Hey everyone. Thank you so much for the reviews! I know I say that every time, but I really do appreciate them. So here it is…Chapter 12.

Disclaimer: Only in my dreams do I own One Tree Hill…

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 12

It was past noon the next day when Nathan finally awake to a soft knock on his bedroom door. "Go away, Tim." Nathan mumbled as he buried his head under his pillow.

"It's Haley." A soft voice called from the other side of the closed door.

Haley. A thousands thoughts and emotions ran through his head at hearing her speak to him; the most dominant of them was the relief in knowing that she was fine. He quickly pulled on some sweatpants over his boxers and opened the door. "Hey," he said with a smile in a somewhat sleepy voice.

Without really thinking about it, she walked under his arm and collapsed on his unmade bed which was still warm in the spot that his sleeping body had laid in just moments ago. She silently thanked the Lord that all of his shades were drawn and that there was darkness at the moment in his room. She just laid on the bed for a few moments with her arms over her head and her eyes closed, trying to think about what to say.

Nathan watched her with an amused smirk on his face. Did she come over here just to sleep in my dark room? "So you're still hung-over?" He guessed with a small laugh.

"Yeah," she whined. She hadn't been hung-over since the first and only time she had ever gotten drunk a few years ago. She had only had one and a half beers, but the headache that had followed had been enough to convince her that if she never had anymore alcohol for the rest of her life it would be too soon. That headache, multiplied by 100, equaled this one.

"Yeah, you were pretty out of it last night." Nathan plopped down on his back next to her and stared at the ceiling.

"Peyton let me in, I hope that's ok." Haley said, suddenly feeling the need to clarify how she got into his condo.

"Yeah, it's cool." Nathan looked over at her and could see that her eyes were still shut and her arms tightly hugged her forehead. "Do you remember anything that happened last night?" He asked, making sure to keep his voice just above a whisper so he didn't hurt her head any more than it already hurt.

"Not really." She admitted. "I just know what Lucas told me, which isn't much. He did tell me that you brought me home though, so I just wanted to stop by and thank you."

"It was nothing. I'd do that for pretty much anyone." He joked.

"Oh really?" She said playfully as she finally opened her eyes and removed her hands from her head.

"Nah, only for one of my friends." He responded genuinely. He looked over at her to see her looking back at him and felt a smile spread across his face.

She was so happy to hear him acknowledge that they were, in fact, friends. She had felt that they were friends, but never really knew if he would call them that because of the whole 'Lucas' scenario. "Well, I guess that makes you a pretty good friend."

"What a night, huh?" Brooke said as she walked in on Lucas feeding his pet piranha.

"Yeah, did you get much sleep?" He asked casually as he closed the cap of the fish food bottle.

"Not too much." The truth was that she hadn't gotten any. She had been up all night either holding Haley's hair as she threw up or worrying over her friend as she lay sleeping.

"Well, hopefully you'll get some more tonight." Lucas looked over at Brooke to see her silky brown hair falling messily to her shoulders. It was noon, but neither of them had really woken up yet.

"Yeah…" Brooke said as she looked out the big glass doors leading to the balcony and watched the waves cashing down. She couldn't help but think of how close she had gotten to spilling her feelings to Lucas the night before. Would she ever have the courage to do it again?

"Hey, you were about to tell me something last night." Lucas reminded her as if reading her thoughts.

"Yeah, about that, um…how about we just forget it?" Brooke said pleadingly. Surely that little interruption last night was some kind of sign or omen.

"Okay…" Lucas said slowly. Man this girl confused him.

A few weeks had passed since the party incident and everything was getting back to normal. Lucas was getting over his fear of crabs, Brooke continued to hide her feelings, Peyton only watched Jake from the beach and never got the nerve to talk to him, and Tim was his normal idiotic self. The only thing that had really changed from a few weeks prior was the fact that Nathan and Haley now considered the other a friend and could now be seen talking to each other in public every so often.

Lucas and Brooke both just assumed that it was some sort of gratitude thing, not hating the guy that brought you home when you were completely wasted, while Tim and Peyton both assumed it was some sort of mercy thing.

"Isn't it weird having so many brothers and sisters?" Nathan asked as he carefully trimmed the edges off of a slightly overgrown bush in the front of the condos. "I mean, did you ever, I don't know, like fight for your parents' attention?"

"All the time!" Haley responded enthusiastically as she dug a hole to plant a few flowers. "But, I liked growing up in a big family. It was never boring." She pointed out.

"Yeah, I always wanted a brother or sister, then I found out about Lucas and, well, I didn't really want one anymore." Nathan smiled.

Haley completely understood that Nathan did not like Lucas and she really didn't hold it against him. There was no law that said one person had to like another, but that didn't stop her from wishing that her two best guy friends would get along every now and then.

"You're doing a wonderful job, Haley." Whitey praised as he walked up behind the two to inspect their work. "Nathan, I think you missed a spot." The old man said as he pointed to a nearby bush.

"Ok, Whitey, I got it." Nathan rolled his eyes as he walked over to the bush and carelessly chopped about half of it off. "Oops."

Haley covered her mouth so a laugh wouldn't escape. The bush now looked completely ridiculous! She knew Nathan well enough to know that he had done that on purpose, probably because Whitey had nagged him about it in the first place.

"Damn it Nathan! Look what you did! Now I'm going to have to buy a brand new bush!" Whitey exclaimed.

Nathan tried his hardest to stifle a laugh. He loved to get the old man all riled up. "My bad."

"Oh, never mind; just don't let it happen again." Whitey walked away as quickly as he had come, leaving Nathan and Haley to stare at the disfigured bush.

"Nice work." Haley said sarcastically.

"Thanks," he replied, showing that famous grin of his. He turned to the next bush and started to trim it carefully again.

Haley bent down and gently pulled the little purple flowers out of the plastic containers they had been resting in and set them in the hole.

"Hey Nathan," Tim said as he walked up to them. "Haley." He said, acknowledging her presence.

Haley knew about the role Tim played in the whole Chris Keller ordeal a few weeks ago and had completely forgiven him. How was he supposed to know what Chris would do? Granted, the whole idea of putting vodka in water is totally wrong…but….Stop ranting, Haley.

"So, Nate, did you hear?"

"Hear what?" Nathan asked, already pretty uninterested in what Tim was about to say.

"There's a whipped cream bikini contest down at the beach tonight. We are so there!" Tim held his hand up in the air, obviously looking for a high five, and was disappointed when Nathan left him hanging.

"I don't think so, Tim. I have to work tomorrow." Nathan answered as he went back to chopping off bits and pieces of the green shrub.

"Come on, man. This is a WHIPPED CREAM BIKINI CONTEST. You live for this stuff!"

Haley looked up from her flower planting, curious to hear his response. She had gotten the feeling that Nathan really didn't enjoy things like that as much as he proclaimed to.

"I can't tonight." Nathan said simply.

"Whatever," Tim said, almost in a hurt tone, and then turned to leave.

"Tim," Nathan called after him. "How about this weekend we go shoot some hoops or something?" He suggested. Ever since the Haley incident, Nathan had sort have been giving Tim the cold shoulder. Haley had given him grief about if for weeks, saying she was fine and that Tim didn't know what was going to happen. He knew that she just wanted to see them be good friends again, but it still got on his nerves a little bit. How could she be so sweet towards a person that was partially the reason that she was nearly hauled off to Chris Keller's place?

Both Tim and Haley smiled wide as Tim eagerly accepted and then went back up to the condo.

"That was really nice, Nathan." Haley praised. "Did you see how happy that made him?"

He had seen, but he had also seen how happy it made her, which in itself was a motivating factor. Did she have any idea how damn cute she could be?

Haley watched him laugh and noticed that his laughter made her even happier. Her smile grew 10 times wider as she watched him. Did he have any idea how cute he could be?

Just then, Nathan's cell phone rang from his pocket. He quickly pulled it out and fumbled to get it opened. "Hello?" He said once he had finally succeeded. "Hey Mom."

Haley studied Nathan's face carefully. He really didn't talk about his mother too much, she had always just assumed that maybe Deb was a sore spot, kind of like Dan was to Lucas.

"What? Tonight?" Nathan almost yelled.

Haley saw a hint of anger creep across his face.

"Yeah, bye." Nathan roughly hung up the phone and looked up to see Haley watching him with questioning eyes. She was obviously waiting for an explanation. "Apparently my parents are driving down to have dinner with me tonight." He sighed.

"Well, that sounds nice." Haley replied in a sweet tone.

"Yeah, well it's not." He replied bitterly. He really didn't want to deal with Deb and Dan right now. This whole summer was about getting away from them.

Haley suddenly realized what it meant that Nathan's parents were coming down for an evening with their son, that Dan's other son was going to be right across the hall. Oh boy.