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Disclaimer: Neither One Tree Hill or James Lafferty belong to me, unfortunately.
Summary: Nathan Scott is the most popular guy in school and Haley James is just an average girl who happens to be friends with Nathan's half-brother, Lucas. What happens when each of their groups of friends end up staying next door to each other all summer?
A Summer to Remember
Chapter 8
"Where is Mr. Scott?" Mr. Durham asked impatiently as he kept his eyes on the office door.
"I'm sure he'll be here soon." Haley replied with little confidence in her voice. It was already 7:05. Where was he? Of course Nathan would be late when she had arrived a full 10 minutes early to get on Mr. Durham's good side.
"You better hope so little missy, or you will be doing your chores alone today." Mr. Durham chuckled deviously. Obviously he enjoyed making the lives of young people miserable.
"I'm here." Nathan said sleepily as he walked into the same office he and Haley had been in the night before, wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants. His short dark hair was all over the place and it was obvious that he had woken up just a few moments ago.
Haley looked at him and her heart started to speed up again. Why did it always have to do that when Nathan was around? God, even after just waking up he looked gorgeous. No! Haley, don't you remember the reason you're here? It's him! She told herself in an attempt to distract her mind from the place it was going.
"Well, Mr. Scott, I'm glad to see you finally rolled out of bed." The old man said sarcastically.
"Whitey! Did you make the reservation at the restaurant for tonight?" A woman's voice boomed over a speaker somewhere in the room. Nathan and Haley found themselves looking around the room for the origin of this loud but still pleasant voice.
"Camilla, not now, I'm in a meeting." 'Whitey' said as he leaned over his desk and pressed a small red button. Nathan found himself smirking at the nickname of his new 'boss'.
"Oh, with the spray painter kids?" Camilla asked in a sweet tone.
"Yes, now can you please stop interrupting?" He asked in an agitated but still loving voice.
"Oh, yeah, sorry hunny. Tell the kids that after they finish their work they can come up and get some cookies." Camilla said in an even sweeter voice. Haley couldn't help but smile; this woman seemed like the ideal grandmother.
As Haley admired the woman on the other end of the intercom, Nathan looked around the office, bored. It seemed smaller in the daylight, probably because the clutter was now clearly visible. It seemed that everywhere Nathan looked, there was a picture of a different basketball team, all with one thing in common, Mr. Durham. He must have been the coach, Nathan concluded.
"Camilla, these kids are supposed to be learning discipline from this job and you want them to eat cookies? I think that…Oh, never mind. Goodbye." Whitey pressed a button on the side of the desk that obviously turned the intercom off. "Sorry about that, My wife loves to talk."
Haley couldn't help but smile as a loving grin spread across Whitey's face at the mention of his wife. "Oh, no problem…Whitey." Nathan teased. He knew it probably wasn't a great idea to get under Whitey's skin right now, but he didn't care. This guy made him get up at 7:00 in the morning…lets just say, he had it coming to him.
"Don't call me that. Now where was I?"
"You were just about to tell us that you made a mistake last night and that we are free to enjoy our summer as we please." Nathan tried as Haley rolled her eyes. Why couldn't he just accept the fact that they were stuck doing this?
"Oh yes, now I remember. You were just about to tell me why you were late getting down here. Miss James was even here early so I see no reason why you should have been late."
"My alarm clock didn't go off." Nathan lied. It had gone off at 6:30, the time he had set it to, but he had been tired and 'accidentally' pressed the snooze button a few times.
"Make sure it doesn't happen again." Whitey warned in a stern voice. "Now, you two have a lot of work to do and I suggest you clean the pool before anyone gets out there."
"This is all your fault you know." Haley whined as she measured out the right amount of chlorine to add to the pool. "I didn't even do anything."
"Well I tried to tell the old man that, but he wouldn't listen." Nathan defended himself as he looked at the series of long tools hanging on the side of the fence and tried to decide which one he was supposed to use. "So don't go blaming this on me."
"How can I not blame this on you? If you would have just sucked it up and faced the fact that Lucas is living across from you, we wouldn't be here now! But no, you had to go and be your jerk of a self. And who came up with the dumb idea of spray painting grass? How first grade is that? And framing Lucas, real mature…"
Haley continued on as Nathan watched her with a smirk. God, she was cute when she was angry. Damn it! It happened again! Nathan Scott doesn't think of girls as cute! What the hell is wrong with me? Nathan questioned in his head. "You finished?" He asked when it seemed she had finished her rant.
"Yeah," She replied, exasperated. Obviously he hadn't heard a word of what she just said.
"Great. Now do you want to tell me which one of these long pole things I'm supposed to use to clean out this damn pool?" He asked, frustrated that he had to clean out the pool at all.
"Um, yeah, it's the one with a big net on the end." She put down the jug of chlorine and pointed past Nathan to a long blue pole that did indeed have a net on the end. "The one that looks like the thing you use to get a fish out of a fish bowl before you clean it." She clarified.
Nathan laughed a little at her explanation, man this girl could ramble on about anything. "Thanks." He walked over and grabbed the pole off the fence and started to run it through the water in an attempt to clear out as much of the dirt as possible.
"Tutor Girl!" Haley heard a feminine voice call from somewhere above her. There was no doubt that it had to be Brooke; she just didn't know where it was coming from.
Both Nathan and Haley looked up from their jobs and focused on Brooke who was yelling over the railing of a balcony on the third floor.
"Hey!" She called, not really caring that it was 7:00 in the morning and that almost none of the other residents were awake yet.
Haley waved back as her face turned a little red. Brooke was no doubt waking up some of the neighbors and Haley really didn't want to get in any more trouble with Whitey. "Brooke, if you want to talk can you please come down here?"
Nathan went back to his job of filtering the pool, not really caring what gossip the two girls were going to exchange. He couldn't believe he, Nathan Scott, captain of the basketball team and king of Tree Hill High, was actually cleaning a pool. He probably looked exactly like Peyton's pool boy that he had made fun of for the last 5 years. Great.
"Fine, I'll be down in a minute!" Brooke yelled as she ran back into her condo.
Haley chuckled, how could anyone not love Brooke Davis?
Haley glanced over at Nathan and couldn't help but notice that he had taken his shirt off, probably because even though it was only 7:00 in the morning, it was already 85 degrees. Wow, look at those abs…She found herself thinking. This was seriously getting old. Why did she keep thinking these absurd things? Because they're true. Ok, so maybe she kept thinking how gorgeous he was because he was in fact gorgeous. But just because she found him attractive didn't mean she had to actually like him as a person…
"Hey." Brooke's perky voice tore her from her thoughts.
"Hey, Tigger, you sure got down here fast."
"I know, I practically ran." Brooke's face was full of pride as she admitted that she was close to actually doing more than power-walking.
"So, do you and Lucas have any big plans for today?" Haley asked, almost hoping the answer was no because she didn't want to have to miss out on the fun.
"Not really. I tried to talk Luke into going back to the beach, but ever since the crab incident he's been a little freaked out by it." Brooke tried her hardest to stifle a laugh.
"Yeah, I noticed." Haley said back as she too felt the urge to laugh at Lucas being afraid of a little red crab.
"So, we're going shopping." Brooke replied happily.
"That's fun. What's the occasion?"
"Oh, I forgot to tell you. We're going to a beach party next Saturday night."
"What? Brooke! I have to work every day this week and I'll have nothing to wear!" Haley almost yelled. Why couldn't Brooke have told her about this party last night? Then maybe she would have gone shopping for a new outfit instead of on a run…
"Don't worry Tutor Girl, I got ya covered. It's a good thing I know your size because for this party you are totally going to get a Brooke Davis makeover." Brooke squealed.
"Ugh, Brooke, you do realize that the last time you gave me a makeover some creepy guy came up to me and thought I was a prostitute, right?" Haley groaned.
"That's in the past Haley. I mean the guy had obviously never seen a hooker before if he thought you looked like one. You totally had the whole 'sexy but not a whore' thing going on whereas a hooker always looks more like 'whore and not even that sexy.'"
"Wow, that makes me feel so much better." Haley said sarcastically.
"Ok, well, I really need to go get ready. Don't worry, I'll take care of the clothes." Brooke winked and then walked away, leaving Haley to continue trying to figure out the perfect amount of chlorine to add to the now pretty much clean pool.
Nathan finished filtering the pool and looked up to see Peyton waving to him from the gate. He put the pole back in its place hanging from the fence and then walked over to talk to her.
"Hey pool boy, what's happening?" Peyton joked.
"Very funny," He responded while leaning up against the side of the gate. "So what are you and Tim doing today?"
"Well, I'm going to the beach and if Tim comes down, then I might have to kill him." She said playfully. She had been going to the beach every day since the day they arrived. Mostly she did this because she loved the water, but she had also taken an interest in the dark haired guy she had seen with a baby on her first trip there. He was usually there with the little girl every day and Peyton loved to watch him interact with her.
"So, how's the company?" Peyton said, motioning with her head towards Haley. "You gonna make it through the summer without killing her?" Nathan turned around to look at the girl just as she spilt the chemical all over the table she had been measuring it on and muttered a curse word. He had to laugh a little, which made Peyton even more curious to hear his answer.
"I think I'll survive." He replied with a small grin, never taking his eyes from the small blonde haired girl.