Chapter 22
"Psst Ollie... Ollie?"
"Shh Jess. We'll get a detention." Ollie whispered sideways.
"Just listen it'll like completely make your day."
"After class okay." Ollie whispered with finality, noticing the teacher looking up from his desk.
"Miss Scott. Miss Seddyn, is there a problem?" their math teacher Mr Donald asked condescendingly glaring down at them from the front of the math class.
"No sir" they both said with a hint of irritancy in their voices, he definately was not one of their more favourite teachers.
"Get on with your work and be quiet then." He ordered.
They put their heads back down to focus on the boring textbook work that they got set nearly every period, grumbling silently in their head about how unfair it was having to work in silence. In most classes, that amount of quiet whispering would be allowed, but not with Mr Donald. He wasn't exactly the kind of teacher that students looked forward to having, even though he only had one rule. Then again, that rule was to sit down and work silently, at all times. Not quietly, silently. It didn't really help much that he wasn't the most, well, interesting teacher either.
As soon as the bell went, after what seemed like forever, everyone dashed from the class, eager not to spend another second going over the laws of inequalities.
"Okay, guess what happened at Herons in the weekend?" Jess asked excitedly pulling Ollie to the side of the corridor. This was the first moment she had had a chance to tell her and had been dying to since it happened during the weekend.
"I dunno. What?" Ollie urged eagerly wanting Jess to spit it out
"Well, you know how cheerleaders stay in a different hotel than the basketballers at away games now to like avoid any room swapping?"
"Yeah." Ollie answered not too sure where Jess was going with her story.
"Well, Lauren decided to be her slutty self and sneak to the boy's hotel to see Duncan, who completely dumped her when he found out about her attacking you, by the way."
Ollie smirked, glad that Lauren had what she deserved by Duncan breaking up with her.
"Oh that's not all," Jess continued enthusiastically grinning, even though she and Lauren were in the same cheer squad; they weren't overly fond of each other. "When Duncan rejected her, she managed to get her hands on some drinks and apparently came stumbling back into our hotel at like 1 in the morning. But on her way in got caught by our coach who was like patrolling the halls."
"What happened?" Ollie grinned, it was sounding like karma had given Lauren what she deserved.
"Our Coach called Laurens parents. When everyone woke up in the morning, we could all hear her parents, who drove all the way there overnight, screaming at her. Something about no more chances and last straws. Anyway, she's being sent to boarding school in Arizona." Jess finished triumphantly.
Ollies mouth dropped open and she let out a happy but surprised laugh. "So she isn't coming back?"
"Nope. Great right?"
"Yes! It awesome. Serves her right too."
"Serves who right?" Ephraim asked annoyingly, nosily poking his head in between them. He loved getting under Jessica's skin.
"Lauren Burgess. She 's being sent to boarding school."Ollie grinned at him.
"Dammit. That girl was fine."
"Oi Ephraim!" Ollie exclaimed whacking him on the arm. "She attacked me."
"Aahh I was just kidding, don't hurt me." he laughed raising his arms to protect himself from Ollie as Jess rolled her eyes at them amusedly.
"Fine, as long as you were joking." She smirked.
"Good. Now that you've stopped heartlessly beating me, I have something for the two of you" he said handing them each a Tric flier. "I actually took your advice Ollie and asked Jeremy if he wanted to play with me."
Ollie felt a slight pang of jealousy, even though she knew she had no right to, considering she had in fact suggested Kate herself and hadn't touched an instrument for months.
"So do you reckon you can both come?" he asked glancing at both of them.
"Yeah I probably can." Jessica told him, softening a little toward after being personally invited.
Ollie nodded as her response.
"Great. I'm going to go pin some of these up some where." He said excitedly before leaving with more fliers. "See you later."
Jess watched him leave then turned to her friend. She had known Ollie a long time, and lately, she had just seemed different and distant, but every time she asked what was up, Ollie made up some excuse to brush off the question. Ollie not being the one to play with Ephraim was just another thing her friend was doing that was out of character. So, keeping her tone of voice casual she asked, "So why aren't you gonna play with Ephraim? You were great last time."
"I'm just not that interested in music anymore," she said vaguely and before Jess could respond muttered, "I have to go to the bathroom."
With that, Ollie walked away, leaving Jess standing there confused by her friend's odd behaviour. It wasn't that she didn't trust Jess, its just that, still, she wasn't quite ready for anyone to know about Haley yet.
Nathan was sitting, studying the flier in his hands. Ephraim had given it to him at breakfast and now was the first chance he had gotten to look at it. He knew that he was going to have to go the concert, even though in some ways he didn't want to. Of course he wanted to go to support his godson and watch him play, but without a doubt, Haley would be there too. Be there fooling his brother, his daughter and his friends.
The phone rang beside him, causing him to lift his gaze from the flier in order to answer it.
"Hello?" he said into the receiver.
"Hi. Is this Nathan?" a female voice responded from the other end.
"Yeah"
"Ok hey Nate, its Rachel."
"Oh, hi. How's your trip going?"
"Yeah, it's been great. That's actually sort of why I'm calling. I think I'm going to be in Tree Hill by Friday and I was thinking about taking up your offer from a couple of days ago to catch up." She said into the phone sweetly.
Nathan grinned against the receiver, "This Friday?"
"Yeah. Oh, is that a problem?"
"No that's perfect actually, there's this concert at Tric that I'm going to. We could go together." He suggested.
Rachel laughed, amused that even after all this time, Tree Hill hadn't changed a bit and everyone still spent their nights out at quaint little Tric. While the idea of the small town club from her teenager years didn't overly excite her, the thought of Nathan Scott did.
"Sure Nathan. I'll see you then."
"Ok great. Bye Rachel.
Smirking he hung up the phone. That had actually worked out kind of perfectly for him. Rachel always had known how to have a good time. Also with her there, Haley wouldn't be able to get to him at all because he would be busy with Rachel. It would probably hurt Haley though, something he considered to be another perk. It was about time he got back into the world of dating and women. Rachel Gatina was just the person to throw him right back in.