A Lot Can Happen At Boarding School (One Tree Hill FF)

Chapter 27

Chapter 27: A Tree Hill Raven always knows when it isn't like it should be, it's not what it can be.

Haley sits on the bench, one leg crossed over the other with her foot bobbing – up and down, up and down – waiting for Nathan's return. Her anxiety skyrockets with each minute that passes. This was a horrible idea. It all was a horrible idea. Coming back to this reunion. Opening old wounds. Thinking there was even a chance to maybe-possibly go back to how things were, just for a weekend. Telling Nathan, everything. Well, almost. The more she thought about it, the more she realized how delusional she'd been when she'd convinced herself to come.

As she closes in on the last ounce of patience she has, before she just knows he won't be coming back, Nathan appears with the most gigantic pink pastry box Haley has ever seen. He was, without a doubt and for so many reasons, the most attractive person she'd ever met and a welcome sight after her spiral into self-doubt. He looks nervous and unbearably cute holding the big pink box. Her heart hums in delight.

"You came back," Haley jokes. "I half expected you to leave me here."

"Thought about it," Nathan says with a small smile, taking a seat on the far end of the bench and placing the box between them. He welcomes the buffer. Time still didn't change the fact that a concentrated Haley was always the most beautiful to him. She had these little ticks – the scrunch of her nose, the twisting of her lips, the bounce of her thumb on her chin as she thought – that were so truly Haley. It was a peek behind the curtain that he couldn't resist.

"I wouldn't blame you," Haley says in self-deprecation, gratefully taking her coffee from Nathan. She takes a sip, a giddiness running through her that it tasted perfect. He remembered her order. Sigh.

"Nah, I wouldn't do that," Nathan states, noticing a rigidness taking over Haley's posture. "Sorry, that wasn't meant to be a dig. It's just... the truth."

"What do you mean?" Haley asks.

"I just mean I've become a stickler for commitment. If I say I'm going to do something, I do it. And if I know I won't follow-through, I don't commit to something in the first place."

"Oh," Haley says, embarrassed.

"I feel like I'm digging myself into a hole," Nathan observes.

Haley shakes her head, "Not at all. You're being honest. I think it just reminds me of what a good person you are Nathan Scott."

"I wouldn't go that far," he says, glancing over to find Haley observing him. Their eyes lock for a moment, before he cuts to the box. "Want a pastry?"

"Dealer's choice," Haley says, eying the box in anticipation. Nathan opens it, not surprised to find every pastry under the sun thanks to Charity – blueberry scones, raspberry jam cookies, coffee cake, donuts – you name it, it's in there. And finally, wedged in a corner, is what he was looking for. Nathan picks up the chocolate-chip banana bread with a napkin and hands it to Haley.

She looks through the box, not accepting it yet. "Oh no, there's only one. You can have it."

"Just take it Haley," Nathan says, shoving the napkin into her hand.

"But it's your favorite too," Haley says, feeling guilty.

"It's really not," Nathan states, picking up a raspberry jam cookie.

"Nathan, every time we went to Karen's you'd get banana bread. It's your favorite," Haley states in disbelief.

"I got it because it's your favorite," he says. "I love anything raspberry."

Haley watches incredulously as Nathan twists open the raspberry jam cookie, licking the filling off the shortbread. As if it was so casual for him to drop romantic-teenage bombs on her. He got it because it was her favorite. And then he has the audacity to lick the jam from a cookie. As if her twenty-eight-reverting-back to-sixteen-year-old heart doesn't find that hot as hell. Goosebumps run up her arms as she watches him. A familiar tingle of attraction warming across her chest.