Title: Will You Fall for Me?
Author: Jayta
Rating: PG18 - however does contain some coarse language
Show: One Tree Hill
Pairing: Peyton/Jake
A/N: This would be me thanking the Jayton readers who have kept up the reviews and egging me on to keep on this story. Sorry I haven't had as much time as I would like to spend on my stories, but rest assured, if I haven't told you otherwise, there will be another update - whether that is a week, a month, or even a year. I am hoping for the former and not the latter.
Chapter Seven: A Woman's Prerogative
Was there a different way to act around Jake now? Was he expecting them to be 'dating' after that night?
These were the sort of questions that ran through her head at twenty knots an hour as she headed towards her locker that Monday morning. Keeping an eye out for Jake, Peyton wondered if it hadn't all been a big mistake. It was inevitable - for her brain to start listing all of the things that could go wrong. It was a flaw in her otherwise perfect plan of cynical observation and commentary. The one time she wished she had been born an optimist.
"Peyton!"
Spinning around, she saw Haley coming up the hallway towards her. Her face was beaming, so Peyton assumed she had an otherwise incident free weekend with Nathan, which seemed like the hardest thing in the world for that boy to do. "Haley," she smiled. "What's up?"
"Not much. Just wondered how your 'date' went, with Jake?"
Peyton tried to play it cool. She did not want this to get out all over school, before she even knew what this 'thing' was. "It was fun...w-we," she paused a moment, as the memory of Jake's kiss resurfaced.
"Uh Peyton?"
Peyton snapped back to the present and saw Haley staring curiously at her. "Um, we had fun," she blurted out quickly, burying her head in her locker, while pretending to search for something.
"Aw, no," Haley laughed, poking her in the side. "I know that silence means something else."
"Of course it does!" a cheery mischievous voice jumped in.
Peyton stood up and closed her locker door to reveal Brooke standing there, eagerly awaiting details of her night with Jake. "Nothing happened!"
"Sister's gotta give." Brooke slipped her arm around Peyton's neck and winked. "You've got juicy details to fill me in on. I mean, even Tutor girl here knows the jig is up," she coaxed lovingly.
"There's nothing to tell," Peyton said, telling a bold-faced lie. "Jake took me home and we hung out a while and he left. End of story."
Peyton hated the scrutiny. She felt both their eyes on her, determining whether they would believe her. Part of her didn't know what the big deal was about the kiss she and Jake shared. It hadn't been a major news breaking event. Okay, maybe for her it was...
"So you did nothing?" Haley asked with almost a look of disappointment on her face.
Peyton raised a dubious brow. "What is with the looks? I mean you guys had dates too." She hoped to divert their attention elsewhere. "What about Nathan, and what's his name?" She glanced at Haley and then Brooke.
"No, we had a good time," Haley declared, half-heartedly. "We just saw you and Jake head off and thought maybe you guys had finally realized that you..." Her voice trailed off, as her eyes darted towards Brooke.
"Realized what?" Peyton tilted her head slightly, narrowing her eyes at her best friend. "What have you been telling Haley, Brooke?" she asked, her tone revealing her less than happy mood at the thought that another person was being filled with Brooke's flights of fantasies.
"Don't play coy," Brooke huffed, waving a dismissively hand towards her. "You and Jake have that," she waggled her eyebrows, "chemistry."
"It's the smoldering kind, ya know? The kind that you don't expect, but it suddenly just bursts into flames!" The dark brunette flicked her fingers out, as if flames were going to appear in front of her.
"Oh you're so full of it." Peyton shook her head and headed towards homeroom. "You're love life is so boring that you're making up stuff in mine, which is about as exciting as yours," she explained drolly. "The only one who seems to be getting any action is Haley James here." She nudged the petite dirty blonde with her hip.
"Hey, don't put the target on my back just because you don't like the third degree."
"Besides I don't need dish on Nathan and Haley, they're predictable," Brooke scoffed, rolling her eyes. "I mean, I got all that dish from you when you were dating Naters."
Peyton glared at Brooke, for saying such an insensitive remark in front of Haley. She knew her best friend hadn't meant it as a direct 'burn' towards Haley, but sometimes Brooke needed to take her head out of her own world. "I'm sorry, Haley," she apologized, "I'm sure Brooke didn't mean it. Right, Brooke?"
She seemed confused for a moment. Then she glanced over at Haley, who was trying to shrug it off as nothing, and it was like a light had dawned. "Oh, yeah. Sure," Brooke nodded. "I didn't mean that Nathan would do the same stuff with you as he did with Peyt here..."
Peyton closed her eyes and shook her head. "Okay, I think you can stop right there," she sighed. She knew it was just part of who Brooke was. Never had her best friend had a way with words. Her mouth always seemed to get her into trouble, horizontally or vertically, whether she was using it to seduce or to repel.
"No problem," Brooke squealed happily. "If you wont' give dish, maybe Jake will."
Peyton snapped her eyes open to see Jake heading towards them, along with Nathan and Lucas. "Don't you dare, Brooklyn Janine Davis," she warned, grabbing Brooke's wrist in an attempt to stop her from completely embarrassing her. "I swear I will post those grade three pictures of you dressed up as Strawberry Shortcake."
"You wouldn't?" Brooke gasped in horror. "You said you burned those!"
Peyton smiled innocently.
"You witch."
"Uh, Strawberry Shortcake?" Haley smiled with delight. "So you wanted to be Strawberry Shortcake?" Her voice raised a pitch and she clamped her lips, trying not to laugh.
"You have to swear to secrecy," Peyton informed Haley. "Brooke swore to maim, kill, or torture anyone who mentioned that misguided turn in her childhood."
Brooke shook her head in disgust, and spun on her heel and left.
Peyton and Haley broke out into giggles at Brooke's speechlessness. "Don't you think she might hate you for doing that in front of me?" Haley asked, staring somewhat concernedly after Brooke.
"Oh, she'll get over it. She knows I would never show those pictures to anyone."
"Ladies," Lucas greeted with an enthusiastic wave, joined by a nod and smile from Jake and Nathan. "Headed to homeroom?"
"Yes," Haley chirped, sliding her arms around Nathan. "Did you guys just get done practice?"
"Yeah," Jake nodded. "Whitey was a drill sergeant this morning. A hundred wind sprints."
"Well it probably would have been fifty if Timbo hadn't mouthed off to Whitey at the end of practice," Nathan groaned. "I swear I had to talk the guys down from lynching him."
Peyton laughed. She could imagine a comic she could make of that image. At one time or another, Peyton was sure that everyone in school had felt that way about Tim.
"Well I gotta drop my stuff off at my locker," Nathan informed, glancing at Haley, who nodded - couple talk for 'alone time'.
"Okay," Peyton nodded knowingly. "Laters." She watched them walk hand and hand down the hallway.
"Does anyone else find that sickeningly sweet?" Lucas joked dryly.
"I should get to homeroom." Peyton glanced nervously between the two tall athletes. She wasn't sure how she had ended up alone with the two of them, but she had never wanted to be in Mr. Polanski's classroom more.
"I'm headed that way too," Lucas said, switching direction, moving up along side Peyton.
"Jake?" Peyton locked eyes with the curly-haired forward. "You coming?"
He seemed to hesitate, as if wanting to say something, before backing off. He shook his head and smiled. "Uh, no. I gotta grab some stuff from my locker before class."
The bell chimed in the hallway, signalling the students to get to their homeroom.
"We better get going, you know how Polanski is," Lucas groaned, nudging Peyton towards the door to their right.
"Okay," Peyton said reluctantly. As she headed towards homeroom, with Lucas alongside her, she couldn't help but glance back at Jake, who was standing beside his locker with his bag at his feet, staring after her. She hadn't wanted their first meeting to be like this.
This was getting off to a great start - whatever this was. Things were happening as she had imagined. She groaned inwardly.
An optimist she definitely was not.
-&-
So he hadn't gotten to speak with her the way he had wanted this morning.
Jake kept telling himself that it was just the rush of the morning and the crowd around them, that she wasn't trying to avoid him. As he checked his watch for the third time, he glanced towards the north entrance to the high school. If Peyton didn't come out in the next five minutes, he would have to leave since his job started in fifteen minutes.
It wasn't imperative that he talked to her. In fact he was positive she would probably drop into Karen's cafe this afternoon, but if they could even clarify just a little what had happened at her house the other night, Jake knew he would be able to think more clearly and work with a little more focus.
"Jake?"
"Hey Peyton," he smiled, startled from his thoughts. "I was hoping to catch you. You got a minute?"
"Sure."
She seemed cool. He imagined she hadn't lost a wink of sleep from mulling over their situation - whether there was one or not. Peyton was always so unfazed.
You know that's an act.
"What's up?"
"Uh, I wanted to talk this morning but after the late practice, I didn't get to..."
To what? How was he supposed to bring this up?
"Do you have to work this afternoon?" Peyton asked distractedly.
"Uh yeah, so I gotta make this short, but um..."
Why wasn't his brain functioning?
"About the other night?"
"Yeah." Jake looked up at her and pointed at her. "I just wanted to say again that I had a good time," he said slowly. "And was wanting to know if..."
Would you start forming whole coherent thoughts?
Peyton had stopped walking and had now turned to look up at him. Her intense eyes set upon him, waiting for him to finish his thought.
Damn she was beautiful.
"I was wanting to know if you wanted to do it again?" The words came flooding past his lips and he wasn't even sure of what he had just said. He reviewed the words again, slowly and silently saying them in his head.
I asked her out. That's what I wanted to say?
Yes. Yes, that's what you wanted to say.
"Jake?"
Shaking his head, Jake turned his focus back to the girl in front of him. "Hmm?"
Peyton laughed. "Are you sure you're paying attention there, Jagielski?"
Jake shrugged apologetically. "Sorry."
"Well, I did just tell you I wouldn't mind doing it again."
His heart leapt into his throat. She said yes. "Great!" he exclaimed happily, clasping her hands. Then regaining some composure he said in a lower voice, "Ahem, I mean, great."
The idea that what he had felt and what they had experienced the night before had not been a fluke of some sort or some kind of pity date filled him with relieve and joy. By agreeing to a real date, Peyton was saying that this wasn't one sided. What he was feeling wasn't...
"But..."
He held his breath. He knew there had to be a catch.
"But I will do this only on this one condition."
"A condition?"
"Yes." Peyton nodded.
He had never heard of a date with a condition before. Jake sighed. Maybe this wasn't what he thought it was.
"I will go out with you again on the condition that we don't go out to some fancy restaurant or swanky place where I'll have to wear those awful heels that kill my feet."
"Heels?" Jake furrowed his brow. Heels? What was she talking about?
"Yes, heels. Those toothpick thin soles on women's shoes so that they can actually be the same height as their date?" A mischievous glimmer flashed in her eyes.
"Oh, heels!" Jake shook his head and laughed. He nodded. "Yes, I promise this will be your average high school movie night out?"
"Great." Peyton nodded. "Now the second condition..."
"Hey, you only said there was one condition," he wagged a disapproving finger.
"Well it's a woman's prerogative..."
"To change her mind?"
"Of course."
When he had finished rolling his eyes, he folded his arms across his chest and asked, "What is it?"
"Well, I get to choose the movie."
"Hey, what does that leave me?" he scoffed. "Especially if I get stuck with a chick flick."
"You would accuse me of choosing a chick flick?" she gasped, feigning offense.
"You're a girl, aren't you?"
"Nice of you to notice."
"I noticed that in grade seven," Jake waggled his eyebrows.
"You're sick." Peyton slapped him lightly as if appalled.
"I'm a guy. It comes with the territory." He raised his arms protectively, as he backed slowly away from her flailing arms.
"Well, I thought you were different, Jake." She stopped flailing, a slight smile upon her lips; they were now standing mere inches from each other.
"In some ways," he said softly, resting his hands on her hips. His breathing had become shallow and he could smell the scent of chamomile from her hair, which reminded him of the other night and how it had felt to have her lips on his. "But in others, I'm still the same." With a single swoop, he captured her lips with his again. The same electricity that had shot through his body ignited again and his heart was pounding against his chest.
Her fingers dug into his biceps, pulling him closer, as she deepened the kiss.
Just then, the alarm on his watch beeped, interrupting the passionate kiss. They were both left panting as he pulled away, knowing if he didn't leave now he would be late for work. "I-I have to get...get to work," he sputtered, motioning in the opposite direction of Karen's cafe.
"Mm-hmm." Peyton smiled demurely, as she licked her swollen lips, which made them even more kissable in Jake's opinion.
"So we'll talk about that date maybe tomorrow?"
Peyton's body swayed as if drawn to him. "Or maybe I could drop by the cafe sometime tonight? And maybe we can talk about when this is all going to happen?"
Jake grinned. "Sounds like a plan." He picked up his bag, which was sitting on the grass and slung it over his shoulder. Leaning down, he placed a soft kiss upon her lips. "I'll talk to you tonight then."
He couldn't have ended his day at school better. Now his only problem was, how was he going to focus on work, when would be waiting for her to drop in that night.