Desiree had been working for Peyton for a month, and had quickly become invaluable to Peyton. The girl went above and beyond everything she was asked to do, and she was clever and funny. She and Lucas hit it off immediately. Of course, Lucas got along well with anyone who helped him spend more time with his wife. It had gotten to the point that Peyton could go to the office only when necessary, and still be sure that everything was going to get done.
She and Desiree were sifting through a stack of mail early in the afternoon, when Nathan, Haley, Brooke, Skills and Lucas walked through the door like they were on a mission. As it turned out, they were.
"Um...what's this?" Peyton asked skeptically.
"We're taking you hostage," Brooke said with a devilish grin.
Lucas walked around Peyton's desk and grabbed her things, tossing her phone into her purse and grabbing her jacket from the back of the chair.
"Should I call the police?" Desiree teased, making everyone laugh
"Seriously, what's going on?" Peyton repeated.
"Well, the boys don't have practice today, and Mrs. James Scott skipped work..." Brooke started.
"I called in sick!" Haley interrupted.
"Yeah, you're falling apart," Brooke scoffed sarcastically, rolling her eyes as they all laughed. "She's faking. Anyway, we've decided that we're taking a trip down memory lane, and your presence is required."
"Meaning...?" Peyton asked as she took her bag from Lucas and slipped on her coat as he held it out for her.
"Meaning, me, you and Brooke are going to go do something, and those three are going to go do something," Nathan explained.
"Well it's nice that you guys have all just decided that I can take the afternoon off work. What if I was busy?" Peyton asked incredulously.
"You're not!" Desiree said with a laugh. "Go. I'll lock up later and make sure the days' reports are on your desk so you can look at them first thing tomorrow."
"No excuses, babe. Let's go," Lucas said, placing his hand on the small of her back as they all left her office.
The couples said their goodbyes and Brooke, Peyton and Nathan got into Brooke's vehicle while Lucas drove Nathan's SUV with Haley and Skills as passengers.
"You know, a little heads up would have been appreciated," Peyton said, turning to see Nathan as he sat in the back seat.
"The ambush was more fun," he said with a shrug.
"Where are we going, anyway?" she asked.
"Where do you think?" Brooke asked, laughing, since she and Nathan had thought the answer would be obvious.
"The ice cream place at Wrightsville," Peyton said with a smile.
"Where else?" Nathan asked. "We practically lived there until...well, Lucas and Haley came along."
They drove the rest of the way, recalling some of their most memorable moments from within the walls of the little creamery. Days when they'd beg a parent to drive them, then walking and biking once they hit their early teens, then driving themselves once they were old enough. It had always been their meeting place. After parties or when one of them needed to vent and complain about parents or boys or basketball. There were tears spilled, harsh words spoken, and a lot of ice cream eaten.
Once they stepped inside, Brooke and Peyton gravitated towards their regular booth, the one they'd always taken when it was available. The initials NPB were still etched in the top of the table, a mark they'd left when they were 15. That was the way it had always been - the girls would sit down and Nathan would go to the counter and get Brooke a chocolate milkshake, Peyton an ice cream sundae, and a strawberry banana shake for himself.
"God, when was the last time we even hung out?" Brooke asked as she played with the straw of the milkshake Nathan had just set in front of her.
"We hang out all the time," he pointed out.
"No, I mean just the three of us. Alone. No husbands or wives or kids or anything," Brooke clarified, watching as Peyton and Nathan exchanged a glance.
"I can't even remember," Peyton said with a sad smile. "That's pathetic!"
"It kind of is," Nathan agreed. "It used to be the three of us against it all. Or at least, the two of you against me, against it all."
"Well, maybe if you weren't such a dick..." Brooke started, before Nathan cut her off.
"Hey! I wasn't always a dick," he said, then they all laughed that he even had to say statements like that.
"It really was always the three of us, wasn't it?" Peyton asked, pulling the cherry off the top of her sundae just like she'd always done, and rolling her eyes when Brooke and Nathan noticed that fact. They used to make fun of her, asking why she didn't just ask for it without, but she never did, and Brooke always stole the cherry anyway.
"Since we were 10," Brooke said with a smile, reaching for the piece of bright red fruit.
"You remember that time we snuck into the beach house and decided to camp out in the living room?" Nathan asked. "We didn't tell anyone we were going and Larry got soooo mad."
"He said you kidnapped his baby," Brooke added.
"You did! I didn't want to go. You two made me, enticing me with the promise of Swedish Berries," Peyton said, narrowing her eyes at the less-than-pleasant memory. "There were no Swedish Berries."
"Whatever. We had an awesome fort made out of sleeping bags, though," Nathan said proudly. "Until Brooke got mad that I wouldn't give her her own room and tore it all down."
Brooke just shrugged her shoulders innocently and smirked at the memory of the three of them, young and giggly, collapsing together amid pillows and polyester.
"That was the first time we really started looking out for each other though," Peyton pointed out. "Before then it was just me and Brooke, and we'd hang out with you on the playground. After that, we were pretty much inseparable."
"You remember when we all got sick in the 8th grade? And your dad was away so we all stayed at Nathan's place," Brooke asked, leaning forward and placing her elbows on the table in front of her.
"Thank God Dan was away," Nathan scoffed. "Mom was awesome though, huh? Set us all up in the spare bedroom on the king size bed. You know the worst part of that whole week?"
"What?" Brooke and Peyton asked in unison.
"That's when I started liking this one," Nathan said, pointing at Peyton and watching her blush. "And I was stuck in a bed with her and couldn't do anything about it."
"You were also vomiting pretty severely, there, Romeo," Brooke said, making both girls laugh.
"I was still your first kiss," he said proudly.
"Yeah," Brooke and Peyton both said.
"What?!" Peyton shouted. "You told me Rory Holmes was your first kiss!"
"Did I? Oops," Brooke said innocently, shrugging her shoulders and sipping her milkshake. She'd clearly mislead her best friend for years about that fact.
Peyton and Nathan shared a look, both wondering how it was that Brooke had kept that secret from her best friend for so many years.
"Wait, I was both of your first kisses? How awesome is that?" Nathan smiled.
"It just means you were kind of a slut, Nate," Peyton said seriously. Both women laughed at the wounded look on his face before each leaning in to give him a kiss on the cheek.
"Who was your first kiss, though?" Brooke asked, her tone suggesting that she wasn't going to make fun of him, she was just curious.
"Um...Peyton was," he admitted, fearing that he'd only make Brooke upset, not that he'd ever lead her to believe she was his first.
"Really?" Brooke asked, then pointed at her best friend. "Because you, missy, didn't tell me until after I told you I kissed Rory!"
"You wanted to have your kiss so bad! I didn't want to steal your thunder," Peyton explained, wincing as she waited for Brooke to fly off the handle.
"So you kissed when...like, middle of 8th grade?" Brooke asked, watching with wide eyes as Peyton and Nathan nodded.
"You two are serious secret keepers!" Nathan laughed. "I thought you told each other everything, which, I'm not gonna lie, was a little scary for me."
"Oh trust me, Nathan. I know things about you that you would probably never want to have repeated," Brooke said, raising her eyebrow mischievously.
"Noted. Remind me never to piss off Brooke," Nathan said, looking at Peyton, who was stifling a laugh.
"Sorry. Girls talk," Peyton said with a shrug of her shoulders as she spooned another bit of ice cream into her mouth.
"So where do you think our other halves went?" Nathan asked after the laughter subsided.
They all looked at each other, and said in unison, "River Court."
----
No one had even needed to ask where they were going before they ended up there. It was just a given that they'd end up at the one place that had always been a second home. It had seen heartaches and tears and a lot of firsts. The first time Nathan and Lucas ever really spoke was on that court. The first time Skills dunked the ball was on that old chain hoop. The game that changed it all was played there. And then it was the place where they all signed their names, all aware that everything was about to change again, but completely unsure of where their lives would take them.
These three were really happy that it brought them right back here, to this court, with the same friends.
"I can still remember the first day we came here," Haley mused as she lay on the grass on a blanket next to the old blacktop where the three of them had spent so much of their lives. "You two were so excited, so I was, too, because you were so happy."
"Keith brought us," Skills said. "What were we, 10? And we all shot around for the whole day. Except little Haley James, who read a book on the sidelines. Back before there were even picnic tables."
"I didn't really care about basketball," she pointed out.
"Until you hooked up with Nathan," Lucas laughed.
"So! Like you ever cared about...OK whatever, you and Peyton are like the same person," she said, before she could stop herself from saying the words. She knew he hated when people said that.
"She's hotter though, man," Skills said seriously, making them all nod their heads, then laugh.
"I remember one time, I had this huge fight with my sister, and my parents took her side," Haley started. "I went to Luke's place, but he wasn't there, so I figured he'd be here. The two of us just sat here till after dark, talking and laughing. I think that's when I started thinking of you as a brother."
"Hales," Lucas sang, slinging his arm around her and pulling her into his side.
"I'm serious. My own family was so messed up. I was the baby, and I just got lost in the shuffle. That was the night you and I promised we'd always be best friends," she said, unable to hide the tear forming in her eye.
"I had my first kiss here," Skills said proudly, moving on to a less sentimental topic.
"Me too," Lucas and Haley both said.
"Wait, you two...?"
"No!" they both said emphatically, looking at each other with wide eyes as Skills laughed at their eagerness to stop his thoughts from going any further.
"Ashleigh Lambert," Lucas informed them.
"Josh Larkin," Haley added.
"Rebecca Gill," Skills said.
"You kissed Rebecca Gill? Nice work, man," Lucas said appreciatively, bumping fists with his friend.
"Hate to burst your bubble, guys, but last I heard, Rebecca Gill was an exotic dancer at that sketchy place just outside of Raleigh," Haley said, barely able to contain her laugh. Lucas and Skills just shrugged their shoulders at that piece of information.
"You remember when I quit junior leagues?" Lucas asked.
"Yeah," Haley and Skills said in unison.
"I was on that team with Nathan, remember? And Dan was always there," Lucas started. "Mom couldn't even come to my games, and Keith told me that I didn't have to play on that team if I didn't want to. He said that no matter what, the River Court would always be here so I could play. He told me that the friends I made here would be the ones I had forever because we were all tied together through the game."
"He was right," Skills insisted. "Think about it. Me, you, Mouth, Junk, Fergie. Even Jimmy."
"And me!" Haley cried indignantly.
"And Haley," Skills added with a smile. "Sure we went on to wrack up some points in Varsity, and got some good records in college. But I don't think I've ever had as much fun playing as I have here on this court."
"Me neither," Lucas added.
"No pressure, no obligations. No crowd, except your friends," Haley mused, resting her head on Skills' shoulder as she spoke. "It's kind of amazing that we had this place."
They all smiled at each other, then, knowing the significance the space held for them all. Then the three of them got to talking about how much things had changed since they were young kids with nothing but books and basketball and best friends.
----
"I can still remember the day Nathan told me he wanted to date you," Brooke said to Peyton, watching as Nathan covered his eyes with is hand, wincing at the memory.
"Oh really," Peyton said, smiling as she bumped Nathan's shoulder.
"It was the same day he made varsity," Brooke explained. "He was so excited, you remember?"
"Yeah, because I'd finally done something I thought would make Dan proud. He just gave me a lecture about how much responsibility it was, and how mediocrity would get me nowhere," Nathan added. "Quite the pep-talk."
"But I got us a six pack and we went to my place because my parents were out of town," Brooke said with a smile, laughing at her 15-year-old self's ability to get alcohol.
"Wait, when did you get the time to tell her that you liked me?" Peyton asked, turning to Nathan. "We just sat in Brooke's room all night and ate pizza and talked."
"He couldn't take his eyes off you all night!" Brooke laughed. "You went to the bathroom and his gaze was pretty much fixed on your ass. I pulled it out of him."
"You always were an ass man," Peyton said, laughing as Nathan blushed and shook his head.
"But you said you hated me the next day," Nathan pointed out with a sad smile.
"Because you told me that 'real girls' threw themselves at you all the time, and my window of opportunity was closing!" Peyton said in a mocking tone, using air quotes to prove her point.
"Wow. I really was a dick," he admitted shamefully.
"Yeah, you were," Brooke laughed. "And then that weekend, you hooked up with Taylor James, who as it turns out, is..."
"Haley's sister!" Peyton finished, laughing at their town's twisted relationships once again.
"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," Nathan said, holding his hands up in defeat. "I still got you to agree to be my girlfriend."
"You know what was funny, though?" Peyton asked, turning in her chair to face him. "All you did was say 'be my girlfriend'. And when I asked you why, you said 'because I'm Nathan Scott.' And you gave me that damn smirk and I was under your spell."
"I'm surprised that's all it took," Brooke said seriously.
"So was I," Nathan laughed. "Trust me, that smirk didn't phase Haley. She called me on that pretty quickly, actually. Told me that all my 'bluster and bullshit' wouldn't work on her."
"Love at first sight, huh?" Peyton teased, making them all laugh again.
----
"You ever think how crazy it is that we are with the three people who were basically the most popular kids in school?" Lucas mused, looking towards his two oldest friends.
"Every day," Skills admitted.
"What's even crazier is that I can't really see it being any other way, you know?" Haley added. "I mean, can you imagine if Peyton and Nathan stayed together?"
"Don't want to," Lucas insisted adamantly, closing his eyes tightly at the thought.
"Or if you never joined the team?" Haley continued. "How different would everything be?"
"You'd still be lil Haley James, the bookworm, and me and Luke would be just River Court legends, not River Court legends and state champions."
"It's Luke and I," Haley corrected absently, making them all laugh.
"She'd probably still be a teacher," Lucas said to Skills, and they all nodded after trading glances.
"Oh, wow," Haley said abruptly, moving her hand to rest on the left side of her stomach.
"What is it? You OK?" Lucas asked frantically.
"Yeah. They're just kicking me really hard," she said with a laugh.
"Can I?" Lucas asked, holding out his hand to hover over her belly.
"Sure," she said, watching as his eyes lit up a the tapping against his hand. "You'd think you'd be used to this by now."
"It's amazing, though," he admitted. "I'll never get used to it."
"Quit your hogging," Skills complained, reaching over to feel the sensation for himself. His friends watched as his eyes went wide in awe. "Whoa."
Lucas and Haley could only laugh at his reaction.
"You and Brooke going to have any?" Haley asked, wiggling her eyebrows and smiling brightly.
"Damn, Haley, I'm already freaked out about you two having babies," he said, clutching his heart and making them all laugh again.
----
"OK, little Scott here apparently loves ice cream sundaes," Peyton said with a laugh, resting her hand on her stomach.
"He's kicking?" Nathan asked with wide eyes, reaching out and resting his hand next to hers.
"Nate, you've felt babies kick before," Peyton laughed, shooting a smiling Brooke a wink.
"Yeah. But ours is like a little drumline. And besides, how often does my best friend have a baby?" he asked sheepishly.
"You and Skills should have one," Peyton said, looking at Brooke, who rolled her eyes.
"Please," Brooke scoffed. Both Nathan and Peyton shot her a look, both knowing full well how badly Brooke wanted children of her own, and they were sure she'd gotten that point across to Skills before they'd even gotten too serious.
"Brooke," Peyton said imploringly.
"OK fine! Our babies would be beautiful, alright? I know that!" she said exasperatedly, making both her friends burst into laughter. "Yes, I've thought about it."
"Of course you have, honey," Peyton said, reaching for Brooke's hand across the table.
Nathan just sat back in his chair and smiled at his two oldest friends, admiring the women they'd both become, and how far away all three of them were from where they started out. Peyton was going to be a mother. And Brooke was in love like he'd never seen her before, and smiling - genuinely happy - for the first time in a long time.
If the rest of his life was spent in company like this, with his wife and children and his closest friends, he'd be a happy, happy man.
----
Lucas was already home when Brooke dropped Peyton off. She said goodbye to her two oldest friends and told them not to laugh at the way she had to maneuver herself to get out of the car, which, of course, made them laugh.
She walked in the house with something on her mind, and she didn't want to waste any time telling him.
"Hey," he greeted her, standing from his place on the sofa to help her with her things. "Have fun?"
"Yeah. It was really great actually," she said with a smile. "So listen, I've been thinking, and I want Nathan and Haley to be Godparents."
"You do?" he asked with a wide smile. "Really?"
"Yes," she insisted, sitting down on the couch. she immediately put her legs so they were resting on his lap, and he began rubbing her feet. "I mean, Nathan's your brother and Haley's your best friend. But also, they're just balanced, you know? Like if our child needs any guidance, those are the two people who will help him. Brooke will spoil him rotten, for sure. I just feel like...Nathan and Haley are amazing parents, and...I just want them to be Godparents."
"You could have saved that explanation, babe," Lucas said, his smile still in place. "I was going to suggest it, but I didn't want you to think I was just writing Brooke off."
"No! Of course not," she said quickly. "Brooke can be Godmother to the next one."
Her eyes were closed and she was tired, and he could tell she hadn't meant to say it, but he still had to call her on it.
"Next one?" he asked with a cheeky grin. Her eyes shot open to look at him and then she shook her head.
"Yes. Next one," she finally said. "Because there'll probably be a next one."
"Probably," he said softly, lifting her legs so he could move to kneel next to her on the sofa. "I love you."
"Love you, too," she said with a smile. "How was the River Court?"
"You just assume we'd go there?" he asked, and she raised her eyebrow at him, as if to ask where else they'd have gone. "It was great. Reminded me how amazing my life has been."
"Good," Peyton said with a smile.
He could tell she was ready to get some sleep, so he took her hand and pulled her up off the couch, kissing her quickly before she went to the bathroom to get ready for bed.
"Hey Peyt?" he called down the hall to her as she stood at the sink brushing her teeth. "Who was your first kiss?"
She just smirked at him, shook her head and kicked the door shut, and he laughed because that gave him his answer even though she hadn't said a word.
----
"How was the River Court?" Nathan asked as he and Haley settled into bed.
"Good. Nostalgic. You should have seen me, though. It took both of them to get me up off the grass when we were leaving," Haley said as she smiled and rested her hand on her stomach.
"Good. The bigger you get, the healthier they are," Nathan said, recalling the first time he said something similar to that, and her retort that he just wanted his son to be able to dunk. And Jamie was getting close...
"You think they're boys?" she asked as he turned out the light.
"Knowing the Scott genes? Probably. But I hope one is a girl," he said quietly, leaning in to kiss her shoulder as she lay with her back to him.
"I kind of hope so, too," she admitted.
They lay in the quiet for a while before he spoke again.
"Haley?"
"Yeah?" she asked through the yawn she was trying to suppress.
"Thank you," he whispered.
"For what?" she inquired, barely able to keep her eyes open.
"Everything."
----
Brooke was already sleeping when Skills let himself into her house. He'd had to go to his place to get clean clothes after his day with Haley and Lucas. He locked the door behind him and walked quietly up to her bedroom. He hadn't intended on waking her, but he just had to. And it didn't take much; as soon as he sat next to her on the bed, she stirred and smiled up at him.
"Hi," she said sleepily, watching as he pulled a white gerbera daisy out from behind his back.
"Hi," he said, dipping down to kiss her as she took the flower from him.
"What's this?" she asked, taking the stem of the flower between her fingers.
"You trust me?"
"Of course," she said, propping herself up on her elbow, wondering what he was getting at.
"Let's move in together."