21

She hadn't picked up the phone when he'd called her. He went to her house but if she was home, she wasn't answering the door.

Peyton didn't hide. Not unless she was really, and truly hurt. She dealt. Everyone who tried to knock her down were literally, and figuratively, invited to kiss her ass.

She hadn't done that this time. She'd been wounded, tried to shrug it off like it hadn't mattered, but it had. She wasn't here, and she was hurt. She was hurt because of Jake.

Nathan knew that he was pissing Jake off, but he wouldn't even work up the energy to even pretend to give a shit. Nathan talked to the customers, gave as good as he got, he acted like he had been behind a mahogany bar all of his life. He didn't even mind talking basketball with those who wanted to jaw.

"Damien Sharpe couldn't hit a free throw if it was the g-spot."

Oh, they had loved that, and so had he. There were rivalries in the game of basketball no matter what level you played. Damien Sharpe had been dogging his heels in college ball. He was always number two to Nathan's number one. The only reason why he "lead the pack" now because there was no Nathan Scott, or any player close, that could make the "leader by default" stop pretending to the throne. He hadn't even lead his team to a championship. He hadn't smelled the playoffs since Nathan had to walk away from the game, and he never would, because he had no heart. He could break all the records that were out there, but he would never walk the Promised Land; he was too selfish.

When Jake tried to engage, Nathan shut it down. He didn't want to hear shit out of the man's mouth unless he was going to outline how he was going to go about finding Peyton and fix his fuck up.

He took his break in the back office; calling to check on his boy.

"Why is Nic crying?" Were the first words out of her son's mouth. Nic hadn't had a crying fit in a minute.

"He didn't appreciate my putting drops in his ears tonight." His mother replied.

Nathan hitched his hip off the desk he had been leaning back against, pulling out his wallet. Digging the card from Haley's practice from the inside, he found her after-hours line. When he was sure that he didn't have to leave the bar to go home, that his mother had things well in hand, Nathan clicked off with Deb and dialed the good doctor. He wasn't sure that she was going to pick up the phone until his heard her sleep husky voice second before he was about to hang up and try again.

"Dr. Haley James."

Mmm. Damn that voice was sexy, Nathan thought. Immediately his thought process moved from all things medical and turned carnal. He had vivid, slow motion, audio premonition of everything that he wanted to happen and then some.

He shook his head hard once, clearing his throat, situating himself and getting back to the matter at hand.

"Yeah," Nathan cleared his throat again. "Yeah, this is Nathan Scott." He smiled at the pause on the other end of the ling. He could picture the woman gathering herself. One could only imagine her sleep attire.

"Right, yes. How can I help you, Mr. Scott?"

Well, you can start by telling me what you're wearing, his inside voice replied. After that, you can tell me all the things you wish that I was doing to you. Then, after that-

Newly minted "father side" of Nathan grabbed "please you 'til you make me stop" Nathan by the face and pushed him out of the way, down the steps, and back into the uncomfortably cramped home inside of Nathan's jeans.

Nate, buddy, his dad subconscious tried to reason. Yes, Haley James is scary hot. Her voice is grown man inducing, she takes to a lawn mower like it was literally made for her, and the woman riding in that truck like a boss is too much, but this is about our boy. Get it together.

"Yeah," Nathan cleared his throat again. "About the drops you gave me for my son's ears?"

"Yes?"

"My mother gave the medicine to him tonight and she says that he didn't like it. He threw a crying fit. I'm calling because he never cared one way or another when I put them in."

"Are you home now?"

"No." Are you?

"The drops have no known side effects that are harmful to a child; an infant. It could be that he is used to you giving him his medication, could be that the infection has gotten worse, or that is allergic to the meds. If the last dose was his last for the day, don't give Nicolas anymore of the antibiotic. Bring him in tomorrow; that's the office's day for walk-ins, and watch things closely tonight. If Nicolas worsens, like if he develops a fever, for example, go to the emergency room."

"Okay."

No, not okay. He didn't like this shit. If the drops weren't doing their damned job then what the hell were they doing on the market for? Whose ass did he have to kick for this bullshit?

"Mr. Scott?"

It wasn't sick, not Haley saying his name; that was hot. What wasn't sick was Nathan's thought process; if the phone weren't in the damn way, oh, and say 10 miles, Haley James would literally have her lips to his ear.

Hell yes.

"Yeah?"

"This is the same as the shots." Haley told him. "Some kids don't like to take their medicine."

"Did you?"

"I ran away from the dentist, had to be bribed to take my MMR shot in the 5thgrade, and my parents had to hide my cold medicine in my food until I was able to drive. What does that tell you?"

That adorable can be extremely sexy.

"You do that with all of your patient's parents?"

"Do what?"

"Make them feel better with anecdotes?" Nathan asked.

"Anecdotes?" He smiled at her soft laughter. "True accounts, my friend. I kicked my pediatrician in the berries when he dared give me shots when I was three."

"Nice."

"Just doing my part to add to the James Family lore." She told him. "Do you have any other questions tonight?"

"Yeah," Green light dude, Father Nathan winked and flipped the switch. Nathan leaned back further on to the desk, his hand slipping into his pocket. "Is this number your personal number?"

Silence. The line grew so quiet, Nathan could hear Haley's every inhalation and exhale. He could be patient. Something he had been working on since he blew his knee out. He waited her out.

"Why?" She finally answered. Nathan found himself smiling. He crossed his legs at the ankles.

"Well, friends have each other's cell phone numbers, friend."

The door to the office opened and Jake stepped in. Nathan barely spared the man a glance. He stood in front of the door, arms crossed in front of his chest

"You have mine." Nathan pointed out, returning to his phone call.

"I do?"

"Unless doctors accept blocked numbers."

"This is very inappropriate, Mr. Scott."

Ah, man, why did she have to sound like that?

Immediately in Nathan's mind's eye, he saw Haley James in in a black skirt, red blouse with the buttons undone to the point where he could see bra, black; with that doctor lab coat on, a pair of glasses that should have been illegal, as they did nothing but magnify the heat in her deep brown eyes; oh and she just had to pull a pencil from hair, letting all that soft fall around her face and shoulders, and she just had to smile at him the way that Eve had Adam.

Did he mention the heels?

Dammit…

He needed to get laid.

He knew that, but any old female wouldn't do. Nathan didn't want any random broad. He wanted the woman at the end of the line.

Nathan wanted Haley.

"If I had your personal cell, it wouldn't be. Problem solved. Can't call you about that rain check if I don't know your number."

"Goodnight, Mr. Scott." The line clicked dead. Nathan smiled. He knew that he shouldn't tease, but he couldn't help it.

Nathan continued to ignore Jake as he called his mother to relay back what Haley had told him about Nic and the drops. When he was done, Nathan had every intention to keep ignoring Jake. Pissed as he was at the dude, and a little at Peyton if he were being honest, he didn't want to fight the closet person he had to an actual brother.

Nathan stood to leave the room. He slid his cell back into his pocket. He still hadn't acknowledged Jake. He could feel the impatience, the anger, and the confusion rolling off his friend.

"You mind telling me what the fuck, Nathan?" Jake spoke softly.

Nathan watched Jake visibly bristle when he looked at him. All Nathan could do was look. He genuinely wondered how a man, this man, could be so stupid.

"I asked you," Nathan finally spoke. "I asked you what you saw when you looked at Peyton. You know what you told me?"

Jake sighed. "I told you-"

"You told me," Nathan spoke over him. "You told me that when you looked at Peyton, you saw the woman that you could wake up to forever. She asked you if you were staying. The hell do you think that means, Jake?!" Nathan growled at the man.

"I told her that I loved her." The other man replied quietly.

"Sounds to me like you said that shit too late." Nathan shook his head.

"I'm trying to fix this, man."

Jake moved deeper into the room. Nathan watched as his friend paced. "She won't answer the phone when he call her, she's not answering her door. What if she's gone, Nate?"

"Honestly?"

"Sure, why not?"

"If she's gone, then you and I are going to have a problem. You love her , I love her, and my kid loves her. She's family, Jake."

"I know man; don't you think that I know? That woman is a part of me." Jake pulled both hands through his hair. "I dropped the ball, Nate. I know that. I'm trying to make that right, but I can't do that if she won't let me."

"When have you ever known Peyton Sawyer to be an easy person?"

Jake's laugh was self-deprecating. "Never. Especially when you screw up."

"You know that you're going to have to cross the desert, right?"

"I'll swim the Atlantic with Jaws on my ass to make it up to that woman."

"Good."

When Nathan pulled into his driveway after last call he was bone tired. He couldn't help but look in Haley's direction. All of the lights in her house were off.

He walked to his door digging his keys from his pocket. He had just fit the key into the lock when his phone when off. He slipped his phone from his back pocket, brought it to life, called up his text messages and smiled.

"Now you've got my number." The text read. "Lucky you. -Haley."

His mother was asleep on the couch when Nathan came in. He didn't have the heart to wake her. She didn't need to be driving when she was this tired anyway. He covered her with a bigger blanket than the one that she was under, changed his clothes, and then went to check on Nic.

There was no fever, but Nathan didn't move to his own bed instead he kicked back in the rocking chair, closing his eyes. The bed was too far away and he just needed ten minutes before he made that trek.

Seemed like he blinked and he woke to bright lights and screaming.

Nathan jumped out of the chair. He didn't know where he was. He hadn't drunk a drop, but the room was spinning like he had, his mouth was dry as hell, and his body ached something fierce. He didn't know where he was until he heard his mom telling him to get the thermometer.

Next thing Nathan knew, he was tearing out of his driveway headed toward the hospital. He mother sat in the back trying to console his sick baby.

Nathan dialed his phone with one hand and waited; this heart thumping so hard in his chest it rang in his ears. He knew why, he knew what it was, but he refused to acknowledge it.

"Damned woman," He growled. The phone picked up finally when Peyton answed.

"What?" Her voice asked sleepily.

"Peyton, I'm taking Nic to the hospital."

"What?" Her voice sounded more alert, he could hear the light click on through the line. "Why? What's wrong? Why do you have to take the baby to the hospital?"

"He woke up screaming with a fever." Nathan told her. "I tried to call Jake but he's not picking up. He closed down the bar tonight. Call him, go over there, I don't care. But…I just…I need the both of you there."

"Don't you worry about this," Peyton told him. "You take care of our boy and let me do the rest. We're coming, Nate."

Nic had been quiet for a few minutes; Nathan hoped that was because the damn fever broke on its own. He glanced back then trained his eyes back on the road. He was going more than a little over the speeding limit with the hospital being 30 minutes away on slow day.

Nic started up and Nathan's gut clenched. His son had never sounded back that before. The back of his eyes burned and his throat started to close on him.

Fuck. That.

He refused.

Nathan shook his head hard, blinking back the fear that thought it was about to run something. He glanced back in the rearview mirror. The tears on his baby's face pissed Nathan off. He gripped the steering wheel tighter in his hands. He glanced in the rearview mirror again. He saw his mother watching him, she was saying something, but Nathan couldn't hear her. All he heard was his baby boy scared because he didn't know what the hell was going on.

"I'll fix it, Nics." Nathan promised his baby. "Daddy will make it better."

"His doctor, Nathan." Deb's words finally got through.

He didn't have time to go through his previous calls, so he just hit number three, and waited.

Come on, Hales.

She picked up on the second ring.

"Mm?"

"Haley. Haley, it's Nathan."

The urgency in his voice broke through the sleepy haze trying to pull her back. "Nate, what is it?"

He pulled in a deep breath and shook his head hard again, keeping everything else back. "Nic has a fever of 102. I'm taking him to the emergency room."

"I'll meet you there."

Longest. Night. Of. His. Life

And it wasn't over yet.

Nic's fever had kept going down and spiking; up and down for the last couple hours. He just now went to sleep, but Nathan knew that shit wasn't going to last.

The medicine that Haley had prescribed for Nic's infection hadn't worked. Instead it had made his boy's situation worse.

Nic was allergic to the damn medicine. So while his little body was dealing with that, his ear infection had gotten worse.

He didn't know.

He had seen his son every day, and nothing had seemed off. His ears hadn't gotten any redder, but they hadn't gotten better either. He wasn't crying inconsolably. He hadn't stopped eating. There hadn't been any damn fever for days.

Not until his damn eardrums had ruptured.

They couldn't do anything about the pain until the fever went down. He hadn't taken anymore of that shit since the last time Nic had been dosed and they were hoping, yeah hoping, could you believe that shit? They were hoping that the medicine his baby was allergic to was out of his system. They didn't know because they had to fucking take blood to make sure that it was completely gone, and wouldn't stick his boy until the damn fever was given a chance to go down on its own.

That stupid shit worked just like Nathan knew it would; it hadn't.

Now Nathan sat listening to the baby doctors and nurses plan out their course of action. Some idiot thought that they were going to put his infant son in a shower to break his temp. His mother tried to tell them that wasn't going to happen, but they had told her to let them do their jobs.

They'd dismissed a woman who had raised a kid.

"The fuck you are!" Nathan's voice roared over the top of them. "You are NOT, I repeat, not, going to put my son in some damn shower with his fucking ear drums shot to shit. He's already in enough damn pain. And what the fuck do you know about you water pressure on a five month old's skin?"

"Mr. Scott-"

"Why the hell are you even here?" He wanted to know. His whole body clenching at his baby's pained cries "Where is Haley James? She is his doctor."

"Mr. Scott-"

"Next words out of your mouth had better be 'I'll find her.'"

"Don't you threaten me, sir!" The tallest of the three medical professionals stepped into Nathan's space. "You can take your attitude 45 minutes away to someone paid to take shit of people like yourself."

"Now you wait a minute," Deb's eyes narrowed into slits. "Just what the hell are you implying, Dr. Dick Perry?" Deb flipped the man's name tag on his stupid lab coat.

"My name is Richard."

"Ask me if I give a FFU-"

Nathan wrapped his mother in his arms before she had assault charges pressed against her. "Leave." He told the doctor. "Get out now before I tie your ass in a knot." He never wanted to lay hands on a stupid person more.

The nurses had left the good doctor to get his life threatened and tried to tend to Nic, but his son wasn't having it. He didn't like people touching him with cold shit.

This shit was done.

"Get me a tub!" He shouted into the room. Everything went quiet, even Nic stopped crying or a second, his daddy's loud outburst scaring him.

"Nathan-" Deb knew that look. It didn't matter that they had been apart for a decade, she knew her son. Her baby boy was fraying at the edges. "They're-"

"I know," He cut in. "But nothing else is working. They can't give Nic anything to stop the fever until they know whether or not the medicine is out of his system. They can't stop the pain in his ears until they break the damn fever. He's not comfortable. Find me a tub." He said again. "Get me a tub, steal me a tub, I don't care what you have to do, or who you have to rob; please, Mom."

They'd found him a tub.

Nathan undressed down to his boxer briefs, keeping his eyes on his son who was being undressed to the skin and put in a cloth diaper. He couldn't even lift his head from where it lay against his grandmother's chest.

It seemed like they sat in that damn tub with Nathan scooping water that irritated Nic, for hours. Nic cried until he finally cried himself to sleep. It was a sleep that lasted. His baby was actually able to rest because that damned fever had broken.

Nathan couldn't get his mind away from it. Nic hadn't shown any signs that the medication that he was on was hindering him more than helping him. Or, maybe he had and Nathan had missed it.

More than once baby doctors, and nurses, had told him that no one knew how a person reacted to medication until they had to take that medication. Haley had only prescribed it because Nic's ears had been so red, and that infection had been obvious.

He didn't blame her. No, Nathan wanted to punch out the nearest pharmacist. Irrational, yes; but he had just watched his five month old son scream off and on for the past few hours. The pharmacist would have to just take on for the team.

Nic didn't want to be put in the bed. He needed someone to always have him in their arms; well, whether or not he was just being a Scott about it was neither here nor there. Peyton held him now, having shown up at the end of Nathan's fear filled, frustrated tirade.

Nathan had to make his mother go home. She was dead on her feet. She argued with him on it, and Nathan had expected her too, but there was nothing more that could be done right now. She needed to sleep. Jake had taken her, now he was back watching Peyton hold their godson.

Nathan knew that he should sleep, too. He was tired, dead tired, and he had tried, he did, but his mind kept going, thinking about something that he had missed. No, his son wasn't dying, the reaction that Nic had to the mediation wasn't lethal, but what if it could have been?

What if they hadn't caught it in time?

What if the reaction hadn't made itself known?

All he could hear in his head was Nic crying, in pain, and he hadn't been able to do anything to stop it. Nathan was about to lose his shit, and go for a pharmacist when he felt cool hands on his face.

Nathan blinked his eyes opened and just stared. Haley was knelt on the floor in front of him; her hands were soothing on his face. Concern laced her features, deepening the soul brown of her eyes. She had pulled a lab coat over the jeans and tank she had come to the hospital in. Her golden brown hair had been pulled back into some kind of contraption you had to be a woman to know how the name of, let alone pronounce.

She was talking to him. He could see her lips moving, but he couldn't hear a damn thing that was coming out of her mouth.

Shit.

Snap out of it, man, he tried to tell himself, but all Nathan could focus on was Haley's hands on him; her nearness. It shut up all of the bullshit, the worry over his boy, the plotting on random pharmacists. Her touch quieted the blame, the fear.

She was still looking at him in confusion. Damn he was tired. He wanted to take his kid and go home. Nathan wanted his son, he wanted Nic, at home in his own bed where he belonged. Nathan wanted to be at home in his own damn bed. He reached out and touched the warm, softness of Haley's skin with his fingertips

He wanted his woman lying beside him.

The thought alone had his heart thumping so hard in his chest that he could feel it in his ears; in his throat. Her hand reached for the fingers that brushed against her face, her gaze still questioning.

"Nathan?"

He blinked and everything came back into focus. The antiseptic smell of the hospital made him want to vomit, the people walking around outside the room were too loud. The beeping of the machines made his head hurt.

He wanted all of this shit to go away.

Now.

"Nathan?"

He focused on Haley and Nathan's heart started again to thump hard, deep, in his chest. It was like he finally knew, above all else, what he wanted, in his life for the rest of his life.

His son…

And this woman.