Title: Still
Author: Annie
Email:
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Extended scene from the I love yous of HCYBS.
Note: I started this before my computer crashed and it was originally titled "Shine," but upon the rewrite, everything shifted, included the title.
Another Note: I wrote this all this morning on pretty much no sleep and it's not betaed, so it may be slightly pointless and a bit choppy, but that's okay. Pointless and choppy can be good fun, too.
Still
Nathan hated to be still. He didn't know if that was maybe a result of being a spoiled only child, of always getting his way, getting what he wanted exactly how he wanted it, but that was just the way he was. He didn't like to be bored and he always wanted to be moving.He knew that it was annoying to her sometimes, when they were working on homework or studying for an exam. She would put on her best teacher voice and that line would form between her eyes and she would tell him to get to work or she was going to leave. Or maybe, when they were just hanging out in her room and she was trying to read and he would lay beside her on her bed, fidgeting with her comforter or playing with her hair. One time, he'd grabbed the book out her hand and she huffed at him as she crawled across his body, trying to wrestle it back out of his grip. She had ended up having to find him an internet basketball game to occupy his attention, and he could tell that when he left later that night, she was still peeved at him for it.
Haley could be silent; she could be still. It was one of the many differences between their personalities, one of the things that clashed, that sparked between them.
He loved her for her calm, but that didn't change the fact that he hated to not always be moving.
However, this night, this completely unspectacular Thursday night, it was different. He was different and they were different.
So much had happened to him over the past few months that he hadn't really noticed how much a part of his life she'd become, how central she was to his every thought. But then, he'd seen it, that number twenty-three, his number twenty-three, tattooed on the soft skin just above her waistline, cradled by the downward slope of her hips as they rolled back around and down to form her ass. It had hit him like a runaway truck and he was still staggering beneath the realization.
He loved her. He absolutely loved her.
So, they'd sat at the bus stop, and he'd see the look in her eye, the hurt and the uncertainty that she might not be enough for him, and he told her.
He didn't know anything about love. His father was a bitter, angry man and his mother hadn't been around enough to show him what it was. His relationship with Peyton was about sex and being with a cheerleader just like a basketball player should be. He'd never really loved anything before, not like he loved her. And he was scared.
But then, she'd kissed him, her sweet lips pressed against his mouth, and she said that she loved him too, and she kissed him again.
He didn't know how much time passed, but he finally felt her pulling away. His eyes opened and he could see a blush spread across her cheeks, a deeper red than would normally be caused by just the cold night, and he looked up to see the bus had stopped, the driver smirking at them from his perch behind the wheel.
Nathan had pulled her up, her hand tucked safely in his much larger one, and they walked toward the back of the bus. Most of the evening commuters had already found their way home, and the few remaining stragglers were too tired or too stressed to care about them. He tugged her down beside him, folding her into the crook of his arm so that her head rested on his shoulder, and they found their own private haven in the shadow of a broken fluorescent light.
And they were still.
Nathan could feel her warm breath against the column of his throat and an occasional soft kiss against his skin whenever the urge overtook her. Her hand slipped into the opening of his jacket to rest on the shirt over his chest, and sometimes he hated when those kind of corny thoughts would overtake him, but he wondered if she could feel his heart beat.
His arm curled around her body, holding her to him, and his fingers itched to feel her skin. Brushing her hair to the side, he let his hand smooth over the graceful slope of her neck, feeling her silk and her heat.
And he was calm.
It seemed like only a couple of minutes, though it was normally about a half hour ride, but they pulled up to the stop just in front of his apartment building. He kept her in his embrace as they headed up toward his tiny home, the one that always felt a little more like real home when she was with him.
Things were awkward for the first time that night when he opened the door and let her in. She stepped away from him, and he wanted to reach out and pull her back, but he couldn't. The bubble had popped and it was getting late. She was going to have to call her mom for a ride home, and he'd told her he loved her, and she'd said it back, and now, he was going to have to let her go. He never liked this part of the evening.
Haley ran her fingers through her hair, a little nervously, and he couldn't remember the last time she looked so uneasy in front of him. He wanted to push his own fingers into her hair and put her to ease and hear her say it again, but she was already reaching for her phone, stumbling through an explanation about how she needed to make the call.
He nodded and walked away, heading back into the bedroom. Stopping at the foot of the bed, Nathan stared down at the mess of sheets and his comforter. Haley hadn't stopped by that morning before school, and he'd never had to make his own bed before, so it didn't get done.
Her voice floated in from the living room, and he could hear her talking with her mother. It was getting pretty late and she was working on a project that needed to be done for English class. She knew it was a school night, but would it be okay if she slept over at Peyton's?
He couldn't help but smile.
Since he'd gotten the apartment nearly a month before, Nathan had asked her several times if she would spend the night. Her parents trusted her and if she told them she was at Peyton's or at Lucas's, they would never know, but she wouldn't do it. There was always an excuse to say no, she didn't like to lie to her mom and dad, but he knew that wasn't the case. She didn't even really feel comfortable with just taking naps in his bed. In fact, a lot of the time, she avoided his bedroom altogether.
Sure, they kissed on his couch and he had snuck into her room late at night on more than one occasion, but there were no boundaries in his bedroom. There were no parents to walk in or homework to be done or TVs to distract. There was just him and her and his bed, and he knew she didn't feel comfortable with that.
He heard her say hello to Peyton, and she must have moved more toward the front door because he could still hear her, but he couldn't make out her words anymore. She laughed, her shy kind of embarrassed giggle, and he knew that she was telling his ex-girlfriend where she was at.
To be honest, he truly didn't understand why she was so scared of sex. He knew that chicks wanted their first time to be special and all, but they, the two of them together, were special. He had never felt for anyone like he did for Haley, and he knew it was the same for her. And now, the words had been spoken and there was no way that it wouldn't be perfect.
But she still wouldn't be ready and she was still afraid and he just didn't get it.
Shaking his head, Nathan tried to clear his mind. He didn't have to tell her good-bye. That's what he should be focused on.
He looked up at the sound of her clearing her throat. She was leaning against the door jam and her cheeks her flushed, her hands twisting together nervously in front of her. She really was beautiful.
"Here."
He walked over to his chest of drawers and pulled out a t-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts for her to sleep in. Their hands brushed as she moved to take the clothes and he let his fingers wrap around her wrist, stopping her from walking away. She looked up at him and gave a tiny smile before pulling out of his grasp and heading into the bathroom.
A breath he didn't know he was holding pushed past his lips at the click of the door closing. He could hear her moving around in the other room and he tried not to think about the fact that she was at least partially naked behind that door. He tried not to think about the fact that this time, there would be nothing stopping them but each other.
Plopping down onto his bed, Nathan began to toe his shoes off. He knew that it bothered her when he just left his shoes and clothes all over the place, so he kicked them off toward the closet. Tugging his two shirts over his head, he tossed them in the same direction as his shoes, and they landed on the floor a few feet away from his Tims.
The bathroom opened then, and she came out, stopping in front of him to play with her hands again. He didn't want to make her uncomfortable, but he couldn't stop his eyes from taking a slow trip across her body, all the way from her hair, slightly mussed from pulling his shirt over her head, to her tiny feet, bare against the carpet. Her small body was nearly drowning in his clothes, and he felt his breath catch again when he noticed that her breasts were free beneath the soft cotton. She'd taken off her bra.
God, but could this girl turn him on.
Clearing her throat, she gave him a timid smile and then stepped around him, heading toward the other side of the bed. He saw her shoot an annoyed look at the tangle of sheets on his bed, but as quickly as it was there, it was gone and she just set to work straightening it out.
Nathan unbuckled his belt and slid his pants down, tossing them toward his other discarded clothing, and leaving him in nothing but his boxers. It wasn't the first time she'd seen him in such little clothing, but her cheeks colored nonetheless.
"Haley."
She looked up at him and he winked at her and she rolled her eyes at him. He laughed as she climbed into the bed, slipped under the sheets, and avoided his gaze. Flipping the light switch and sending the room into darkness, Nathan joined her in his bed.
His bed was quite a bit bigger than the one they normally shared at her house, and while she had no problems stretching out across him when they slept there, this time, she settled herself into a tight space, and he was sure that an inch more would have her toppling over the edge.
"Haley." Nathan reached out and grabbed a handful of her shirt to tug her closer to him. She scooted a tiny bit, but nowhere near enough to satisfy him, so he decided to move onto her side, pulling her into his arms and burying his face in her neck.
His hands slipped along the length of her back and down until he reached the hem of the t-shirt. Lifting it up slightly, he smoothed up underneath, feeling the silk of her skin beneath his fingertips. She stiffened in his arms.
"Nathan?"
Her voice quivered, and he gave himself one last moment to touch her before pulling his hands out and rolling over onto his back. His arm wrapped around her shoulder and he again tucked her into him, guiding her to rest her head on his chest.
"I love you, Haley."
A few seconds passed, but she finally relaxed against him, and he could feel her head shift as she smiled, dropping a kiss against his skin.
"I love you, too."
Her breath evened off and he could tell that she'd dropped into the quiet of sleep. He wasn't quite ready to join her just yet, and so he laid there, still.