Title: Playing the Game

Author: Hana (thedreamygirl)

Pairing: Nathan/Haley

Rating: Mature

Summary: For authors Haley James and Nathan Scott it was attraction at first sight, and hate two minutes later. Luckily, they only have to endure each other for one day. Or do they?

Author's Note: This was a request by Kaia but I'm not going to post the details of the request just yet because I don't want to give anything away. Thank you to Diane for all her thoughts and encouragement, and also to Jess for her feedback.

Author's Note 2: I know the last thing I need to be doing is starting another story, but Always Love is nearly finished and since I had the prologue of this done, I thought I would post it. Updates will be sporadic for now, but all the chapters after this prologue will be quite lengthy.

Prologue

Raleigh, North Carolina.

The bottle opened, the champagne poured, five friends assembled round a kitchen table one early morning, preparing for a toast.

"Um, what exactly are we toasting by the way?" Chris Keller, the oldest of the five, asked.

"Yeah, and while you're at it, could you tell me why you had to come bang on my door and wake me up at 5 in the morning to do it?" Mouth McFadden groaned and pulled up a chair so he could sit down at his kitchen table rather than stay standing against the counter. "Some of us have jobs that don't offer us the luxury of working on our own time, and require us to be fully alert by 8 a.m."

"Stop complaining, Mouth," Lucas Scott told him as he helped his brother Nathan, the architect of this gathering, lift a cardboard box onto the table.

"Well, you did wake us pretty early. I mean, it may be 5 now, but when you came to my house to drag me here with you guys it was 4.30 a.m.," Jake Jagielski, the fifth member of the group, reminded him.

"Don't you keep a knife in your- never mind, I found it!" Nathan exclaimed, brandishing it triumphantly.

"Keep your voice down. You'll wake Melanie up," Mouth muttered, referring to his young daughter who had managed to sleep through his friends barging in so early in the morning. "You know she gets cranky when she doesn't sleep properly."

"I wonder where she gets that from," Nathan said, smirking. Mouth simply glared at him.

"Can we get on with things?" Chris wondered. "I'm recording tomorrow and I really don't want to waste precious studio time by falling asleep."

Nathan nodded and then used the knife to cut the cello tape that was holding the box together. Putting the knife down on the kitchen counter he came back to the table and opened the lid to reveal what was inside the box.

Jake reached inside the box and pulled out a book entitled, "The Player's Handbook". In smaller print at the bottom of the cover it named the book's author: Nathan Scott.

Chris, who had been looking over Jake's shoulder, furrowed a brow. "This is what we're toasting?"

"Nathan, your book came out months ago," Jake stated.

Lucas and Nathan glanced at each other, amused that their friends' didn't get it.

"You guys remember that it was doing quite well right?" Nathan asked.

"Yeah," Mouth half-said, half-yawned.

"Well, it did so well that it got sent to re-print!"

"Dude!" Chris exclaimed. "That's awesome!"

"Yeah, congratulations, Nate," Jake chimed in.

"Mmhmm, that's great, Nathan. Can I go back to sleep now?" Mouth muttered, not lifting his head from the table.

Lucas chuckled and slapped Mouth on the back. "Come on, man. We haven't even toasted Nate yet."

Jake picked up his glass, thinking the sooner they toasted, the sooner he could go back to sleep. He was still in his pyjamas, for Christ's sake! "To Nathan and his suc-"

"Wait, wait, wait!" Chris interrupted. "Why don't we make this interesting?"

"What do you mean?" Nathan wondered, as Mouth did his best not to protest.

"Alright, now, we've all read Nate's book, right?" When all the boys nodded, Chris continued, "Okay, but how many of you have actually been following what it says?"

Nathan glanced around and noticed that Mouth, Lucas and even Jake didn't seem to be nodding their heads.

Mouth sighed. "I just haven't felt like dating ever since Becky…" he trailed off and Jake looked at him sympathetically. Mouth's wife Becky, had died when Melanie was only one year old, and Mouth had never quite recovered from it.

"Well, this is not a dating handbook, is it Mouth?" Chris told him. "It's a player's handbook, and that's just what you need to get back into the game again."

Lucas rubbed his chin and looked thoughtful. "I have to say, Mouth, Chris has a point. I know that it's been hard on you, but it has been three years and all you've been doing is looking after Melanie or working. You need to start having some fun."

Mouth looked thoughtful, before asking, "What about you, Luke? You haven't exactly been out there in the dating game-"

"Playing," Chris corrected.

"Playing game," Mouth amended, rolling his eyes, "since your divorce."

"Well…" Lucas mumbled.

"What exactly are you proposing, Chris?" Jake asked.

"We should make a pact."

"A pact," Lucas repeated.

Chris nodded. "To follow the rules of the book."

"You know, it pains me to say this, but Keller might have actually hit on something there," Nathan admitted.

"You two," Jake pointed to Chris and Nathan, "are the biggest players out there. Why do you need to make a pact?"

Chris shrugged. "Because it's fun? Besides, Jagielski, I know it's been a while for you too, and you don't even have a good excuse like Mouth and Lucas here."

"What do you think?" Nathan asked his brother.

Lucas frowned. "It's a little 'Love's Labour's Lost', don't you think? Only instead of swearing off women, we're going to swear to – what exactly?"

"What are you talking about?" Chris wondered.

"It's Shakespeare. Um, never mind."

"Whatever, this isn't about love anyway. This is about having some fun," Chris reminded them. "So, what do you guys say?"

Nathan shrugged. "I'm in," he said, and Lucas, after another moment's thought, did the same.

"Jagielski?"

Jake sighed. "What the hell? Sure."

They all looked at Mouth, who was still resting his head against the table, but could feel their gazes on him. He yawned loudly before muttering, "All for one, one for all."