Soooo, sorry that took so long! Anyway, I should have a few more chapters up by the end of this weekend (which will be Monday for you Marit ) )
Anyway...I hope I'm not confusing you at all, I kinda put little details in and then expect you to remember them at the drop of a hat, so I hope that doesn't get too hard to follow.
"And it felt so good to take it seriously…"
Chris and Haley were in downtown rehearsing for their meeting with the CEO of Maverick. Andrew had brought them down to the studio he had been recording at, because it was a Sunday it was easy for them to rent a space.
"Nice run through Hales." Haley glared over at Chris.
"You know better than to call me that." She continued to glare at him.
"I'm sorry Haley." He shrugged. She'd been on edge all day, he though she was going to kill him if he made one more wrong move.
"You're up." She went over to sit in the office chair next to Andrew who was mixing a few things. She started fiddling with her cell, checking if she had possibly gotten any messages, even though she had checked them like five minutes before.
"Boy troubles?" Andrew looked over from the soundboard. Haley looked up and shrugged. "Is that a ring on your finger?" She shrugged again. "…but Chris said you're only 17."
"I am," she finally replied. "Oh, and no I'm not pregnant and I don't have a kid," she replied, she hated when people assumed that so she liked to dispel any rumors before they started.
"Well that's good to hear." He went back to mixing for a second. "He doesn't want you here, does he?"
"Nope," she replied bitterly.
"Do you wanna be here?"
"Yeah, I do more than anything. Well, just not more than being with Nathan. It's just that…" She paused throwing her cell phone down next to her on the counter. "It's just that we both have opportunities, actual opportunities, but we both decided to give them up for each other."
"You don't wanna do that, do you?" He looked up from the soundboard, waiting for an answer.
"I don't know…I just don't want that to be one of our memories. I just can't imagine looking back and thing 'Oh Nathan, you remember when we got married and gave up all our dreams?' or 'Nathan, you remember when you had that chance to be a professional basketball player, but oh yeah, you gave that up for little old me?'. " She looked over at Andrew who was still listening attentively. "It just seems like life is filled with enough 'could have beens' and 'what ifs.' I just don't want our relationship to be destroyed later on because of that. Then again, I don't want to lose the relationship we have now…" She looked up again and saw Chris in the background standing in the door frame. She realized he must have been there the whole time, probably since Andrew had looked up for the last time.
"Tell him Haley." He turned from the door frame, letting his guitar strap fall to the side. "You know what you want, you know what you want for him." Haley looked up at him. For once he was generally looking out for her, he wasn't saying that for his own motives.
"Awww, come on Haley, but we haven't eaten all day!" he was trying to get her to stop to grab something to eat on their way back to the apartment.
"Alright, fine…What do you want to eat?" She was in a better mood than before, but still wasn't going to feel much better unless she finally talked to Nathan.
"Ummm, sushi," he replied.
"Ewwwww." She tried to come up with her best disgusted face. She hated the stuff, the only person she knew that actually liked the stuff was Peyton, she could really chow it down.
"Fine, I kind of knew you would not go for that, nobody ever seems to. How about, pizza?"
"Hmmm, alright…but only one slice, I don't want to get fat if I'm actually going to be performing someday." Wait a minute, had she actually just referred to music as her future?
"Come on, I'll show you the apartment!" He was really happy about finally living in a place he could well, be proud of. He had never been happy in Tree Hill, and New York had given him an opportunity to be something else, someone else even.
"Hold on." Haley tried to catch up as Chris was practically skipping up the steps. "I told you to only let me have one piece of pizza, look at what you did to me now!" They both laughed.
When they got to the door, their was a heart post it note stuck to the door:
You can thank John!
It was signed with a heart and then Julianna. As he pulled out the key, Haley asked, "Wait, who's John?"
"Andrew's, errr…boyfriend?" Sometimes it was just hard for guys to actually say that out loud, he'd have to work on it.
"Wait, Andrew's gay? He was kind of hot!" Haley joked. Chris just shook is head as he opened the door. Whoever said food that's bad for you also makes you feel better was really right. "Woaaaah. Now I didn't see this place before, but it definitely couldn't of looked like this before."
"You're telling me." The apartment had been rented as "unfurnished," but whoever had lived there before had left behind a couple things. Julianna and John had done a lot to it though. The counters had been cleaned, knowing Chris that would have taken a month. There looked like there may have even been a new bed, there were at least sheets and a comforter. End tables, towels, glasses, plates, everything.
"Wait, wait, I wanna see his face first!" Two people were bounding up the stairs, Chris could tell by her voice that one was Jules. "Sooooo?" she asked as she bounded into the room out of breath. John was a few steps behind her.
"Damn you and your athleticism!" John joked as he practically fell over after walking through the door.
"Wow, that was only three flights of stairs John. We'll have to worry about whipping you into shape tomorrow though. First, we have to see if he likes it!"
"Awww, of course I like it Jules!" He walked over and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
She blushed, "It was all John, though." She smiled looking over at John who looked pretty proud of himself.
"It was nothing…I just used some of the stuff from other jobs I've had. People are so picky when it comes to stuff…" he trailed off.
"Since we're not playing 'guess what' John, I guess I'll inform them you're an interior designer." They all laughed.
"Hey, I'm not ashamed!"
"You're just, cryptic?" She loved making fun of him, he just looked hilarious when he got all defensive.
"You are really lucky I failed English."
They all joked around for about an hour before Julianna left to study for a test she had the next day, and John left to meet Andrew for some music thing that night, leaving Chris and Haley alone in the apartment.
Chris went over to throw a few dishes in the dishwasher, half out of curiosity to see if it actually worked and half out of the fact he may have actually wanted to keep the place clean. "You nervous about Wednesday?" He looked over at Haley who was sitting on the floor fiddling around with his guitar, making up chords.
"Yeah, a little. Then again I have no idea what I'm up against, I wasn't their with you Friday."
"True." He was going through the cupboards looking for dishwasher soap.
"I miss my guitar." She sighed. "I wish I hadn't had my parents give it away when they sold the house, I miss it."
"You can use mine for the audition if you want"
"Yeah, maybe." She looked over and saw him shuffling through the stuff in the cupboards. "You alright?"
He held up the dishwash soap. "Yeah, just where do you put this stuff?"
Day 6: Wednesday
Haley handed Chris back his guitar. She smiled at him, she knew she'd nailed the solo performance and he had done an amazing job as well. She had been a little shaky at the beginning of "When the Stars Go Blue," but she had really gotten into it by the end. They both looked over at Mr. Oseary who started shuffling papers around on his desk. They were both nervous, and Chris started making up ultimatums in his head, he didn't want to continue on with music forever if he wasn't going to get anywhere.
"Hmmm." Mr. Oseary pulled out a sheet of paper. Haley grabbed Chris' hand, and was squeezing kind of hard. Chris didn't mind, it was just kind of weird, it's amazing how different Haley was from situation to situation. "When do you turn 18, Ms. James?" Mr. Oseary leaned back in his chair.
"November." She could barely get the words out.
"Don't worry, I just don't always like taking on artists that are too young, you have to sign different contracts."
"Oh." She had never really thought of that, her parents had always given her a lot of freedoms, she wasn't even living with them anymore.
"Well. You remember that contract I showed you last week Mr. Keller?"
"Yeah."
"Well, we actually lost that one. But…Sara was kind enough to make a new one," he joked. "Anyway, it was a good thing she also made up one for Ms. James over there." He placed two sheets of paper out on his desk. One for Haley, and one for Chris. "Now Ms. James, you'll have to have your parents sign a copy sometime, because I'm afraid we can't take on artists under 18 under full contract unless we get permission from the parents."
Haley let go of Chris' hand as they both went to sign the papers.
"By the way, these are only tentative contracts. There are longer contracts that you'll have to sign later on with a lawyer." They both however skimmed the short contract, just to make sure they were not signing away their lives.
As they both placed a pen to the paper they could breathe a sigh of relief, six days and maybe fate had changed.