A/N: Thanks for the reviews. I'm glad you guys all liked it. As far as a sequel is concerned, I'm unsure because I've never written a sequel before, but I had so much fun writing this so I wouldn't rule one out. Hope you enjoy this last part as well. :)

Chapter Two

Twelve hours later Haley crawled into bed. After her meltdown, her roommate had avoided her while he put some clothes on, muttered something about sorting things down at the accommodation office and ran out the door. Haley hadn't seen him since.

She realized that it was somewhat ironic that for the first time in her life, fate had stepped in to give her a good birthday present in the form of a half-naked gorgeous man in her bedroom, and she had screwed it up by being too turned on without knowing how to react, and ultimately making him think she was PMSing.

Yeesh. The birthdays were just getting worse. Not that she had told Peyton and her parents that when they had taken her out to lunch.

She had truly appreciated the fact that all three of them had taken time to see her, especially Peyton who had her own college to worry about, which was unfortunately hours away from Haley! Okay, so it was only one and a half hours away, but it wasn't the same as when they could walk to each other's houses. They had said things wouldn't change, but Haley realised that they had already started to change. Normally she would have told Peyton about The Mr. Sexy Incident (whose name she had realized he had never told her - probably on purpose so she couldn't stalk him) minutes after it had happened. Today, Haley hadn't been able to tell her about it at all since the only time they saw each other her parents were there.

Peyton had been busy the rest of the day, but had promised to call in the morning, a conversation Haley was looking forward to enjoying, along with a nice cup of hot chocolate. After taking a look around the campus, she had gone back to the room and unpacked most of her things. On exiting the room, she'd noticed that the rest of the rooms on her floor were mostly occupied by girls so she had figured that it was he who had no name who'd been allocated the wrong room.

Now tired after a long day that hadn't been exactly the worst birthday ever, but had still not broken the spell, Haley got under the covers of the bed by the side of the wall. Mr. Sexy may have put his bags down there, but he wasn't going to be staying here for long, and she had to claim the bed as her own before her new roommate moved in.

Just as Haley was pulling the covers around her neck she heard the door open and saw someone step inside before fumbling around for the light switch. When they finally found it, they flicked the switch upwards, and Haley saw that Mr. Sexy looked just as good in a polo t-shirt and jeans as he did in a towel. But not better, she mused.

He was carrying something in his hand and put it down on the table before taking off his trainers. Haley thought wildly that maybe he was going to strip without realizing she was there, but her now overactive sexual mind had spoken too soon as he saw her staring at him and nearly fell over.

"Are you okay?" Haley asked, sitting up when he stumbled onto the chair.

"Yeah, I just didn't see you there. You were pretty quiet."

"Sorry."

"I spoke to the people at the office and they're moving me to another room," he explained as he pulled off his socks, "but they can only give me one tomorrow. So it looks like we'll have to share for tonight."

Haley nodded, cringing over her attire. She didn't own the most seductive of sleepwear. "Okay," she told him, wondering what he wore to sleep.

What if he slept naked?

Oh, my.

She settled back under the covers and tried to lower her pulse through some deep breathing while he excused himself to go to the bathroom and change. He must not be sleeping naked then, she decided, if he was going to change there. If he slept in the nude, he wouldn't have had any scruples stripping in front of her. Unless he was sh-

No, Haley, she reminded herself. No one who slept in the nude was remotely shy.

All these images of Mr. Sexy in just his birthday suit were playing havoc on her nerves so she closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the least sexy thing she could think of.

Teletubbies.

Unfortunately, the process didn't really have time to work since Mr. Sexy returned from the bathroom just then, fully clothed once more, but with a different shirt.

"Are you going out?" she asked, hoping that it hadn't sounded as desperate as her voice did in her head.

"Uh, yeah. I met some guys from the basketball team and they're going to show us around."

Basketball. He was a jock. She should have known. "Right."

"Do you want to come with us? I know some girls are coming too."

Haley shook her head. "I don't think so."

"Are you sure? I know they won't mind."

"No, its okay. Today hasn't been…well, great, to say the least. I mean, I expected a shitty birthday anyway so that wasn't a surprise, but I think I'm just going to go to bed."

"Today's your birthday?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"Oh…well, you sure you don't want to come out? Celebrate a little?" Nathan gestured to the door.

This was it. Her last chance to actually do something; maybe hang out with the cool kids, who'd sorely avoided her in high school. But, in typical Haley James fashion she shook her head again. "Thanks, but I think I'm just going to go to sleep."

He nodded and started to go out before swivelling round and looking at her, "Hey, I almost forgot – again. I never…I'm Nathan," he said finally. "Nathan Scott."

Even his name was sexy. "Haley James."

He smiled at her. "Hi. See you in the morning," he added, and then closed the door quietly as he left the room.

An hour later Haley still hadn't been able to fall asleep. It was past eleven thirty and she was dog-tired, but thanks to the thunderstorm that had broken out ten minutes ago, sleep didn't seem anywhere nearby.

When she saw the lightening strike, she buried her head underneath her pillow a little deeper so she wouldn't be able to hear the thunder as much. No such luck. It roared, as loud as ever, causing Haley to miss the sound of the door opening and Nathan's return.

She only realised it when he said, "Hi," in that deep, throaty voice of his, surprising her so that she fell off the bed.

Nathan ran over there and picked her up as if she weighed nothing before placing her back down on the bed. "Are you all right?"

Haley nodded and managed a smile she didn't feel, thanks to her embarrassment. "What happened to your big night out?"

He pointed to the window as he sat down on the edge of the bed opposite her. "Rain kind of put a crimp on that plan. There weren't any taxis nearby and the place we were going to is kind of far away so some of us just came back."

"What are the others doing?" Haley wondered.

"Oh, I think they're off to have a party in someone's room."

"And you didn't want to join them?"

Nathan shook his head. "Nah. Oh, wait a minute," he added and reached into his pocket before pulling out a small rectangular object and handing it to her. "Here."

Haley turned it over in her hands. Then, she glanced up at him and her gaze narrowed. "You know, I don't have PMS!"

"Er, okay…" he replied, immediately growing uncomfortable.

"You can't just assume that it's that time of the month if I'm in a bad mood. Sometimes people just get into bad moods. It happens. And how did you know I always eat chocolate when I have PMS?" she asked finally.

Nathan cleared his throat and rubbed his hands together. "I didn't. I just bought that for you because you said it was your birthday."

Haley's eyes widened and she stared back down at the packet of chocolate in her hands. "Oh."

"I just got it from a vending machine," he admitted, "since nothing is open. And it might be a little wet and squished from my pocket because I bought it before we went out in case I forgot on the way back and –"

"Thank you," Haley said softly. "This is really nice of you."

He shrugged, as if to say, 'It's just chocolate.' But all he did say was, "You're welcome. Of course now you can have a much better birthday present," he added, a spark in his eyes.

"Which is?" Haley asked, warily.

"Well, you can have sex with me," he said, with a cheeky grin.

Haley's mouth dropped and he burst out laughing.

"I'm just kidding."

"Yeah, well…I know that."

They shared a smile before Nathan moved to stand up, just at the same time the thunder resumed. Haley did her best not to, but at the loud crack she shook visibly, and he noticed.

"Afraid of thunder?"

He posed it as a question even though he clearly thought it a statement. Haley shook her head anyway. "N-no."

He nodded with an amused smile on his lips and Haley wished for nothing more than to die of embarrassment. "I guess that means you couldn't sleep because you were waiting up for me, then," he winked.

He winked at her. Nobody winked at anyone anymore…it just wasn't done. But damn if it wasn't turning her on.

"Don't worry, I'll protect you from the thunder," he said, with that smirk plastered on his face.

Haley finally found the ability to from sentences somewhere from the recesses of her brain. "I don't need protection from the thunder, thank you very much."

Nathan grinned, but just nodded. "If you say so."

"I do," she said defiantly.

He smiled at her for a few moments, making Haley blush slightly with nerves and anticipation. They shouldn't have, but his words surprised her just as much as his actions did. "Happy Birthday, Haley," he whispered and leaned across the small divide to brush his lips against her cheek every so gently.

Haley was certain she was about to sigh, but was saved from that source of humiliation by the onslaught of another. A loud crack of thunder rang through the air, making her instinctively bury her face in Nathan's chest.

"It's just thunder," he said into her ear.

"I know," she pouted. She should have jerked away, but he had rested his hands on the side of her waist and it felt really nice. Way more than nice.

"I guess we should go to sleep," he said, breaking away. "It's late."

Haley nodded her agreement and he gently eased her down on the bed, helping to pull the covers up.

He went to the bathroom to change, greeting Haley with the glorious view of the tight fit of his jeans, but when he glanced over his shoulder at her, she pretended to be mesmerised by the clock on the side table.

11:57

She realised that in a few minutes her birthday would be over, and she'd have to wait another year for the dreadful curse to befall her again. But, looking at the chocolate packet next to her clock, she couldn't help thinking that this birthday hadn't really been all that bad.

And, as Nathan made his way into the bed, a few centimetres away from her, clad in only boxer shorts she realised that it had actually been much better than she had expected. In fact, it just might have been the best bad birthday ever.

Once he was settled under the covers, with them only at halfway up deliberately so that he could taunt her with that delicious chest of his, he looked over at her. "You think you can handle the thunder or would you like to me to get in there with you?"

Normally she hated guys like this who thought they were god's gift to women. But, she just couldn't hate Nathan. If she was really honest with herself, Nathan really was God's gift to women. One of them at least.

Maybe he wasn't as bad as the others. After all, he had bought her chocolate. Ah, chocolate. The ultimate gift. But that was going off track. She was thinking of Nathan. But she could think of chocolate and Nathan…

Haley screwed up her eyes hard and decided she didn't want to go down that road. At least, not while he was in the same room as her.

"No, I don't," she replied curtly.

"As long as you're sure." And with that he flashed that sexy smirk at her as he reached up to turn the lamp off, casting them into darkness once more. "Goodnight, Haley James."

"Goodnight, Nathan Scott," she returned and snuggled down into bed, purposely lying so that she faced him. The position meant she saw the alarm clock once more.

00:01

"Sweet dreams," Nathan's deep voice drifted though the air.

Haley grinned to herself, wondering what the day would bring.

THE END