Turns out I kind of like writing Nathan, the emotionally-stunted man-child, because, damn, Haley's not a miracle worker (or a saint). Consider this finished again. Until the next night I can't sleep. I also find this...lacking compared to the first part but eh might as well post.
And, yes, country music as (poorly) described does in fact exist. YouTube Josh Turner's Your Man for proof.
"Hales, answer your damn phone!"
He doesn't get a response. It's enough to pop his head up from the pillow. No gloriously naked body next to his own, no shower running, no humming from sources unknown. Another dream.
Fuck life.
The ringing starts again and he throws himself off the bed. He takes a moment to remind himself to find and kill whichever teammate thought it'd be fucking hilarious to change his ringtone.
"What?" he growls into the phone.
"You're not my daughter. Hello, handsome." The grin in the voice is practically visible.
He pulls the phone away from his ear, staring until he realizes it's not his. "Lydia?" Shit.
"The one and only. Is my daughter available? Just a yes or no, no double entendre necessary, Nate. You sound a little cranky and I do not need to know if I'm interrupting."
He collapses back onto the bed in exhaustion, "How'd you know it was me? I'm barely conscious, Lydia. The world can't already know."
"Sorry to disappoint but they do. Last I heard from Marion, my baby was haunting our old house. All of a sudden someone spots her entering your apartment building yesterday and reports say she's yet to emerge. She still there?"
"Damned if I know. Doesn't seem to be," he grumbles.
The woman just clicks her tongue sympathetically. "Sounds like you two still have things to work out. Tell her to call me when she has a minute. I'll be wedding planning."
She hangs up before he can respond. Some things just never change. Like him staring blankly in confusion and shock after speaking with either of her parents.
"Was that Mom?"
The phone slides out of his grip as his head jerks up to look at her. She's got a tray with coffees and what he guesses are muffins from the place across the street. More importantly, she's standing there—and wearing his shirt.
She would have to be blind not to notice the look of pure relief on his face. "Sorry, I was hungry." The food finds a place on the floor and she tackles him back onto the bed.
"Lydia says she's wedding planning," he grins at her rolled eyes and pursed lips.
"Fine by me."
"Fuck you, Scott."
He smirks at the low grumble said in jest. Well, mostly jest. He's been an annoying little shit the past few weeks. The sudden turnaround is confusing and frustrating.
He wants to tell them not to worry. The honeymoon phase won't last long. Never does with them. In days, if not hours, they'll be at each other's throats again. Only this time, she has her own apartment to retreat to. Still, he can't bring himself to jinx them.
She places the folded clothes neatly in the dresser, straightens the hanging button downs. He'll whine later about her getting into his things but she's too bored to care.
The paparazzi are all but camped outside his building. Everyone wants to take them to task for their lies and cover ups. Because the media has such high standards these days. It'll take a few more days for them to lose interest and give up. Until then, she's pretty much stuck up here, with nothing to to do but lounge around in his clothes.
She's vaguely considering giving up the whole school thing to do this forever.
They get a new apartment. A decent sized one near Madison Square Garden that she picks and he agrees to. It's the first she comes across that looks clean, liveable, and safe. He says yes and dumps the folded clothes back into the trash bags.
He thinks it's a little small but the couch and bed fit them both so he keeps his mouth shut. He knows that without her everywhere feels too empty.
She doesn't really like the place but he hasn't tried to put a hole through a wall so she deals. She knows that reliable heating is a poor replacement for his warm body and a supply of clothes with his smell.
There's an apartment not far from campus. She crashes there for naps between classes and unavoidable all nighters. It's enough to keep him paranoid.
The door swings open before him but he's too tired to question it. Coach was in a bitch mood and ran them ragged. All he wants is his bed and his girlfriend.
"Lock the damn thing," he grumbles, passing her in the kitchen. The sight of blonde curls on their couch stops him in his tracks. "What the fuck?"
"Please don't curse," she appears behind him, holding out a Gatorade as a peace offering. "The exhibit was closed. You don't mind if Peyt hangs around for a bit, do you?"
He stares at her dumbfounded. Of course she'd still be friends with that blonde bitch after becoming a chart-topping singer. "Whatever. I'll be asleep."
The bottle switches hands and he swears the blonde scoffs at him when he slams the door to the bedroom. He manages to pull off shirt and shoes and collapse onto the bed before the door opens and shuts again.
She perches on the edge of the bed then lies against him, hands gripping his shoulders. "I'll wake you for dinner, okay?" Her lips press against his neck and they both let out muted sighs. A second later, she's gone.
"That was awkward."
She can only roll her eyes in agreement. An understatement if she ever heard one. Nathan really hasn't improved in the attitude department at all. The filter between Peyton's brain and mouth is still pretty much nonexistent. "Sorry. I'm apparently certifiable for thinking you two could ever get along."
The blonde shrugs, accepting the apology. "I meant more you and him." She immediately turns to look the other way down the street. "I didn't mean to say that...out loud, at all, whatever. Sorry."
She waves it off. That's an understatement too. "I should get back up there. He's pretty useless with a dishwasher." They make plans for coffee and she uses the elevator ride up to bang her head against the wall.
He leaves on a road trip. She stuffs a duffel bag full of clothes, hers and his, and hides in the other apartment.
The night before he's due back she wakes to the door thundering on its hinges. It's late enough to be early. Her hands find a textbook that weighs a ton and her feet stumble to the door. She can barely look through the peephole without breaking her nose.
The book hits the floor with a thud and she flips the locks quickly. His arms grab her in a hard hug, easily lifting her off the floor and nearly suffocating her. He moves immediately toward the bed, feet stumbling over the dropped book.
"The door," she breathes and he obligingly turns. A hand relinquishes hold to turn the locks and she uses the reprieve to hug his neck and wrap her legs around his waist.
"You weren't home." The accusation comes in bed, when it's just plain early. She grabs a shirt of his off the floor and slips it on before padding across the room to jerk the curtain closed.
"You weren't home." Her explanation is accepted with a smirk and she slides back under the covers, draping herself over his warm body.
"Fuck, this bed is tiny."
Their best moments come when they're half-conscious. On the verge of sleep and too exhausted to care.
They don't keep the duffel bags packed anymore. His is permanently full of random Knicks gear and hers drags schoolwork between the two apartments. Their friends like them more without the three AM wake up calls. He shuts the door when he showers. She glowers silently and cleans the kitchen.
There's a worn spot on the extra wide couch. Sometimes he falls asleep out there during SportsCenter. When she realizes it, she drags herself out of bed and collapses on top of him. They wake up the next morning with aches and kinks in previously unknown muscles.
Every night he's home, they sleep together. Even if they're pissed as shit at each other and don't touch the entire night. Especially when they're actually talking. It's the one thing that still resembles a relationship and they know it.
Clay looks around the large open area. Well, large and open by New York City's standards. He's unfamiliar with the place and positive his client is too. He knows Nathan has no reason to fire him, but he's still a little nervous.
He's approached by the man himself, hat low and sunglasses on. "What's with the disguise?"
Nathan doesn't respond. Just tilts his coffee cup toward a glass store front and raises his eyebrows expectantly.
"What? That's all I get? I have no idea what's going on." More than nervous, he trails the man closer to the indicated store and stops in his tracks. "You're not serious."
"What?" Nathan barks. Clay rolls his eyes in response. Not even getting back the love of his life has fixed Nathan Scott's attitude. "She's not leaving me and I'm not leaving her. Might as well get the damn thing over with."
Reluctantly, he follows the athlete into the store. "Yeah, that's the perfect reason to get married, Nathan. How romantic."
Nathan turns on him and he decides it loses some effectiveness every time he does it. "I don't do romantic. That's what you're here for."
Belated realization dawns and Clay shakes his head. He hopes they're hopeless enough to work.
She looks up and stares at the door when he comes in, tired enough to nearly trip over his own gym bag. The thing is angrily kicked to the side and she winces when it hits the wall. Pausing by the couch, he stares back. Reading glasses, yogurt in hand, pencil holding her hair up. Definite study mode.
"Hi," her lips quirk up and he blows out a breath in response.
He considers going to their bedroom and kickass bed. She's out here. "Fuck," he grunts lowly and topples over the back of the couch.
Seconds later, she hears the sounds of his soft snoring and chuckles lightly. It takes half that time to abandon her schoolwork. He's passed out on his stomach, throw pillow jammed under his dark head. She eases onto the space behind him, careful not to rest heavily on him. He'll just bitch her out for trying to suffocate him in his sleep. Her head drops to his shoulder and her arms slips over his waist, reveling in the steady rise and fall of his breathing. He flips over and drags her to lay all over him.
He tosses the box in his hand, can almost feel the weight of the massive rock inside. She'll think it's massive; it's one of the smallest they could find in the damn store. The attempt to spin it on his index finger fails. The velvet's dark against their sheets and he considers leaving it there for her to find.
She's at that other hellhole now. Woke up two hours later and had a massive and he means massive panic attack about whatever she was studying for. Her shrieking woke him up so he jammed the pillow over his ear and told her to shut the fuck up or get the fuck out. He bolted upright on the couch to her doing just that five seconds later, door bouncing back open from how hard she slammed it.
Romance is not in his fucking wheelhouse.
He picked the ring. Even with Clay breathing over his shoulder and pointing at everything in the display case. For a guy who'd been insanely in love four times in the last year, he's shit at sticking to an actual decision. Probably why he'd been insanely in love four times in the last year. He's never once said those words and has had the same girl since they were 16.
It'd be more impressive if they weren't always trying to kill each other.
His thumbnail works the seam of the box till it cracks open. He stares grimly at the bright glare, willing it to detail a plan of action. Maybe he should just go get a bigger one. It'll help distract from the failure his proposal's bound to be.
He finds a plastic toy basketball in the duffel of random Knicks stuff. Why someone thought he'd want that is a mystery to him. A knife from the kitchen easily slices through one of the black ribs. He jams the box in there then throws the entire thing in his sock drawer. The one he never uses. Because all his clothes are still on the bedroom floor.
She glances around her apartment. The other one's theirs but this one's hers. And he hates it.
It's more of a home than her previous place but that's because of him too. "Shouldn't you have shit up or something?" So she put up some pictures, of her family, of them, of him. One of the walls is growing a section of index cards held up by painter's tape. Words, thoughts, quotes, melodies, lyrics. He glares at the thing every time.
Sorry.
Her phone buzzes with the sentiment and she rolls her eyes. Of course he is. She used to have to wring that word out of him. Now he spits it out reflexively like it's a force field against her anger. It's worked so far.
It's okay, her fingers peck out. Besides I kind of miss you saying things you mean, her mind adds. Be home tomorrow.
She knows it's a stupid complaint. That he apologizes too much. But it's them and him and this is not them and him. And she misses that. She misses being able to say anything and getting an honest reaction out of him. Not that pained half-grimace before he breathes like he's running a marathon and his mouth grinds out an apology.
It's stupidest that she misses his temper tantrums but there's good reason. If he doesn't throw any, she can't throw any.
It's only sheer will power that moves her legs to the bedroom.
Finals are an invention that even she, queen of all things school, doesn't enjoy. It's freedom at last, mixed with pride for going back after three years and settling right in.
Thoughts are gone the second she catches sight of him passed out and shirtless. Her mind flickers with ideas and she almost gathers a speck of energy before he yawns while asleep. In moments, she's crawling onto the bed to join him.
"Haley?" His arms wrap snugly around her and she pushes her face into the crook of his neck. "Marry me."
He's probably unconscious and she's on the verge of it. Still, she answers the way she always will. "Yes."
His arms stretch above the bed, careful not to disturb the slight form tucked into his side. That blue-gray light glows behind the curtains and he curses himself for falling asleep so early. Then again, it's boring in the apartment without her. And Coach had already kicked him out of their training facilities for not having a life.
He freezes at the memory. No, last night was not a dream. Yes, he really is that much of a shithead. Then he remembers the most important part. She said yes. Fuck it if she doesn't remember saying it, she's his now.
The idea's just building the shitstorm he's got brewing, but it's too good to pass up. He slips out of bed and over to the closet. His clothes are still on the floor and the ring's still in the hiding spot from months ago. He pushes it onto her finger, making sure he's got the left hand and kisses her palm. The voice in his head coughs whipped.
Time for some NBA Live.
She frowns heavily, knowing before looking that she's alone in bed. The pout forms until her eyes catch on the alarm clock. Noon. No wonder he's not in bed. Not even his lazy ass could sleep for 15 plus hours.
A hand is thrown onto the pillow above her and something sharp grazes her forehead. That's when she notices the absolutely huge ring weighing down her left hand.
Her burst out of the bedroom is met with no reaction. He's on the floor, still shirtless with his back against the couch and the former contents of the pantry spread around him. Even the wrapper for the rice cakes he says he hates.
"Hey, what's up? Oh, that's right. You. Finally," he snickers at his own joke, jamming the buttons on his controller. She looks on wordlessly as he fights with the device. "This is such fucking bullshit. I totally post better than this!" Her eyes roll, of course he's playing as himself.
"Do you want to explain this?" Her hand flies up but he's not even looking.
"It's your engagement ring, babe," his answer comes in short grunts. She's tempted to tell him that turning the controller doesn't do anything but she's pretty sure he already knows that. "You said yes last night."
She doesn't remember anything besides stumbling to bed and waking up with an engagement ring. Whatever he said better not have been pretty. Half his words make her want to throttle him, the other half to jump him. Very rare are the occasions when he says something heartfelt and true.
"I said marry me. You said yes." He cranes his neck to look at her, but that's only because he lost. "Change your mind?" Already, she wants to throttle him.
"No," she snits back. He starts another game. "Sorry."
Her mouth throws down the gauntlet before her brain has time to catch up. He throws down his controller.
"Don't fuck with me, Haley." She shrugs her shoulders innocently even as he backs her against a wall. "Oh, no, you want us to start fighting then you start it. You're not blaming me for it."
"Fine, you apologize too damn much." Her teeth grit when his eyes widen in mock surprise.
"And you don't sing anymore. Don't see me complaining about it." He does, mentally, every time she cuts herself off. Because what's the stupid point of being engaged to a retired singer.
She's pressed flat against the wall by the bedroom door and they both know where this conversation is going. The five feet to their bed and no further.
"Was this angry sex or we-just-got-engaged sex?"
"Seriously? Shut up and sleep."
He never asks for the ring back and she gets used to its weight.
Her final grades arrive in the mail and the next day she finds flowers and a cake in their kitchen. The red icing reads Congratufuckinglations. She makes up a ditty about dishwashers needing detergent put in them.
She bitches about renewing the lease on her apartment. He curses at his video game and doesn't hear her. "What! Fine, so don't." He hounds a teammate into helping move the few boxes of fucking shit that migrated over. The wall of notecards is reassembled above his TV.
Their mothers would start planning the wedding but they finished years ago.
"The gardens, honey. I swear I don't know what's wrong with you. The only official gardens in the nearest I don't know how many miles."
"Then how the hell am I supposed to know?" He bites back the fuck when virtual him turns the ball over. "In Tree Hill? Alright, bye."
The phone hits the floor and he can feel her rolling her eyes in the kitchen. Like she didn't have the same conversation with her mother five minutes ago. "Just tell us when and where," had been her exasperated contribution to the plans.
They don't even know he proposed. Just called her one day bitching about tracking down half her wayward family before the date. October something. He thinks. He probably has a game or practice and she definitely has school.
It'd all be happening whether or not they'd gotten back together.
She drops onto the couch next to him. After taping up a new green notecard. "It's where we..."
He glances over and assesses the blush. "Did it in the back of Luke's pickup? Nice." She's off the couch instantly and a pen meets the back of his head. "You're going to blush through the entire thing, right?" Her response is the slam of the bedroom door.
He doesn't care what has to happen. They're totally making it there.
The next call is just as unwanted, even more inconvenient, and the most boring to date. Even she's falling asleep on him. Literally, sprawled out on top of his back and slowly decreasing his lung capacity. It's sleepiness or oxygen deprivation but he can't remember how they get to this topic.
"Wait, you actually proposed?"
"If I didn't propose, why are you planning a wedding?"
"Lydia and I figured we could just badger the two of you into it. To be honest, I'm trying to get the wedding perfect to make up for Haley never getting a proposal out of you."
The woman in question snickers in amusement. He rolls his shoulders suddenly and her head falls onto the mattress below. "Brat," he grumbles. "Well, Mom, I'm not a completely useless fuck so stop overcompensating." He pulls the battery out before she can call back and tosses the parts toward the door.
"You shouldn't talk to your mom like that."
"I shouldn't talk to my mom, naked and in bed with my equally naked fiance." He reaches out a hand and smooths it down her bare side.
"True," she bites the shoulder that jostled her out of place and squirms away from his hands. "I still don't remember that proposal."
He'd repeat it but it was just too pathetic. "Then how do you know you said yes?"
"Not because you said I did," she snits, shifting closer. "Wouldn't have said no."
His head lifts slowly and he jams a hand under his chin. "Ever?"
"Why don't you piss me off and see what happens?"
"You're being a bastard."
He sneers openly and she rolls her eyes.
"Stop acting like a baby."
He doesn't even bother responding to that one.
"You didn't make the playoffs last year." Funny you know that when we weren't even together his mind snorts but his mouth just growls. "At least you made the first round this year. I don't see why you're so disappointed." Really she does but it's been over a fucking month and the bitterness and deja vu have worn her raw.
"Fuck you," he murmurs low. Her gasp is audible. "I could get traded you know that? Don't expect me to pay for two places and all the damn visits."
"I've got more than enough to stand on my own." She beats a hasty retreat to the bedroom and he grimaces before switching to Game Four. Ten minutes later she breezes out with hastily called Leaving and the door floats shut behind her.
It hasn't happened in a long time and he still isn't the smartest guy in the locker room so it takes a minute. She really does have her own money and the duffel bag's been empty since school ended. A shirt and bra lay by the bedroom door, casualties of her hurried packing.
"Aw, shit, baby, don't leave." The words slip out of his mouth even as his brain processes that she's already gone. It catches up and mocks him for being fucking pathetic.
She comes back in four days. It's just to get more clothes but he tosses her on the bed and makes it impossible to walk.
The clothes she took stay gone. More go missing. The wall of notecards slowly shrinks.
He hates it at first. Because it's fucking hick. Not that pop-country crap on the radio but old school country-western. Like Hank Williams and shit. Don't ask him how he knows that.
It reminds her of home. It reminds him of away games, stuck on a foul smelling bus with a sadistic grouch of a coach who outlawed headphones of any kind. It's her goddamn latest inspiration. Does the woman not know they live in New York City?
All her music's migrated to...wherever so he just gets her humming old songs about dead dogs or cheating lovers or booze and God that end up stuck in his head. And he wants to kill her for it.
He catches her one day. Home early from training camp and through the small space of the partially shut bedroom door. She's wearing his damn high school jersey and nothing else, legs curled under her and guitar clutched in her lap, strumming lightly.
His foot kicks the door open and she smiles, still playing. It's slow, bone-melting sweet, and sultry and just a little lower and softer than she normally sings. He doesn't even care if it's country because the words are ripped straight from their high school days and make him ache.
He kneels by the bed, as close as he can get, and waits patiently for the end. Then his hands are under the jersey and sliding it over her head. The guitar is only spared when she murmurs that she wrote the song with it. He sets the instrument down gently.
Her hands brush through his hair and she hums it again softly. He fucking loves it.
"Hey!"
She has to refocus when her eyes open. Her head reels back and she wonders why he's inches away and shaking her shoulders with an impatient frown. She wants to tell him to shove it. That song took forever to drag out of her and he already exhausted whatever energy she had left.
She holds her breath and waits.
"You're everything. Marry me."
"Yes." Her arms drag him down and she curls into his heated side.
They both breathe a quiet sigh of relief and she's almost asleep when he speaks again. "You'll remember this time?"
"Seriously? Shut up and sleep."
She still thinks his agent's an idiot, just now he's an idiot whose name she has to remember. And not a regular one who needs a distraction or alcohol to say and do things normal people wouldn't. It's the type where she wonders if hitting him over the head with a blunt object would even do anything.
But he and Nathan are almost friends now and he's negotiating for one of his old teammates from Brooklyn so she keeps her mouth shut and deals. The hissing only happens when he uses her fiancee to pick up skanks.
"Hey babe." His voice is low and gravelly and she trails her hand through his hair once more for good measure. She lays on the couch and tries to force lyrics from her mind; he sits on the floor and plays his video game. Both are distracted by her fingers sifting through the strands. "Did your mom invite Clay?"
Her fingers stall and he smirks. That's a no. "He promises not to sleep with your sisters." The snort comes unwillingly. "Or anyone else you tell him not to."
She rolls her eyes but nods. Their heads rest close enough he can feel the movement. The idiot will have his pick of Tree Hill High Class of '04 by the week's end.
"How are you still terrible at this game?"
"How's that song going?"
"Explain to me again why you're not coming."
"I told you I can't afford to," the blonde mumbled and stabbed at her salad.
"I told you I'd take care of it," she murmured back. Lack of money was a familiar place but she doesn't see how this constitutes a handout.
Peyton sighs and whips away her mane of curls. She glances around for the nonexistent culprit before turning back. "It's not that. Rat's looking for a reason to fire me. Unless you plan on letting me mooch off you till I find another job, can't."
The laugh is unexpected. "What'd you do?" The blonde flushes and she chortles again, "Come on, it can't be that bad. He didn't fire you on the spot. What'd you do?"
"I had a bad week," she fumbles for a defense and her companion chuckles. "Some guy was getting handsy. I kneed him in the groin. Besides, I don't think Nathan would appreciate me at his wedding."
She takes a moment to collect herself. Bad week could mean guy accidentally brushed past her on the way to the bathroom. "The idiot's going. Mom got the official RSVP. No plus one, imagine that."
An eyebrow raises in curiosity and her lips purse in amusement. "And what was I supposed to be? Retribution?"
"Yep," she agrees cheerfully. "Gone and spoiled my plans. Only ones I actually put together for this whole to-do."
"Do people still recognize you?" She's thrown by the sudden change in topic and the blonde's lowered voice and hunched shoulders. "Some woman's been staring and now she's coming over here."
"Haley James?" comes the not unpleasant voice.
She nods once and hopes this is over quickly.
"I slept with your fiancee."
Her face mirrors her complete shock and she barely registers Peyton's sharp gasp and muttered curses. "Really?" she forces herself to recline in her seat, "When?"
The other woman's on her toes. "After the season opener against Toronto. I'm pregnant."
Peyton and the unknown woman are staring in a mixture of fascination, horror, and concern. Half the restaurant join them. She grips the table for balance and the plates rattle with the force of her shaking. The woman is escorted out per Peyton's request long before she pulls herself together.
"Explain to me why in hell you're laughing."
His dark head is bent in concentration. Rap and a heavy bass leak out of the oversized headphones. Someone could rob them blind and he'd never notice.
She tosses her purse on the table and the strap whacks him in the head. Briefly, she wonders if that were actually an accident.
"Hey," he mumbles, nudging one headphone off an ear. They aren't fighting. There's no reason for her to be glaring like he forgot to put detergent in the dishwasher. The playbook slams shut and he sighs, "What?"
"You got some hussy pregnant." Her voice wavers between a statement and a question. She hears his neck crack as he turns to look at her, eyes wide. "Yep, found out at lunch. Peyton's ready to kill you."
His jaw works wordlessly. She knows he's not the smartest man ever, but some reaction has to be coming. "Are you trying to tell me something? If you are, you just called yourself a hussy."
One point for ambiguity she mentally notes. "I'm not pregnant." Her lips fight the smile. He barely registers the relief before tensing again. She relays the story from lunch but leaves out her uncontrollable laughter.
Finally, he barks out a laugh and drags her into his lap, tickling mercilessly.
"I take it you didn't sleep with her." His laugh turns into an offended glare and she laughs.
"A, you fucked me senseless that night. B, I don't think I can get it up for a woman who's not you. Might be broken."
She squirms against him purposefully and chuckles at his murmur of never mind, not broken. "I didn't mean to throw my purse at you."
"If you had, you would have missed. Should I call Clay?" His mouth is against her neck, trying hard to focus on the importance of this but failing. "He should know."
Her hand rakes through his hair before desperately pulling him away. "Does. Took care of it." For once, the man did his job admirably. Threw the woman out of his office, after practically laughing her out the door, and didn't bother them with it, because it was obviously bullshit.
His eyebrow quirks up and she sighs dramatically. "Fine, he's not a complete idiot. But Peyton had her thrown out of the restaurant."
"Fine, her bitchiness can be useful." He kisses her until her heart rate outpaces the "music" from his headphones.
He knows there are people pissed about it. Pissed they're living some kind of magical charmed life. That she didn't turn up barefoot and pregnant during/after high school. That he didn't end up working at the corner gas station. That they weren't trapped into marriage and hopelessly miserable with three brats—because Scotts are born stupid when it comes to birth control—they could barely feed.
Instead, they're the golden couple, deigning to descend on their hometown for their wedding. For a marriage that'll be as perfect as him carrying her books and draping an arm around her shoulders to walk her to homeroom. They've ventured out into the real world New York City! and still fit flawlessly.
Or at least that's what he keeps telling himself.
"Holy fucking shit, woman. Stop kicking!"
She elbows him in the head for his language—they are in a public place after all—and jams a knee into his ribs. He wheezes a fuck and drops her into the black vinyl seats. Both refuse to glance around and acknowledge the spectacle they just made of themselves.
"Say you're sorry," she demands. If security didn't come when he threw her over his shoulder and marched her back to the gate, they aren't going to show when she yells at him. "Stupid fucking manwhore."
"You already knew!" He's sweating bullets because really? Now?
Okay, so she did but still. "Wrong answer!"
Her legs move to get up and he pushes down on her shoulders firmly. A voice announces over the intercom and they freeze.
"I already said sorry and you already knew."
"Wrong answer."
He's not entirely sure what the fuck she's getting at. She isn't either.
So he slept with some women when they weren't together. She did too. Slept with other men that is. They both grit their teeth whenever it comes up. The one time it came up and they refused to address it beyond the preliminary sorry. Until that woman in the bathroom.
She went to the bar Peyton works at, got piss drunk, and slept with the first attractive guy who offered. He did basically the same thing, but with a female. Felt equal amounts guilty and nauseous for the next few weeks, got wasted to try and forget, then made the same mistake all over again. Rinsed and repeated. It was a nice, sick cycle they found themselves in.
He had made it perfectly clear where they stood and she was not the type to wait on a white knight act. She'd find her own happiness if he was no longer willing to contribute. He was a well-intentioned, misguided ass who didn't recognize a good thing even after it bit him.
The attendant is staring directly at them, enunciating every word spoken into the microphone. Now or never.
"I want to marry you."
Oh.
Calling him retarded is an insult to those with mental challenges. Can't even string together a decent proposal and hardly recognizes it when she tries to walk out. Calling her a cryptic bitch with bad timing is understating the issue. One second it's I can get my own luggage he-man, and the next it's tell me you love me.
"I want to marry you, too. Will you get on the stupid plane now?"
She forces his hand to unclench from around the armrest. It doesn't move because they're in first class and she's slightly peeved about it. He's the same way. Long legs invade her side of the legroom to press against hers.
Her fingernail traces the creases in his palm, light and gentle over the scars from rusted basketball rims. She hums their song quietly and his fingers scramble under her shirt to reach the bare skin of her back.
This is good and this is right.