Sharing a room with Trent had both its advantages and disadvantages. This was something Thad had quickly learned, and had also come to accept. However, as Thad stood in front of the mirror in their shared en-suite bathroom trying to style his hair before he left to meet Rachel for coffee, he wished he could've been given a less fashion conscious roommate. No matter what Thad did with his hair, Trent disregarded it with a frustrated sigh, demanding Thad restyled it.
"Trent, this is getting ridiculous!" Thad whined, his fingers sticky with both hair gel and hair spray. His friend merely raised an eyebrow in response, examining Thad's hair with his critical eyes.
"Well, lucky for you, this is the best your hair's going to get today! Now go, before you're late for your coffee!" Trent was practically shoving Thad out of their room. "Have fun!"
Thad groaned, before shrugging on his overcoat and headed out the door towards the Lima Bean coffee shop, hoping he wouldn't be late.
Rachel pushed the door of the Lima Bean open and bounced into the building, scanning the room for any sign of Thad. She frowned slightly when she didn't spot him at any of the tables, but accepted the fact that just because she liked to be at a destination five minutes before the pre-arranged time didn't mean that everybody else did. In fact, she thought as she joined the short line for coffee, when she was with Finn, she was lucky if he arrived only five minutes later than they had arranged.
"You're early," a male voice commented in her ear as he slid next to her.
"Thad!" Rachel exclaimed, happy to see that he had showed, "you're early too!" Thad merely grinned in response, wrapping his arm around Rachel's shoulders as they waited their turn. Rachel smiled inwardly at the gesture, the more she had gotten to know Thad in the past few days, the more she had really began to like him. It was clear that he liked her; he'd made that known to Rachel right from the very start. Even just the thought of someone like Thad liking her in that way made Rachel giddy; she didn't dare imagine what anything else would feel like.
Five minutes later, Rachel and Thad were sitting at a table with their coffees, which Thad had insisted on paying for. Rachel had protested, yet Thad had won the argument, paying for the coffees and leading Rachel away from the Barista. Rachel was inwardly impressed; the last guy to get a drink for her was when Puck brought her that slushie during their short-lived relationship. And even then, he'd only known what her favourite flavour was due to the fact he'd thrown so many of the frozen beverages at her.
"You know, not many people have won an argument against me, Thad," Rachel commented.
"Well, what kind of aspiring lawyer can't win an argument?" Thad grinned. He kept playing with the coffee cup between his hands in order to give them something to do; he was trying his hardest to not appear nervous on the outside, something that was obviously linked to being around Rachel. He hoped she wouldn't notice.
"Oh, you want to be a lawyer? What college are you going to go to? I plan on attending NYADA, before I go on to conquer Broadway and win a Tony award by the age of 25!" Rachel gushed, a steely determination in her eye as she carried on talking about all her future dreams. Thad simply kept quiet, nodding in what he hoped would be the correct places as Rachel chattered away, before she dove into her purse and withdrew a pink notebook covered in gold stars.
"You see, I've even planned exactly how my dorm room will be at NYADA. Of course, I'll only be living in a dorm for a little while; I'll eventually just get an apartment with some fellow future stars!" Rachel smiled, showing Thad the room plans she had meticulously created, right down to the exact light bulb that would go into her bedside lamp.
"This is um, very impressive, for someone our age, Rachel. Not many people would be this organised," himself included, Thad thought, taking a sip of his coffee.
"Well, no," Rachel conceded, "but not many people have chosen their college by the time they were six."
Rachel was certainly ambitious; Thad had to give her that.
"Anyway, that's enough about me! Tell me about yourself!" Rachel exclaimed, flashing Thad another one of her dazzling smiles. Thad flushed, a little unsure what he should say.
"Well, I'm a junior, like you and Kurt," he began, glancing up at Rachel, who was staring at him intently, waiting for him to continue on. "My Dad owns a law firm, and I guess that's where my want to be a lawyer came from. I have two younger twin sisters; they go to the Crawford girl's school. What else do you want to know?"
"Oh, you know," Rachel waved a hand in the air between them. "Anything and everything. But I guess that'll come with time, I mean, you can't expect to learn everything about one person in just one day, can you?"
Thad smiled at the thought of Rachel wanting to know everything about him, he most certainly wanted to know everything about her.
"Well, if it isn't my hot little Jewish-American princess," Rachel turned to her right, shocked to see Noah Puckerman stood next to her, coffee cup in hand and a smirk on his face. Thad swallowed, unsure of what to make of the footballer in front of him. Kurt hadn't mention much about the guy, and what he had said was very neutral.
"Hello, Noah," Rachel replied, hoping his visit would save her humiliation in front of Thad.
"Who's this?" Puck simply nodded his head towards the Warbler, who was trying his best to remain invisible.
"This is Thad. He's from Dalton, he performed with Kurt at Breadstix on Valentine's, remember?" Rachel turned back to Thad, sending him a reassuring smile (which made him feel a tiny bit better), before continuing with her introductions. "Thad, this is Noah, he's a member of New Directions. He's very talented when he puts his mind to it!"
"Nice to meet you," Thad finished, but didn't bother offering his hand out to shake; he doubted the other guy would take it.
"You got a pool at your house, Thad?" Puck questioned. Thad was slightly taken aback at the question, why on earth would he care if Thad had a pool at his house?
"No, we don't, sorry," Thad replied, hoping this was the correct response.
"Then we're cool, man. Just take care of Rachel, okay? One word that you've made her cry and I won't be afraid to break that nose of yours." With that, Puck clapped Thad on the shoulder and strolled out of the coffee shop as if nothing had happened. Thad turned back to Rachel, feeling a little shell-shocked at what had just happened, only to find her with her head buried in her hands.
"Rachel?" he questioned, leaning over and placing a gentle hand on her jumper-clad shoulder. "What's wrong?"
Rachel allowed an eye to peek through her hands. "I'm so, so sorry about him Thad! He's just trying to embarrass me by attempting to intimidate you! If you want to go, I understand, I won't hold it against you, I promise!"
Thad almost laughed at the thought of Noah Puckerman scaring him off of Rachel. If she thought her friends were embarrassing, wait until she met his.
"Rachel, it's fine," Thad tried to prise Rachel's hands away from her face, but it wasn't working. "I promise I'm not going anywhere. It'll take more than someone threatening to break my nose to get me to go. I like you too much."
Rachel slowly brought her hands away from her face, which was still tinged pink from where she'd been blushing at Noah's words. She blinked, staring at Thad's handsome face as she tried to process his final sentence.
"Really?" she whispered, almost disbelieving the Warbler in front of her. She'd fallen for boys' lies in the past, look at what happened with Jesse and with Finn, but something about Thad seemed genuine and honest. Rachel decided that she liked that quality about Thad.
"Really." Thad smiled, reaching forward and squeezing Rachel's hand.
A/N: Sorry about the wait guys, but thank you so much for all your kind words on the first chapter! I only ever planned for it to be a one shot, but now I've got ideas for a whole story to be created now! So thanks again!
