Hey guys. I hope none of you are mad at me. It has been awhile since I last updated, but I had a suddent urge to update today, what with OTH's hiatus until next week. I have been in need of some OTH. Anyways, here's another chapter, and I hope you all enjoy it. Thanks for all the reviews. I appreciate them all. Please continue to read and review and let me know what you guys think. I write for you guys! lol
Chapter 10
The doorknob slowly turned as Brooke tensed with anticipation at the arrival of her parents. She gritted her teeth at the prospect of her folks discovering a boy in her room. "Although, Nathan definitely is not a boy. Yep that boy is all man," Brooke thought silently to herself. She re-directed her short attention span to the doorknob as the oak door opened slightly to reveal a tanned ankle which gracefully stepped into the living room. Her slim calves revealed long and limber legs that were halfway concealed by a flowing sun dress covered in pineapples. The top of the sun dress complemented her smooth shoulders as the material clung to every curve of her mother's lanky silohuete. She removed her sunglasses to display her luminious hazels that were contained on her ovular face. Atop her brown locks sat the wide brim of her mother's favorite straw hat. A pink ribbon was fastened around the base of the hat, and the two ends of the ribbon met to create a lovely bow at the front. The hat did not resemble that of a farmer's but that of a societal woman attending an elegant function. As Brooke beheld her mother, she realized she was looking at a taller version of herself. She remembered how she had gotten many comments from her friends at school about how she was an exact replica of her mother; well what little of her friends saw ofabsent mother.Brooke and her mother shared the same hazel eyes, same face shape, and same color of brown and reddish hair. In fact, the only differentiation between the two was her mother stood at the amazonian height of six feet, while she herself barely measured 5'3''. Not to mention, her mother never was blessed with Brooke's dimples. Her mother used to say Brooke's dimples were God's gift to her. Her mother flashedthe trademark million dollar Davis smile in no particualr direction, a trait Brooke had also managed to inherit.
"Hey, honey." Elizabeth Davis attempted to smile warmly in Brooke's direction, as she stood awkardly in front of the open door. Brooke grinned as her mother took in her daughter's appearance. Her mother raised her eyebrows, and she snarled in slight revulsion. "Ugh, honey, why are you wearing that?" Her mother gestured to Brooke's oversized pajamas, and before Brooke could respond, she pointed to her hair. "And why didn't you brush your hair. You know, your usually so good about those kind of things." Brooke looked down at her pajamas and attempted to roll her eyes out of her mother's eye view.
"Mom, it's 9 in the morning. I just got up. Who did you expect me to look like..." She snapped her fingers as she struggled to locate a glamours answer. "you..?" she finished.
Her mother looked almost taken aback at Brooke's response, but brushed off the comment as she realized the early hour. "Of course not, honey." She placed her white Prada handbag that was the size of a suitcase onto the tile floor. "Honey, have you lost weight becauase last time I saw you you were getting chubby again."
Brooke scoffed. "I wasn't chubby. I had only gained 5 pounds, which I recently lost." Her mother observed Brooke's tiny physique beneath her flannel pajamas.
"Okay, well maybe chubby isn't the right word."
"Well, the way you desribe me, you make me sound like I am as big as Shamu."
"Who honey?" she asked as she no longer had taken any interest in the conversation due to her sudden interest in fiddling with her house keys. Brooke's agitation level increased as she attempted to converse with her mother. Brooke and Elizabeth may have looked alike, but her mother and her were as different as night and day. Her mother was arrogant, self-centered, and snobbish; all the traits Brooke had once possessed before she met Lucas. It was Lucas who had inadvertenly revealed her to her faults, and she quickly worked to repair them. Sure, she could be catty when it pertained to certain situations and she still had a temper, which she had learned to tame. But, she was no longer like her mother. In fact, she was no longer like her former self. The thought of Lucas' serene nature calmed her as she spoke to her mother.
"Shamu is a whale, mother."
"Oh, right." Her mother finally stopped fiddling with her keys and looked back up at her daughter. "Come give mommy a hug, dear." She held up her arms as an invitation for Brooke to initiate the hug. Brooke sighed as she was enveloped in her mother's frail arms. The hug was cold and distant, and her mother's hands felt clammy as she patted Brooke's cheek. She breathed a sigh of relief when her mother broke the hug and walked toward the kitchen. Brooke looked outside as the sun blinded her view of the driveway.
"Where's daddy?" Brooke called out to her mother.
"What?"
Brooke rolled her eyes and followed her mother's voice into the kitchen. Her mother was attempting to locate an object in one of the drawers as Brooke looked on.
"I asked where daddy was."
"Oh, I'm sorry dear. Maybe next time you have a question for me, you shouldn't yell. For godsakes, we're not primitive animals. We don't need to yell to hear one another," her mother slammed the drawer in distress.
"What are you looking for?" Brooke asked.
"I'm looking for my lighter. Goodness know, I have been without a cigarette for hours now. You're father won't allow me to smoke in the car. He says it's something about leather, flames, and all that jazz." She shrugged as if the prospect of her father's $50,000 BMW being lit on fire was no big deal. "I told him that's why we have insurance. But you know your father, he never listens to me." She sounded irritated as she continued to digging through the drawers. Brooke nodded in mock understading.
So, her parents weren't getting along. What else was new? At least, they weren't throwing furniture at one another. "We'll see how long that lasts," she thought miserably to herself. It was custom for her parents to fight. In fact, if they weren't fighting,something was wrong.Throughout Brooke's childhood, her mother had been accused of having various affairs, provoking the Davis family into debt by overspending, and of being as her father put it last April, "the biggest mistake of my life." She remembered one occasion on particular the year before. Brooke was upstairs in her room attempting to not fall asleep as she did her late homework assignment, when her father arrived home from work. Well, Brooke fell asleep to no avail, only to be woken up at the sound of glass being thrown against a wall. She tiptoed down the hall and managed to catch a minute of conversation, or as she called it: arguments, between her parents. Whatever they had been arguing about, Brooke could never remember her father looking so angry. She could still remember every aspect of his appearance that night. His normally handsome face was contorted into such anangry look, that he was barely recognizable to her. His mother was cowered in a corner, as her father stood before her. Brooke saw the shattered pieces of one of her mother's many vases scattered on the ground at her mother's feet. The memories of that night seemed to fade away as Brooke struggled to push the incident out of her mind. All she could remember was what her father said to her mother in such an anguished voice; the same voice that managed to haunt Brooke's dreams since that night. "You were the biggest mistake of my life." His voice choked with tears as he spoke. "The only reason I don't regret ever being with you is becasue I have my daughter. Brooke is the only reason I stay in this marriage." These words of sorrow fell upon Brooke's heart, and she could no longer hear anymore for her heart could not take it. So, she returned to her room. To this day, Brooke would never forget that moment. Brooke was brought back to reality as she heard her mother rambling on about her father as she attempted to locate her lighter.
"So, where is daddy?" Brooke asked hopefully. Elizabeth paused her activity in order to look up at her daughter.
"He's at work. He had a meeting with his clients, so he just dropped me off here."
"But he just got home." Brooke pouted in disappointment.
"I know, honey. How many times have I told you, somebody..."
Brooke nodded her head and repeated her mother's words. It was the exact same answer her mother gave everytime Brooke pointed out her father's absence. "Somebody's gotta pay for this nice life that we live."
"Anyways, I was thinking you and I..." Elizabeth's hands closed over the blue lighter in the cabinet above the fridge as she located it. "I found it!" Her mother yelped in excitement as she rushed into the living room to retrieve her cigarettes from her Prada bag. Her mother put the filter to her lips and lit the end. Her first puff of smoke billowed through her mother's flared nostril as she breathed in her cancer stick. Brooke scrunched her face in disgust as she waved the smoke away from her direction.
"You were thinking?" Brooke reminded Elizabeth of her previous thoughts. Her mother opened her eyes.
"Oh, yes. What about you and I go down to the tanning booth together? I am starting to look a little pasty." Her mother held up her arms in revulsion. Brooke laughed in amusment.
"Mom, you look like a Mexican," she observed.
"Oh, please don't compare me to those filthy mongrels, Brookie dear."
"I'm just saying, you look great." And it was true. Her mother did look great. Her mother always looked great. Looking great to her mother was a job in itself. While Brooke may have worked a prime-time gig at looking great, her mother was working full-time. Elizabeth looked at Brooke almost adoringly.
"Thank you, sweetie. So, how about it?" She took another drag of the cigarette as she felt the smooth nicotine enter and exit her damaged lungs. Brooke was about to accept her mother's invitation when an alarm shot off in her head. Nathan. Nathan was still in her room! And who knew what he was doing. Maybe, he was going through her panty drawer or smelling all of her perfume like some sychophantic stalker. Whatever Nathan was doing in her room, one thing was clear: she had to get rid of her mother.
Nathan sighed as he beheld the maroon's walls of Brooke Davis' room. It looked like someone had thrown up purple. He felt like was being swallowed alive by the purple people eater. A framed picture of pink pansies hung above her queen-sized bed. The rest of the walls were adorned with a picture of the Eiffel Tower, and an obnoxious poster of a half-naked Colin Farell clad in a pair of Lee's and a cigarette hanging from his mouth. Nathan rolled his eyes at Brooke's poster as he approached Brooke's mirror and took in his own appearance. Nathan pulled up his t-shirt to reveal a set of washboard abs and sculpted pectorals. He glanced back over at Colin's equally muscular torso and sneered. He flexed his stomach as he examined it in the mirror and quickly looked back at Colin, comparing himself. It was as if he were competing for a place on Brooke's wall. Realizing he would never end up on Brooke's wall, he pulled his shirt back down in defeat. What was he doing? He was comparing himself to Colin Farell for goodness sakes!
Shaking his head absentmindedly, he sat on Brooke's cushioned stool. In front of him was Brooke's vanity set. On the table sat various lipsticks, powders, and mascaras. Her nailpolishes ranged from every color on the scale, from black to white, including some colors Nathan had never seen before. What was with all the makeup anyways? Why would a woman as beautiful as Brooke want to hide her innate beauty by piling all this garbage onto her face. Makeup wasn't meant to make women look attractive. Makeup was meant to hide a woman's true beauty. And true beauty Brooke did have. It was the kind of beauty to make a man go week in the knees and numb in the pants simultaneously. Nathan felt the bulge in his pants grow as he thought about her, but then it quickly receded when he thought about the reprecussions of his thoughts. "What would she think about me if she knew I was having these thoughts," he thought to himself. "She would probably think I was a pervert." But it wasn't just about his sexual attraction towards Brooke that drew him to her. There was something else about that girl that drove him crazy; something that he couldn't pinpoint just yet. "But it's wrong to think like this," Nathan convinced himself, as he promised he would never think of Brooke in that way again. From here on out, he and Brooke would just remain friends. Just good friends.
Pushing the thought of Brooke out of his mind, Nathan looked into the mirror and noticed the mirror's borders contained different pictures of Brooke with her friends. He smiled at a picture of Peyton, Brooke, and Jake's daughter, Jenny. Nathan peeled the picture off the mirror and flipped the picture over to observe the date. The picture was taken the same day that Nathan and Lucas had challenged one another to a basketball game at the River Court. Lucas had agreed to play Nathan in order to win a spot on the Ravens basketball team. Unfortuanately, Nathan lost in an embarrassing display of Lucas' innate talent. Although, Nathan would never admit it to Lucas, he was partly relieved to have him join the team because he had managed to make up for the rest of the team's slack. Lucas was an excellent player. It's just that Nathan would never mention that to his face. Nathan looked at Brooke in the picture as a genunie smile was planted on her face. It was a picture of happier times. Maybe, at that time she was happier due to the fact that she had been dating Lucas. He smiled sadly as he replaced Brooke's picture and noticed another picture. This picture was one of Brooke and Lucas. Lucas had his arm around Brooke and the two were looking into the camera with grins plastered on their faces. Nathan cursed himself as he felt a twinge of jealousy at the sight of the picture with Lucas and Brooke. He shook his head and laughed. He was doing it again! Why couldn't he stop thinking of her? He had no right to her. It's not like she had even expressed interest in him. He and Brooke were just friends. He just had to keep reminding himself of that
Nathan soon found himself upon Brooke's bed as he lay sprawled on his back. The covers smelt of fresh vanilla and lavender and instantly reminded him of Brooke. He breathed in her scent and yawned as he rolled over onto his side. His hand supported his head, as he cradled it in his left arm and brought his right arm around. As his right hand touched the bed, it brushed an object. Nathan picked up the letter that had breifly touched his hand, and noticed Lucas' address on the front of the envelope in the curvy script of Brooke's feminine handwriting. It was an unsent letter from Brooke to Lucas. Nathan examined the envelope and noticed that Brooke had not completely sealed the envelope, meaning that the letter could be opened and then resealed. He arched an eyebrow at his discovery, and he pondered the contents of the letter. He knew he would be overstepping his boundaries if he were to read the letter, but how would Brooke ever find out? He threw the letter down upon the bed and groaned in frusteration as he peered at the enveloped secrets within. He couldn't do that to Brooke. Well, he could, but he wouldn't. For several minutes, he stared at the envelope as if it was his arch rival. Reluctantly, he picked up the envelope and retrieved the letter from inside as curiosity overcame him and read Brooke's words to Lucas.
As Nathan finished, he realized he had had more questions after he finished reading the letter than before he read it. What exactly did Lucas tell Brooke before she left for the summer? Why did Brooke call herself the girl behind the red door? He could always ask Brooke, but if he did, then she would know he went behind her back to read her private letter to Lucas. So, that wasn't an option. Nathan read the letter over again and winced as she described Lucas' scent of aftershave and mountains. He laughed. Who in the hell smells like aftershave and mountains? Only pansy-ass mamma boys like Lucas. He grinned in satisifaction as his thoughts insulted Lucas. He felt a sense of relief as he noticed that Brooke had not mentioned anything about her having feelings for Lucas. Yeah, he was a little irritated by the 'love always' conclusion of the letter, but that was pretty standard for friends. Hell, even his mother had written him cards during holdays ending in 'love always'. It was standard stuff. "But where are the other letters?" Nathan asked himself. In the letter Brooke had mentioned she had written Lucas everyday, but she never sent the letters. With a sudden urge to read the rest of Brooke's personal thoughts and learn more about this intriguing woman, Nathan put the letter back into its envelope and re-sealed it as he placed it back on the bed. "Okay, so I'm not a basketball this time. So, if I were a letter, where would I be?" he asked himself. Nathan kneeled as he felt the surface beneath Brooke's bed, and his fingers became curled in a mass of something as the door to Brooke's room opened unexpectedly. Before he knew it, he and Brooke were face to face, only except his hand still remained underneath Brooke's bed. She raised her eyebrow at Nathan's position on the floor with his hand beneath her bed as a funny look crossed her face.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Nathan's eyes widened in suprise at Brooke's arrival as he struggled to untangle his hand from the object beneath her bed. He looked up at Brooke nervously as he searched for the appropriate words to describe his ridiculous position on the floor.
"I, uh..." he paused, "dropped my..." Finally he managed to untangle most of his arm from the object beneath Brooke's bed as he managed to retrieve his arm from its dwellings. Nathan smiled up awkwardly at Brooke as she looked at Nathan in horror. Flabbergasted, Nathan looked at his arm that he had recently removed from underneath her bed and noticed with alarm that a red, lacy bra had somehow attatched itself to his sleeve! He blushed a color almost as red as the bra and looked back up at Brooke with humiliated eyes. Nathan opened his mouth to complete his earlier excuse for being under her bed and said, " I dropped my...bra." Brooke gave Nathan an expression she usually gave half-wits like Tim, one of pity, as Nathan attempted to remove the brassiere from his sleeve. Brooke folded her arms across her stomach while she waited for him to unhook her bra. She sighed as Nathan nervously glanced between his attempts of removal and Brooke's intent glare.
"Oh, give me that." Brooke grabbed Nathan's arm and effortlessly removed the bra with the skillfull hands of a seamstress. Nathan looked at her in amazement. She noticed him staring in awe at her achievement "I can see you have virtually no skill at removing bras from the heaving chests of girls, do you?" Nathan blushed as he removed himself from the floor and sat on Brooke's bed. "Frankly, I'm a little suprised. You know, with everything that Peyton said about you." She walked over to her drawer and placed the bra in her drawer. Nathan's interest piqued.
"Oh, yeah. Well, what did Peyton say about me exactly?" He scooted towards the end of Brooke's bed as she stood in the middle of the room and placed her hands on her hips.
"Sorry, can't tell you that. You know, girl talk," Brooke smiled in satisfaction as Nathan's face fell.
"Well, then why would you mention it? Are you trying to torture me?" Brooke laughed.
"Wow, Scott! You're quick," she mocked amazement. Nathan nodded his head, realizing she wasn't ever gonna tell him what Peyton said. "But if you ever need help in the 'removing bras' department, I could be of some assistance." Nathan's ears perked.
"Really?"
"That would be a big, fat NO."
"Hey, I had to give it a shot, right?" Nathan asked as Brooke detected hint of disappointment in his voice.
"So, what were you doing under my bed anyways?" She looked at Nathan expecting an answer. He looked down at his hands bashfully and was about to respond when Brooke cut him off. "Uh, you know what, I don't want to know," she finished. "Anyways, my mom just left for the tanning salon so you're free to go." Nathan nodded. He felt a sense of sadness at the idea of leaving the Davis residence. He had had a wonderfulexperience spending time with Brooke, being near Brooke, watching Brooke sleep, and talking to her; pretty much anything Brooke-related was fabulous. Even talking about her. But she was right. He had to go. He had stuff to do. It's not like Brooke was the center of his universe. He could survive without her forat least one day. Although the thought of not seeing Brooke for one day drove him nuts. Nathan had lived his life for so long without Brooke being involved, he was used to her absence. Now things were different. He was introduced into a whole new world in which Brooke was in his life. And he couldn't get enough. To think, he had spent so long without interacting with her. Brooke and Nathan walked toward the front door, and he opened it and stepped out onto the porch.
"It's a good thing I thought to park across the street," he pointed to his deteriorating Honda. Brooke nodded greatfully.
"Yeah, my parentswould've went psycho on me if they saw your car in the driveway." An awkward silence passed as the two exchanged glances. "Well," Brooke choked on her words as she gave Nathan's hand a squeeze. Warmth carressed her heart as his touch made her shiver. "I'll see you soon?" she asked. Nathan squeezed her tiny hand in his and nodded.
"Yeah, I'll give you a call tomorrow." Nathan released her hand, and the tension between them subsided.
"Okay. Bye, Tutorboy!" Nathan smiled as walked down the driveway toward his car.
Brooke retreated to her room and fell lazily against her bed. A new scent had replaced her vanilla-scented covers. It was a combined scent of Tommyboy and spices. It smelled just like him. The new scent lingered in the air, and Brooke found herself smiling in delight. It was a genuine smile that finally had brought happy times.
