For flipflopgal--who is totally hot for Brucas and loves to remind me:) (It's OK, though, because I love hearing it. I love Brucas, too!)

And to everyone who reviews faithfully, thanks so much!

And to everyone who reviews at all, every little bit helps, and you guys never cease to amaze me with your kind words!

I love all of you reviewers and readers to pieces!

The next morning, Haley was in the student union at one of the tables reading a book. Classes hadn't started yet, but some of the buildings were already up and running in anticipation of the spring semester. She wanted somewhere neutral to hold her appointments, and she thought that this location was perfect!

She'd already met with two prospective roommates and she shuddered just thinking about them. First of all—both of them had been 10 minutes late, and if there was anything Haley hated, it was tardiness! And to top all of it off—the first one had wanted to make it very clear that she was not going to move into any apartment without her pet snake. It was only a four foot python, rather small for a python, she'd insisted. And then she'd proceeded to show Haley a picture of her "baby" that she had in her wallet and the one on the screensaver of her phone. The second girl seemed normal, but at the end of the conversation she had asked if it was OK if her boyfriend lived there rent free for a little while. He was currently between jobs, but he'd been looking for six months and had a lot of prospects lined up.

Haley had told each girl that she'd be in touch. No chance in hell would they be living with her. She had one final appointment this morning, and if it didn't go well, she was going to bite the bullet and pick up more hours at the restaurant so she'd be able to pay half of the rent. She couldn't handle meeting with people like this any longer.

She'd finally started concentrating on her book when someone sat down across from her. She immediately recognized him as someone she'd seen around but never spoken to. "Uh…hi," she said. "That seat is kind of—taken," she told him.

"Are you Haley?" he asked.

"Yes," she said cautiously.

He introduced himself. "You sent me a text message yesterday. I'm here to talk to you about the room you have for rent."

"Oh," Haley said, finally realizing what had happened. "You didn't text me your name, so I just assumed that you were a female," she told him. "I'm sorry for wasting your time, but the ad actually stated that I'm looking for a female roommate."

He stood up. "Well, in that case, I'm sorry for wasting your time," he said. "Thank you anyway. It was nice meeting you, Haley."

She wasn't sure why she did it, but she did. She followed her gut and threw caution to the wind.

"Wait!" she said.

He turned around.

"Do you have a pet snake?"

Puzzled, he shook his head.

"An unemployed boyfriend who wants to live with you rent free until he finds a job?"

Again he shook his head. "I like women," he said, looking like a deer caught in the headlights.

Haley nodded. "Good. So, what do you say you have a seat, and we continue with this interview? I just met with a couple of females who, quite frankly, scared the life out of me. My guess is that you can't be worse than they were."

He grinned and sat back down. "I hope not," he said, laughing.

Haley sat and talked with him for about an hour, and found that she really liked the guy. She hoped that Brooke didn't mind a male roommate. They hadn't really discussed it, but in all fairness, Brooke had said that Haley could choose their new roommate. And to be honest—she didn't know many girls that she liked this much.

"So, when did you want to move in?" Haley asked.

"Well, I'm flying to Colorado tonight to visit some friends before school starts back up. I'll be gone for five days, and I'd like to move in as soon as I get back," he told her.

Haley nodded, gathered her books, and stood up. "Great," she said smiling. "You've got yourself two new roommates." She'd told him a little about Brooke, and he didn't seem worried about the prospect of living with two females. He stood up, too, and she shook his hand. "It was great to meet you, Marvin McFadden."

He grinned. "My friends call me Mouth."

888

Brooke opened her eyes slowly, then yawned, stretched, and rolled over. She grinned at Lucas lying there sleeping, with Laney's little head on his chest. He had an arm wrapped protectively around her. Laney's fever had broken after her bath last night, and she hadn't gotten sick again, but her sleep had been restless. But since she'd been sleeping for the last two days, that was to be expected. Brooke reached over and gently touched Laney's forehead, relieved that it felt normal again. Suddenly Lucas' other hand took Brookes and he brought it to his lips and softly kissed it. "Morning, Babe," he said quietly, not wanting to wake Laney.

Brooke grinned at him. "Good morning, yourself. Although, to be honest, I'm not sure what's so good about it. I think I got all of three hours of sleep last night," she told him.

"Well, I'm waking up with you. That always makes my day start off right," he told her.

She just smiled at him, and then sighed, laying her head back down and looking up at the ceiling.

"So, I've been thinking," Lucas began.

Brooke laughed. "You usually are."

He grinned. "This is true." There was a short pause." So, I know that we talked about a long engagement."

"Yeah," she agreed, rolling onto her side so she was facing him. She put a hand under the cheek that rested on the pillow.

"But the thing is—I don't want a long engagement," he admitted. "I want to get married this summer," he declared.

Brooke sat up on her side of the bed. "Lucas—but we talked about it, and we agreed—"

"I know what we've talked about," Lucas said, "but I've changed my mind."

"But Lucas, we can't do that. I mean—where would we live? You and Nathan live in that beach house for free because Dan wants you both to get a good education. I live off of student loans and an allowance from my parents."

Lucas shrugged. "So we struggle for a year. Who cares?" he said.

Brooke choked on a laugh of disbelief. "I do!" she said forcefully.

Lucas put a finger to his lips, and then gently moved Laney off of him and onto the pillow, then stood up. Brooke followed him into the kitchen and sat down at the table while he started a pot of coffee. Karen and Keith had left for work hours ago, so they were alone in the house. Finally, he had a cup for each of them, and after placing Brooke's in front of her, he sat down across from her.

"Lucas, our first year of marriage is going to be hard enough as it is. Especially since we agreed that we're not going to live together first. We're going to be learning lots of new things about each other, things that we might not even like. And we're gonna have to take those things as they come. And now you want to throw unemployment into the mix?" she asked incredulously.

"We're going to be OK, Brooke," he told her.

"Well maybe that's good enough for you, but it's not good enough for me. Up until now, our relationship has been nothing short of amazing. And I won't start our marriage off with the expectation of us being 'OK.' I know things aren't going to be perfect, but I'm not gonna let them be…terrible from the start."

"They won't be," he promised.

"Luke, look," she said, reaching across the table and covering his hand with hers. "This is my first serious relationship. And we talked about that. I don't want to rush things by moving too fast."

"Then maybe you should have said no when I asked you to marry me!" he shot back hotly, regretting the words as soon as he said them.

Brooke pulled her hand away as if she'd been burned and stood up, heading for Lucas' bedroom.

"Brooke—" Lucas said, standing up and following her. "I'm sorry."

She spun around so quickly that he almost tripped over his feet trying to come to a stop. Luckily he caught his balance before falling down. She put a finger in his face. "You don't get to talk to me like that!" she spat at him, and then spun back around and headed once again for the bedroom. He watched her sit down on the bed to put her shoes on, and then grab her purse and keys off of the night stand. He stood there in the doorway getting angrier by the second, unable to say anything because Laney was still there sound asleep. He watched her lean down and give Laney a kiss on the cheek and smooth her hair away from her face, and all of his anger was gone. Until she stood up and fixed her glare on him. She stalked past him and towards the front door. Yep, his anger was back with a vengeance.

He followed her. "Brooke—"

She spun around again, but this time, he was prepared for it and halted easily. She threw a hand in the air and let it fall again. "I've shared things with you that I have never shared with anyone before. Told you things about me that no one else knows. Do you think that was easy for me? Because it wasn't! I let you in! I have been nothing but honest with you, Lucas Scott, and now I'm honest with you about this, and you freak out on me?"

"I didn't mean it," he told her.

"But you said it," she said softly. "And now you can't take it back." She sighed deeply. "I have no doubts about whether or not I want to marry you, Lucas. I know that I want to be your wife. But I'm also aware that we have only known each other for four months. And I need to do this right—I need to be smart about it—because I'm only going to do it once. The long engagement isn't just for me—it's for you, too," she told him. "You might get to know me better and wonder what the hell you were thinking asking me to marry you."

He shook his head. "Not possible," he disputed, and suddenly, all of his anger was gone again once he realized that Brooke was afraid of him not loving her enough or him not wanting to stay with her.

"I have to go," she said softly. "Call me if Laney needs anything," she said firmly, closing the door softly behind her.

Lucas sighed and ran a hand down over his face. What the hell was I thinking? he thought to himself. The words had just tumbled out of his mouth. And he hadn't even meant them. At least, he didn't think he had. But where the hell had they come from?