"You've gotta throw a party, dude."
"What have I told you about calling me that, Noah? I realize that these past few months have brought us closer together, and that we have timidly entered into a burgeoning - what did you call it? – bromance, but I'm still not sure I believe, despite your countless assurances, that "dude" is gender-neutral."
"You lost me after thing about the burgers, babe." He sidled closer towards her, bumping her shoulder fondly with his hip before resting casually against the piano. "But seriously, Rach, your parents don't go out of town too often. Seize the second or however that lame saying goes."
"Moment," Rachel supplied quietly. She smiled at the emphasis he'd purposely put on her name while running the tips of her fingers reverently across the ivorine keys. "Why is this so important to you?"
"Bro!" His arms flailed upwards, exasperated by her obliviousness before he caught sight of her scowling at his choice of nicknames again. He held up his hands in surrender, "Sorry. You seriously don't get it, do you?"
Rachel shook her head in the negative.
"I've got four sexy words for you; Seven. Minutes. In. Heaven."
His lewd grin and twinkling eyes made it apparent that she was missing something important. "I'm not sure I understand what is so sexually appealing about any of those words, Noah. You'll have to elaborate."
"You've never played Seven Minutes in Heaven before?"
She laughed quietly under her breath as both his eyebrow and voice rose in disbelief. "When would I have played? I'm not exactly Cher Horowitz, you know that."
He grunted in displeasure, "Yeah, well maybe if you stopped referencing outdated comedies that nobody's heard of; you'd get invited to a few more real life parties." Her face fell, and he quickly checked his attitude. He pushed himself off of the piano and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. "I'm sorry, Rach, that was mean. I guess I'm still a little bitter about that time you made me watch Clueless after you promised it was a kickass spy movie with a load of nudity."
"I can't believe you fell for that. Chick flick noob fail, Puckerman."
He smiled at the sound of her voice – the way she was still so hesitant in speaking the lingo he was teaching her aloud - muffled from where she was pressing her face into his jacket as he hugged her to his body. "Look, what do you want most in the world?"
She pulled back abruptly. "To be a Broadway star! Honestly, Noah, I would have thought that was common knowledge by now."
"Yeah, okay, you're right. I mean, what do you want most right now?"
"Right at this exact moment? Or like, in general regards of what I seek to accomplish during the remainder of our high school experience? Because if I were to simplify the-"
"Quinn!" He yelled, catching her by the shoulders so that she didn't tumble off of the stool when she jerked away in surprise at being interrupted. He bent at the waist until he could look directly into her eyes. "You want Quinn, right?"
"Let's at least try to be reasonable here, Noah. Right at this moment? I want some of daddy's latkes – you know, the ones made with his grandma's secret recipe that he refuses to make any time other than Chanukah. In ten years? I want to be starring as the lead in a Tony award winning musical on Broadway. These are both things that are attainable if I'm willing to put in the work – courting Quinn Fabray? That's nevergoing to happen, no matter how much I want it to."
He shook his head, clearing the thoughts of Hiram Berry's delicious latkes from his mind. "That's the beauty of the game, man!" Another glare from Rachel. "Rach, seriously, what am I supposed to call you? Lady? That's lame. It really is simple; you throw the party, I bring the keg, everybody loosens up and then you take Fabray into the closet – did I just make one of those punny things? - and you kiss her. You kiss the crap out of her!"
"Did you just butcher a She's the Man quote? Nevermind, that's irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. I can't just kiss Quinn Fabray! She'll kill me in my sleep! No, she won't even wait until I'm sleeping, she'll murder me right then and there; she'll asphyxiate me while our lips are still attached!"
"The conversation I overheard in the hallway earlier says otherwise, Berry."
She narrowed her eyes at his smirk. "And what exactly did you hear?"
"Well," he started, drumming his finger atop of the piano. "Santana was talking to Finn. It was all very hush-hush, but from what I could hear, Quinn sent Santana to find out if your lips tasted like bagels."
"Noah Puckerman, that isn't a declaration of Quinn's repressed attraction to me! That's borderline racism!" She stood up abruptly, knocking the stool over in her haste.
He released a deep throaty laugh as she scrambled to put the overturned stool back in its place. "Chill out, Rach; she clearly wants to know what it feels like to kiss you."
She sighed heavily, "I'd pay good money to know the inner workings of your mind sometimes. The way you connect two completely unrelated things is rather remarkable."
"If you could see the things I think about, you'd know why you need to host the damn party, that's for sure." He wiggled his eyebrows and she found herself laughing along with his antics, whereas a couple of months before she would have thought the comment to be crude.
The bell rang, signifying the end of the lunch period. Puck helped Rachel gather her sheet music from where it was strewn across the top of the instrument. When she reached out for the papers he was holding, he made a clicking sound with his tongue and took the pile from her hands. Before she could protest, he tapped the stack on the top of the piano a few times, and then brought it up to his face so that he could make sure that there wasn't any jagged edges.
"A lesbro's gotta help his gorgeous little Jewish-American princess whenever he can." He winked at her, carefully placing the sheet music into its designated binder. He dropped the binder into her shoulder bag – he'd made her buy it, it was the first rule he'd added to their friend code: no rolling luggage at school – and tenderly draped it over her shoulders.
Once he was sure she was comfortable with its placement, he loaded up their combined textbooks, and offered her his free arm.
She gave him one of his favourite smiles as she held onto him – it was coy, genuine, more of a smile with her eyes than with her lips. He found himself smiling back at her as they left the choir room together.
"Do you really think Seven Minutes in Heaven would work? Isn't that a little bit skeezy; plotting beforehand to coerce her into a darkened, confined space, just so I can kiss her?"
"Trust me, lady, and hey, if it doesn't work out? I've got three words for you that are even sexier; Spin. The. Bottle."