Author's Note: I just wanted to say thank you to Pam211 for the review! Didn't think I'll get a review so thank you for being my first! YAY! Here's the second chapter – this chapter is more of a background to see where everything is going. It's a bit slow but again to see how each character is developed. I promise the next chapter will pick up speed! It's a pretty long chapter, with a lot of Naley so brace yourself! If you read, please reviews – any thoughts and ideas, shoot them my way; love to hear what you have to say! Thank you – H.
Disclaimer: All OTH characters belong to the creator of the Mark Schwahn, and the lyrics & title belong to Jon McLaughlin.
*******
"Clay, hey man, what are you doing in the bathroom? We gotta go!" Lucas knocks, as he put his ears against the door to see if he can hear what Clay was doing in there.
"Hold up" Clay sprays a few shots of cologne on his neck, and rubs the remaining lingering cologne on his hands on his cashmere sweater. He opens the door and there stood Lucas.
Lucas takes a whiff of Clay's cologne and choked. "What is that smell?"
"…I don't know exactly, let me check" Clay goes back into the bathroom and reaches for the bottle. "It's flowers." He grins widely.
Lucas grabs the bottle out of Clay's hands and reads. "Country Garden Potpourri." He bursts into laughter's.
"What's so funny?"
"Eliminate strong, persistent odors - totally has you written all over it!" Lucas giggles as he gave the bottle back to Clay.
Clay takes a look at the bottle and grunts. "What the hell is this air freshener doing in the bathroom?"
***
Peyton sees the boys coming from across the street, so she wave to the waiter to make an order.
"What took you guys so long?" Peyton said as she grabs more chairs to the table.
"Ask air freshener official sponsor guy over here" Lucas chuckles, pointing to Clay while taking a seat next to his girlfriend.
"What is that smell?" Peyton sniffs.
Clay rolls his eyes. "It doesn't smell that bad…right?"
"Smells like something for the bathroom" Peyton mumbles under her breath.
"Who makes air fresheners that look like cologne bottles, these days?" Clay slouches down on his chair.
"Don't worry man, Haley has allergies in the morning, she's not going to smell a thing" Lucas said, patting Clay on the shoulder.
"Wait…Hales coming?" Clay sits up, excited.
"I don't know, I'm just saying" Lucas continues to laugh. "Where the hell is Nate?"
***
She loves her mama's lemonade,
Hates the sound that goodbyes make.
She prays one day she'll find someone to need her.
She swears that there's no difference,
Between the lies and compliments.
It's all the same if everybody leaves her.
Nathan parks his Range Rover one block away from the café. As he locks his car, he sees someone of a familiar face walking towards his direction. It was Miranda Stone – Haley's music exec who he met briefly at Haley's first and second debut album party.
"Wouldn't guess you used the meter" Miranda walks up to Nathan while hugging a binder full of documents.
"Trying to live my life as normal as possible" He smiles, seeing her stuff with documents, he couldn't help but ask. "Where are you heading off to early this morning?"
"It's a good thing you asked since all these documents has something to do with your friend" Miranda's voice grows annoyed.
"I'm guessing you're referring to Haley?" Nathan asks.
"Yes! Is there another Haley James – have you seen her lately?" Miranda asks, frustrated.
"Have I ---uh yes, but we're not exactly friends. I mean we share the same group of friends but we're not ---I don't talk to her or really like her much" Nathan said as a matter of fact.
"Well this is easy. I don't like her that much right now either so if you happen to see her, tell her, she owns me a third album!" Miranda walks to her car, as coincidentally it was parked on the same block as Nathan's.
"Wait, when was the last time you saw her?" Nathan said, out of curiosity.
"The last time I saw her was when she was stumbling out of her second album release party, drunk with what's-his-face" Miranda opens her car door and drops her binder in the front seat.
"The what's-his-face is Oliver" Nathan corrects. "Wow that long ago huh?"
"Yes, it has been two years since her last album. I haven't heard from her since then. Well, I get a couple of calls from time to time saying that she's writing but every time I try to call her back to get her into the studio, she tells me she has nothing."
Nathan's eyes widen after hearing what Miranda said. He's practically speechless. "I don't really know what to say except the littlest I do know is that music is her life. She'll die for music."
"At this rate, she'll definitely die from unemployment if she doesn't hits the studio soon because the label is getting really impatient. As much as I hate her right now, please talk to her, I don't want to see such a talented star go to waste" Miranda said, considerately.
"Well, I'll definitely tell her I saw you but I don't think it's my place to say anything. We don't really like each other" Nathan breaks out a half smile.
"Hmm, I don't really think you hate her as much as you claim you do because you wouldn't be standing here, spending the last half an hour asking questions about her" Miranda teases.
Nathan's eyes grew bigger. He couldn't believe it was already half an hour, god he's late to breakfast with his friends, he thought. "Trust me, I hate her but fortunately for her, there are a couple of people I know who care for her so I'll definitely pass that information along to them."
"Whatever you say" Miranda didn't believe it nor care anyway. She hops into her car and drove off.
***
Nathan walks into the café and sees that his friends are still eating. And it looks as though they didn't really worried about him or notice that he was late.
"Nate, what took you so long?" Clay looks up and pulls out a chair for Nathan.
"I just saw…" Before Nathan could speak any further, Haley and Oliver walks into the café. After Nathan paused, Clay looks up to see why Nathan stopped talking; he smiled when he saw Haley but not so much when he saw that Oliver was behind her.
"Hales!" Brooke calls out, motioning Haley over to sit next to her.
"Hi guys" Haley said, joyfully than usual.
As Haley pulls out a chair to sit down next to Brooke, Brooke couldn't help but smell her. "Um, Booze Girl, have you been drinking?" Brooke sniffs.
"Maybe" Haley chuckles, breathing into Brooke's face.
"Maybe?" Brooke coughs, fanning Haley's liquor breath away. "You practically use booze as a mouth wash."
Sitting across the table, Clay and Nathan couldn't help but pay special attention to how Haley was acting. This wasn't her, they thought. Her hair was disheveled; her eyes were red. She didn't change her clothes. She didn't care. And that's not Haley; she's never careless.
Clay clears his throat. "So, uh, Nate…who did you saw?"
Nathan shakes himself off from gazing at Haley. "Umm, you know, it's not really important." He didn't understand why he didn't say anything. To simply put, it was impulse, he thought. He sees Brooke holding onto Haley, leading her towards the bathroom, obviously, Haley was about to do some major vomiting.
"I'm going to get myself some coffee" Nathan's eyes still fixated at the bathroom where Haley is still doing her business. "You want anything?"
"Nah, I drown myself with a lot of caffeine this morning" Clay answers, softly.
***
And every magazine tells her she's not good enough,
The pictures that she's seen make her cry.
And she would change everything, everything just ask her.
Caught in the in-between, a beautiful disaster,
And she just needs someone to take her home.
Nathan asks the waitress behind the counter to get a large cup of coffee, while still paying attention to the bathroom where Brooke was standing outside waiting for Haley. He sees that the noises that came out of the bathroom just made Brooke winced. Brooke senses that someone was looking at her direction so she turns around, and Nathan quickly broke off the gaze and nonchalantly turns back to the counter, sitting on the stool waiting for his coffee.
"Brooke, you know you can use the men's bathroom. We're never in there. We go in and we come right out, not like you gals" Nathan tries to start conversation, while still waiting for his coffee.
"I don't need to use the bathroom; I'm waiting for Booze Girl to come out so I can be her walker before she stumbles out, falling flat on her face, embarrassing us all or well me" Brooke said, a matter of factly, with her arms folded.
"Booze Girl?" Nathan asks, knowing exactly who it was, yet seem careless.
"Haley" Brooke whispers, as if it was a secret.
"Why are you whispering?" Nathan whispers back.
"Large coffee" The waitress yells out.
"Right here" Nathan's hand raised.
"I'm whispering because of Clay" Brooke points at Clay, not being obvious at all.
"He's not blind you know. Haley is not exactly America's Sweetheart right now" Nathan said, pouring little packets of brown sugar into his coffee.
Haley finally opens the door, walking out wearily. She hangs her arms over Brooke's shoulder while Brooke has her arm around Haley's waist yet somehow, Haley felt heavier than ever, so Brooke loses her balance.
"Little help here," Brooke murmurs, signaling Nathan to come over.
"Oh no no no, she's going to puke all over me" Nathan shakes his head while chuckling.
"By the awful smell coming out of that bathroom, I think she got everything out of her system. Now get over here, basketball boy, before I fall down on my face in these 4 inches stilettos!" Brooke demands, stomping her feet.
Nathan breathes out a sigh and goes over nonetheless. Nathan puts his arm over Haley's tiny waist, surprisingly find that she's neither has complained, yelled or starts an argument with him, well because she's incompletely unaware that he was here helping her. She was knocked out. Brooke leads Haley to the other side of the room and Nathan finds that puzzling.
"Where are you going? Our table is over on the other side" Nathan eyes the other direction.
"Uh, we're not going to bring her over there, dumb-dumb boy. Have you looked at her? She's going to draw major attention especially since, oh look, the paparazzi are outside" Brooke said seriously.
"Stop with the nicknames or else tomorrow morning, you'll find yourself with a newspaper headline reading 'Fashion Designer befriends Boozie,' she's your friend, not mine" Nathan shot her a look and they came to an agreement and puts Haley down on the other side of the room while Brooke plans to exit.
"Where do you think you're going? You are not leaving me here with her" Nathan said.
"Whine much? Whiner" Brooke shot him a look. Nathan shot her a back a look, one more time and he's out.
"God, sorry, sensitive boy – last one, I promise. I'm going to get her some coffee, and distract the paparazzi and letting the others know. Just stay there until I give you the nod," Brooke said.
"Her boyfriend is over there. Why are we going through all this trouble? When we could just hand her over to Oliver" Nathan said, a bit agitated.
"Because giving Booze Girl to alcoholic what's-his-face is not exactly smart. You're an NBA player, don't you know what defense means?" Brooke said with her hands on hips.
"Do you not want help? Because I don't need to do this – this isn't exactly the attention I need for my career" Nathan said, standing up, getting ready to bolt.
"Well, I don't think there's a big difference between helping drunk girl and having four whores all over you on Hollywood's Superficial" Brooke said, trying not to giggle.
"Those were Lakers Girls – okay besides the point you better go get this boozie some coffee and wake her ass up because I swear to god---" Nathan said, proudly.
Brooke bolts towards the counter before letting Nathan finish his rant.
***
Nathan takes a look at Haley and rolls his eyes. She was lying there like a dead person. She looks absolutely awful yet somehow she still has innocence splattering over her face. He couldn't help but stare. He finally shakes off that gaze, seeing that Brooke was coming over with a cup of coffee.
"Here's the coffee. I'm going to fight off the paparazzi" Brooke hands the cup of steaming coffee over to Nathan.
"What-what do you want me to do with this? With her" Nathan looks puzzled.
"Boy, you do hate her, don't you? Help her up, and pour the coffee into her mouth, c'mon let's see some assist" Brooke said, cheerily.
"Stop with the basketball references or else she's not the only girl who's going to have a burned esophagus" Nathan rolls his eyes.
***
Brooke taps Lucas to help her.
"Brooke" Lucas said, surprised. "When did you come in?"
"I need you to help me with something" Brooke whispers, telling him everything. Lucas agrees.
When Brooke turns around with Lucas behind her, there stood Peyton in her face.
"Boy does someone needs a breath mint" Brooke muffles under her breath.
"Hm, funny. Seeing as you're trying to steal away my boyfriend, someone needs Self Help for Dummies" Peyton smiles widely with satisfaction and then whispers playfully, which annoys the hell out of Brooke. "You can borrow him."
Brooke was about to retaliate but stopped when Lucas nudge her. "The paps and Haley."
Brooke angrily grabs Lucas and loops her arms with him and walks away smiling, knowing Peyton was watching.
***
She's giving boys what they want, tries to act so nonchalant,
Afraid they'll see that she's lost her direction.
She never stays the same for long,
Assuming that she'll get it wrong.
Perfect only in her imperfections.
She's not a drama queen,
She doesn't want to feel this way, only seventeen, but tired
Haley finally regains her conscious and slowly opens her eyes. She jerks back seeing Nathan right next to her.
"Where's my boyfriend? And why exactly are you here next to me ---" Haley rubs her eyes.
"He's over there, knocked out. And why I am even here next to you is beyond me" Nathan replies certainly.
"I don't need you here; you can go back to what you were doing" Haley said, massaging her head, trying to get that awful headache away.
"Is that your way of saying thank you after I saved you from being a walking zombie" Nathan said, with his arms folded.
"I'm not some damsel in distress and I certainly don't need anyone to save me especially if that person was you" Haley rolls her eyes, scooting an inch or two away from Nathan.
"Funny, I guess you wouldn't mind, going outside looking like some wretch from a period movie while the paps are outside" Nathan snickers.
Haley gulps. The paparazzi are here, she thought. She begins to sweat. Nathan sees Haley shaking.
"Huh, I guess you still care for your image and music after all" Nathan brings up a point.
Haley looks at him, confused. "Is this your way of saying you care for me? Because I'm not following and I will find that absolutely disturbing"
Nathan burst out laughing. "Me? Care for you? I would lose the NBA finals if I ever care for you."
"Glad to know we are on the same page" Haley said as a matter of factly.
"But I must say, can you give me Miranda Stone's number? Because I saw her today and she was absolutely delicious" Nathan smiles, waiting for Haley's reaction.
Haley made the connection. "Did she say anything?"
Nathan smirks. "The question is- what did she not says? So how's the third album coming along?"
"None of your business" Haley huffs as she stands up, about to walk away. She is not going to sit here and have this conversation.
"I don't think it's a wise move to walk over there to your precious boyfriend. The paps are still outside" Nathan advises her. "You know if someone were to ask me if one day I see Haley James drunk in a café, with a tumbling career, I wouldn't believe it. I hate to admit it but it's true. This isn't you."
Haley finds the last part, absolutely ridiculous. "So who am I? Oh wait, we're not friends, we were never friends and for you to sit here and preach like you know me, it's absolutely revolting."
"Good, let's see you put that into a song. But oh wait! You're stubborn, in denial and scared and absolutely stupid to sit and watch your music go down the drain," Nathan said sternly.
"Shut up. You know nothing about me!" Haley tries to control her voice before it grows any louder.
"Wow - did you just a hit a note? It's been awhile but it looks like you still got it" Nathan stated.
Haley remains quiet as tiny drops of tears comes rolling down her face. She turns the other direction, so that Nathan couldn't see her cry.
"I've been told crying is the first step to solving problems" Nathan calmly says. He feels uneasy, seeing Haley like that. This was the longest they ever talked and the most intense one at that. "I have been to two of your album release parties, and to be honest with you as much as I don't want to be there because I absolutely hate you and I hate to admit it, I have never seen anyone light up as much as you do when you sing. Your voice it's a gift. It'll be a waste if you didn't use it."
Nathan hands her his handkerchief, and she slowly extends her hand to reach it while still keeping her face in the other direction.
"Off the record, I didn't want you at my album release parties anyway- stealing all my thunder." Haley said softly, wiping her tears away.
Nathan smiles amusingly while Haley secretly smiles back, still facing the other direction.
She would change everything for happy ever after.
Caught in the in between, a beautiful disaster,
But she just needs someone to take her home.