Haley walked into Brooke's old store, surprised to see the brunette there, let alone to find the building opened up. She looked around, not having been here in months, trying to gain a sense of her surroundings, before she called out to her friend.
"Brooke? Hey, Brooke? You in h-" Before the young mother could finish her sentence, she heard the strong click-clack of fierce, 4-inch spike-heel stilettos against the dulling wooden floor march in from the back room. The brunette the gait belonged to looked up, a smile on her face when she saw Haley.
"Hey, Haley! What are you doing here?" Haley smiled, adjusting her bag on her shoulder before molding into Brooke's light embrace.
"I could ask you the same thing, Ms. Davis," she said, "I thought you gave the company to Victoria and closed this place down." Brooke sighed, looking down before walking away and dropping some papers behind the front desk.
"I did," she said. "But I left without cleaning everything out. There's still tons and tons of stuff in the back that I just left because I was so fed up with it all." The brunette sighed heavily, rolling her eyes, before snapping out of her mood and smiling with huge sarcasm. She crossed her eyes to lighten the moment, forcing a laugh out of Haley. "But then I realized that I actually wanted this stuff, so… Here I am!" Brooke thumbed through half of the paper stack, separating the massive thing into to two stacks, before paying attention to her friend again. "But seriously, what brings you here, Tutormom?" Haley, almost immediately, blushed and smiled, stepping closer to the front desk and leaned against, it ignoring the layer of dust that had gathered on its surface.
"Well, I heard from a little birdie that you may or may not have proposed to a certain Peyton Sawyer-"
"Where did you hear that!" Brooke exclaimed, nearly jumping over the desk. She was wide-eyed and smiley, her hands flat and anxious against the countertop.
"A bird, that's all-"
"Was that bird's name Peyton?"
"No…"
"Skills?"
"No-"
"It was Mouth, wasn't it??"
"Brooke, how could Mouth possibly know, he hasn't been in Tree Hill in months."
"…oh. ……Lucas?" Haley didn't even have to say anything, but instead just gave Brooke a look. "Right… Well, then, it was Nathan!" Haley smiled. "Oh, it was so Nathan! How did he know?" Haley straightened up, biting her lip.
"Peyton talked to Nathan after Lucas blew up in her face-"
"She did? She didn't say a word to me…"
"It was a few days ago, sweetheart, she probably didn't want to bother you."
"But what'd she want?"
"She didn't know what to do, and Nathan knows Lucas better than… Me, probably. So she went to him to help." Haley paused, watching Brooke over work this new information in her head. "No, Brooke, it's fine, really. Don't freak out on me I can see you already trying."
"I just feel so bad… I sprang this on her one morning and she hasn't really said a word to me about it and now you're telling me that she's freaking out-"
"Okay, I definitely did not say freaking out… Where are you going?" Brooke left the papers on her desk, shouldering her bag and pivoting skillfully on her heel.
"I'm gonna go talk to her," she said, her voice softer than before. She turned her head to look behind her at her friend before looking into her purse and digging for her keys. She picked one off of the ring and tossed it to Haley. "You can stay as long as you want, and if you want anything from the back I did make some pieces specifically for you, so there's a bin back there. Just lock up when you're done and I'll call you tonight, okay?" Under normal circumstances, Haley would have fought Brooke on the taller brunette's hasty escape, but she understood what was going on in her heart and knew that she had to deal with it immediately, and so she simply nodded and let her go.
"Okay. I'll leave my phone on."