out to her. The previously bouncy blond curls had relaxed, and Brooke had to admit it was the best hairstyle Peyton had ever wore atop her head. "How'd the pickup go?" Peyton asked as she watched Brooke laid the baby into a bouncy seat.
Brooke bounced over to the couch, taking a seat next to her best friend. "It was so weird Peyt" Brooke's eyes widened, and her blond counterpart could tell that this was going to be an intense story, so she turned to face Brooke, folding her legs inward Indian style. "He actually showed some evidence of having a heart! He even kissed her forehead! I'm telling you Peyt, it was fucking crazy." She threw her arms into the air, still unable to believe that Lucas was able to show emotion. "Like seriously, he was the nicest guy ever, and he was even excited to see her next week! I thought he would be begging me to keep her at home! Jeez Peyton, I swear I don't know what got over him"
Peyton shrugged, and Brooke shook her head, remembering that was the exact motion Lucas kept repeating. "I don't know what's gotten over him Brooke, but I wouldn't trust it. He hasn't given any of us reason to in the past year. Hell, even the past two years!"
"He asked me out" Brooke added quickly, and Peyton narrowed her eyes. "Don't even give me that look. You know I turned him down"
"You should've smacked him in the face!" Now it was Peyton's turn to throw her arms in the air. "Are you kidding me Brooke? You should've knocked that sucker one straight across the jaw for even thinking he had a chance with you! God, Nathan would kill him if he knew"
"And that's why we aren't telling him that this happened" Brooke stuck the sentence into the conversation before Peyton could even get a notion to mention anything to Nathan about this. "Seriously Peyton, I'm playing the privileged Hoes over Bros card here. Nothing is to be said to Nathan about Lucas asking me for coffee, okay?"
Peyton contemplated fighting Brooke on this one, but ended up conceding, only because she heard the front door open and speculated it to be the raven haired boyfriend they had been talking about just about two point five seconds prior. "Fine. But when this blows up in your face, I get the right to laugh at you" She stuck her pink out at the brunette as Nathan walked into the room.
"Hello ladies" He half smiled, squatting down in front of the baby's bouncy seat to lift her into his toned arms. "And hello to you pretty lady" He lifted her high into the air, sitting down in between Brooke and Peyton as he set the baby down in his lap, holding her up on his knees.
"Oh I see how it is" Peyton took the baby from Nathan's lap and took her out of the room, leaving Nathan and Brooke alone.
"So how did picking her up turn out?" He asked curiously toward his brunette girlfriend. He was definitely curious as to how the whole evening turned out.
"Surprisingly well, actually" She moved in close to him, leaning her head against his chest. "He said she was really good last night, and he was looking forward to next week, which I thought was really weird"
"You're lying." A confused look took over Nathan's face as he heard her reply. "There's no way that guy showed sincere emotion toward Bean. He was probably lying to get on your good side or something" He refused to believe his older brother could actually keep from being mean for once in his life. "Was Rachel there?"
Brooke shook her head. "Now that I think about it, no, she wasn't." Brooke turned her head to look up at Nathan "Which is weird because she was definitely there last night when I dropped Bean off"
"And I think it's safe to say Rachel wouldn't have left Lucas's side" Nathan added, "Maybe she just couldn't handle Bean, which means Lucas was definitely lying" He was going to prove Lucas had been lying if it was the last thing he did. Which sounded a little extreme, but he didn't want Brooke to warm up to his older brother. And if she had any reason to believe that he was actually changing, she would and that would allow Lucas to waltz in and take her from Nathan. And that wasn't happening.
"Can we stop talking about him? I kind of just want to spend today with you, considering I have work tomorrow and I'm pulling a double shift down at the cafe" She snuggled into him, closing her eyes to get a quick catnap in before Peyton would have to leave the house.
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Peyton walked into the living room, Jillian over her shoulder as she saw Brooke and Nathan sleeping on the couch. She walked over, and quickly deciding against waking them up since she knew Brooke had a long night. All night she had been tossing and turning because she was worried about the baby over at Lucas's house. She glanced at the bouncy seat, then at the little girl in her arms. "You'll wake them up if you need them, right?" When she was met with a small giggle, she nodded her head, laying the baby down on the bouncy seat.
"Peyton?" She heard Brooke's tired raspy voice and all she could do was smile as she turned around.
"Hey there sleeping mama" A smirk appeared across her face as she sat down next to her best friend on the couch. "I was going to let you two sleep a little longer while I left; the babe's in her bouncy seat and she seemed entertained enough" She watched in sympathy as Brooke propped her elbow on the back of the couch, resting her head against her hand. Peyton knew exactly how tired Brooke was as of now, with everything with Lucas going on especially. "I gotta go to the record store. Those vinyls don't sell themselves, you know"
"Don't people have iPods now a days?" Brooke could hardly keep her eyes open, but she knew she had to stay awake now since Peyton was leaving for work and no one would be there to watch the baby. After much mental procrastination, the brunette stood as Peyton did, walking over to the bouncy seat set up on the carpet about five feet away from the couch and lifted her daughter up from it.
"Vinyls are collector's items now, B" Peyton rolled her eyes as if Brooke should've known that by now. "Though I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in North Carolina who actually makes use of their vinyls and record player" She snapped out of the side of her mouth, placing a hand atop the baby's head before leaving. "I'll see you tonight B. And don't forget, tonight's your night to make dinner!"
Brooke groaned inwardly. She really began to hate this whole 'dinner system' they had going on at the Davis-Sawyer residence. When one person worked, the other made dinner. Normally, it worked out because their schedules never overlapped. Granted, if either had to get a new job or got promoted or such the whole system would topple and the two would have to conjure up a whole new 'clever' system for food. But hey, this system worked for them. One thing that had been recently added to the dinner system though, was feeding Bean. Brooke knew it was a little early to start her on baby food, but Jillian loved it.
"Alright baby, I'm thinking bananas are good for lunch, how about you?" Brooke pulled the mashed bananas out of the pantry and put the baby down in her high chair, sitting down across from her. She took the baby spoon and scooped some of the bananas, offering it to the infant, who gladly accepted it. "That's mama's good girl, there she is"
The baby happily gurgled and banged on her tray as she ate the mashed bananas. Just watching her put a smile on Brooke's face, but also made her sad knowing Bean would only be a baby for a short period of time. Then came her terrible two's, which Brooke definitely wasn't ready for, and she was afraid if she blinked, Bean would be graduating high school and ready to move away and begin her own life. All Brooke hoped for as a mother would be for her daughter to learn to be a respectable person as she grew and to not follow in her mother's footsteps by becoming a mother at the age of eighteen. "Brooke?" Nathan's tired voice brought her out of her daze, and she continued to feed the baby.
"Kitchen babe!" Brooke called back to Nathan, pausing Jillian's feeding to reach over and wipe the baby's face using her bib. By the time she had sat back down in her chair, Nathan was standing behind her and gave her a quick kiss on the top of her head.
"Do you want to go shower, and I can finish up feeding her?" He offered, and replaced her in the chair across from the high chair as Brooke got up, placing a kiss on the baby's head as she left. Walking up the stairs, Brooke smiled to herself as she heard Nathan and Bean laughing as he fed her. Never in a million years did she think at eighteen she would be okay with having a four month old baby and Nathan as her boyfriend. Nathan had always been her confidante, her go-to guy, but never anything more and she had to wonder what changed between them to make the both of them feel something more. Maybe Bean was the little push they needed to get started.
As she slipped out of her gray sweatpants and black wife beater, then her underwear Brooke glanced at herself in the mirror. Her pre-baby figure was slowly but surely coming back as she had gone to the gym twice a week for the past two months. A sense of pride washed over her as she thought of his fact; in high school, she didn't have to lift a finger to keep her figure because of cheer practice every day after school, then weight training on Saturdays. After the sudden lifestyle change that came with being pregnant, Brooke found things to be way harder than they were in high school.
Brooke stepped into the stream of warm water, her hair instantly getting darker. Brooke hadn't even thought of how much she had changed since she found out she had been pregnant with Bean. Her feisty, in your face attitude had been silenced to just thoughts in her head instead of bitching people out because she needed her job to support herself and her daughter, and she wouldn't be able to keep it if she was calling customers slutty liars who lied left and right. Stepping out of the shower, Brooke dried herself off and ran a towel through her hair, deciding against blow drying it. She pulled her soft white bathrobe over her underwear and walked into her room, moving toward the closet to pull out simple jeans and a t shirt.
As she walked out of her room and passed Bean's, she noticed Nathan in there with her, rocking the baby slowly in his arms as he sat in the rocking chair. Brooke stopped walking and leaned against the door frame, watching as his foot pushed carefully off the ground, moving the white wooden chair forward and back. "I could've done that, you know" She spoke quietly as to not wake the baby.
Nathan was in his own little world as he watched the sleeping baby in his arms. His girlfriend's baby, and his niece. "I know. I figured it was my duty as her amazing uncle to take over once in a while." He spoke without taking his eyes off the dark haired baby. He loved her not as a niece though, but as his own child. Which was weird for him because he brought himself into a situation most eighteen year old guys wouldn't even dream of for even their future. He took over the role of a male figure in a child's life who he had no responsibility for, but he loved every second of it. Seeing her amazingly cute toothless smile, watching her kick her legs in the air and try as hard as she could to get up on her hands and knees but fail because she can't quite support the weight of her head yet, feeding her mashed bananas and apricots and all that other gross food he could never eat in his life (which he had tried), and just being there to rock her to sleep for her nap were just a few of the things that caused him to fall in love with his niece. A baby who was not only the daughter of the love of his life, but a baby whom he had began to know as his own daughter.
"She's lucky to have you" Brooke stated softly, staying in her place against the door frame. She didn't even want to begin to think of what life would've been like if Nathan hadn't been there for them. Sure they had Peyton, and she was great, but there was no other feeling like seeing the love of your life with your child. It didn't even matter that said child wasn't biologically his. She was his daughter in any and every other way.
"You too baby." He slowly stood from the rocking chair once he was sure the baby was fast asleep before he placed her into her crib. After placing a small kiss on her forehead, he turned around just as slowly, slipping his arms around Brooke's waist. "I love you."
"Love you too baby."
AN: The reason that chapter ended so abruptly is because I've been writing this chapter for about three weeks now, and I've come to a conclusion. I'm no longer emotionally invested in this story, hence the reason I stopped writing it before. If any of you want to continue it, by all means go ahead. I'll put up a chapter and tell people to go follow yours because I'm pretty sure this will be the last chapter of Best Friends For Life that I will write.
PM me if you once you've put up the story; you don't have to ask.
Sorry everyone,
-Rohini
