Chapter 14
"Well?" Brooke prodded after a few moments of silence from her best friend. "We're waiting."
"Wh-What are you talking about? There's nothing going on!" she spluttered out quickly.
"Damn it, Haley! Stop fucking lying to us!" Peyton yelled in anger and stood up harshly. Brooke stood up next to her and crossed her arms defensively. Lily and Lydia remained seated,
Haley was surprised at Peyton's little outburst. She was usually very even tempered and rarely raised her voice at her friends or family like this. She expected Brooke to be the one yelling at her. She looked to the clock in the corner of the room that read 12:37 and realized she had been gone for a little over half an hour. Tree Hill was definitely not big enough for it to take that long to drive Nathan home.
"Can we not get into this right now? It's Christmas. I don't want to ruin our holiday by fighting with each other."
"Bullshit! You just want an excuse to keep the truth from us a little longer!"
"How many times do I have to say it? There is nothing going on between me and Nathan!" Haley yelled back at the curly haired girl.
"Really, Hales?" Brooke asked calmly and she nodded in response. "Well then why is there a hickey on your neck? A hickey that definitely wasn't there before you left with Nathan."
Haley inwardly cursed and quickly moved her blouse to cover the offending red mark. Her mind raced for a plausible lie to tell the people that knew her best. If they found out the truth about what her and Nathan decided to do together, no doubt it would spread like wildfire through her family and eventually their entire small town would know. She loved them, but she could not risk losing her job for being guilt tripped into telling the truth.
"It's nothing, I just burnt my neck curling my hair for tonight. You must not have noticed until now," she shrugged.
Peyton scoffed loudly and shook her head in disbelief. "Whatever happened to best friends telling each other everything? I mean, Brooke and I are truthful but it seems like you're always working to hide at least one thing from us! Your depression in high school, losing your virginity, all the Chris drama over the years, and now whatever is going on with Nathan!" she listed furiously. "The secrets and lies are getting ridiculous, Haley. I'm fed up with it. When you're finally ready to be honest, come find me. Until then, I'm not going to sit around and be told blatant lies," she finished her heated rant and picked her coat up off the couch.
"You've always been truthful?" Haley asked incredulously. "You've got to be kidding me. Correct me if I'm wrong, but are you not the one that snuck around with Lucas for months and lied to both our faces about it? Not to mention it probably would have gone on even longer than it did had Brooke and I not caught you two making out with each other! Don't you dare lecture me about what it means to be best friends, Peyton, when you're just as guilty of making shitty decisions."
Lydia glanced uneasily between the two squaring off girls. As curious as she was for answers, she knew she needed to put an end to the heated conversation taking place. "Okay, that's enough girls. You both need to calm down. It's late, you've both been drinking and you've said things that you don't mean. It's time to sleep everything off and come morning I'm sure you'll be back to normal and be able to have a civil conversation."
Haley shook her head in disagreement. "I meant everything I've said and I want this hypocrite to leave right now."
Peyton returned Haley's icy glare and stormed proudly out of the James household, slamming the front door behind her.
Lydia looked disappointedly at her oldest daughter and pointed to the stairs. "Bed, now."
"What?" she asked in shock. "I'm not a little kid anymore, Mom. You can't send me to my room as a punishment. Especially when I haven't done anything wrong."
"I am your mother, Haley James. I will be able to punish you and tell you what to do until the day I die. Now go to bed," she said sternly.
Haley knew that tone. She had only heard it on a few occasions when she was a teenager, but she knew better than to argue with it. Her mother meant business right now, even as a grown woman, back talking would get her into some serious trouble. So, without another word Haley turned and marched obediently up the stairs to her former bedroom.
Lydia rubbed her temples in exhaustion and looked at the two remaining occupants of the room. "Why has she all of a sudden become so difficult?"
Brooke smiled at her surrogate mother sadly. "She got her heart broken."
"I don't know what I'm going to do with her if she keeps it up. Her behaviour is starting to get out of control."
"She's just going through a rough patch," Brooke defended softly. She may not agree with Haley's choices of late, but she understood the reason behind them. Something inside her needed to defend that. "I'll try to talk to her."
"Thanks, Brooke," Lydia smiled gratefully. Lily had remained uncharacteristically silent throughout the entire conversation from when Haley arrived back home, and both women looked at her simultaneously in realization. "You okay, sweetheart?"
She shrugged indifferently. "I'm just worried about Haley. I've never seen her acting this way."
"She'll be alright, Lil. Everything that went down with Chris is going to take some time to move on from. Your sister will be back to her normal self sooner or later," Brooke promised the teenager. She offered a reassuring smile and followed Haley's path up the stairs to her friend's bedroom for the night. Hopefully she'd be able to get her to talk at least a little bit at some point before morning.
"You've been spending a lot of time out here lately," Lily commented as she walked onto the back porch, sliding the door shut behind her.
Haley didn't bother turning around. She merely shrugged and wrapped the quilt tighter around her shoulders. Lily's footsteps approached the railing and out of the corner of her eye Haley saw her sister brush the light snow off the wood and hop swiftly onto it.
"I needed some fresh air."
"At three in the morning? It's freezing out here, Hales," Lily questioned and took hold of the edge of the quilt around Haley. She tugged it towards her and scooted closer to the twenty something so the warm blanket could be wrapped around both of them.
"Couldn't sleep. I guess I do my best thinking when I sit out here."
"What are you thinking about?"
Haley sighed miserably. "Nothing. Everything."
"Nathan?" Lily questioned curiously. It wasn't her intention to even talk about him when she stepped onto the deck. She was just a worried girl wanting to help her sister through whatever was going on. She couldn't resist bringing up the raven haired man's name though, she was just too curious to know what the story was about him and Haley.
"Lily..." Haley didn't know what to say to her sister. On one hand, she wanted to confess everything she had been doing lately to at least one person, but on the other she didn't want to disappoint anyone or risk her job. It was the same internal battle she seemed to constantly be having. At this point, Haley felt like a broken record and all she wanted to do was snap out of the lies she found herself buried in.
"Hales, it's me. I'm your only sister. You can talk to me about whatever it is that's going on. That's what I'm here for, right?"
"It's complicated, Lily," Haley explained.
"Well then un-complicate it for me, Haley! I'm worried about you. I've never seen you go to such great lengths to hide things or behave the way you are. What happened to my big sister?"
Haley shook her head at herself and gazed out at the expanse of their yard. It wasn't much, but it had been her home for twenty three years. Usually, she was able to find a sense of calm from peering out across the lot. It didn't seem to be having that effect tonight though, after her blowout with Peyton in particular, she couldn't get her mind to stop racing. Now, with Lily sitting beside her asking questions her mind was in overdrive. It was going over every single possible outcome of every single decision she was going to have to make in the coming days.
"We're sleeping together," she confessed softly.
"YOU'RE WHAT?" Brooke's shrill exclamation rang out loudly through the silent night.
Haley and Lily both whipped around to see the brunette standing in the door across the deck. Neither had heard the glass slide open and she could tell by the identical surprised expressions on their faces. Without hesitation Brooke walked over to the siblings and took a seat on Haley's unoccupied side.
"What are you doing out here?" Haley asked uneasily. The last thing she wanted was to get in a fight with her other best friend tonight.
"Relax, Hales, it's only me. I heard you get up earlier and figured it was about time I make sure you're okay since you had been gone for over an hour. Walking out here at the beginning of your little confession was just an added bonus."
"Well, now you both finally know what's going on. I'm sure now you'll both run off and tell our entire family, awesome. Add that to the list of things they can bring up to get a rise out of me," she said with a slight edge to her voice.
"We aren't going to do that, Haley," Lily immediately defended. "Obviously this is something you don't want getting around and Brooke and I will keep it to ourselves."
"Yeah. Now, do you want to explain how this thing with Nathan went from a couple hook ups to friends with benefits?" Brooke asked.
"I don't know, really. After the first time we agreed that it wouldn't and couldn't happen again. Then he found me at Tric that one night and after seeing Chris with Carrie, I let it happen again. After our girl's night I decided becoming friends with benefits would be a good thing. Nathan helps me forget about Chris, and he doesn't have to sleep with nasty bar sluts to get a fix. It's a win-win situation."
"Why all the sneaking around though?"
"You guys know that any sort of relationship is forbidden at the dealership. We decided that the best way to prevent anyone from finding out was to just keep it between the two of us."
Brooke shook her head. "I don't like this, Haley. We both know that it's impossible to have sex with a guy without developing feelings eventually."
"I know what I'm doing, Brooke. If I do begin to have feelings for him, I'll end it."
Her best friend remained unconvinced. "Why let it even get that far? You're going to fall for him and you're going to get hurt. I don't want to see you get your heart broken again."
"Brooke, just because you had the same arrangement with that asshole Felix and you ended up getting hurt again, doesn't mean it'll happen to me."
"Okay!" Brooke threw her hands up in surrender. "Just be careful."
"I will be," Haley responded. Her tone signalling that the subject was now closed. She had reluctantly explained herself to her friend and sister and now she was done speaking about her arrangement with Nathan.
Brooke and Lily both threw an arm around Haley and leant their heads on her shoulders. "We love you, Hales," Lily said with conviction.
"I love you both too," she smiled softly and rubbed Lily's arm comfortingly. She knew her sister was worried about her. Lily was used to seeing her as the stable older sister, not the out of whack mess she had turned into as of late. In that moment, Haley made a promise to herself. She promised she would be better for Lily. That didn't mean she would be perfect, but she wanted to be that stable sister that her younger sibling could go to with anything. Lately, she had been too wrapped up in her own drama to be able to give Lily much attention. That was going to change starting tomorrow.
"Merry Christmas!" Lydia exclaimed loudly as she saw the three girls tread slowly down the stairs.
They each flashed her a tired smile and accepted the mother's hugs. They promptly took their seat in front of the pile of presents with their name on it.
"How are we all feeling this morning?" the oldest woman asked, directing her gaze at Haley.
"Fine. Tired."
Brooke made a noise of agreement at the latter statement and tried to rub the sleep away from her heavy eyes. She tried to prevent the squeal of delight from escaping when she saw Jimmy walk into the room carrying several coffee mugs. He handed them one by one to each of the women and took a seat next to his wife.
"Well what are you three waiting for?" he asked incredulously as they all sat on the ground silently looking up at him and Lydia. "Have at it!"
Haley, Lily, and Brooke all instantly started tearing through the wrapping paper and admiring their gifts. Christmas morning with the three girls had been a tradition in the James home for as long as they could remember. Brooke was treated like the third child in the family thanks to her absentee parents.
They quickly finished opening presents and all said their thank yous. Jimmy grabbed a trash bag and cleaned up the torn up wrapping paper. He then left the girls alone to chat as he got started on making them breakfast and begin preparing the big turkey dinner.
"So?" Lydia looked expectantly at each of the girls for a moment. "Who's going to explain what you were all doing outside at three in the morning last night?"
"We were just having some girl talk," Lily explained easily, not even bothering to question how her mother knew about their late night. Everyone had long ago stopped wondering how Lydia managed to know everything and just accepted it as fact.
"Did it having anything to do with what was brought up when Haley got home last night?"
"That was brought up, yeah."
"Care to share?" Lydia asked curiously with a raised brow.
Each girl looked at her innocently and shrugged. "Sorry Mom, girl talk stays between the girls."
"Fine," she huffed in mock sadness. "At least tell me you're going to sort things out with Peyton today."
Haley rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Why should I? She's the one that started screaming at me for no reason and calling me a shitty friend."
"Haley, come on," Brooke reasoned. "She was just angry that you've been keeping secrets and reached her breaking point."
"Can we just not talk about her today? I don't want to ruin my Christmas fighting about it."
"Fine. You're not off the hook for good though."
"I don't doubt it," Haley replied in a sickeningly sweet voice with an equally fake, playful smile.
Lydia chuckled at the best friends' antics and stood up from her couch. She stretched dramatically and put two hands on her lower back. "Lord, what I would give to be as young as you three again. My back has not been able to keep up with my inner youth these days," she complained with a disappointed sigh and walked into the kitchen to help her husband cook.
The sound of the doorbell ringing had Haley excusing herself from the table with a happy smile plastered across her face. The whole day had quickly gone by as she spent it with her close family. Lucas and Deb had just arrived at her house and they were just getting ready to eat the turkey dinner her parents prepared. She walked down the short hallway to the foyer and pulled open the door. A surprised expression made its way onto her face at the sight of the raven haired man standing across from her.
"Nathan!"
He smiled sheepishly at her. "Hi. Sorry if this is unexpected, Lucas invited me for dinner. I wouldn't have come but I don't really have any other place to go and I'd rather not spend Christmas alone."
"Come in!" she opened the door wider and hung his coat up for him. "You're just in time. Lucas and Deb just got here and we were sitting down to eat."
As she led Nathan to the dining room, she felt his hot breath on her neck right before they entered the room. Still hidden by the wall, she turned around with a questioning gaze and saw the smirk spread across his lips. "Nice hickey," he whispered before passing by her and walking into the dining room.
Haley took a deep breath to calm herself down and followed him. She saw that he had taken the empty seat on one side of her chair. She ignored the amused glances Brooke and Lily were throwing her and took a seat.
As she did so, conversation halted and every one joined hands to say grace. As soon as her hand came into contact with Nathan's, Haley felt a jolt of electricity shoot through her arm. She had felt it when they had touched before but was more acutely aware of it this time. Haley felt the loss deep within her when they dropped hands and began eating the well prepared meal. As she surveyed her family sitting all around her, she couldn't help but think about how much of an integral part of her life Nathan Scott had suddenly become. He had been around for years, but in a few short weeks had managed to flip everything upside down and backwards. Little did Haley know, Nathan Scott would continue to violently shake her once stable ground in the coming months.
Fasten your seatbelt, Haley James.