Chapter 5
The group walked out of the school, towards the parking lot, where they piled into Peyton's convertible and Lucas' classic Mustang. The café was only a few blocks away, but it would have taken too much time out of their class period to walk.
"Hey, Mom." Lucas said as he walked through the door, leading the rest of the group inside. Haley followed everyone towards what she guessed was there regular booth. Nathan had a hand on the small of her back, and she couldn't help but like the warm feeling that was growing inside of her with his touch.
He gestured for her to enter the booth before him, and then he sat next to her. Next to him was Brooke, and opposite her were Skills, Bevin and Fergie. Lucas, Peyton, and Mouth all grabbed chairs from other tables and sat at the end of the booth.
"Burgers and Cokes for everyone?" A frazzled woman in her late 30's asked the table. The place wasn't that busy but she was the only one, other than the cook, there and she was in a bit over her head.
Everyone nodded, "Mom, this is Haley," Lucas introduced, "Haley this is my mom, Karen." Haley gave a little wave as she couldn't reach the woman to shake her hand.
Karen smiled at her before she walked away to place the orders with the cook and the group of students continued talking. "So you guys come here everyday for lunch?" Haley asked.
"Yup, Karen doesn't charge us for the food; it's pretty much the cheapest thing to do." Mouth explained.
"And when you are a broke high school student, that's pretty important." Nathan added in.
Haley laughed, and nodded in agreement. "So with this whole cheerleading thing, is it just at football games, or do you actually do the competitions too?" Haley asked, directing her question towards Peyton and Brooke.
"Well the varsity squad only cheers at Basketball games, and we only do one competition a year, because that's all the school can afford for us." Brooke explained.
"And you want to tell us why that is again Brooke?" Peyton prompted her best friend.
"Because, as the captain of the squad, I thought we should have new uniforms, and the only way that I could convince Principal Turner to give them to us is by giving up two other competitions. But the others don't really matter; the Sparkle Classic is the best one in North Carolina." Brooke explained once again.
"You should have seen the first uniforms she tried to get; they weren't even the school colors." Lucas announced, he had been forced to listen to Peyton and Brooke argue over the style of them for over a month.
Everyone laughed as Brooke gave Lucas the evil eye, "Is it my fault that pick and silver is a much better combination than blue and black?"
Haley laughed even harder, "Ok, I'm really glad that I don't have to wear a pink and silver uniform."
"Yeah, none of us really wanted to look like giant bottles of Pepto." Peyton said, joining in on her new friend's laughter.
Brooke reached to her left and across Lucas to pinch her unsuspecting best friend. Peyton abruptly stopped laughing and glared at Brooke. "Not cool, B. Davis." Peyton scolded while pointing a finger at Brooke.
The look between the two girls made everybody, including Haley, laugh even harder. However, Brooke reached behind Nathan and pinched Haley on the neck while everyone was still laughing. "Ow." Haley yelled as she rubbed the now red spot on her neck. "You don't have to get violent Tigger."
"Oh yes I do, New Girl. I am your captain! It's my job to keep you and Goldilocks in line." Brooke explained.
"Fine, just use your words next time!" Haley explained, still rubbing the sore spot on her neck.
"Seriously Brooke, I don't think you realize just how much nail you put into your pinches." Nathan commented as he inspected Haley's neck and could see three distinct nail marks.
"Eh, you are just happy that I gave you an excuse to be that close to the new girl." Brooke smiled at the two in her teasing way.
While Haley was looking at her new friend disbelievingly she didn't notice Nathan's next action. Before she knew it there was a muscular arm around her shoulder's pulling her towards him, "Hey, I'm not complaining." He said while smiling at Haley then at the rest of the group. All of them gave him a knowing look; it was no secret that Nathan Scott was a player. Haley didn't notice that she was now leaning against Nathan; all she cared about were the numerous eyes on her and the furious blush on her cheeks, which she was doing her best to make go away.
Thankfully Karen showed up with the food, allowing all the hungry teenagers to be distracted from the new couple, all of them except Nathan and Haley. Those two looked at each other, both now smiling like crazy. Nathan winked at her then grabbed a fry off of his plate.
Haley couldn't help the smile that was growing on her face after she broke her gaze with Nathan. The conversation turned to other topics once the group began eating, and no one, except for Nathan and Haley, noticed that his arm was still around her and that she was leaning against him.
"Why are you eating my fries?" Nathan asked awhile later once he'd actually caught Haley stealing the French fries off of his plate.
"Because mine are all gone." Haley explained as if it were the most obvious thing ever.
"That makes no sense, you only ate like 3 bites of your burger, if you're still hungry why don't' you eat the rest of that?" Nathan asked.
Haley rolled her eyes, "Because I'm not hungry for a burger, I'm hungry for fries. Plus you aren't eating yours, so I thought I would help you out." She said while smiling sweetly and innocently at him.
Now it was Nathan's turn to roll his eyes, "I was saving them for later." He tried to make an excuse so he could keep pretending that Haley stealing his fries was bothering him, when in reality he thought it was incredibly cute.
Their eyes locked on one another, and everyone else at the table just stared at them. "Oh my god, would you two just make out already?" Brooke exclaimed as the rest of the group laughed. "All the flirting is killing us." She exclaimed.
Haley blushed but didn't avert her eyes from Nathan's until she fixated a glare on Brooke. "You know if we just started doing that Tigger, you'd be complaining about feeling nauseous."
"She's got you there Cheery, how many times have you told Peyton and me to quit making out so you wouldn't loose your lunch?" Lucas asked.
"Alright fine, but you two are really cute together, why haven't you started making out?" Brooke, asked the new couple. "If I were you New Girl, I'd already be topless in the back of his car."
"Yeah, but I'm not a skank." Haley said with a teasing smirk directed at Brooke.
Brooke looked at her new friend in shock, she picked up a fry and through it at Haley for revenge. Now it was Haley's turn to be in shock she picked up one of Nathan's fries and threw it back.
"Okay, see now you are just wasting the fries; which is totally not cool." Nathan said as the girls tried to hold an evil stare contest for as long as they could before breaking into laughter.
"So, who else is glad Haley moved here?" Fergie asked the group, "With out her we never would have had a fry-chick-fight at lunch."
A chorus of "yeah" and "I'm glad" came from the group; Haley just rolled her eyes and went to sneak another fry from Nathan's plate. Nathan slapped her hand away, she gave him a sad puppy look, to which he responded "Haley you wasted fries, you don't get anymore."
"Aw, come on Nathan please." She said sticking her lip out like a little kid.
"You have to respect the fries Haley." Nathan came back with again, while trying not to cave into the look she was giving him.
"Please Nathan." She said again this time drawing a little heart in the air with her fingers.
Well there was absolutely no way he could hold out against the look she was giving him now, "Fine, eat them." He resigned the argument and pushed the plate in front of her.
"Yay!" Haley said as she began to greedily eat the fries.
"I never thought I'd see the day that Nathan Scott gave into a girl." Skills commented while shaking his head as if he were disappointed in his friend.
Haley just smiled innocently at the rest of the group, "I tend to have that effect on boys."
Brooke, Peyton, and Bevin gave knowing nods of confirmation, as they too have the same effect on guys. But the boys looked around in confusion; none of them had been so obviously played before. "Wait, you don't have that effect on me!" Lucas exclaimed as he pointed at Peyton.
"Sure she does." Brooke said confidently, "How else do you explain painting her toe nails?"
"You said you'd never tell anyone about that!" Lucas screeched as he pointed at Peyton accusingly.
"She guessed, I didn't say anything." Peyton tried to defend herself.
At this point Skills was laughing almost hysterically at the expression on his friend's face. "What are you laughing at? How many times has Bevin Notebook-ed you now?" Lucas asked, and was very delighted to see the smile fall right off of his face.
Bevin smiled proudly, "Don't forget about Titanic and a Walk to Remember. He loved those movies."
By now everyone was laughing except for Skills, he didn't like that everyone knew he would willingly watch chick flicks. "Shouldn't we be getting back to class now?" He asked, but only because he wanted the teasing to end, not because he actually thought it was time to go back to school.
Peyton looked at her watch, just to double check how much time they had left. "Crap, it's almost 12:10 we got to go."
Everybody hurriedly got up, said good-bye to Karen, and walked out the door.
"What's your next class Hales?" Nathan asked her as they were sitting closely in the back of Peyton's convertible so everyone could fit in it.
"Drama," She said after looking at her schedule.
"Alright, I'll walk you to class then." They looked at each other for awhile longer. Then Nathan brushed her hair, which was blowing in the wind, out of her face, and at that moment he couldn't help but love the way she was looking up at him. Then it happened, the world disappeared for the two, Haley no longer noticed that Bevin and Skills were sitting on the other side of her, or that Brooke was staring at them from the passenger seat, Nathan couldn't feel the wind on his face or notice anything other than the sparkle in her eyes. And, with a mutual unspoken agreement, the two kissed.
The kiss wasn't long, or anything as juicy as what Brooke would have liked, but it was enough, and exactly what Haley and Nathan were hoping for. The sparks for them flew with that one short kiss, and all either could do was smile.
"Did you see that?" Brooke asked while 'discretely' nudging her best friend.
"See what?" She asked casually as she had been focused on driving, she was breaking just about every speed limit on the way back to school, and was too busy looking for cops to see what was going on in her back seat.
"Well your back seat just saw some action from the two people who will probably become the newest 'it' couple at Tree Hill High." Brooke whisper-yelled at her best friend as if she were already writing the article for the tabloid.
"And I missed it? Damn," Peyton turned around to look at the two couples in the back, and then she directed her attention to Nathan and Haley, "Could you two kiss again, I totally missed it." The mood between the two was effectively broken by the skinny blonde, and both of them glared at her in response.
The car had started to drift to the side of the road as the driver was no longer paying attention, but still hitting the gas. The classic car brushed the side of the curb and Brooke grabbed the wheel before it could actually go up onto the sidewalk. "Peyton, less talking, more driving." Brooke said some what frantically as she tried to get the car back into its lane and the driver refocused.
"Damn girl, I almost forgot how crappy of a driver you were." Skills said, "Now let's try to make it back to school alive."
"Yeah, I'd be down with that, I'm too young to die." Haley agreed as she was now gripping onto Nathan for dear life. Peyton just waved off the concerns of the other passengers, "You guys are fine." She said nonchalantly, while everyone glared back at her.
AN::: well I hope that that was enough naley to keep you going for a little while. Don't worry there will definitely be more. And I know this is moving fast, but that's the only way I can stay interested enough in what I'm writing to actually finish it. But please give me more reviews I really do love reading what you guys think of it! And in the next chapter you will finally learn what is going on between Nathan and Lucas!