Author's Note: Hey,
everyone. Thank you all soooo much for the great reviews. I'm glad
that I was able to surprise at least some of you, but I'm proud of
those that figured it out on their own. Sorry if it sucks, but I'm so
tired right now, but I knew you were all waiting so I decided to
update. So, you better enjoy it.
--OTH—
"I'm sorry, what
did you just say?"
After Lacy's last confession, the room
had been filled with silence, each person having their own fears. Tim
was afraid that Lacy had cheated on him with some guy, Lacy was
afraid that Tim would break up with her and Nathan was afraid that
his entire life was over. If Lacy was carrying his baby, there was no
way that he was going to be able to keep that a secret from Haley,
and he was scared out of his mind that Haley would never be able to
forgive him. If he lost Haley, he didn't know what he would do.
Snapping back to reality, deciding that he should wait to see if the
kid was even his before he started planning out his future without
Haley.
"I said that you might not be the father," Lacy
repeated. She whole car ride over, she had been playing this scene
out in her head. She knew that Nathan was going to be there, so she
decided that it would be best if she just came out and told the
truth. It was about time someone around there did.
"That's
what I thought," Tim mumbled. Nathan was surprised by the look of
pure devastation on his best friend's face. He never really thought
about how all of this, him sleeping with Lacy, would affect his
buddy. Suddenly, he felt five times worse about this whole situation.
"Tim," Lacy began, reaching forward and putting her hand
on his knee. He immediately pushed it away. "Please, Tim, let me
explain."
"Who is he?"
"Who?"
"The
guy that you cheated with," he clarified, not in the mood to have a
long conversation about this right now. He was heartbroken, but he
refused to let her see him cry.
"No, Tim," she said,
shaking her head frantically. She knew she should have explained the
whole thing first. "It wasn't like that."
"Who is he!"
he blew up and her. He didn't feel like being played right now. He
just wanted to know whose face he had to pound in. Lacy glanced at
Nathan for a split second, not long enough for Tim to notice before
looking at the ground.
"I don't know," she lied. She
felt terrible lying about this, but she didn't want to end any
friendships. The last thing she wanted to was to ruin Tim and
Nathan's relationship, let alone Nathan and Haley's. "I didn't
get his name."
Nathan was more than a little surprised at
Lacy's answer. He fully expected her to tell him everything. He
watched as tears came to her eyes and he made his decision. He
couldn't do this anymore. If she was really pregnant with his child
and he didn't take responsibility for it, then he was Dan. It
didn't matter if he remained faithful to Haley, married her, have
five kids and loved happily ever after. She would still be there with
his kid, just like Karen was still there with Luke.
"It was
me," he answered suddenly. Both Lacy and Tim wiped their heads
around to stare at him in shock. He locked eyes with Lacy and nodded
his head softly, apologizing for not saying something sooner. Tim on
the other hand, looked at him in confusion.
"What?"
"It's
me," he repeated. He sighed, knowing the yelling that was going to
come after. "I'm the other guy." Tim sat there, stock still,
running the information over in his head. He blinked a few times
before standing up to pace the room. Lacy spun around on the table to
watch his movements. Nathan, for the first time in his entire life,
felt ashamed. He had never seen his friend so pissed before and it
was scaring him. If Tim was this mad, when he told Haley he'll be
lucky to walk away from this with his balls in tact. "Say some
thing, man."
"I don't even know why I'm surprised,"
Tim replied. That was not the answered Nathan had expected. Tim
stopped moving to stare at Nathan. "I mean, this is so typical of
you."
"Tim..." Lacy tried, knowing what was going to
come next. They've had this conversation before and she didn't
want him to have to go through went he went through he first time he
told it.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Nathan
cut her off. He felt bad for what he did to his friend, but
technically he didn't do anything wrong, not to him anyway. And he
really didn't see how this was typical.
"You always had
to have everything," he answered. He knew now wasn't really the
best tome for this talk, but he had to get it off his chest. "You
were Nathan Scott and you got everything, while I got
nothing."
"Come on..."
"Remember when we were
five," he began. "I begged my mom to get me that awesome red bike
that I wanted so badly. That was the year my grandpa died, and he
promised me that he was going to get me that bike, but my mom didn't
believe me." Nathan bowed his head. "So what did you do, you got
your dad to buy you the bike and you won't let me ride it, not
once."
"I was five..."
"Or when we were in
sixth grade," he continued, not interested in hearing anything
Nathan had to say. "When I had a crush on Julie Williams. When you
found out, you went up to her in front of the entire class and kissed
her. You guys went out for the rest of the year." Lacy watched Tim
retell his stories and she felt just as bad for him now as she did
when she first heard him. "Or how about on my sixteenth, when
everyone was supposed to be there to celebrate with me, you sleep
with Peyton for the first time and all of a sudden, it's all about
you."
"Tim, I'm..."
"You've always taken
everything from me," he finally said, saying what this whole thing
was really about. His anger faded a bit, turning to sadness as he
looked at Lacy. "I finally had something of my own. I loved her and
you just had to take her away. Just once, why couldn't you have let
me have something?"
"Tim," Lacy whispered, assuming
that he was done. She slowly stood up and walked over to him. When he
didn't move, she wrapped her arms around his waist. "It wasn't
like that."
"She's right," Nathan added. Tim glared at
him, but didn't say anything. Taking that as somewhat of a good
sign, he stood up. "It wasn't like that at all. When we hooked
up, you hadn't even met her yet." Tim looked at him
unsurely.
"What do you mean?"
"The night we met,"
Lacy explained. "At that club. Nathan had come up to me and we were
both in a bad place. One thing led to another, and we ended up having
sex in his car out in the parking lot."
"So," Tim drew
out, thinking everything over in his head. He wanted to make he had
everything straight. "You didn't cheat on me?" Lacy kissed him
gently on the lips before shaking her head.
"I would never
do that." Tim smiled and turned to Nathan, still a little angry at
him.
"And you didn't betray me?"
"Not this
time, dude," he laughed, patting him on the back. "Seriously, I
was a totally dick my entire life, especially to you. I'm kind of
trying something new."
"Yeah, okay," Tim nodded. They
did their little handshake/hug thing that no girl ever understands,
before pulling apart. Suddenly a thought came to Tim. "Wait, you
guys slept together at the club?" They both nodded. "You cheated
on Haley?" Nathan sighed and nodded again.
"Unfortunately,"
he muttered. He knew before that it had been a mistake, but given the
new information that he had received tonight, this whole thing was
starting to look like the biggest mistake that he'll ever make.
Lacy rolled her eyes, knowing where this was going.
"How
could you do that do her?" he demanded, stepping away from Lacy to
approach Nathan. "What the hell where you thinking? She loves you
so much and you turn around and hurt her like..."
"Okay,"
Lacy shouted, stepping in between the two before Tim could throw a
punch. "It's really sweet that you care that much about Haley,
Tim, it really is, but can you save the protective crap for
later?"
"But he..."
"I know what he did," she
interrupted him. "I was there, I helped him do it and I feel
terrible about it. But my doctor is keeping his office open late so
the three of us can go down there and get paternity tests." Tim's
eyes widened.
"Tests?" he questioned, starting to panic.
"But I didn't study!" Lacy, despite the situation couldn't
help but laugh. She shook her head and kissed him in an attempt to
calm him down.
"Baby, it's not that kind of test." He
let out a breath. "It's to see which one of you is the father. He
said that if we do them tonight, then he should have the results by
tomorrow afternoon."
"Okay," Tim answered. "We'll
take my car." Lacy nodded and they moved to the door. Tim grabbed
his jacket and opened the door for his girlfriend. When she was out
of the apartment, he turned back to Nathan who hadn't moved from
his spot. "For the record, I think you're a jackass. I can't
believe that I ever thought you were cool." With that, he was out
the door.
Nathan looked around his apartment at all the
things that he had set up for tonight. It was supposed to be such a
great night. He had cooked Haley's favorite dinner and rented her
favorite movie. When they were done both, he was going to ask her to
move in with him. It was supposed to be perfect. They were supposed
to be together forever. Now, he would be lucky if she even looked at
him again. He bent down, blew out the candle and walked out the
door.
--OTH--
"The wait is killing me," Haley
sighed, dropping her fork onto the empty plate. After ice cream,
Lucas had insisted that they head over to the Café to get some
of Karen's famous apple pie. The girls were both full from the ice
cream, but he made them each have a slice.
"Relax, Hales,"
Brooke suggested, shoving the last bit of her pie into her mouth. She
leaned back and rubbed her tummy, not believing that she just ate so
much. She looked at her watch. "He should be calling soon to tell
us it's okay to bring you over."
"How much longer?"
she complained. Brooke's only answer was a shrug of her shoulders.
She turned to Luke who was too busy eating his third piece of pie to
answer her. She rolled her eyes at him and turned back to Brooke. "I
don't see why I can't just go over now. I mean, I already now
what all of this is about."
"You do?" Lucas asked, pie
spraying out of his mouth as he talked. Brooke made a grossed out
face at him, slapping him in the arm. "Sorry." He swallowed the
last bit down before repeating himself. "You do?"
"Come
on," she sighed. Did they honestly think that she was that
oblivious? "He wasn't exactly the most subtle guy in the world."
Brooke nodded her head in agreement.
"Yeah," she added.
"We knew he was going to do it a month ago. We were talking about
it on the beach the first day of summer." Lucas stuck out his
tongue and mimicked her with his hand.
"Well, aren't we
Miss Know-It-Alls?" Brooke smiled sweetly at him and gave him the
finger. He laughed before looking at Haley. "So, are you going to
say yes?"
"Of course," she cheered, her face lighting up
at the thought of it. She had been thinking about it ever since their
conversation at the beach. She couldn't think of anything that
would make her happier right now than to move in with Nathan.
"I
see someone's excited," Brooke teased. Pretending to be happy
about this whole thing was starting to get harder and harder for her.
Sometimes she had to fight the urge to just grab Haley and shake her,
telling her that Nathan was just a cheating bastard. She didn't
want to see her best friend hurt and she was terrified that this was
just going to get a whole lot worse before it gets any better.
"Are
you kidding?" she asked, practically giggling. Brooke's felt her
heart squeeze at the sound. Haley James didn't giggle, so Brooke
knew it had to be big. "I didn't sleep at all last night, just
thinking about it. It's like some kind of fairytale or something,
you know."
"Yeah."
"I can't wait any longer,"
Haley decided, pulling out her cell phone. "I have to see him."
Before Brooke or Lucas could stop her, the ringer to Nate's cell
was already ringing. After four rings, he finally picked
up.
"Hello?"
"Hey, baby," she greeted sweetly.
Her smile spread at the sound of his voice.
"Hey, Haley,"
he greeted, his voice not like she expected it to be. She figured
he'd use his sexy voice that he always did when they talked on the
phone before a big date. "What's up?"
"I was just
calling to ask if it was safe to come over yet." Brooke and Lucas
both noticed that her voice went down a few notches on the excitement
scale. They shared a worried look. "Are you in a car?"
"I'm
sorry, Hales," he explained, sadly. He knew that she was looking
forward to this and he hated to hear disappointment in her voice. He
just knew it was going to be a million times worse when she found
out. "But something's come up. It looks like we won't be having
dinner tonight."
"Oh," was all she could say. She saw
the looks her best friends were giving her, so she quickly tried to
hide her pain. "So, I'll get a rain check than? We'll do it
another night?"
"I don't think so," he answered. He
would only be kidding himself and getting her hopes up if he told her
that they were going to still move in together. He was positive that
she was going to break up with him when he told her the truth. "I'm
sorry again, but I don't think we should reschedule our
date."
"But..."
"I'm sorry, I gotta go."
Before she could say anything, he hung up the phone. He felt horrible
leaving it like that, but he couldn't stand to hear her voice
anymore without breaking down.
Haley looked at her phone,
surprised to hear a dial tone. She had no idea what that was about.
Just this morning, Nathan was just as excited about tonight as she
was and now he was calling the whole thing off. What was that about?
Brooke tried to read the look on her face, but she couldn't tell
what was wrong.
"Sweetie?" she questioned, waving her hand
in front of Haley's face. She gently took the phone out of Haley's
hand, causing the girl to look up. "What's wrong?"
"Um,
Nathan... he uh, he told me not to come over." Brooke's eyes
widened and Lucas raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, he said that something
came up and we couldn't do it tonight."
"When are you
going to do it?"
"He said never," she answered, looking
past Luke and at the wall behind him. She was bust trying to figure
out what she did wrong. She knew it had to be something she did, she
just didn't know what. "He said we shouldn't do it after all."
"Oh, baby," Brooke sighed, getting out of her chair and
walking over to Haley's side of the table. She got down on her
knees so she was at eye level with her and pulled Haley into her
arms.
"What did I do, Tigger?" Haley asked, starting to
cry into her shoulder. Brooke closed her eyes, knowing that Haley
only called her Tigger when she was really upset about
something.
"You didn't do anything, babe," Brooke
assured her. "Nathan's just an idiot." Lucas watched as Haley
continued to cry. He let out a sigh, not happy about the situation.
Now he was going to have to kick his brother's
ass.
--OTH--
That's it. I know it's not the best,
you all probably wanted better, but it's soooooo late right now and
I'm going insane. I think my eyes have actually turned into
squares. Anyway, please tell me what you think. Peace.
