Chapter 3(Haley)

Holiday From Real

"Lucas! Answer this damn door! I'm cold!" I stood outside of Lucas' door, the early morning wind cutting straight through my sweater. I heard Lucas groaning inside and then a crashing noise, followed by a few curses. Eventually though, the door swung open to reveal a dazed looking, shirt-less Lucas Scott. He was wearing sweat pants and his hair was all sticking out on one side.

He blinked several times at the harsh sunlight, "Hales…what the heck are you doing?"

I brushed past his body to go into his room and get out of the cold. He shut the door and turned to look at me. "Well? Haley, dude…it's like seven in the morning. What are you doing?"

I sat down on his bed, "What am I doing? What are you doing? Go put a shirt on, you're not at Chippendale's. I refuse to talk to you in a half-naked state."

Luke sighed and walked over to his dresser to find a T-shirt. Sure, Lucas had been my best friend since we were like nine years old and I'd seen him plenty of times without a shirt on during all those years. But now he'd passed that gangly, gawky teenage faze and actually had muscles. Seeing muscles on my best friend and appreciating how nice they looked, on some level made me feel weird. It was just better for all involved if he put a shirt on.

After he was decent, Lucas came and sat down on the bed next to me. He lifted up one of his feet and rubbed his shin where a light blue bruise was forming. "You see that, Haley? Waking me up at this hour. You made me bang my leg. It hurts."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, Yeah, wah wah, poor baby."

He lifted his foot all the way in the air and pushed it towards my face. "Wanna kiss it and make it better?"

"Aagh! Lucas Eugene Scott, get your nasty ass foot out of my face!"

He just shoved it closer to me of course so I had to take defensive actions. I grabbed the foot he was pushing towards me and started tickling the bottom. Lucas squealed like a girl and squirmed to get it away from me without braining me in the face. He grabbed my sides and started tickling me too. I gave a little shriek and fell back on the bed, squirming in all directions, trying to get out of his grasp. Lucas hovered over me, tickling with no mercy. I was reaching up and tickling him back and everything seemed normal, we were having fun, but then he stopped. Just stopped. I stopped a second after. I blinked my eyes to clear the tears from them and looked up at my best friend. He was staring down at me with a weird look on his face. His eyes caught me and held me in some sort of a trance. The only sound in the room was our breathing. I couldn't move. I was terrified of how we were looking at one another but I was also terrified to look away.

"Lucas! You up?" I heard Karen calling Luke from the hallway. And just like that the moment was gone, lost in the room like it never had been to begin with. Lucas pushed himself off me so fast; you'd think I was burning him.

"Uh…Yeah, mom. I'm up." His voice came out kind of rough and he was looking everywhere but at me.

This was hella awkward. I got off his bed and cleared my throat. "So I came by to see if we were still doing this thing today."

Lucas looked like a person who'd been about to fall and had just been handed a lifeline, "Um. Sure that sounds fine."

I walked over to him, "We need to work out some ground rules though, since you're a perv and all."

Lucas smiled, "What kind of rules?"

I held up my hand, counting off my fingers as I named them, "One: If your tongue comes anywhere near mine, I'm never talking to you again. Two: If either one of us wants to stop, we stop. No questions asked. Three: We only 'put on the love act' when someone is there to see us and it serves a purpose. Meaning no holding hands or anything when it's not going to get back to Nathan or Peyton." So far he'd been nodding his head along with my rules.

"Sounds fine to me."

I held up another finger, "I got one more. This one's a whopper." I grimaced, not even wanting to bring this up. "There are no feelings involved. None. Other than friendship of course." I hesitated, trying to judge his reaction. Was he going to be mad that I laid down this rule or worse, would he laugh at me even suggesting that feelings could happen?

Lucas rubbed his cheek with one hand and then stuck it out for me to shake, "Deal."

I smiled and placed my hand in his larger one, "Deal. Now go get dressed before we're late for our first day of school as boyfriend and girlfriend."

We walked to school the way we always did, joking and talking with one another. As soon as we got near Tree Hill High, I felt my chest clenching up though. This wasn't going to be normal. Pretending to be Luke's girlfriend? What had I even been thinking?

As if he could read my thoughts, Lucas wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I leaned into his warmth and away from the cold autumn breeze. He kept holding me, even when we walked into the school and to our lockers. Our lockers were right near each other, which both of us had been really glad of at the beginning of the year.

"How are my two new favorite lovebirds?" Luke and I both turned around to see Brooke Davis and Peyton Sawyer walking towards us. Brooke's voice sounded way to chipper for the morning time. I saw Peyton blanch at what Brooke said but she didn't seem surprised. Brooke must have laid down the groundwork for us.

Lucas looked at Peyton, "Ummm. Hey Peyton."

"Hey, Luke."

Welp…it was time to start earning my keep. I slid over to Lucas and interlaced our fingers. I think I surprised him but he kept his composure. Peyton's gaze immediately sank down to our locked hands and I saw anger quickly pass through her eyes.

"I gotta get to class, see ya Brooke." With that Peyton strode off down the hallway. I smiled, she shouldn't be mad; she's the one who'd given up on Luke.

A sly smile crossed Brooke's face. "Way to go Tutor Girl, this is totally going to work. I'm a genius! Feel free to kiss my shoes later." With that she flounced off down the hallway after Peyton.

Lucas turned towards me, "Walk you to English, girlfriend?"

I laughed, "Why I'd be delighted, boyfriend." We walked off down the hallway, me barely even noticing we were still holding hands.