Two weeks later, they were down in Tree Hill, ready to set sail for a little relaxation with Lucas' family down the east coast to Florida.
"Do we have everything?"
"Mom, you have checked and rechecked everything like fifty times. It isn't like we can't dock somewhere and get it if we forgot something."
"I know, it's just that this is the first time that we've been on a vacation as a family in a long time, and I would like it to be perfect for Jamie and Lily, and for you and Peyton, and Nathan and Haley..."
"We get it... and it is going to be great, now stop freaking out about this!"
Coming in from the outside, Peyton charges through the door, "Hey, are you guys ready, cause we have two very impatient children sitting in the car, and Aunt Peyton can't think of any more songs to sing with them!" she says with a huff.
Wrapping her arm around the shoulder of the younger woman, she laughs and pulls her out the door, "Yeah, I guess we're ready."
Once they got sailing it was wonderful, with the kids up with Andy learning how to steer the boat and the girls laying out on the deck working on their tans. The weather was absolutely perfect, not too hot, but just warm enough that you had a thin layer of sweat that would cool you when the breeze blew.
Getting life jackets on the kids, they decided to drop anchor off the coast of Georgia for a little swimming and then some dinner. Peyton jumped right in, loving being by the ocean again, and after a little convincing, the kids joined her, taking turns jumping into the water. Nathan quickly followed, as Karen and Andy sat by the edge of the boat, keeping an eye on all of them.
This left Haley and Lucas to themselves, which was exactly what he needed, "Can I ask your opinion on something?"
"Sure Luke!" she says, following him as he starts to walk downstairs to retrieve something.
"Do you think she'll like it?" he says, pulling out a velvet ring box and opening it for Haley's inspection.
"You're going to ask her to marry you!!!" she shouts at first, falling to a whisper as Lucas waves his arms around trying to get her to be quiet.
"Not right this second... I don't even know when, but in the not too distant future. So what do you think? Is she going to like it?"
Haley glances at the ring for a moment, studying it, finally letting it click, "Luke this is the ring that Keith gave your mom..."
"I know... she told me that she would hold on to it for me until it was the right time, and I told her that I wanted to have it around, just in case."
"This is going to mean the world to Peyton, you know that right?"
"Do you think so?"
"She gets it Luke... all of the stuff that you've been through... partly because she's been through some pretty bad stuff too, but that ring is going to mean so much to her."
"That's what mom said too... she loves Peyton."
"Yeah, we all kind of do." Haley says, smiling and patting her friend on the back, taking in the moment that they just shared, "Will you tell me before you do it?"
"I will... I don't know when though..."
"You'll know..." she says with a knowing look, telling him to put away the ring before Peyton finds it, and his romantic plans fly out the window.
They then joined the rest of the family out on the deck, Lucas watching Peyton interact with his little sister and nephew and realizing just how amazing she is going to be down the line with their own children.
"Lucas Scott, you better get your squinty eyes in here, or I'm coming out to get you!" she screams at him, with his sister hanging onto her back.
"yeah, come on Lucas!" Lily shouts at him.
"Peyton, I'd like to see your chickeny legs come out and get me, cause I highly doubt that you could get me to come in that water."
"Hmm... well maybe I can't get you to, but..." she trails off as Karen gets behind her son, pushing him off the boat, watching him surface with a laugh.
"My own mother was conspiring with my girlfriend..."
"Oh, honey, that's how this works, didn't you know?" Peyton tells him innocently, letting him swim towards her and put his hands on her hips under the water.
"Eww... are you guys gonna kiss??" Lily asks, peeking over Peyton's shoulder.
"And what if we are?" Lucas asks back to his sister.
"I'm outta here!" she cries, swimming back to Jamie and Nathan, leaving Lucas and Peyton in their own world.
"I'm so glad that we came with them." she says, wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him closer.
"Me too. We needed the vacation."
"Especially with you leaving me in a month for this book tour deal..."
"You know that I would stay with you in New York if I could, right?"
"I know that you would, but it will probably be for the best anyways. I'll actually get some work done, and Haley is going to come up once to work on her album in the studio."
"See, you won't even know that I'm gone."
"Cold sheets at night, and no one to kiss me goodnight? Oh, I'll know."
"It's just one week, and then I'm back in your arms... and our bed again"
"Yeah, until you have to leave again, two weeks after that." she says with another pout on her lips.
"Peyton..."
"I know, I'm just jealous of the fact that you are leaving me for all these places. Maybe you'll meet some other girl while you're in Texas, who can yodel and is a Dallas Cowboy's cheerleader, and has a nice ass."
Finally swimming them away from the others, to grab on to the side of the boat, he presses up against her, sending a few shivers up her spine at the touch, "First of all, who wants a girl because they can yodel, second of all, you are a cheerleader and the only one that I want, and third of all, the only ass that I ever want to look at is yours..."
"Really?"
"Peyton, I have you pressed up against the side of the boat and all I wish is that something would come out of the sky and take the rest of my family away for a few hours, so I can show you just how true what I just said is."
"Are you trying to seduce me?" she asks with a smirk on her face and a gleam in her eye, her lips parting as her breathing started to get a little shallow.
"And if I was?"
"I'd probably let you..."
They stayed where they were, taking long moments with each other, exploring the taste of each other as they made out like a bunch of teenagers who never got to spend enough time alone. Her hands were everywhere, and his hands had taken to rubbing light circles across her back. It wasn't until Lucas' sister peeked over the boat that their moment was gone.
"They're over here kissing!!!!" she cried before running back to where everyone had apparently sat down for dinner.
With a laugh and a few more short kisses, they climbed back on the boat, wrapping themselves in a few towels as they joined the group who had grown incredibly silent when the couple approached the table.
"What?" they both say, which leads to his mother shaking her head and putting a plate in front of both of them.
"Why don't you two eat up... you'll probably need the strength for tonight." Karen says, and the two younger couples' jaws hit the floor.
After that, no words were spoken, and Peyton and Lucas didn't dare meet the eyes of anyone else at the table. They knew that when they were older, they would think back on this moment and laugh, but right now, having your mom talk about your sex life was not something that either enjoyed.
They docked in Savannah, getting a few rooms at one of the local hotels.
Andy and Karen insisted that Haley, Nathan, Peyton, and Lucas went out for a night on the town, assuring the group that they would also be just fine keeping the kids and sleeping on the boat for the evening.
After a lot of protest, they finally agreed, taking a few things off the boat and getting into their hotel rooms to shower off the salty ocean water they had spent so much time in.
"So, where do we want to go?" Haley asks, looking at the three in front of her.
"Let's see if we can find somewhere with some live music... I love country boys singin' with a southern twang!" Peyton says, pulling Haley with her and letting Lucas and Nathan just follow behind.
The place that they found was nice, and the band was just setting up when they got there, so they got some drinks and made there way to a booth that was set in the corner of the bar, close enough to the band, but cozy enough that it was away from the main crowd of people.
True to ladies' form, the girls decided that they needed to hit the bathroom before the place got crowded, and mad their way across the bar. Haley was ahead of Peyton, which made the next event possible as one of the band members stepped in front of Peyton while she wasn't paying attention.
She fell a bit, but was caught by a new set of arms catching her on the way down, "Are you okay?" he asks, concerned for the woman.
Her ears perked and her stomach did a flip-flop when she looked into the eyes that were supposed to be those of an unfamiliar Georgia boy, but instead were a very familiar Wilmington boy, Jake Jagielksi.
"Peyton?"
"Jake?"
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm on vacation... what are you doing here?"
"I live in Savannah now."
"I thought that Nikki..."
"She's down here now too, but everything has been worked out. She only gets to see Jenny on the weekends."
"Oh my gosh, how is Jenny? She's what, six, seven years old now?"
"Yeah... she'd probably love to see you... how long are you here for?"
"Oh, umm... just for the night. We sail back out tomorrow morning..."
"Sail?"
"I'm with friends... and they've got a yacht, so when they offered, how was I to refuse."
"Yeah..." he says, noticing the other band mates waving him over by the corner of his eye. "Listen, I've got to go get this done, but maybe I'll catch up with you later?"
"Maybe... I don't know how long we're going to be here."
"Well, in that case, it was good to see you Peyton Sawyer, don't be a total stranger." he says, pulling her in for a hug and kissing her temple.
She stood, watching him walk away, and then bouncing back to reality when Haley tapped her on the shoulder, "Hey girlie, I was waiting for you in there!"
"Yeah, uh, I realized that I didn't have to go, so I just stayed out here."
"Oh, all right. Well, are you ready for some dancing?" Haley asks, swaying her hips a bit as she pulls Peyton back to their booth.
"Sure..."
Peyton didn't want to dance though, insisting that she was too tired to dance, and trying to get the group to leave the bar earlier than they had planned. The tired claim didn't work, but they let her sit for a while just listening to the music. She thought that she was in the clear, nobody needing to hear about the high school love of her life who left her broken hearted but still in love six years ago.
Well, she thought that she was in the clear, until Jake did something that would quite quickly break her cover.
"The next song was written when I was just eighteen, after leaving the love of my life, and hoping that she would come back to me some day... and little did I know that she would walk back in today..." he says, daring a glimpse at Peyton which, thankfully no one caught.
As the lyrics of his song floated out into the bar, she couldn't help but stare, her eyes welling up with a few tears as she remembered how they had left things that night when he went to find his daughter.
"Peyton?" Lucas said, catching the tears in her eyes as she listened to the song, and noticing that her eyes hadn't left the singer's at his questioning tone.
He watched that for a moment, watching her watch him with a broken look that he had never seen before. When the singer's eyes looked up, he automatically searched for Peyton's, knowing that she would be returning the gaze.
"Peyton, what's..." he starts.
"I'm going back to the hotel... I can't be here right now." she says, getting up quickly and walking out the door.
Lucas turned his eyes back to the singer, who had seen what happened and followed her departure with his eyes, a tone of sadness flowing through them, much the same as the way she looked at him while he sang of the love of his life who finally came back to him. It was then that the song and everything that happened made sense. The love of his life was Peyton, but the scary thing was that he didn't know anything about this man in front of him, and he obviously still had an effect on her...
–
Okay, I'm ending this chapter here, and splitting up this little trip, because I started writing and it kept coming out. I had honestly no intentions of writing Jake in, but it just happened. For the purposes of this story, Jake and Peyton through season 2 is really what I'm thinking. Her going to Savannah her senior year didn't happen in this story, but everything with nikki and Jenny (minus the skank fight over Lucas) actually did happen. So yeah... there you have that. And the song that he sang was the same one from the episode in the show where she visits him in Savannah, "Someday" Anyways... more for next time... you knew I couldn't keep the drama out... but seriously, that was weird, cause it just kept coming out and suddenly Jake was back. That wasn't even drama that I had planned, so I hope you enjoyed it!!!!
Reviews are like crack for me, so please, fuel my habit!