Sparks Fly in the Dark (Sparks Fly #1)

Part One

"I still can't believe you ate almost an entire pizza!"

"Hey, I'm a growing boy, I need my food."

"Just as long as you're not growing here." Haley gave his stomach a playful pinch, her giggles bouncing in the night air.

Nathan gave an indignant gasp before wrapping his arm tighter around her shoulders, his fingers playing softly with the collar of her thin sweater, feeling the warmth of her skin beneath it. Haley snuggled in deeper to his side, using the night air as an excuse to be closer, as they walked towards his car. A comforting silence surrounded the two as their shoes made soft plopping sounds against the wet pavement. A late spring rain had washed over the town, while the dense humidity had made tonight's crisp air a welcomed change.

They reached Nathan's Mustang quietly, the only sound the distant murmur of people outside the movie theater and he let go of her shoulder to open her door. She always reveled in the way he sought out to do the little things for her. Whether it was opening a car door or ordering a drink for her in a restaurant, Haley loved the feeling of being taken care of, of having someone constantly looking out for her. And it had become so much more than that.

She had fallen in love. She wasn't quite sure when it happened, where it had all fallen into place during their flourishing relationship, but she could say without a shadow of a doubt, that she loved him. Nathan was hardly the person she had imagined being her first love, but as the days and weeks passed and their bond grew tighter, she couldn't imagine calling anyone else her first love. She felt silly thinking about it, remembering her conversations with both Peyton and Lucas only last week. It felt good to say she loved Nathan to them, even if at the time she hadn't mustered up the courage to tell Nathan.

Lucas had played the protective brother card, as if she didn't have enough of those already, but underneath it all, she knew he was happy for her. Happy that she had been right to take this leap with Nathan, and maybe a little proud that his brother had been the one to make her so happy.

Her conversation with Peyton had been entirely different.

"Hmmm, the big bad sex issue."

"Yeah. I mean, we start making out, and it's great and I totally get into him, and then I just hit this point."

"Bet he loves that."

"Yeah. I guess I just always thought I'd wait until I fell in love and got married and then I met Nathan, and everything got really confusing. It was never something I had to deal with right away. It was always a few years off. And then all of the sudden-"

"It wasn't? Been down that road."

"I don't know if I'm ready Peyton."

"Or maybe you're just not sure Nathan's the right guy?"

"No. I'm, I can safely rule that out. Ah, he, I can't breathe when I'm around him and when I'm not around him I want to be. I'm just, I'm totally in love with him."

"Well, then you've gone farther with him than I ever did."

Sex. Three little letters, one huge leap. A leap she was getting closer to taking every day, if she was being honest with herself. Even just recently she found herself subconsciously finding it harder and harder to tell Nathan to stop in the middle of a heated make-out session. She wanted to keep going, to feel him on top of her, his breath hot on her skin, his skin heated against hers, and it was easy to get lost in the moment, but every time she'd reach a point and make him stop. It had never been an easy thing to say, she could hardly pass it off with a witty remark, but instead it often came out on a breathless moan, which hardly gave her any credibility that it was what she wanted. She still wasn't sure what she wanted, but she knew that a decision was on the horizon, a decision that would change them, and her, forever.