There aren't many new Faberry stories as of late, and I wanted to write my own piece since I still love Faberry so much. I've always been interested in Suburban Faberry and how that would turn out, and I came up with this. Updates may be slow though. But I hope you enjoy this first chapter nevertheless. It is unbeta'd.
Chapter One:
On Magenta Lane, the street where two cars mark almost every driveway and front lawns stay manicured to perfection, Lucy Quinn Fabray is seen as a leader.
At eight she led her classmates in a protest against their yellow-toothed art teacher, Mr Ipson, in the hopes that he might one day bathe and spare them the nosebleeds. At fifteen she led the hallways of St Belle Mord Academy with her steely glare and rigid social standards. At seventeen she led her cheerleading squad to an illustrious national championship. At twenty-five she led her clothing line, Lucy Q Couture, to its first million dollars. At thirty-five she paid to have every front lawn on Magenta Lane professionally styled, leading the street to the number one spot in the Premont Falls Curb Appeal Awards, which consequently upped the value of the area.
Indeed. Those that regard Lucy Quinn Fabray see her as a leader. They style their hair after hers, design their homes after hers, and keep their imperfections tucked away behind radiant smiles, so that their families might appear as well-oiled a machine as hers. But when she looks in the mirror a leader is the furthest thing from what she sees, and despite her classic ethereal beauty, that is why she avoids them.
"Not baking one of your famous apricot pies for our new celebrity neighbor?"
His tone is mocking and spiteful - this boy who she gave life to. Still, Quinn's fingers are mild-mannered as they move amongst the market research reports that splay her office desk, her tone soft and distracted as she replies, "Shelby and I don't get along. You know that."
Her face is less angular bathed in the desk lamp's light, syrup-honey eyes downcast, lost amongst the paperwork. It's a rare snapshot wherein she exudes soft approachability; Blake Fabray-Evans can almost recall a time when he looked to this woman to fix all of his problems. To nurture him. But he shuts that thought down swift, like a boot upon the back of a spider.
"You know," he begins sagely, wagging his index finger as he trails measured steps towards the desk, "there used to be a time when that didn't matter. When you'd bake a pie just to have an excuse to go round and establish who runs things around here."
"How observant of you."
"You have no idea how observant."
That gets Quinn's attention, that tone. It gets her to look up directly into her son's gray eyes, which gleam a sadistic knife-edgeness. "What are you talking about?"
Blake's jowl elongates with a wolfish grin. "I don't know; what do you think I'm talking about?"
Quinn lets her pen clatter to the desk and clasps her hands atop the table, her entire demeanor shifting to that of an unfeeling CEO. "You can hate me for as long as you want. But what I won't have is you pressing me in my home, or disparaging my standing amongst my peers. One more step out of line and your father and I will send you away."
"Send me," Blake taunts. "'That's sure to get the neighbors talking."
"Oh Blake," Quinn coos with a patronizing slant of the head, "d'you really think I haven't already concocted a story to explain away your potential absence?" She watches her teenage son's broad shoulders slump a little at that, and she relinquishes the false sorrow, her magazine-cover features hinting at a smirk. "I'm sure I don't need to remind you, but if you say a word to anybody about our family affairs, you can kiss goodbye to your trust fund."
"How delightfully predictable!" Blake cries, full of mock surprise. "But if there's one thing you've instilled in me, mom, it's savvy." He walks the pointed toes of his custom made shoes right up to the desk, and calmly lays his palms flat to it, face a breath from his mother's. "Once that money's mine, that's when I'll write my tell-all about what it was like growing up in this household, with a frigid phony for a mother."
"After the Huntington scandal, you should know that if Quinn Fabray doesn't want something published, it doesn't get published."
Blake eases back off the desk, smirking down at the woman who betrayed him. Ruined him. The woman who's going to get her comeuppance, even if it's the last thing he ever does. "We'll see, mom. We'll see."
In that moment Quinn realizes that her habitual avoidance of mirrors is futile, because she's a mother.
And children are the most frightful mirrors of all.
Rachel places the book down on the kitchen counter, reaching past it for her glass of wine. How many times would she pick it up and read that witty opening sentence, only to put it down again? She peers at it, the book that all of her industry friends have told her is a must read, wondering why she can barely get past the tongue-in-cheek dedications that splay the racy cover's inside page.
Men Just Want Sex!
She scoffs and grumbles, "if only," under her breath, tossing her wine back with a hearty gulp.
Despite the book title's claim, men don't just want sex. At least, not in her experience. Let her tell it; they want to use, abuse, and misuse - raid her soul for every treasure, and own her. But that's not why she's visiting the picturesque suburbs of Premont Falls.
Not solely anyway.
"You're not still reading that book."
Rachel's aimless gaze finds purpose as she glances at the reason why she's the newest resident on Magenta Lane - the woman who gave her life, and never much else. Shelby Corcoran. She erects her slumped spine for the struggle that she suspects is imminent, and pats her book with clumsy force. "That's exactly what I'm doing. Not reading it. Still."
The flippant comment stilts Shelby's gait, slowing that haughty knock of her heels about the marble floor. She eyes the fly-away strands of mussed brown hair, the quietly impaired motor skills, the glossiness to those dark soulful eyes that mirror her own. The empty wine glass, clutched like a lifeline, within her daughter's hand - and everything about Rachel's demeanor suddenly becomes clear.
"Not here two days, and you're already on the sauce. You should fit right in."
"I'm not here to, to fit in."
"No," Shelby agrees within the second, "you're here to prove how much better than me you are."
Rachel snorts. "Like my superiority over you was ever in question." She unearths a bottle of Barbaresco from somewhere, accidentally clunking it against the counter's side, before willing stability into her wrist and pouring herself another glass.
It takes her a moment, but Shelby swallows the malicious jab with manufactured grace, clicking her figurative jaw back in place. Only then does she pull out the barstool next to her daughter, and perch herself on its hard plastic saddle. She gently disarms Rachel of her wine and places it on the counter next to the book, so that - at last - it's just the two of them, their eyes locking square for the first time since Rachel's arrival.
"Such venom," she whispers. "I like it. Venom's good. That's exactly the kind of bite you're going to need if you hope to hold your own amongst the catty yellow jackets who think they run suburbia. Your fame alone -"
"Oh please. What are they going to do - destroy me in a bake off?"
Shelby averts her gaze, looking past Rachel into the lounge's quietly crackling fireplace, and into memories that she'd rather forget. "I wouldn't be so sure of yourself."
"In case you've forgotten - and we all know how much you'd like to - I'm Rachel Berry. Self-assuredness is what I do. It wasn't like I had a mother to believe in me now, was it?"
"These women don't like me," Shelby explains.
"I wonder why."
"Some of them will do what they can to get back at me for perceived affronts that... only exist in their minds. Whilst you're here be aware of that, is all I'm saying."
"If I were less aware I'd think you were telling me this because you were looking out for me. Because you care."
Shelby's jaw constricts, throat bobbing beneath skin, but if anything's actually going on in her mind, her stoic demeanor keeps it a secret.
It's nothing that Rachel's not used to.
Even so, her face torques around a sour smile as she shakes her head in disbelief that she can't quite justify, because the silence has yet again proven what she already knows. Shelby doesn't give a shit about her.
"Rachel -"
"No!" Rachel raises her voice, unconcerned with how the Barbaresco sloshes to the counter like puddles of blood as she snatches up her glass. "No. You needn't worry, Shelby. Our dysfunctional relationship, along with your, your crack house days, will remain a secret because for as long as I'm here, I intend to keep to myself."
Shelby relaxes. "Good. I leave in the morning."
In room eighteen on the fifteenth floor of The Witherlund Charleston Hotel, the curtains are drawn on a dazzling city skyline. The TV is black, and the far table's welcome mints: untouched. The air is seductive with the compounded scent of sex and Premont Falls' finest scotch - Brooke Novak's favorite. She inhales deep, eyes falling shut as her hips twitch and her sex clenches.
"Hey, don't get any ideas of a second round. I have to leave in a few minutes," the warm soft body beside her murmurs.
And what a body it is. Brook lifts her eyelids, her gaze trailing heat from taught creamy abs to gloriously pert coral nipples, to the syrup-honey eyes that watch her with knowing reproach. In an effort to escape the inevitable she snuggles into the most perfect alabaster neck that she's ever dragged her tongue across, groaning, "just one more hour, Quinn. Please."
Quinn expels an over-it sigh and untangles herself from the soft tan limbs that have become her captor. Her one of a kind cashmere trench coat hangs from the quaint wooden chair that faces the curtains, and one of her Lucy Q Couture shoes rests sideways and upside down on the bedside cabinet. The bedsheets are twisted at the foot of the bed, pillows strewn about the room like God himself had blown through.
It's a visual representation of the primal thing that grips Quinn when she's around beautiful women who will take their clothes off for her. The primal thing that grips her when she allows herself to be who she is. She can't help but enjoy the chaotic scene - enjoy that it's in stark contrast to the suffocating aesthetic order that surrounds her ninety-five percent of the time.
"... Ok... Uh, so when do you wanna do this again? I'm free tomorrow?" Brooke offers, hopeful.
Quinn scoots across the bed, away from Brooke, and plants her feet on the majestic beige carpet, the plush fibers gently crunching as she begins to step into her black lace panties. "I have client meetings all day tomorrow, an event to prepare for the day after that, and I still have to pencil in a meet with Mayor Cromwell."
"Oh yeah?" Brooke husks, crawling over to Quinn to lavish her bare upper thigh with hot, wet, sensual kisses. "You're so sexy when you talk about stuff like meeting up with state officials," she whispers between nips.
"Didn't I just tell you not to get any ideas? Last thing I need is for Sam to smell you on me when I get home."
Brooke clicks her tongue but retreats anyway, huffing as she reaches down to tug the sheets up over her body. "Too late," she taunts cattily. "And Sam wouldn't give a damn so long as you invited him to join us next time. You know, like our original arrangement."
The very thought turns Quinn's lip up - that the magic of two women being intimate might be desecrated in such a way. Again.
As she buttons her coral blouse she calls upon the memory of those evenings with regret and guilt. She'd known what she was doing, that she was feeding Brooke to the depraved monster that lives within Sam. But she'd wanted it too much - to feel silken hourglass hips beneath her own. To lap at the source of that maddening intimate feminine scent. Sam's involvement had just been a means to an end, a way for Quinn to finally be with a woman whilst honoring the terms of her marriage vows. Unlike she had in the past. Brooke had taken every violent thrust, and Quinn had rejuvenated her body with delicate explorative caresses afterward.
She blinks herself back into the room and grabs her coat, turning to face the third person in her relationship. "You really want to go through that again with Sam?" Quinn asks, arching a solemn brow.
Brook sighs at length, shoulders deflating. "Of course not. I thought I was gonna need a hip replacement and a new uterus after that last time." In a manner that tugs Quinn's conscience, Brooke smirks sadly and looks to the tasteful design on the bedsheet, tracing it with a finger. "I was just... upset that you're leaving. That's all. I love... spending time together, and I miss you when I don't see you."
Quinn slides a clip into her hair and fastens her flowing blonde tresses into a neat updo. "I think we should put an end to these meet ups."
Brooke's eyebrows crumple in towards each other, like she's just been told that there's nothing more that doctors can do for a dying relative.
"You're too involved. This means too much to you," Quinn adds rather callously.
"No. Quinn -"
"Brooke!"
That fastens the young brunette's lips.
"You were my first female lover," Quinn explains, grabbing her designer purse, "but I don't want you like you want me. We'll continue on as normal at work."
Brooke tears the sheets from her body, pounding her fists into the mattress one good time. "If you end this I'll make sure that everybody finds out about us, including Sam, and Blake, and Mayor fucking Cromwell!"
Quinn slips into her shoes and heads towards the door, confident in the manner that she tosses, "no you won't," over her shoulder...
"Because you're in love with me," she murmurs, once safe on the other side of the door -
"Good evening, Miss Fabray," a smartly-dressed staff member purrs as he walks by pushing a cart of fancy dishes.
The food's warm, toasty, herbal aroma closes in around Quinn's senses, grounding her enough to where she grants the young man a hospitable smile. "Good evening. Beautiful night out tonight, isn't it?"
"Don't remind me," he chuckles, gesturing to his bowtie, "I'm stuck working."
He's just the type of guy whose attention one would expect a beautiful, established, middle-aged woman to be flattered by, so Quinn plays along - even throws in a wink, which he suavely returns.
But she knows that it won't always be this easy, that it's just a matter of time before she goes to bed with the wrong woman. The woman who'll seduce her heart as well as her eyes. The woman who will be able to turn her inside out and upside down with little more than a look.
The woman who will make her want to give up the facade.
Rachel Berry's seen better mornings. Like the morning that she got the part of Fanny Brice, or the morning that she got the call to inform her about her Tony nomination. Or the morning that she received her first bouquet of roses from her then boyfriend. (Who turned out to be as prickly as the rose thorns in the end.)
Certainly, Rachel's seen much better mornings than this, ones where her stomach wasn't queasy from the previous night's wine, and her mind wasn't jumbled from interaction with an indifferent parent.
She massages her right temple and begins to weave cautious steps down the winding staircase, unaware that when she reaches the bottom to find that Shelby's luggage is already gone, her morning will, in an instant, become a great one...
It's around two pm when the doorbell chimes.
Rachel startles out of her phone conversation, throwing a curious look over her shoulder towards the door, where a short feminine outline shimmers through the stained glass panels. "Someone's here, so I'm going to have to go. But the answer's no. Tell the network I'm not on board with those changes! And if Joshua calls again to inquire about my whereabouts, threaten a restraining order."
"Got'cha."
"Thanks for keeping me up to speed, Cindy. And thanks for not only being the best agent a girl could ask for, but for also being a good friend too."
A comical snort sounds. "You say that like I stick around for anything other than those checks you send me."
"You are so not allowed to tease my ears with New York banter right now, otherwise I might just fly back home."
Cindy gasps, "Rachel, don't say that unless you mean it; Rodney's driving me batshit!"
"I'm going now before I bust a rib laughing. Or, you know, before I say, 'I told you so.'"
"Ugh," Cindy grunts, "I hope those robotic Stepford Wives tear you to shreds. Anyway, see you Rach."
"Bye Cindy." Rachel hangs up and grins, fueled by the little slice of home that the phone call afforded her.
She slips her cell phone into her back pocket as she heads for the front door and unlocks it.
"Oh hey! I'm Sugar Motta. I live at number eighty-nine? Just thought I'd come say hello - welcome you to Magenta Lane."
Rachel gives the jovial little woman her show smile. "Oh. Well thanks. It's nice to meet you, Sugar. I'm Rachel -"
"Berry - yeah, I know." Sugar blushes, confessing, "we've all seen you on TV."
And suddenly Rachel gets the impression that her stay on Magenta Lane has been discussed to death over brunch scones and morning coffee grabs.
"You're gonna love it here, seriously. Premont Falls is good to its celebrity residents," Sugar gushes.
"I hate to disappoint you, but I haven't moved in permanently. I'm simply house-sitting for Shelby whilst she visits a sick relative in Italy."
"Oh my!" Sugar gasps, clutching her heart. "She didn't mention anything!"
"It was sort of an emergency, and I was planning on coming here anyway for a work project. So it worked out for us both."
"Oh. So how do you know Shelby? She an aunt or something? I mean, you look so much like her. Can never hide from family, huh?"
Echoes of last night's awful conversation reverberate in Rachel's mind, and they're loud enough to threaten her smile. Even so, a part of her wants to tell Sugar that she's the daughter Shelby abandoned thirty-six years ago...
"We're actually just friends," she decides to say, signing the lie with a sturdier smile.
But Sugar frowns, and it sticks around for much longer than Rachel likes, so she adopts an air of fond nostalgia, adding, "the two of us met ten years ago whilst working on the Broadway production of Milestone. I still remember how the stage smelled; like pepperoni pizza, Donald Brazer's ghastly cologne, and the awful glue that our costume designer would use if ever there was a wardrobe malfunction. Ah," she sighs, drawing upon blissful memories that don't exist, "those were the days."
"Tell me about it."
Wracked with confusion, Rachel raises her eyebrows.
"Ten years ago I had a twenty inch waist and no C-section scars. Those truly were the days," Sugar explains, chuckling.
There and then Rachel decides that Sugar Motta is someone she could quite easily get along with, and that's why she accepts when Sugar extends an invite to her neighborly game night, scheduled for later in the evening.
If there's one thing that Quinn Fabray knows, it's that high school never ends.
Sure people grow up, assume responsibilities, and present to the world images of civil, well-rounded, mature human beings. But those juvenile patterns of thought, more often than not, remain.
Quinn sees it in her employees, the way that they clique up and attack anything outside of themselves.
She sees it in the seventy-year-old UPS man, who 'accidentally,' tramples blooming flower beds belonging to the homeowners he perceives as rude, when in reality they're simply to busy to talk.
She sees it in her former mistress, Brooke Novak, who thinks she can win her attention back by flirting with Jessica Farlang at work.
But most of all, she sees it in her neighbors...
"Is Quinn here yet?"
Darcy's expression sours. "Why? It's not like she ever participates in the actual games. That woman's as stiff as a two-week old corpse."
"That's the funniest thing I've heard all day," Kitty chimes cattily. "It's also the truest."
"Right. And I hate it when she compliments my apparel. It's always so patronizing, like I'm finally learning to put together fashions that aren't, by her standards, complete abominations."
"Well... to be fair, she does own a very successful clothing line," Jenny points out. "Vander Wilson wore a Lucy Q piece to the Semblance Awards just last night."
"Yeah? Well nobody asked you."
"Nobody had to, Kitty. The facts speak for themselves. Don't they Jenny?"
At the sound of that voice, Darcy Grace's face blanches, as does Kitty Wilde's. They exchange panicked glances before they both look to Quinn, their lips running frantically without words, whilst Jenny Higgins conceals her snigger in a sip of her wine.
"Oh and by the way, Darcy, I love that your heels match your outfit," Quinn says, allowing quite the condescending, 'this time,' to reverberate in the silence.
Darcy gives a stilted nod and smiles like she's biting down on a mouthful of broken glass. "T-Thanks."
Yes. If there's one thing that Quinn Fabray knows, it's that high school never ends.
That's why she always maintains her position at the top of the pyramid...
"Oh, thank fuck you're here," Santana gasps, taking Quinn by the hand and pulling her out into the hallway.
"Where are you taking me, Lopez?"
Quinn gets her answer the moment she finds herself locked inside of the nearest downstairs washroom. "No, not tonight," she immediately protests.
But the beautifully-dressed Latina is already fishing the blunt out of her bra. "Oh come on. Live a little. Besides, this little get together could put the dead to sleep. Seriously, how many of these snorefest game nights is Sugar gonna host this year?" She unravels the neatly presented towel from its wall holder, and plugs the thin slither of light at the bottom of the door, before pulling out her lighter.
Quinn watches her friend. Perhaps the closest thing to a genuine friend that she has. She watches her, admiring her ability to be free and wild and... herself. Her inability to be anybody else.
"What?" Santana asks, offering an amused grin at the fond glint in her best friend's eye.
"Nothing. I just - I can't get stoned." Quinn glances her wristwatch. "I've got to meet with Mayor Cromwell and his goons tonight to talk about this fundraiser. I only came to show my face."
"And remind everyone who sits at the top of the pyramid," Santana finishes for her, a smirk fluttering at the corners of her lips as she watches her friend through her eyelashes.
"Well, it's been a while since I attended a neighborly gathering. It was time."
Santana rolls her eyes. "Come on - like Mayor-fucks-all-the-girls-and-makes-'em-cry doesn't blaze a little Mary Jayne every now and then when no one's lookin'."
Quinn chuckles, but even that is done with an erect posture and a stiff neck.
"Jesus, would you loosen up? You're not meeting with Mayor-fucks-all-the-girls right now. I'd ditch both you and this party for Britt, but she's working late. So your duty, according to the best friend's handbook, is to smoke this with me and keep my ass entertained. Think you can do that?"
Quinn grins, amused. But it's clear that she still isn't all the way sold. So Santana drags the blunt across her alabaster nostrils. "It's real good shit," she drawls melodically.
Feeling a smirk calve its way into her features, Quinn swipes both the lighter and the blunt from Santana's fingers. "Mayor Cromwell's not fucking these girls," she corrects her friend with rare impishness, before sparking up.
"Speaking of your blatant homosexuality, which nobody seems to be able to pick up on but me and Britt -"
"Sshh!" Quinn hisses as she bats away smoke clouds. "Kitty and Darcy probably have their ears pressed to the door, and I don't have the patience to make any more media scandals disappear this year!"
"Chill. I was just tryna ask what you thought of our Berry new neighbor. Saw her taking out the trash this morning, and if she isn't the hottest little thing in person, I'm not Hispanic."
Blowing out pretty smoke ribbons, Quinn passes the blunt to Santana. "She's off limits."
"Why? She's famous, so she knows how to keep a secret, and it's pretty well-documented that she's bi. Did I mention that she's stunning? If you don't pounce, shit, me and Britt sure will."
"Well, there's the fact that..." Quinn eyes meet Santana's. "She's Shelby's daughter."
Santana halts the blunt inches from her lips, the smoke dancing up from its end the only motion in the still room.
"After she sent Kaitlyn after me and my family, I got James to look into her background," Quinn explains. "Berry's her daughter."
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in his technicolor dreamcoat. This is... totally one of those things that should've been obvious, but totally wasn't. They look alike, their mother and daughter age, and they're both ga-ga for Broadway. Practically Siamese twins without the awkwardness."
"Well you know where the best place to hide a secret is."
Santana nods once. "Out in the open. The question is: why's it a secret?"
"Because Shelby doesn't want anyone to know that she illegally sold her womb to two gay men in order fund her crack addiction, back in the eighties."
"Holy fuck, and I thought my family was jacked up. What a sneaky old bitch. Who hides a kid?" Santana's frown deepens. "A wildly successful kid. You know she's gotta be mad that Rachel made it further in Hollywood than she did. Sure as hell makes you wonder what else that bitch is hiding."
"If she wants to play games, we can," Quinn says, more to herself than to anybody else.
Sugar Motta balances the silver platter on her palm. She's careful not to bump the chefs that populate her kitchen as she makes her way into her lounge and offers her guests an assortment of canapes. At the show of enthusiasm, she weaves through the many different games - the blackjack table, the poker table, and the charades re-enactments - meeting her guest's culinary needs with a smile so dazzling that the majority don't question it.
But unfortunately for her, Fraser Heights isn't so easily fooled.
"Hey Sugar, didn't you say that Rachel Berry would be joining us this evening?"
And just like that, Sugar's dazzling smile slips away. "Well..." she begins, chuckling off the awkwardness of having all eyes suddenly draw to her.
Fraser smirks. "It was all you were talking about a few hours ago - how you'd hit it off with the Rachel Berry. How she just couldn't wait to attend this evening, so that she could try your avocado and feta cheese canapes. So..." The handsome older man places his last two cards down, effectively besting his blackjack opponent. "Where is she?"
Hushed sniggers hiss in the silence, and not for the first time Sugar asks herself why she bothers with these people.
It's a question they all ask themselves from time to time.
"I'm... sure she'll be here soon," Tina Cohen-Chang speaks up, receiving a grateful nod from the flustered host.
And that's when the doorbell rings.
"If you'll all excuse me," Sugar's all too happy to announce, as she places the platter on a nearby table and heads for the door.
Just when she pulls it open, Quinn and Santana spill into the hallway, which at the same time seems to fill with the scent of excess perfume.
Sugar ignores the unexplained smell though, much more concerned with smiling relief at the pretty starlet who's stood on her doorstep. "You made it!"
Rachel's gaze floats past the happy host, meeting with Quinn's. "Of course I made it," she replies. "Long time no see. I hope you're well."
Sugar frowns, experiencing much confusion up until the point that she notices where Rachel's attention has travelled to.
And it's focused upon Quinn, who's showcasing that elegant posture and majestically muted smile as she responds, "I'm good, thank you."
Sugar allows Rachel inside, closes the door, and then turns to face the three other women in her hallway. "Do we all know each other?"
"Quinn and I tend to run into one another at carpeted events every now and then. Not that we've ever exchanged more than quick hellos and goodbyes," Rachel says, to which Santana side-eyes her secretive best friend... who doesn't skip a beat, despite all the weed in her system.
"Yes, I think we last saw one another at Bar Glow's opening in West Hollywood."
Rachel nods. "That's right."
"You looked wonderful that night, Rachel. But I couldn't stop myself from wondering what you'd look like in one of my pieces. I'd love for you to wear Lucy Q to your next outing. I have just the form-fitting dress. It'll look and feel as though you're dressed in silk."
It takes everything inside of Santana to keep from mumbling, 'I'll bet.' Instead, what she does say is: "Hi. Before Quinn styles you to death; Santana Lopez. My wife and I live at number eighty-three. Nice to see a new face on the street."
"Thank you, Santana. I never know whether to introduce myself or not, but I'm - "
Santana holds her hand up. "I know who you are. Everybody does."
Rachel nods, sending an interested smile Quinn's way. "And I can assure you that you don't have to sell me on wearing your fashions; I admire your work, and I'm extremely flattered by your offer! I am, however, taking a break from the scene at the moment, but I'd be delighted to wear one of your pieces to my next event. I'll have my team setup with yours?"
"There's no need for us to get our teams involved, Rachel. Now that you're in the city, maybe you'd like to come by and select style variations yourself one of these days."
"Oh, you live in Premont Falls?"
"On this very street."
"Well then. That's an interesting surprise," Rachel muses, trying to figure out how - or even if - Quinn fits into the street's seeming vendetta against her mother.
"In all of your conversations with Shelby, she never mentions to you that she lives directly across from me?" Quinn challenges, though she half makes it sound like it's harmless.
"Actually, Quinn," Rachel says with certain bite, "whenever our busy schedules allow for us to see each other, we usually have a whole host of other things to discuss. Don't keel over in shock, but your name never comes up."
"That's funny because neither does yours."
Santana glances between them, noting the slow decline of Rachel's smile in comparison to her best friend's coy but victorious one.
"... You never offer to give me any of your one-of-a-kind designs, Quinn," Sugar jests, sensing the inexplicable tension despite all the smiling.
"That's because you only have fifty Twitter followers."
Sugar gasps in offence. "And that's just Santana getting warmed up," she warns Rachel. "Come on girls. Let's go mingle with our neighbors before I start asking whose perfume's strangling my senses. Rachel, I wanna introduce you to Fraser first."
As Sugar leads her away Rachel glances back, and when Quinn's eyes meet hers Quinn knows she has no business noticing how sultry Rachel looks in her skinny jeans, heels, crop top blazer, and bowler hat.
"Easy tiger," Santana quips out the side of her mouth. "I know you have like this hard-on for the ones who can stand toe to toe with you. But off limits, remember?"
Quinn sucks in a breath and holds it, slow to utter an airy, "off limits."
Reviews are like candy ;) Let me know what you think so far, and if this is something you are interested in.