I'm so sorry it took this long to update, but with school and field hockey it's hard. Thanks to everyone who reviewed the previous chapter. I hope you like this one. Please review and let me know what you think. I'll try to update as soon as possible.

It had been two full weeks since Nathan and Haley had actually gotten together. Only Brooke, Lucas, Peyton, and Jake knew that they hadn't been really together before, so to say that they were utterly shocked was an immense understatement. Brooke had flipped when she heard the news. Not because it was such bad thing that Nathan and Haley together, it was just that she was so surprised. Brooke loved playing matchmaker, she had always thought that there was some sort of deeper connection between the two other than their constant arguing, but every time that she would bring it up Haley would dismiss the idea and tell Brooke that she was crazy. Not to mention Lucas' reaction was priceless. He almost fell out of his chair. Never would he have thought of his best friend and brother together after all these years. He couldn't believe it. Actually, after two weeks he was still getting used to the idea.

One month down. One month to go. It had been a month since the beginning of the bet and two of those weeks had been real. Not that anyone talked about it anyway. It seemed as if everyone forgot all about it. Brooke, Peyton, Lucas, and Jake were the only ones who knew it wasn't real in the beginning and Tim was the only one who knew it was a bet, so to the rest of the student body at Tree Hill High School, Nathan and Haley dating was old news. No one talked about it anymore because they had become familiar with seeing them together. Although, some students still couldn't get over the shock that 'The' Nathan Scott was dating Haley James.

Today was the last day of school before it was closed for the break over the Thanksgiving holiday season. The school day was over and there was no basketball or cheerleading practices or tutoring sessions occurring today. Nathan had promised Haley a ride home. Haley was walking out of the school's double doors in search of her lovely boyfriend. She spotted him sitting alone at one of the tables in the quad. She guessed he was waiting for her.

Haley walked up behind Nathan and covered his eyes with her hands and bent her head down to whisper in his ear. "Guess who." She whispered before letting out a small giggle.

Nathan smiled and took her hands off of his eyes. "Hey, when did you get here?" He turned and asked her.

"Just now. Ready to go?"

"Yeah, I've been waiting forever." Nathan exaggerated. "And here I thought you said I was the slow poke. Guess you were wrong." He smirked, recalling the time she had called him slow because she was at the Tutoring Center before he was.

Haley laughed. "Shut up. Stop making fun of me." She fake pouted.

"I'm not making fun." He laughed. "But if I remember correctly, you haven't properly greeted me yet." It was now Nathan's turn to fake pout.

"And what would be the proper way to greet you?" She asked him.

Nathan pointed to his lips. "A kiss." He smirked.

Haley smiled. "I guess I can spare a kiss for you." She said before quickly pecking at his lips.

He frowned and furrowed his eyebrows, creating wrinkles in his forehead. "That wasn't a real kiss." Nathan complained.

"Fine. I guess you can get a better kiss than that." She sighed and playfully rolled her eyes before leaning in closer to Nathan to give him a soft kiss. Haley broke the kiss and pulled away. "Better?" She asked.

Nathan nodded signaling that he was satisfied. "Much."

"Great. So, now you can bring me home. Lets go." She said to him before turning away and walking towards the direction of the spot where Nathan's car was always parked.

It was now the first day that school was out for five days for Thanksgiving break. Nathan was currently at the River Court. He had a run in with his dad just before and there was a huge blowout between the two as there always was. Of course, it was about basketball as usual. And even though their argument was about basketball it still helped Nathan relax and calm down to shoot a couple of baskets by himself at the River Court to clear his mind and not let himself think about his horrific father.

It was eight-thirty in the morning and Nathan had been asleep in his apartment when a loud banging noise jolted him awake. He realized someone was at his front door so he decided to ignore it at first. Whoever it was could come back later when it wasn't so early in the morning and when he wasn't trying to sleep. Except the loud obsessive banging was only increasing in the amount of noise was becoming more rapid. Nathan groaned and got up from his bed, already highly disliking whoever it was that was bothering him in the early morning when there was no school. Why weren't they asleep either? This person must be crazy.

Nathan opened the door only to see the face of his not so lovely father. Well, he got the highly disliking the person on the other side of the door and the person being crazy parts right. As if on instinct, Nathan started closing the door, but his father's hand stopped it, keeping it open. Nathan sighed heavily. "What do you want, Dad?" He asked the one man that he could not stand.

Dan smirked. "Nathan, how nice of you to invite me." He answered his son sarcastically.

Nathan shook his head. "You're not invited. Now, what do you want? It's eight-thirty in the morning."

"That's why I'm here." Dan announced and Nathan turned confused. What did that mean? "It's eight-thirty in the morning and where are you? Sleeping? That's unacceptable, son. You should be out on a five mile run by this time of the morning. Especially considering that there is no school." Dan elaborated.

Nathan groaned and rolled his eyes. He should have known his father was here to tell him that he should be working on basketball. It was always basketball all of the time. Twenty-four/seven. It was like he wasn't even human. He was some sort of ongoing basketball machine.

"Dad-" Nathan began, but was cut off.

"No, Nathan. Don't you understand that you have to train hard to play hard? Don't you want scouts to notice you, Nathan? Because if you're just going to sleep your days away then you should just quit the team now before someone out-shines you. Especially if the person who is going to do it is going to be Lucas. You need to step it up, son. Do you not want to win the state championships this year? And what about next year? It will be your senior year. Are you going to slack off this much next year too? I thought I raised to understand the importance of practice and training. Do you not want to play college basketball at Duke. And what about getting drafted into the NBA? Tell me, Nathan because I would really like to know how you plan on achieving all of that by slacking off and sleeping. What about all of the hard work we've done to get to this point. Are you going to throw all of that away?" Dan criticized.

"Stop it, Dad." Nathan growled. His father was such a pain in the ass. "Stop telling me what I need to do and when I should do it. I can handle it myself. I don't need you telling me what to do and I definitely don't want you to. Just shut up because we haven't worked hard for anything. I worked hard. Not you. Not me and you. Just me." Nathan argued. "It's time for you to leave now." He ordered before succeeding in shutting the door.

"Yo Nate!" Tim called out. When did he get here? Nathan thought. Tim always had a way of just showing up out of the blue and right now Nathan was not in the mood to talk to anyone, especially if Tim was going to say stupid things like always.

"What Tim?" He asked.

"You got a month left. Think you're gonna win?" Tim asked with a dumb smile on his face.

"What?" Nathan turned to face his friend.

"The bet. You think you can win?" Tim asked again. Crap. Nathan hadn't even thought about that for awhile now.

"Yeah. I'm leaving now." Nathan had to get away. He couldn't be thinking about this right now.

"Bye Nate." A clueless Tim called out as Nathan stalked over to his Mustang and sped off.

Nathan was just sitting somewhere in his car. There was nowhere to go where nobody would find him. Either purposely or accidentally. Either way he didn't want to be found because he wasn't in the mood to be around anyone right now. His cell phone started ringing. He looked down at the caller id. Luke. Ignore. He didn't know what Lucas wanted, but right now he didn't really care. A few minutes later his phone started ringing again. Hales. He pressed ignore and decided to just go back to his apartment. There was no point in him just sitting somewhere in his car. Besides if someone came over he could always just not answer the door. What a crappy first day of break he was having.

Brooke and Haley were watching a movie in Brooke's home movie theater. Only one of the perks of the Davis house. Supposedly, Brooke's absentee parents figured that they would give her whatever she wanted, or whatever they thought she wanted that is, to make up for them never being there. After the movie was over Lucas had called Brooke and they made plans to go out.

Instead of going home Haley figured that she would call Nathan and see what he was doing, but he didn't answer his cell phone. She wondered if he was home so she decided to stop by his apartment. Haley knocked on the door and patiently waited for her boyfriend to answer. But he never did. That was odd. Haley tried opening the door to see if it was locked, but it wasn't. He was definitely home if the door wasn't locked. She wondered why he didn't answer the door.

"Nathan." Haley called out. No answer. He wasn't anywhere to be seen so she walked to in the one bedroom apartment and shut the door behind her. She tossed her purse onto the couch and walked down the short hallway and saw his bedroom door shut. She lightly knocked on the door. She could hear rap music playing from his CD player. Haley knocked again, this time with more force and the music stopped. Haley pushed the door open and revealed Nathan laying on his bed. She walked over and sat down.

"Hi. I knocked, but you didn't answer and the door was unlocked so I came in." She explained. Nathan nodded, but he barely acknowledged her presence. "I was at Brooke's house and then her Lucas made plans so I came over here. I called you, but you didn't answer." Haley kept talking.

"My phone must've been off." He lied. He didn't want to tell her that he had purposely ignored her phone call.

"Oh." She said quietly. "So, do you want to do something?" She asked hopefully.

"Not really." He answered.

Haley frowned. What was his problem? He was being weird. "Okay, so what are you going to do?" She inquired.

Nathan shrugged. "Just lay here, I guess."

"Nathan, what's wrong?" She asked. She knew that something was bothering him, but she couldn't think of anything that would be bugging him.

"Nothing Haley." Nathan sighed. He didn't want to talk about this. Especially, not with her, not now. She wouldn't understand. Haley grew up in a huge family with tons of brothers and sisters and caring and loving parents. She wouldn't know anything about his father being a selfish, cold hearted man, who only cared about getting into the NBA through Nathan because he blew out his knee in his first year of college. He needed her to leave before he blabbed everything about the 'father-son' relationship he had with his father, including their earlier run-in. In every way he looked at it, that would not have a good outcome.

"Nathan, what's the matter? Please tell me." Haley pleaded. She didn't know what was wrong with him, but she wished that he would at least talk to her and let her know what was going on.

"Haley, it's nothing." Nathan said calmly again, hoping that she would believe him and drop it.

"It isn't nothing. I know something is wrong. Why won't just tell me?" Haley pressed on, searching for some kind of answer.

Nathan sat up on his bed. "I said it was nothing, alright." He practically growled and Haley visibly flinched from the tone of his voice. "Just go, okay?" He said softer, avoiding eye contact with her.

Haley pulled her bottom lip in between her teeth and slightly nodded her head. She knew it was partly her fault for trying to force him to tell her what was wrong with him, but she couldn't except be upset about him being mean and then asking her to leave.

She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Sorry." She whispered so softly it was almost barely audible, but Nathan heard it and he instantly felt terrible for snapping at her like he just did.

Nathan gently grabbed her wrist as she began to get up and leave. Haley turned to look at him and he pulled her back down to sit on the bed again. "Me too." He told her and she nodded once again. Nathan sighed. "Haley, I am sorry."

"I know. I just, well it's just that-, why can't you just tell me what's wrong? I just want to know. Maybe help you feel better?" Haley spoke quietly. She just wanted to help him. Was that such a bad thing?

"It's fine. I promise. I just don't want to talk about it, okay?" He asked even though it was more of a statement. He watched her small smile falter. "But you can help me feel better." He offered, seeing that she really did want to help.

She looked up hopefully. "How?" She asked.

"Stay here tonight." He answered.

Haley swallowed the huge lump that formed in her throat at his words. "Nathan," She sighed and bit her bottom lip. "I don't think that..., um, I can't..." She trailed off not knowing how to phrase what she was going to say without being so direct. "It's just that, that is a really big deal for me and I always just figured that I would wait until-"

Nathan cut her off once he realized that she thought he was talking about sex when asked her to stay the night. "Haley." He interrupted. "I mean just to sleep. I don't want to pressure you into anything." He answered honestly.

"Right." She answered as a blush found it's way to her face. "Wait one minute, okay?" She asked before walking out of the bedroom to retrieve her cell phone from her purse on the couch.

"Hi mom...Yes, it's Haley...Um, no actually I was thinking about staying at Brooke's tonight, okay?...Yeah...Okay, I'll see you tomorrow...I love you too...Bye." Haley said to her mom before hanging up and dialing another familiar number.

"Hi Brooke...Oh yeah?...Okay...Yes...Listen, if anyone asks I'm sleeping over your house...No, I'm not really sleeping over...Nathan's apartment...Brooke! No...Stop...I'm hanging up now...I love you, Brookie...Bye." Haley smiled and snapped her phone shut before walking back to the only bedroom in the apartment.

"There." Nathan said, pointing to a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt that was laying on the bed, once she walked back into the room. "You can wear those." He said. "Unless you want to stay in your jeans." He added as and after thought.

Haley took the clothes from the bed and walked into the adjoining bathroom to change. She folded the sweatpants at the top and bottom a couple of times to make them fit her a little bit better and then slid the t-shirt over her head, which ended up going down to about the middle of her thigh. She felt even smaller than she already was in Nathan's clothes.

Haley crawled onto the bed next to Nathan. She rested her head on his shoulder as he wrapped his arm around her waist and she sighed contently.

Even after two weeks, Haley still couldn't believe that things were like this with Nathan. A month ago, she would have never even thought about befriending let alone date him. Things sure do change and they change fast. She was happy though. Although, Nathan wouldn't tell her what was wrong she was sure that everything would be okay. She smiled to herself before closing her eyes hoping for sleep even if she felt a little guilty for lying to her mom about where she was sleeping.

Nathan looked down at Haley. He was lucky to have her. He knew it. He knew that she was special and that he probably didn't deserve her. When Haley walked through the door earlier that night, all he could think about was how he didn't want to talk to anyone or be near anyone. He wanted her to leave, but who would have guessed that laying here with her now would be what was helping calm down. She had this hold over him already and he didn't know what it was. Guilt washed over him as his conversation, if it even qualified as a conversation on his half, with Tim came rushing back. He honestly had forgotten about that stupid bet. This wasn't part of the plan.