A/N: Well this took way longer to get out than I'd expected. You guys must get tired of hearing me say sorry for taking so long, so I'll just let you get to the story. One more chapter to go!
Haley was dreaming of snowy Christmases by the fire when the phone rang the next morning, pulling her insistently from her sleep. She made a quiet sound of complaint into her pillow and stretched before prying an eye open, just in time to see Nathan crawl out of bed and reach for the cordless. As usual, he'd forgotten to put it back into the charger on the nightstand and instead left it on the dresser, out of easy reach. The old habit made her smile as she rolled over.
He grinned back at her as pressed the talk button and lifted the phone to his ear. "Hello?" At the sound of the voice on the other end, his face fell. "What? I thought we'd taken care of that." He turned away from her, as if to shield her from whatever he was hearing, and lifted a hand to run through his already messy hair in obvious annoyance. "No, that won't work. Mike was supposed to… well, I guess he didn't. I know, fine. I'll be there as soon as I can." He jabbed at the phone to end the call with a little more force than was absolutely necessary.
Frowning, Haley swiped at her eyes and pushed herself into a sitting position on the mattress. A minute ago, she'd been content enough to purr like a happy kitten, curled around the man she loved in bed. Now, she felt a ball of dread settle low in her stomach. "What's going on, Nathan?"
She knew, of course, but she needed to hear him say it.
When he turned back to look at her, his eyes were full of regret. "There's a problem at work that I have to go take care of."
"Oh." She didn't comment any further, but there was a wealth of discontent in that one word, and both of them realized it.
Nathan winced, but he was already heading for the closet and pulling out black slacks. "I'm sorry, Haley. I'll be back as soon as I can, I promise."
She nodded numbly, her mouth frozen shut as she watched him whirl around the room getting ready. She was so disappointed that it felt like she was being strangled by it.
Back as soon as he could. How many times had she heard that before while waiting for him to come home in the evening? It was a stalling technique, something to say in the hopes that she would lay her hurt feelings on the doorstep of his company rather than on him. Of course he wanted to be home with her, he just couldn't get away. He'd obviously have gotten back already if he had a say, but the company was so damn evil and demanding, they'd practically chained him to his desk.
Right. She'd fallen for that enough to make her feel like a fool. Nathan was a perfectionist and a little bit of a control freak when it came to his accounts, and that was that.
But he'd said he would try to change for her, change with her. This—him abandoning her the first morning they were alone, when he was still officially on vacation—was not a promising start.
Still looking regretful—she tried her hardest not to remember that he'd perfected that look a long time ago—he disappeared into the bathroom and she could hear the faucet turn on, turn off, as he brushed his teeth. He emerged a minute later, tucking his shirt into the waistband of his pants, then hurried to grab some black socks from the dresser.
It looked, to the casual observer, as though he couldn't wait to get out of the house. And even knowing that she was overreacting, Haley couldn't help but sit back and observe with an increasingly sick feeling in her stomach.
It didn't help that when he'd put on his shoes and was ready to go, he'd taken three steps toward the door before remembering her and making a quick retreat into their room to say goodbye. He leaned down, pressing a quick kiss to her lips, and said again, "Back as soon as I can, Hales."
She nodded her head and smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "Sure."
The sound of the front door closing nearly drove her to tears.
She lay in bed for long minutes afterward, listening to the silence that surrounded her. This was what had driven her crazy all along. The emptiness. Their house wasn't huge by any means, but it always seemed to feel larger when she was alone like this, wishing that her husband was still with her.
When the urge to pull the covers over her head and burrow in for a day of wallowing in self pity hit, she forced herself out of bed. Snap out of it, she silently commanded. Okay, so Nathan was already failing to keep up his end of the bargain, and that was a bad sign for the future. But was it necessarily a portent of doom? No, and it certainly didn't mean that she was going to fall into a slump of depression.
Depression wouldn't do any good. Anger was better. Anger was at least productive. It got her out of bed, showered, and dressed, and propelled her into a morning of cleaning that helped her focus her thoughts about her husband and his obsession with work.
Okay, so she hated it. But she had to admit that some things had changed. This time she knew it was really the work drawing him in, not his busty blonde assistant. Plus, it was possible that he really would try to come home when he could, and he'd only be at the office until five today instead of God only knew when, like in the past.
Right now, it felt as if her whole being rested upon that one thing. As pathetic as it made her, Nathan Scott had stolen her heart as a teenager, and she was beginning to seriously doubt that she'd ever get it back.
So she hoped that he wouldn't forget his promise entirely, and shook her head at the foolishness of her heart as she moved from cleaning the kitchen to the bathroom. Faced with the reality of the past, she wouldn't hold her breath, but she would still hope.
Haley was about to go into the backyard and make an attempt at weeding the flowerbeds a few hours later when she heard the front door open.
Nathan's voice rang through the house as the door slammed shut. "Hey, Hales, where are you? I brought lunch."
She joined him in the kitchen as he was pulling cartons of Chinese out of a takeout bag and placing them on her absolutely spotless countertop. As happy as she was to see him—and she really was, as proven by the way her stomach fluttered pleasantly when he smiled at her—something in her brain was failing to understand what was going on. Why did this man continuously turn her mind to mush? "Hi."
"Hey." He grinned as he put down the white carton in his hand and leaned over to kiss her, his hand coming to rest gently on the length of her neck. His thumb absently caressed her pulse point, which she knew had to be racing. He was still smiling when they separated. "Did you clean up in here?"
"Uh, yeah, a little." Which meant that she probably looked like a red level disaster, and smelled like bathroom cleaner, but neither of those things even bothered her at the moment. She was still trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
"Looks good, but you're supposed to be on vacation," he teased, opening one carton and inhaling deeply. She could smell the sweet and sour from where she stood. "You hungry? You didn't eat yet, did you?"
"No, I didn't eat." She turned and pulled plates from the cabinet, as well as serving utensils for the food, which there was enough of to feed an army. But she stopped short of handing them over. "I thought you had to work."
"I did." The reason for her strange behavior hit him then, and he let out a breath as he leaned one hip against the counter. Stupid. He'd run off to work to fix a problem that was holding up a job, but that was it. One account, and he hadn't even stayed to finish things up because he'd known that Haley was home.
But he hadn't bothered to explain any of that on his way out, and it was all too easy now to think of her pacing the hallway, feeling abandoned and, worse, betrayed. "Shit."
She put down the plates and blinked at him, her expression a bit startled.
"You thought I was going to spend the day at work because I'm an idiot and rushed out the door this morning. And after last night…" He sighed. "Damn it, Haley, I'm sorry. I had to go in this morning because my stuff was holding up other people, but I was never gonna stay any longer than I needed to. I just got my work done and left, I swear. I didn't mean… I didn't even think about—"
"It's okay," she interrupted, and found that she meant it. The invisible elephant that had been sitting on her chest all morning was suddenly gone, pushed off by the realization that Nathan hadn't completely ignored everything he'd promised her.
"I should have explained," he said, wrapping his arms around her and looking down into her eyes. "I meant what I said, Haley. I love you and we're going to do this."
It was ridiculous, how he could still make her heart leap with those three wonderful words, but he did. "I love you, too." Always and forever.