Lucas has decided that he's destined to be alone forever.
He's at home just lying in bed, and Haley and Nathan are on a date right now, which means they're probably gonna end up hooking up by the end of the night. Perfect.
He also just found out his mom is going to cooking school in Italy for six weeks, which means she's probably going to move on to bigger and better things when she gets back. Why the hell are all of these good things happening to everyone else but him?
Okay, so maybe that's a little selfish, but still. It's like the world is doing everything in it's power to make sure Lucas remains alone and unhappy. If he can't have Nathan, then he doesn't want anybody. Plus, who is he supposed to settle for? Brooke?
His phone goes off after he finishes that thought. Grabbing it, he sees it's Brooke.
This girl has uncanny timing.
"Hello?" Lucas answers, the annoyance in his voice very clearly audible. She is the one who set Nathan and Haley's date up after all.
"Geez, who the hell pissed you off?"
"Don't wanna talk about it," Lucas says.
"Well how about I try and take your mind off of things?" Lucas can see Brooke's smirk in his head.
"Sorry, I'm really not in the mood," Lucas answers.
"Come on, broody, you can brood some other time. Peyton ditched me tonight so now I have nothing to do, and it's Saturday. Brooke Davis doesn't stay home on a Saturday night."
"…Fine, what do you wanna do?" Lucas sighs.
"We can go to the pool hall and get a few drinks. I made you a fake with your yearbook picture!"
Brooke is just full of surprises.
"Sure thing, I'll meet you there in twenty," Lucas says.
"Yay! See you then hot stuff."
Flipping his phone shut, Lucas sighs and sits up.
Maybe a few drinks will get his mind off of things.
Once he gets to the pool house, he finds Brooke by the bar.
"Hey Henry!" Brooke says, pulling him into a hug.
"Um…"
"Shhh!" Brooke orders, winking at him and turning to the bartender. "Excuse me, can we have a couple beers?"
"IDs?" The bartender asks them. Brooke pulls their fakes out of her back pocket, and hands them to the bartender, who studies them dubiously before handing them back.
"Thank you… Gretchen and Henry," The bartender says, smirking like he knows they're fake, but doesn't give a shit. Taking their beers, they head to the nearest empty pool table.
"Wanna play?" Brooke asks.
"You play pool?" Lucas asks, arching his eyebrow.
"There's a lot you don't know about me," Brooke says, grabbing a cue.
"Oh really? Like what?" Lucas asks, taking a swig of beer.
"Well, I'm actually not quite as dense as I make myself out to be, and I love beating boys at pool," Brooke says, bringing the cue up to her mouth and blowing the tip seductively.
"We'll see about that," Lucas says, laughing and grabbing himself a cue.
"Oh my god, is that a smile? Is Lucas Roe actually having fun?"
"I have fun," Lucas says defensively.
"Sure you do," Brooke says sarcastically. "You're literally the most serious person I've ever met."
In order to prove he's not a bump on a log, Lucas grabs his beer and chugs it.
"There. Happy?" Lucas asks her.
"Very," Brooke says, smiling. "Rack me up, gorgeous. I'll go grab you another beer."
Nodding, Lucas begins to set the table up for a game.
The two of them go on like this for a while, talking and laughing about every random thing they can think of, while drinking copious amounts of beer. To his surprise, Brooke is actually keeping up with him pretty well in pool, and more surprising yet…
… Brooke is actually pretty fun to be around. She's a lot different when she's not around every one else from school.
"Don't you just love Spaceballs?" Brooke asks, laughing and taking a drink of her beer. Both of them are pretty far gone at this point.
"'Prepare for.. ludicrous speed!"' Lucas yells, and Brooke almost falls out of her chair from laughter.
"'I knew it, I'm surrounded by assholes!"' Brooke laughs.
They're interrupted by Lucas's phone ringing. He grabs it and sees it's an out of area number.
"Out of area?" Lucas says, confused.
"Ohhh, who's that? A booty call?" Brooke asks.
"Please, the only person I wanna hook up with is on a date tonight, and you set it up!" Lucas says without thinking, which causes Brooke to look at him with surprise.
Shit. Shitshitshitshit.
"Um, just forget I said anything," Lucas says nervously, taking a swig of his beer.
"As if!" Brooke says, smacking Lucas on the shoulder. "No wonder you turned me down all those times! I didn't know you liked tutor girl!"
Wait, what?
"Haley?" Lucas asks.
"Well, yeah, who else? It's not like you have the hots for Nathan," Brooke says.
Lucas should agree with her, but like an idiot, he just sits there and looks at her awkwardly. Her expression changes from amused to horrified.
Well, guess the cat's out of the bag now.
"Oh my God, Luke…," Brooke says, her mouth widened in shock.
"Look, you can't tell anybody, okay?"
"Of course not. Look, I had no idea how you felt or I would have never…. damn, this is heavy," Brooke says, her mouth still hanging open. "How long have you known?"
"A long time. It wasn't that bad until I found out we were related. Since then it's been hell," Lucas tells her.
"Have you two, ever… you know?" Brooke asks him.
"Well…."
"Oh my gosh, you have!" Brooke says, smiling. "Then that means Nathan is… damn! This is all totally crazy."
"How do you think I feel?" He asks. "Honestly, I'm surprised you're still talking to me."
"Why? It's not like you can control it. Plus, you guys like, just found out you were brothers, so it's not like you've thought of him as one since you were little. Now that would be creepy…"
"Not helping!"
"Sorry! Look, your secret's safe with me, promise," Brooke says, crossing her heart. "So if you guys have done stuff, that means he feels the same way, right?"
"I have no idea. The last time we talked I confessed all of my feelings and he just ran. Now he won't talk to me and he's on a date with my best friend."
"My bad," Brooke says. "Anyway, you probably just scared him, Luke. This isn't exactly a normal situation. He's probably scared out of his mind, and you dumping all of your feelings on him like that probably made him freak. And I bet he's using Haley as some kind of way to take his mind off it."
"Well, I know for a fact that she likes him, so she's most likely not going to tell him no if he asks," Lucas says.
"I'm sorry, Luke," Brooke says, pulling him into a hug. "Hey, what do you say we stop talking about it and get waisted?"
"Yes, please," Lucas says, letting Brooke pull him towards the bar. Strangely, he feels a lot better now that he has someone to talk to about this whole thing.
He just never thought that person would be Brooke Davis.
—
As he stumbles into his house that night, Lucas comes face to face with his mom, who was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for him.
"You better have been in the land of no cell phone signals," Karen spits, looking absolutely furious.
"Sorry. Should've called," Lucas tries, severely slurring his words.
"And are you drunk?!" Karen yells, getting up from the table. " Unbelievable. How the hell am I supposed to be gone for six weeks in a separate country when I have my son coming home drunk in the middle of night?"
"No, mom, don't not go just because of this," Lucas says, sobering up a little.
"I just can't. There's just too much that could happen if I leave," Karen says.
"Mom, stop! Look, I'm sorry I screwed up tonight, but you can trust me. Honestly. I want you to have this," Lucas says, grabbing Karen's hands. She hesitates a moment before sighing and nodding.
"Fine, but your Uncle Keith is staying here while I'm gone!" Karen says, pointing a finger at him. "Now go sleep it off. We'll deal with this in the morning." She kisses him on the forehead before shuffling off to her bedroom.
All night, he dreams of being with Nathan, and it was fantastic, until he was abruptly woken up by a sharp pain on his lower back.
He tries to sit up, but does it way too quickly, the throbbing in his skull reminding him how much he had to drink last night. Rubbing his temples, he slowly stands up and goes over to the mirror to examine just what the hell is causing this pain on his back.
Lifting his shirt, he turns and looks. Probably just a scratch or something…
Oh god, please no. Nononono.
Lucas got a fucking tattoo last night. A tramp stamp. And the worst part of it is…
.. it's Nathan's jersey number: twenty-three.
He lays down on his bed and covers his face with his hands. This has to be a nightmare that he just hasn't woken up from yet.
While he's lying on the bed contemplating ways to burn a tattoo off, he hears a knock at his outside door.
"Come in," Lucas groans.
"You sound like hell," Haley says, walking inside. Of course it's Haley.
"What did you do last night?" She asks him, sitting next to him on his bed. He sits up, careful to make sure his shirt won't lift up to reveal his momentary lapse of sanity.
"Nothing, you?"
"Nothing… well, I actually kind of made out with Nathan," Haley says, smiling.
Yippee.
"Good for you, Hales."
"We just went out as friends and things kind of… escalated. I think we might even be a thing!" Haley says, positively beaming with happiness. This is just making Lucas's hangover worse.
"So, Haley James and Nathan Scott, huh?" Lucas asks her.
"Is that so strange?" Haley asks.
"Yeah, it is, actually," Lucas says.
"Well, like I said, he's a lot different than people see. I really like him, Luke," Haley tells him.
So do I, damnit.
As much as he's enjoying Haley unintentionally stabbing his heart with a knife, he really needs to shower and try to scrub this stupid tattoo away.
"Well, I'm happy for you, Hales," Lucas sighs, trying his best to be a good friend to her. "I'm gonna go hop in the shower, okay?"
"Alright! Call you later?" She asks him.
"Sure," He says.
"Okay, bye!" Haley says, jumping up from the bed and running out the door, grinning from ear to ear the entire time.
Lucas drags his way to the shower. Taking his shirt off, he looks at his tattoo and sighs.
Damn it, Nathan.
—-