Well, it took me over three weeks to post a chapter. I can't tell if I'm boring people or if the story is too long. Either way, here's a new chapter. Enjoy! I know that this chapter doesn't have brucas in it, but that didn't seem to thrill people in the last chapter.
A Season in Purgatory
Chapter 29
The crowd milling about the concession stand created more of an uproar than the cheerleaders inside the gym. Shari surveyed the town's basketball hungry population with mild disdain, preferring to tuck herself away behind the counter with the other basketball moms. But it was game night and she was the consummate team mom. The other mothers fluttered about her like the drones attending the queen bee and that's precisely the way Shari liked it. She was the organizer of all the boosters and as such was an important part of the Raven's winning tradition.
It was much like when she was a cheerleader back in high school. And she'd have been the captain of that team too had it not been for that woman. Her gaze moved across the hallway to the merchandise booth. To where Karen Roe stood disinterestedly next to her ex boyfriend and high school Adonis, Dan Scott.
Karen stood awkwardly in front of a backdrop covered with Raven's t-shirts and banners. Dan was attempting to look causal but both of them were less than pleased to be working together. Dan handed a young girl a basketball sticker and muttered, "I can not believe Shari would do this to me."
Smiling at a man who was a regular for breakfast at the Café, Karen's eyes narrowed at the slender blonde standing behind the concession stand. "She's a bitch. She's been out to get me since I beat her out for captain."
Dan rolled his eyes at her. "God that was so high school, Karen. Maybe she's moved on past those days," he suggested, still in shock at the schedule that lay flat on the table in front of them.
"Why else would she schedule us to work every single event for the entire season together?" Karen asked, knowing that Shari's agenda was to make Karen miserable by forcing her into close quarters with the man who abandoned her.
Shari looked over at her long term rival and smirked, enjoying the woman's discomfort. Tina, the mother of one of the seniors, leaned over and noted, "I hear Dan has been seen at her Cafe three times this week alone."
Another mother chipped in. "At least he's back on the dating market. Even the Taj Mahal guy didn't mourn in celibacy for eight years." They all took a moment to appreciate Dan's body, knowing that he was certainly one of the hottest residents in Tree Hill.
Her words curled Shari's lip. "We've been trying to fix Dan up for years, but he's always avoided dating," she said, frowning at the lack of acrimony between Dan and Karen. She was completely convinced that putting the two of them together would cause some entertaining sparks. Now she wasn't quiet sure exactly what kind of sparks they were generating. "Dan's too prominent to date just any girl," she said, giving Karen a pointed look.
"God just look at how she's throwing herself at him," Shari remarked to no one in particular.
Karen sent her a nasty look and turned her attention toward her companion, who was watching the impending cat fight. "What?" she sharply asked, not liking the grin that was on his face.
"Meow...incoming girl fight," he said, making faux claw marks in the air for emphasis. "You two are going to kill each other before district play offs," he predicted, knowing that Shari and Karen and Katherine had been the three most volatile females he'd ever met. So very different from the tranquility of Deb, he mused, before snapping back to reality.
Karen sensed his darkening mood and laughed at his remarks to bring some levity to the situation. She reached out and gently touched his shoulder. "No more fights in the lunch room, Dan. I promise not to bitch slap Shari." His eyes lightened a bit and he returned from whatever melancholic thought he'd been indulging in. So very much like her son, she realized, knowing that Lucas was more like Dan than he'd ever know. Especially since Luke hadn't warmed to the idea of getting to know his father.
The booster herd watched the interaction between Dan and Karen with morbid curiosity. The gossip about the two had always run rampant through the town, but their truce the past few weeks was the biggest news to hit Tree Hill in years. No one was quite sure how to react to the new found peace between the former lovers.
Jennifer, the mother of a sophomore player, handed someone a bag of popcorn before leaning over the counter to watch as Karen touched Dan's shoulder. "Doesn't look like he's going to be lonely for much longer," she speculated, feeding the gossip. They watched as Dan laughed at something Karen said and moved to stand closer to her.
Shari wondered for a moment if she'd made a monumental miscalculation by forcing the two of them to work together. She'd been in charge of scheduling the parents for two years now and she'd used that power to her advantage. Now, seeing them together, it literally turned her stomach. She'd spent four years watching them date and plotting to break them up in high school. Smirking, she realized that even if she'd failed to nab Dan, she'd still ended up with a successful if bland businessman. Karen had just ended up alone and pregnant.
She stared into the gym, watching as Nate and Lucas warmed up, tension radiating off both boys. They'd already been tossed from one game. It wasn't too difficult to image that problems between the sons would affect the parents. "We'll see how long that peace lasts".
Dan handed a set of grandparents a bag with their team shirts in it and turned toward Karen. "Did you bring it?" he hopefully asked in a low tone of voice. He thought they were doing a good job of appearing civil. Normally, Dan didn't give a damn about what the town thought about him, but anything dealing with Karen had to be carefully negotiated. He didn't want to do anything that made her feel uncomfortable.
She nodded at him and picked up the worn photo album from the bag at her feet. "I just need to get this into the car before the game is over. I don't want Lucas to ask why I'm carrying it around," she replied.
Though the weekly dinners had been cordial, she was still waiting for Lucas to relax and start talking to Dan. Karen had to give Dan credit for trying. He showed up the past two weeks willing to talk to Lucas, only to be coolly rebuffed by his son at every juncture.
Dan took the faded album and eagerly opened the old book up. He took in the pictures of Luke's first few years with a mixture of pride and sadness. A lump developed in his throat when he realized that he'd wasted so many precious years, years that he couldn't get back.
Something caught his eye and he stared at one picture with particular interest. "Is that blue blanket the one I gave him?" he curiously asked, noting that it appeared in nearly all the pictures.
Nodding, Karen stared at the pictures, nearly lost in time. He'd grown up so fast she'd barely realized it was happening. And now she had just a few years left before Luke went off to college and left her nest empty. "That blanket ended up being his favorite," she revealed, noting the smile that covered Dan's face at the news. "I had to pry it from his arms the first day of Kindergarten."
He wordlessly nodded, touched that some part of him had been with his son when he wasn't. It had taken Dan months to go see his first born son. And that had been at Deb's constant prodding. He'd stopped at a store on the way to see him, not wanting to show up empty handed on Karen's door step. The soft blue blanket had been a total guess on his part. Dan wasn't really sure what babies liked, having never been around one before.
He'd only spent a couple of hours with Luke that day. He and Karen had gotten into a fight almost as soon as he'd walked through the door. In fact, before Lucas joined the team, the majority of the time Dan had spent with his son was on that single day so many years ago.
Karen watched Dan's face as he moved from page to page of the old photo album. She might have been suspicious at the man's motives a few weeks ago, but the look on his face now confirmed her decision. Dan hungrily digested any and all things regarding Luke's life. It was as if he too realized that in a few years both Lucas and Nate would be off to school, living their lives separate from their parents. There was a sense of desperation, that it was do or die regarding Lucas. Dan either took advantage of the time left or risked losing his son for good.
A loud thump interrupted their contemplations. Brooke leaned against the heavy box she'd just dumped on top of the booth's table for a moment, before looking over to see what they were both staring at. A smile crossed her face when she saw Baby Broody staring up from the pages of an old album. "He was hot even in diapers," she said, her dimples standing out as she smiled at her own joke. Dan jerked his hands back from the book, almost looking guilty for having it in his possession.
Karen understood his discomfort. There was a huge possibility that Brooke would tell Lucas that they'd been looking at the album. It seemed like every little word set her son off these days, she noted. Karen smiled stiffly at Brooke, attempting to relax around the girl. But the sight of her son's girlfriend in her tiny cheerleading uniform didn't make Karen particularly cheery. It just made her more anxious about her son's choice of dating partners.
"What's in the box?" she politely asked, realizing that Dan was too busy staring at the girl to initiate a conversation.
Brooke pushed her hair back and pulled open a box flap. "Blue and white raven's pom poms," she said, pulling out the item and shaking it for emphasis. The sell of items in the booth helped fund the cheer squad's competition costs. Brooke was in charge of picking what items would be sold by the boosters to help that goal. "The fan poms are the best selling item now that the school board banned my "unbridled spirit" thongs," she confided in Karen, who was only vaguely shocked at the girl's fundraising ideas.
Dan finally snapped out of his contemplations and took the box from the table. "How are you doing, Brooke? I've been concerned about you," he softly said, looking the girl over for any suspicious bruises. Nathan was right when he said that it would be hard for Brooke to hide any marks in that uniform. Dan knew he was getting old when he thought cheerleading outfits were too revealing.
Brooke flushed a bit under Karen's steady gaze. The woman had been nothing but polite to her, but Luke's mom lacked the warmth and sincerity she seen the woman show towards Haley. It was obvious to both Luke and Brooke that Karen tolerated her son's girlfriend rather than liked her. Brooke was used to maternal scorn, but part of her was hurt that she'd failed to win over Karen. She shrugged and focused on Mr. Scott who had always been favorably inclined to her.
"I'm fine, as always," she perkily replied, knowing that Dan knew she'd crashed in Nate's room that night. He was pretty cool for a parent, even if Karen was influencing him toward the conventional role of hands on parenting.
Dan nodded at her words, realizing that she wasn't about to talk in front of Karen. He nearly felt sorry for the girl, seeing how Karen was so overprotective of Lucas that no girl would ever be good enough for his son. He gave her a small smile. "If you ever need anything, you can always stop by my office," he said, growing more interested in the truth about the Davis family every day. Nathan was right, something was definitely off with the girl.
Brooke gave him a curt nod, not wanting to pique Karen's curiosity any more than he'd already done. "I'll remember that," she said. Hearing the pep band start up, she moved away from the table. "That's my cue," she said before running off, short skirt bouncing with each step she made toward the gym.
Karen observed Dan watch Brooke as she entered the gym, a look of surprise on her face. "I didn't know you were into jailbait."
He looked over at her in shock. "Oh please, as if I need more teen drama in my life," he said, giving her a smirk. "I'm just concerned about her."
"What's she done now?" Karen asked, knowing that Brooke spent a great deal of time at Dan's house on a good day.
He hesitated a moment. "Does Lucas ever have girls spend the night?" Maybe he was getting old and his attitudes about overnight guests and short cheer skirts were clues.
Karen's eyebrows rose up in surprise. "No. What kind of parent lets a teenage boy sleep with a girl under their roof?"
"Apparently, me," he said, watching her frown grow by the second. Karen was always the uptight uberparent. "The other night I found Brooke in bed with Nathan."
Karen stared at him with a mixture of shock and horror on her face. "In bed 'in bed' or just on top of the bed?" she asked, her worst fears about that girl confirmed.
Dan realized he'd made a huge mistake and tried to correct it. "No, not sleeping together as in sex, just staying the night in his bed," he corrected, realizing it didn't sound much better than his first statement.
She thought about his words for a moment. "When Lucas and Haley were younger, they'd fall asleep watching a movie. But I put an end to that a few years ago."
He nodded at her words. "Exactly. I told Nate that he can't sleep with a girl even if they are just sleeping," he explained, glad to know he wasn't totally off in his parenting skills. "But apparently something really bad happened at Brooke's house and she was so scared she wouldn't leave Nate's bed, even to sleep in the guest room."
"Did she have a fight with her accountant?" Karen asked, not caring if she was being a bitch. It wasn't Brooke's fault that Karen and her mother hated each other.
Dan gave her frustrated look. "I'm serious, Kar. Something's not right with that girl. She's jumpy and coming over at all hours of the night. I just think something's going on since her dad left town."
"I don't really know her well enough to see any problems, but if she's leaving her house to stay at yours, it's a good sign she's having problems with her parents," Karen theorized. Her own family had been fairly unstable growing up, so much so that she'd found the Scott family to be an oasis of sorts, with real parental figures and family routines.
Dan leaned back against the wall, lost in thought. "I don't think it's just fighting. I think someone's hurting her, but I don't know," he said, leaving out his own suspicious about Lucas. But after two weeks of carefully scrutinizing Brooke, Dan had found no suspicious bruises. Maybe he was just being paranoid.
"Has she confided in Nathan?" she asked, knowing that they were as close as Lucas and Haley were. And after having dinner with the girl a few times, Karen surmised she wasn't the type to have a lot of female friends to talk to.
"She's not said anything and I know he's tried. I thought perhaps she'd told Lucas something, seeing how close they've gotten."
His words bothered Karen for some reason. She didn't want Luke's identity wrapped up in with some a girl. Karen had always been one half of Dan and Karen and it had really hurt her when she was forced to stand on her own two feet. She didn't want her son to make the same mistake, of entwining his soul with someone else's at such a young age. She looked at Dan for a second and realized that even if you did survive such a break up, that someone else always kept part of your soul.
He watched her, knowing she was analyzing him as she tended to analyze everything. It was so easy to get lost in the past, he realized. It was nice in the past, safe and warm compared to the stark reality of life. His hand reached out for hers, touching it for a second. "Thanks for bringing in the photo album. And for sharing the blanket story with me. I know the past was hard for you, but I really do want to know more about my son."
She nodded, momentarily teary at the words she'd longed to hear years ago from this man. But the past was gone and all they had was the present. And she had to make things better for her son. The sound of the crowd roared as the tip off signaling the start of the game went up.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her through the now deserted hallway toward the gym. "Come on," he said, pulling her from the past and toward the gym.
Thanks to the replier who noted that I've not posted in a while. I tend to forget at times. Thanks!
