Chapter Twelve: Bordering on Forever

Author's note: This is four sides of the same story narrated first by Peyton, then Davis, then Brooke, then Lucas. So keep that in mind while you read it. And next chapter is naley, I PROMISE.

Peyton ran from Brooke's house, her head spinning. Initially she'd only flirted to Lucas to see if he would flirt back, to see if he'd be loyal to her friend, but she'd be lying if she denied that it was nothing more. She knew she had feeling for Lucas, that he had feelings for her. She's always known it. Ever since the word go, ever since that very first day when they'd all met at the country club, looked into his eyes and known his heart.

He'd clicked with Brooke, too. Peyton didn't deny it. They fit somehow, in a bizarre fashion. And amazingly, they stuck to the plan. Everyone knew that Davis Ryan had brought her boyfriend's brother with her to Tree Hill for him to hook up with her cousin. It wasn't something she'd ever bothered to deny.

Davis. Everything came down to her. Everything in Peyton's life was wrong because of her. The supposed innocent party girl from LA, who threatened Peyton more than anyone she'd ever met. A human Barbie doll who made her worry she'd never get her life back the way she wanted it.

XxxxxxX

Davis Ryan smiled as she dove into the Country Club swimming pool and the cool water met her skin. It was the first time she's swum in it. Usually she was too busy tanning, or making out with Nathan. But she'd decided to swim, at least once. Otherwise it was a waste of a perfectly good Brazilian.

Of course, it was a waste now. What with Nathan off in LA with the infant virgin. Davis glanced at her image in the tabloid beside her. Haley looked glamorous and beautiful, besides being completely innocent. On her neck was a very noticeable love bite. What was the point? Nathan would never do it purely to make Davis crazy, because it didn't make Davis crazy.

It should have, Davis knew. Davis had a vague idea that the knowledge that your boyfriend of a year and a half had made out with another girl would make most girls at the very least upset. But these girls weren't Davis. They didn't have the world at their feet. They didn't have so very much to gain.

And most girls hadn't done the same things themselves. Davis shivered excitedly when she thought of Jake Jagielski. As a human he bored her, but as a lover he was exciting and deliciously forbidden. Or rather frowned upon. With a laugh, Davis recalled the expression in the fake blonde's eyes when she'd caught them fucking in his bedroom.

Davis remembered six years previously, when her eighteen year old self had gone with her friends to see "Cruel Intentions". They'd cried predictably, when the baby faced boy had died, leaving his blonde girlfriend heartbroken. Davis had cried about five minutes later, when the innocent blonde girlfriend ruined the life of the evil stepsister.

Finally, Davis' eyes drifted to Brooke and Lucas, speaking intimately on a deck chair. That was one part of the summer that had gone perfectly according to plan.

XxxxxxX

As Lucas stepped into her house, Brooke looked up in surprise. Something was off about him. Something mysterious that she couldn't remotely put her finger on.

"Hey baby," she said slowly. He turned his eyes to her. Somehow they had so much more depth, confusion, even fear. What did Lucas have to fear? Didn't he know yet?

Lucas had started off as a conquest. The idea of dating Lucas Scott, the child of a billionaire, a model and gorgeous to top it all off had always seemed very appealing to her. Especially when she'd met him and they'd immediately hit it off.

Brooke couldn't begin to describe what she felt for him. He'd been her lover before he'd been her boyfriend, if he could even be called that, but always she'd had the sneaking suspicion that she felt more for him than even she realized.

She felt relief when he came over and kissed her. She felt relief ever time he did. Deep inside of her, she didn't believe that he could love her, that any man could love at all. But Brooke knew or feared that voicing these doubts would make everything worse than before. Brooke had never had a man she'd wanted, and therefore had no idea how to keep the man she loved.

As a breeze fluttered through the house and rifled the calendar on the wall, she took a shaky breath. She'd started their "relationship" with the knowledge that it couldn't last. He lived in LA, she was planning to attend university on the other side of the country. He didn't love her enough to have a long distance relationship. It could never work.

XxxxxxX

Lucas smiled to himself as he automatically drove toward Brooke's home instead of his. It made him happy to have someone like her, but the idea that he had turned into the kind of person that would flirt with the blonde and go home to the brunette revolted him.

A nagging voice in his head reminded him of who he was becoming: Nathan. Or more specifically, Keith. Their father, the businessman in New York who financed their extravagant lifestyles on the condition that one day they'd come back and work for him. Lucas secretly hoped that Nathan would smarten up and work hard enough for the both of them.

Brooke looked surprised when he came through their door without knocking. Was it too early for that? Lucas no longer remembered the etiquette of dating. It had been a long time since he'd had anything more than what Davis and Nathan had.

Lucas walked over to her and swiftly kissed her, noting her desire of him. Not in the carnal way, like she'd once had. In a different way altogether. She didn't know that he knew what she felt for him. She thought he was as ignorant as all the other boys she'd dated. She didn't know how he was beginning to know her heart.

His mind flashed instantly to Peyton. Immediately he felt guilty. He wanted Peyton, in the rough, loveless way. Not enough. He didn't love anyone enough to make himself into the cheating bastard that his brother was. But Peyton was special, and heartbroken. It would be hard to resist, though resist he would.

For her. And her alone.