A/N: I'm glad to know people are still reading! Thank you!
All That She Wants
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The dark orange disc of sun was setting on the horizon. From Brooke's vantage point, it looked like it was falling off the edge of the Earth. The sky above her looked like a gigantic bowl of melted ice creams: periwinkles swirling with creams and pinks and oranges. Her right hand was cupped and pressed to her belly. Every few moments, she would absently rub her thumb behind her fingers, creating a crinkling, grating sound, like someone walking on fine gravel.
"I think you look cute!" Peyton bobbed her blonde head towards her boyfriend. "I think she looks cute. Don't you think she looks cute?" She nudged him with her elbow. "Tell her she looks cute."
Brooke rolled her eyes as she rotated a hundred-eighty degrees and found herself staring at her own reflection. She examined the cotton candy colored babydoll top she was modeling: it fit snugly around her waist and flared out like a mini dress over her jeans and had a quaintly square neckline, with tonal crochet and lightly puffed sleeves.
"Nate," Peyton grumbled under her breath.
Brooke could see Nathan's annoyed expression from the corner of the mirror. Blowing a strand of hair from her eyes, she turned and firmly shook her head. "It's so not me. It's not shiny or sparkly or-"
"Sexy?"
"Precisely."
Peyton folded her arms. "You can't stay sexy for nine months, you know."
"Doesn't mean I can't squeeze out my sexy until the last possible second." She flounced back into the dressing room and promptly pulled the top over her head and began to slide on the shimmery blue tank she'd worn into the mall. As soon as she was finished, she burst through the door and shoved a silver and wine colored V-neck blouse with peasant sleeves at Peyton. "You're turn!"
Reluctantly, the blonde accepted the offer and disappeared into the dressing room. "Silver isn't really my color," she called from behind the door.
"And 'cute' isn't really my style, so we're even." She watched as one of the clerks glanced at them from behind the counter, which she returned with a scowl. She always hated to be rushed when she was shopping. "Hey," she announced. "I really am getting burnt out over here, Peyton. We've been here, what, three hours now?" She yawned, even though Peyton couldn't see her. "After this, will you be ready to call it a night?"
"What's gotten into you, B. Davis?" Peyton pushed open the door and walked out, striking sexy poses and turning dramatically to give her boyfriend and best friend every possible angle. "I think this shirt ages me about ten years."
"Fifteen."
"Thanks."
"So," Brooke persisted, "you ready to go?"
"You're not fun."
"It's been a long week."
"Brooke's right," Nathan spoke up, surprising both girls. "Besides, we have that exam coming up ing-"
"Since when do you care about exams?"
"Since Whitey's been threatening the team about keeping up our grades to stay on the team."
"Oh, fine!" she groaned, and promptly vanished back into the dressing room.
Brooke narrowed her eyes, not believing the excuse. She turned her head to voice her suspicion when she found Nathan's face shockingly close to hers. Instinctively, she recoiled. "What-"
"We need to talk," he announced in a hushed tone.
Her lashes fluttered out of confusion. "You've barely said anything all evening!"
Nathan pressed his fingers to his lips as he gave a sideways glance towards the dressing room, just as the door burst open and Peyton walked out with a handful of clothes slung over one arm and her purse on the other, with a hundred dollar bill in hand. "So you're through then?"
"Yeah, Oh Impatient One." She moved to the counter and laid the garments into two piles on the table: one hers and the other Brooke's.
"Do you want to stop at the Dip N' Dots stand before we go?"
Both girls looked to Nathan with quizzical stares.
"You've been pretty silent all afternoon," Peyton commented. "Now you want ice cream?"
"Are you in or not?"
Peyton shrugged. "Sure, just let me take care of this purchase first."
Nathan reached into his wallet and pulled out a twenty. Turning to Brooke he said, "Why don't we meet you over there? There's always a line. I'll help Peyton with the bags."
Brooke narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Okay…" She turned to leave when he grabbed her hand and slid the money inside, allowing their hands to linger a moment longer than they should. "Thanks." She cupped her hand as she left the clothes store, rubbing her thumb against the paper until she reached the Dip N' Dots stand. She took her place in line. As she waited, she opened her palm and unfolded the twenty, revealing a small folded piece of white paper, that looked like it had been torn off the edge of something. She glanced back over her shoulder and then proceeded to unfold the slip.
The note lay in Brooke's palm, opened, revealing just a single line: Meet me at the beach house at sunset. She picked up the note by the edge of the paper and held it up and away from her face, closing one eye and using it to cover up the sinking sun. The words seemed to glow through the paper with the last of the sun illuminating them from behind. Brooke still couldn't wrap her head around it.
"I wasn't sure you'd come."
She shielded her eyes with her hand as Nathan jogged up the edge of the beach to her. "I'm still not sure why you asked me to."
"I wanted to talk."
"You said that."
"I tried to talk to you last week – a few times over the last couple weeks, in fact – but you've been pretty distant lately. Even more than usual, I mean." He looked down at his shoes. "Problems in paradise?"
"What're you insinuating?"
"Jake hasn't been around lately-"
"Is that the only reason you wanted to talk? Just to bring up Jake again?"
"No." Nathan rolled his shoulders up and down. "Jake is just an observation. I – I wanted to know how you've been," he glanced at her, "with the pregnancy I mean. I told you I want to be involved Brooke, as much as I can that is. The last time I tried to bring this up, you just got mad and threw mashed potato slop into my face-"
"You deserved it."
"Okay, fine, I admit, I was being an asshole…but still…"
"The baby's fine. I have another appointment in about a month."
"Is that the one where you find out the sex?"
"Mhmm."
"What are you hoping for?"
Brooke paused and slipped her feet out of her shoes. She bent down, grabbed her shoes by the straps, and dangled them on her fingers before continuing at Nathan's side. "Honestly? I don't know…"
"You haven't thought about it?"
"No, I have, I just can't decide. On one hand, doesn't every girl dream of having a daughter to dress up and be girly and teach all the secrets of life to? But on the other hand…" She dug her toes into the cold, wet sand. "On the other hand, taking a little boy to all his practices and taking his team out for pizza and punch after a win, it doesn't sound that bad either."
"I can't imagine you as a soccer mom," he said with a chuckle hidden in his words.
"Who said anything about soccer?" Brooke rolled her eyes. "Unless you've got some hidden talents I don't know about."
"You think he'd like basketball?"
"Seems to be a family trait."
"I guess," Nathan murmured, thinking of his father and half-brother.
"What do you want?" Brooke asked instinctively.
Nathan rubbed his hair. "Doesn't really matter, does it?"
"Maybe it matters to me."
He shrugged again. "I've always imagined my future with a son," he admitted. "But maybe a daughter would be better."
"Why's that?"
"To break the cycle."
"Cycle?"
"You know…Dan and Karen, now you and me."
"You're comparing me to Karen Roe?" she laughed out loud. "We didn't have an epic high school romance, remember?" She glanced over her shoulder at the beach house in the distance. Flashes of that fateful night beamed through her mind.
"Have you told your parents?"
"Why would I? I'm avoiding that conversation as long as possible. They'll be furious, no doubt, but what are they gonna do? They're rich…and they're never around…I can just use my credit cards and hire a sitter and I should be able to get along alright I think."
"So you're keeping it then?"
"I thought-"
"Peyton still seems convinced you're going to do adoption."
"I haven't really spoken with her about my plans. It's not an easy thing to talk about. Especially with her, even if she doesn't know it."
"I know the feeling." He turned towards the ocean as the water rushed up and splashed his shoes. "I think my parents are getting a divorce."
Brooke blinked at the admission. "And you're telling me?"
"As long as we're talking about parents," he muttered.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not. I mean, I'm not sure yet, but they seem to be fighting every night and my mother's kicked Dan out of their bedroom, he's currently in the guest room, so I figure it's only a matter of time. I think it's been coming for over sixteen years."
"So you're happy about it?"
"I don't know if that's the right word, but I can't say I'm sad."
"Looks like we've both got a lot of shit going on in our lives."
"What's new? Hasn't it always been like that for us?"
Brooke found herself nodding as she watched the last of the sun disappear into the water. She could hear the seagulls in the distance and feel the saltwater breeze against her bare skin. "Sometimes I wish I could have more moments like this in my life: the peace that comes with the setting of the sun."
"Yeah…" He glanced at her from his peripheral perspective. "Hey," he said slowly, "I'm glad we had this talk. Thanks…for coming." When she didn't say anything and instead he heard her suddenly inhale, he looked back. "Something wrong?" He could see her hand on her stomach. "Brooke?"
"It's moving," she whispered, her eyes reflecting the fading pastels of the sky. Without thinking, she grabbed his hand and pressed it to her belly. "Do you…can you feel that?" For a millisecond, she almost thought she saw a smile on his lips.
Then he shook his head. "I can't, no."
"Oh…it's probably too small yet."
"What does it feel like?"
"Like…like air bubbles moving through water…or the rush of dropping off the log ride in Disneyworld for the first time…or…or the butterflies you get with your crush. You know what I mean?"
For an extended beat, he didn't say anything, he just kept his hand positioned to the raised oval of Brooke's belly. Then nodded slowly. "I do."
