A/N: Here's a long chapter for you! I was going to post this earlier, but then I was changing channels and Supernatural was on – I've never watched it before but it was just my luck that I found a seriously scary episode! It was really good though. But, you don't want to hear anymore about that, so on with the story. Don't forget to leave comments!

Chapter Sixteen

Jake looked carefully through the front and side windows before he got out of his car. Lucas had said that he didn't know of anyone from Tree Hill High living near his house, but you never knew who might be driving by. After he walked up to the front door of the Scott house, he rang the doorbell and it was answered by a short blonde woman he assumed was Lucas' mother.

"Jake?" she asked with a smile. When he nodded she reached out her hand. "Hi, I'm Deb."

Shaking her hand, he replied, "Hello. Are Lucas and Nathan home?"

"Yes, they're upstairs. They'll either be in Lucas' or Nathan's room," she explained as she stepped back to let him inside. "They're both on the right of the staircase."

"Thank you."

"Will you be staying for dinner?"

"Oh, that's not necessary, Mrs. Scott."

"It's perfectly alright," she reassured him. "You're a friend of Nathan's and you're living all alone in that apartment."

"Well, thank you, Mrs. Scott. That'd be great."

"You're welcome. And its Deb," she told him before she walked away.

Jake walked up the staircase and knocked on the first door on the right. "Nathan?"

His head popped out of the room next door. "Hey."

"Hey." Jake moved to follow Nathan into that room, but Nathan came out and closed it behind himself.

"This is my room," Nathan told him as they went inside the room Jake had originally knocked on.

"Wanna trade? I'll take this; you can have the apartment," Jake said appreciatively.

"What's so great about it? I mean, it's nice," Nathan amended, "but it's nothing spectacular. And you don't have anyone checking up on you."

"You have a PS2 in your room," Jake pointed out.

"You'd sacrifice your freedom for a PS2?" Nathan asked.

Rolling his eyes, Jake sat down on the chair by the desk, deciding to get to the point of his visit. "So where are we with Rachel?"

Nathan sighed. "Back to square one."

"What? You said that Rachel's been hitting on Lucas for years!"

"She has."

"So what happened?"

"Short version?" When Jake nodded, Nathan continued, "Lucas asked her out, she said yes and told him to meet her in the library. He went, and while they were talking she kissed him."

"Okay…"

"Brooke saw them."

"Brooke?"

"Yeah, our friend? The one who likes Lucas –"

"But hates Rachel."

"Right. Anyway, Lucas is brooding in his room. He's not gonna go out with Rachel."

"Right. So square one. Meaning, you're going to have to seduce the cheerleader."

Nathan made a face. "Can you not call it that? And, you clearly haven't met Rachel. Trust me, even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be the one doing the seducing."

Jake tried to suppress a grin, but failed. "Sounds like your type."

"Not funny."

"So what's the plan?"

"The plan? I'll talk to her tomorrow at school and see where it goes."

"Do you think you could go out with her by the end of the week?"

"Hopefully. I'd rather get it over with, seeing as -" Nathan started to tell Jake, but was interrupted by a tap on his door. "Come in."

Lucas took a step inside to deliver his message. "I'm going out. Can you tell my Mum I'll try to be back for dinner?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Thanks. See you Jake," he acknowledged before heading out.

"You think he's going to Brooke's?"

Before Nathan could answer Jake's obvious question, they heard a phone ringing. Nathan glanced at his, but it was off.

"It's mine," Jake told him before taking it out of his pocket.

"Who is it?"

"Huh?" Jake glanced up quickly from the display screen of his phone. "Oh it's…my Mum. I'll just go take this…" he gestured outside of Nathan's bedroom.

"Tell her I say hi."

"Sure," Jake said before he went out into the hallway. "Hey."

"Hi!" Peyton smiled into the phone when she heard him speak, and then scolded herself for being so cheesy. "For a minute there I thought you weren't going to pick up," she told him, trying not to sound accusatory. Then she wondered whether she was being clingy. Jake replied before she could get too far into the argument.

"Sorry. I was just in the middle of something. What's up?"

"Nothing, I was just wondering if you wanted to come over for dinner."

"Dinner? Tonight?" Jake gulped.

"Uh, yeah? Why, do you have plans?" Peyton asked.

"Sort of…Um…some old friends are in town," he lied, "and I met them this afternoon and they asked me to stay over for dinner."

"Oh."

"Sorry."

"No, that's okay."

"It's all kind of last minute –"

"It's fine," Peyton cut him off. "Don't worry about it."

"I could come over tomorrow," Jake offered.

"Yeah, okay. Tomorrow's good. I think Haley's going somewhere with Chris tomorrow night anyway, so we'll have the place to ourselves," Peyton pitched the idea more to herself than Jake. She knew should have realized that he might have already made plans.

She managed to sound like she honestly was fine with the arrangement so Jake was relieved. "Great. I'd love to chat, but –"

"Your friends are waiting. It's cool."

"See you at school tomorrow?"

"'Course. Bye."

"Bye."

"I'm coming," Brooke called as she stumbled out of the bathroom and tied her pink bath robe on. This was one of the downsides to living alone most of the time: no one to answer the phone or door when you were in the shower. There was a knock on the door again, causing her to shout, "Give me a minute!" more loudly.

She jogged down the stairs and roughly pulled the door open. Her mood was in no way bettered by the person who was standing on her doorstep. "What do you want?"

"I have to explain," Lucas started.

"There's nothing to explain," Brooke said before he could get out his prepared speech.

"But – what?"

She folded her arms and pouted. "You don't have to explain anything."

"But – but what you saw with me – and with Rachel –"

"It's none of my business." Or, at least, that was the conclusion she had forced herself to come to all the way home.

"Wha-but-you don't mind?"

"Look, Lucas. We're just friends, right? You can make out with whoever you want to make out with. Although, it would have been nice to know how you felt about Rachel all those times I was bitching about her," she said bitterly.

"I don't have feelings for her."

Before Brooke could stop herself the question she wanted the answer to most slipped out, "Then why were you kissing her?"

"She kissed me. I wasn't trying to kiss her -"

"You weren't stopping her either. And what were you doing in a corner of the library with her anyway? I mean, did you two just happen to be there together? I doubt she's ever read a book so that's pretty unlikely."

"Brooke, I –"

"No, Lucas, it doesn't matter. Just date her – go have sex with her for all I care. You don't need my approval, we're only friends –"

"Well, you're definitely a lot madder about this than you would be if we were just friends," Lucas told her. He was getting angry now too, but it was mostly at himself.

"We are just friends Lucas," Brooke dragged the word out for emphasis, fighting the urge to bite her tongue the whole time.

"Are we?"

"Yeah."

"Can I come in then?"

Brooke glanced over her shoulder at the empty house. She had had a lot of fun with Lucas here less than two weeks ago. As infuriated as she had been by his over cautious behaviour, she had also found it sweet. She liked being taken care of by someone other than her housekeeper for once, and she had thought it meant…well, it didn't. That had been established very well this morning. She turned back to him and shook her head sadly. "No."

"Brooke –"

"I'll see you at school Lucas." With that she closed the door on him and returned to the bathroom, deciding to turn that shower into a very long bath.

The next day at school was uncomfortable, to say the least. Brooke had been trying to avoid Lucas as much as possible, and as a result Nathan had gotten stuck in the middle. He had tried to get Brooke to talk to Lucas more, but it was little difficult to explain things to Brooke without giving away his cover.

At that moment, however, Nathan had to concentrate on something besides Brooke and Lucas. Rachel was at her locker and was, surprisingly, alone. If he wanted to start talking to her, now was the time.

Adjusting the strap on his bag he took a deep breath and walked towards her. She was taking some things out of her locker so her back was towards him. "Uh, Rachel?"

She turned around and smiled when she saw him, but didn't say anything.

"Hi, I'm –"

"Nathan. I know. I never forget a handsome face," she drawled.

Oh. Well, at least that was a start. Even though it felt pretty gross. "So, listen…" he adjusted the strap on his bag again uncomfortably, "I know we don't know each other very well, but…I was wondering…if you were interested…" Was it really that long since he asked a girl out? he wondered suddenly. He definitely needed to brush up before he asked out someone he actually wanted to date. Like Haley, for instance.

"Yes?" Rachel prompted.

"Er, if you maybe wanted to go out sometime?"

Rachel smirked. It was the kind of smirk he knew well. He'd seen it on a number of girls he'd dated just before… It took all Nathan's will power not to visibly shudder as he realized what Rachel was thinking.

"What are you doing on Friday?"

"This Friday?"

"Yeah, this Friday. As in the day after tomorrow."

"I'm not doing anything," Nathan told her.

"Yes, you are." When Nathan raised an eyebrow she added, "You're coming to my house."

"Your house?" Nathan repeated.

Rachel nodded. "My parents will be going out of town so we'll have the place to ourselves."

"Sounds…great," he choked.

She smirked again. "Perfect. Say around seven?"

Nathan nodded dimly.

Rachel shut her locker before leaving with a parting whisper, "See you around."

Trying to focus his mind on how soon he'd be meeting Jake and how best they could make use of the fact that he'd be alone with Rachel for the case – rather than what she was thinking of – Nathan didn't pay much attention to where he was going. As a result, he ran right into Miss James who was coming out of a lesson.

Nathan jerked back in surprise. "I'm so sorry!"

"That's okay," Haley replied quickly, with a quick glance at the ground to check none of her papers had slipped out of her files.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," she nodded. "Don't worry about it."

"Oh, Nathan." He turned his head back and saw Rachel gliding up to him, holding a piece of paper. "You'll be needing this," she said sweetly and pushed the piece of paper into his hand. Looking at it, he saw that it had her phone number.

"Er, thanks," he said quickly, hoping she would go away.

Rachel winked at him and left, but not without pinching his butt. Nathan's eyes grew wide as he realized what she had done, and then even more so when the increasing redness on Haley's face told him she had noticed too.

"I-Er-I'm not…" Nathan began, having no idea what to say about Rachel.

Haley shook her head and laughed slightly. "It's okay Nathan. You don't have to explain. I'm not going to tell your mum or anything."

"My m-" he stopped himself short when he became conscious of what she thought he was worried about.

"See you in class tomorrow," Haley told him.

They had already had their lesson for today – probably the most awkward Brooke and Lucas incident of the day. English was their only class together so it was the one place where Brooke couldn't avoid him – not that she hadn't tried. "Yeah. Class," Nathan said finally.

Haley had started walking away, but she stopped after hearing Nathan call her name. "Yes?"

"Um, you know that poem you gave us today? If you have any free time later can you discuss it with me?"

"Of course."