Disclaimer- Puh-lease. If I owned Glee Mark Salling would never, EVER have his shirt on.

C o y o t e U g l y

Chapter One:

New York City was not everything Rachel Berry always thought it would be. She didn't automatically get the first role she auditioned for. Hell she didn't even get to be a chorus girl in the first show she'd auditioned for. She wasn't living in a beautiful studio apartment where she could throw lavish apartments.

No, she was living in a small one bedroom shoebox of an apartment in Brooklyn with paper thin walls that made it far too easy to hear her neighbors on one side fighting at three o'clock in the morning and her neighbors on the other side fornicating at all hours of the night. She was running from one open casting call to the next as she tried to get a job and being turned down for the off, off, off Broadway shoes that she was auditioning for. She was struggling to pull rent money together each month; going as far as taking cold showers and leaving the lights off pretty much twenty-four seven while she read in the dark late at night by candles and thanking god that her father's had insisted on sending her money each month.

That's how she found herself wandering around the Greenwich Village after another terrible audition. She thought she did well…until the casting director practically laughed in her face. It wasn't until she heard her stomach growl that she realized that she hadn't actually eaten since lunch the day before. Looking around she saw a sign for a place called 'Taco and Tortilla King' which looked grungy from the outside, and a café called 'Push Café' across the street that she could tell she'd never be able to afford and then she saw it. The big red letters red 'Lyric Diner' and it was like a sign. This was exactly what she needed.

Walking inside Rachel plopped herself down at the counter and dropped her head to the counter. What was she thinking? She should have listened to her father's when they tried to convince her to stay with them in Jersey and commute into the city for auditions. But no, she had to start her own life after college and live on her own. And now she hardly had the money to buy groceries.

"Hey what can I get ya?"

Rachel's head popped up from the counter to see a curly haired man standing in front of her, a stained apron over a faded Run DMC t-shirt, "Oh, ummm…just a tea thanks."

The man looked at her critically for a second before making her tea and setting it down in front of her, "Are you okay? You look like you could use someone to talk to."

"Yeah, just uh, just a hard couple of weeks."

"Honey you look like you could use a good meal. When's the last time you ate?" Rachel quickly averted her eyes, but the look on her face made it obvious that she hadn't had a good meal in a while, "Em, can you get me an order of deluxe griddle cakes and put a rush on it?"

"Will do sweetheart." Rachel looked over to where the voice was coming from to see a short redhead with large eyes buzzing around behind the counter.

Will gave Rachel a mall smile, "Thing's will get better. Don't give up hope."

As Will continued serving his costumers Rachel let herself lay her head back onto the counter, trying not to think about how she was going to pay for the food he'd apparently just ordered for her, instead listening to the sounds of the people around her.

"Two hundred dollars in tips. Each."

"Nice. You sure you wanna give this up April? I mean seriously there's no way you're gonna be able to make cash like this at law school."

Rachel shifted slightly so she could inconspicuously get a glimpse at the people having this conversation. That was a lot of money in tips and she couldn't help but wonder if these girls were strippers. They were certainly beautiful enough to be. One, April, seemed to be older than the other two, with blonde hair and long legs, her skin tan. The other two seemed to be about her age, one blond, tall and pale, the other tall, fierce looking and Latina.

"Yeah April, Santana's right. Plus there's no way things are going to be the same without you. We need you!"

"I'm gonna miss you girls too, but honestly the only reason I ever took this job was to save money for law school. It's time for me to move on Britt."

The table fell into a sad silence until Wannabe by the Spice Girls came on. April's head popped up and she called over to Will for him to turn up the music as she started dancing around with Santana and Brittany, singing into a ketchup bottle as if it were a microphone.

"Here you go. Griddle cakes with a side of ham, bacon and hash browns. Eat up." Will set the food down in front of Rachel, laughing at the girls who were joking around as they danced to the nineties pop classic.

"Who are those girls?" Rachel couldn't hold in her curiosity as she watched the girls, who were obviously regulars, dancing around the diner like they owned the place.

"They're coyotes." Will handed Rachel a business card that read 'Coyote Ugly Saloon, Quinn Fabray- Manager'.

Twenty minutes later, after inhaling the delicious food Will had given her and eavesdropping some more on the coyotes a few feet away, Rachel was searching through her wallet trying to figure out how she was going to pay for her meal. She really needed to find a job.

Emma walked up in time to see Rachel searching through her wallet and smiled down at her, "It's on the house sweetie. And come back soon."

Rachel smiled at her and started her long walk home, looking down at the business card Will had given her she let a smile take over her face as an idea formed in her mind.

A/N- This story is inspired by the movie Coyote Ugly, however it's not going to be the same plot, but there will be parallels to the movie. Let me know what you guys think. Should I keep writing it?

"I'm like Tinkerbell I need applause to live." – Rachel Berry. Guys, reviews are the applause of the fanfiction world give them to me guys. : )