Chapter 1
The sound of a car horn outside let her know Santana was there seconds before Alton Jones' voice boomed throughout the house.
"Mercedes! Tana's here!"
The petite young woman with brown curls flying behind her appeared at the front door in a flash. "Thanks, Daddy. I'll see you later!" she said hurriedly, opening the door.
"You tell her to ring the doorbell next time. She knows we don't do that horn blowing around here," he said with a smile that contradicted his warning tone, waving to the dark-haired girl parked on the street.
His daughter rolled her eyes with an exasperated smile. "She knows, but we're running late!" Mercedes went on her tiptoes to give her father a kiss on the cheek before grabbing her messenger bag and running outside where Santana was waiting in her hand-me-down black convertible. "I think you do that on purpose," she said, sitting in the passenger seat.
"Do what?" Santana asked innocently, looking over the top of her sunglasses. She blew the horn a few more times for good measure, and Mr. Jones appeared again, his broad form nearly consuming the front door frame. "Hey, Mr. Jones!" she yelled with an emphatic wave. "Sorry about the noise!"
"I thought you were running late!" he called back. They, actually Santana, really were running behind schedule, and Will had already been on edge lately for whatever reason.
Mercedes shook her head at both of them. Santana was his favorite of all her friends, which was why he treated her like his fourth child. They had been friends since grade school and grew up together. They'd even decided to go to the same college. Despite their differences, they'd maintained their closeness over the years through the difficulties of adolescence and into adulthood.
After Mercedes once again insisted they needed to leave, Santana finally pulled away from the house.
"So...I've got news," she said, practically bouncing in her seat.
"What?" Mercedes asked, rummaging through her bag for her history notebook. Finals were just around the corner and she needed all the time to study that she could possibly get, especially since Global History wasn't her strongest subject. She couldn't wait for this semester to be over so she could finally take more classes for her music major.
"Uh-uh, you have to guess. I'm not really supposed to tell you."
She stopped digging, interest piqued. "Says who?"
"Says Sam."
"Ugh, he would!" Mercedes exclaimed with a laugh, making up in her mind to fuss at him later. "Just tell me!"
"No! I promised I wouldn't say anything about Bryan Ryan making an appearance at the shop." A forceful tug on her arm made the car swerve and she almost slammed on the brakes.
"SAN! Don't play with me!"
"I'm not playing and you're going to get us killed!"
"Bryan Ryan is coming to Castle Records? BRYAN. RYAN!" she all-but-screamed into the wind.
Santana laughed, focusing on the road ahead. "I don't get your obsession with him. He's hella old and hasn't had a hit since the 1980s."
"His songs are timeless. He is gorgeous. Bryan Ryan is legend," Mercedes replied dreamily, studying long forgotten.
"Whatever you say. Don't get my car seat wet from creaming your panties."
"Santana!"
The driver laughed loudly at the shocked expression on her friend's face, turning on the once chart-topping album of the arguably past-his-prime singer (that Mercedes had downloaded to her iPod), and they sang the rest of the way.
"You haven't left yet?" Quinn asked her brother, walking into the backroom of Castle Records, a spacious area that housed Will's office and still left room for his young staff to hang around without being right on top of each other.
Sam looked up from the table near the back exit, where he'd been touching up his ongoing drawing of an imagined superhero crafted directly on wood, brushing wisps of blond hair out of his eyes. "It's three?"
"I'm here, so...yeah. Didn't you get off at two?" she replied, going over to the lockers to unload her purse and ice blue scooter helmet. When she realized he hadn't answered, she looked over her shoulder to see him scribbling furiously again. "Sam!"
"What?" he asked, surprised by her firm tone.
"Why are you still here?" As soon as the words left her mouth, her facial expression went from concern to knowing. "Oh. Wait, let me see..." the pretty-faced blonde went over to the bulletin board where the schedule was posted. "Mmhmm. Thought so. Mercedes works today." She squinted at the paper and then looked at Sam again. "She doesn't come in until six!"
"I know, but I didn't have anywhere to go, so..."
Quinn was two years older than Sam, living a mysterious life on her own terms. She moved out right after graduating high school and had gone to college, only to drop out with just over a semester left. Their parents hadn't been thrilled, saying she was setting a bad example for her younger siblings, but they couldn't sway her.
When Sam chose to hold off on college, Quinn had been blamed for it, and had since been on the receiving end of many prickly encounters with the family. She was rarely seen around the house anymore, popping in for the occasional visit. Sam understood her choice and was thankful she hadn't shut him out, but he noticed her glow fading, though he never said anything.
"Mom and Dad finally kicked you out, too?" she asked teasingly.
"Quinn, they didn't even kick you out," he said just loud enough for her to hear.
"Might as well have," she mumbled.
The door swung open and in walked another blonde, the bottom layer of her hair dyed pink. She was giggling at God-knows-what because she was completely alone.
"Hey Britt," Quinn said, shutting her locker and officially clocking in at the tiny machine by the door.
"Evans siblings, heeeyyyyy!" Brittany replied with an overdramatic wave. "I brought brownies if you guys want some."
"What kind of brownies?" Sam asked slowly.
"The good kind, duh." They knew what that meant.
"No thanks," Quinn said with a flip of her hand, walking out to the sales floor.
"Don't let Will catch you with those," Sam said with a smirk, resuming his drawing.
"Please. He doesn't even like chocolate. He's so weird," Brittany replied, laughing again.
It wasn't the chocolate he didn't like. It was that Brittany and Sugar liked to bring in treats laced with "special ingredients" that made them giggly and hungry. As a welcome to the team, new employees weren't directed away from the treats if they were interested. Something about questioning the meaning of seemingly inconsequential things and a case of the munchies just brought people together.
"Put them away, Brittany," Will said sternly, coming out of his office, set off to the side and equidistant from the lockers and where Sam was seated. Will Schuester was a generally mild-mannered man with unruly curls and the manager of Castle Records. Once part of a fairly successful band in the early nineties, he settled down and decided to take the record store off the hands of one of his buddies. Most of the employees of the music shop were between eighteen and twenty-seven, and through a common love for music, he'd become like a mentor to them, helping them out when they needed. Still, it didn't mean he was taking any shit. After everything was said and done, no matter how cool he was about most situations, he was still their boss. "Put them away or I'm throwing them away."
"Ugh, fine," Brittany pouted. "Half of the batch is clean, by the way." She snorted. "I just don't know which."
Sam chuckled, shaking his head. Will was on his way out of the backroom when he noticed him at the table. "Didn't you clock out already?" the manager asked.
"Yeah, I'm just waiting for Mercy."
"You know she doesn't come in until this evening, right?" At that moment, Santana, Mercedes, and Mike came barreling into the room; talking loudly. "Consider me mistaken," he said with a grin and walked out.
Sam's eyes locked on the curvy figure of the woman he'd been dreaming about since they met in ninth grade. With the big post-laugh smile still on her face, Mercedes' head turned in Sam's direction and if it was possible, her eyes lit up even more.
"Sam!" Mercedes exclaimed, rushing to his side. "First of all," she put a hand on her hip, "I don't know why you tell Tana anything that's supposed to be a secret, and secondly, Bryan Ryan!" Her hands went from her hips to his forearm excitedly.
"Really, Santana? I couldn't have my moment of glory?" Sam asked, fully standing from his half-seated position on the chair.
"Glory tastes too good for me to pass it up," Santana returned. "Sorry, dear, but I'm not sorry! Hey Britt-Britt," she said, hugging her girlfriend from behind.
Brittany turned to give Santana a kiss. "You want a brownie before I put them in my locker?" she asked.
"Yeah, hit me. I'm gonna need it. Mercedes, you want a brownie?"
"A special brownie," Sam whispered to her.
"No, I'm good!" Mercedes quickly replied, then turned back to her best guy friend. "Okay, how long have you known Bryan was coming here?"
"Technically, no one is supposed to know yet. Will told Finn last week and Finn told Puck, who told me."
"Who told Santana. Damn, no one can keep secrets here. Except me," Mercedes said with a proud bounce on her toes.
Tickling her, Sam responded, "Because you're perfect."
"I'm not perfect!" she laughed. "But I'm probably as close to it as you're gonna get," she added with a wink.
The secret admirer bit his lip to keep himself from blurting out an ill-timed confession. His drawing caught Mercedes' attention and she leaned over to get a closer look. "This is great, Sam! I didn't think it could get better. He kind of looks like you..."
"Nah, he doesn't. I'm not nearly as ripped."
Mercedes raised her eyebrows, then went behind him and squeezed his sides. "Okay, fine, you're right."
He scoffed. "What's that supposed to mean?!"
"Don't act all offended when you put yourself down first," she replied with a hair flip. "I'm kidding. You look great. Your drawing is really good. Are you going to do the whole table? You should draw our whole crew as superheroes!"
Sam smiled at her, charmed by her enthusiasm. "I just might do that."
Mike walked up just as Mercedes walked away to put some of her things away in a locker. "Tongue in your mouth, Romeo," he said, glancing over to where she'd begun chatting with Santana and Brittany. "I can't believe she doesn't know how you feel about her. It's so fucking obvious."
"Is it, Mike? Is it fucking obvious? Please tell me more," Sam joked. He wasn't entirely positive that Mercedes didn't know he was in love with her. Everyone else knew. They'd both been subjected to the teasing about when they would seal the deal already, but Mercedes always laughed it off, never giving any hint to how she felt and Sam wasn't ready to risk their friendship and subject himself to embarrassment, never mind that the feelings were starting to eat him up inside.
Until he had a clear shot and a game plan, that revelation was going to have to wait.