Just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone who's alerted and favorited so far. And thank you, Oh Leah Darling, for being my first review! I really appreciate your support and I hope you like this next chapter!

Chapter 2- "Blame it on the Alcohol"

Nicole

"Nicholas! Oh, Nicholas!," Nicole heard her step-sister screech from downstairs. "Nicholas!." she repeated, getting more frustrated. Then Nicole heard the unmistakable thumps of Jennifer's black heels clomping up the steps before a hand smacked her upside the head.

"Bitch," Nicole muttered, grabbing the hand and twisting it around Jen's head.

"Ou-ch! Let go of me, you ogre!" Nicole rolled her eyes at Jennifer's taunting but reluctantly let the girl go. "Didn't you hear me calling you, Nicholas?"

"First of all, Garfield, keep your hands off of me. Second, I didn't hear you calling me, because my name is not Nicholas!," she grumbled, raising her hand, readying herself to pimp slap the girl at anytime.

"Garfield? WTF?," Jen sneered.

"It means your more orange than Snooki. Come to think of it," she said, placing her black-polished fingernail to her chin, "you look exactly like her!"

Jen let out a gasp of breath and Nicki knew she'd hit a nerve calling her step-sister a Jersey Shore look-alike. It was true, however. With her raven black, ridiculously teased hair, orange skin and short body, she did resemble the MTV celebrity. "You, you," Jen stumbled, trying to find a worthy comeback. "You whorebag!" Nicki faked hurt, and Jen's orange skin turned red. "Mom! MOM! Nicki called me Snooki again!," the girl complained, stomping down the steps to find Nicki's awful step-mom, the chains on her Armani Exchange shirt rattling.

Nicki heard some sort of whimpering that mildly resembled talking coming from downstairs and she soon heard two pairs of feet stomping back up the steps. "How dare you categorize my daughter with that Italian-American disgrace! You should be ashamed of yourself, Nicole. All Jenny ever tries to do is be friends with you, and what do you give her in return? Insults! I swear, if I was not married to your father," Lindsay's ranting continued on for several more minutes, Jennifer standing behind her mother and nodding but snickering when Lindsay wasn't watching. All Nicki could do was sit back down on the black leather couch she'd been residing in before and tune out what Lindsay was saying. She didn't dare say anything to interrupt, she knew it would only result in a much longer lecture. "Understand?"

Nicki blinked back to reality, "yeah, Lindsay. Why not."

"You are such a little bitch. No wonder you have no friends," Lindsay said wickedly, turning back on her heels.

"I have friends! More than your skank of a daughter does!," she claimed, stomping her foot.

"I'm not a skank! Right, Mom?"

Lindsay just shrugged, and Jennifer's pudgy face contorted in confusion. Nicki couldn't help but giggle. "Go to your room!," Lindsay demanded pointing her long, lanky arm towards Nicki's room, causing her humungous fake silicone boobs to jiggle in her far too revealing tank top.

"You can't tell me to go to my room, you're not my mom," she claimed, folding her arms over her J-Crew sweater dress. "I'm not five."

"Well you sure as hell act like it!"

Nicki scoffed, gathering her things off of the coffee table and couch. "Whatever. Fuck both of you."

"Nicole! You do not use that kind of language!"

She shrugged before putting her belongings in her purse, grabbing her Coach keychain along the way. "You can bet that I'm telling your father about this when he gets home from work!," Lindsay said threateningly. She rolled her eyes. Was that the best she could do? Threaten to tell her dad? Weak.

"Bye bitches!," she yelled before descending the steps, turning a corner to get to the front door. She was stopped by a small figure standing in front of her: a little girl holding a Barbie doll, a depressing look on her face. One that was all too familiar. "Hey, Ash!," she greeted, dropping her bag and kneeling to embrace her five-year-old sister.

Ashley's mint green eyes perked up at Nicole's peppy tone, eagerly hugging her big sister. "Where are you going, Nick?," she asked excitedly, as if she hoped to come along.

"Probably to go hang out with Puck and drink a fifth of Jack Daniels," she thought to herself. But thought it wasn't a response her little sister was yet ready to hear, so she just shrugged. "Dunno."

"Well, can I come?," the desperation on the little girl's face broke Nicki's heart.

"I don't think so, sweetie." Ashley's face dropped, her eyes on the verge of tears. "But I'll tell you what. If I come home early enough, I'll watch a movie with you." Ashley perked up at the thought of hanging with her sister.

"What movie?"

"Anyone you want, baby doll."

"Sleeping Beauty?"

Nicole groaned. She loathed all those sickeningly sweet Disney movies with chirping birds, happy princesses and perfect Prince Charmings. It just gave kids false hope. But the pleading look on her sister's face forced her to say, through gritted teeth, "of course." Ashley jumped up and down, the pink frilly tutu she was wearing bouncing in the wind.

"Yah! Sleeping Beauty, Sleeping Beauty!," Ashley chanted. Nicole rolled her eyes before getting up, kissing her sister on the top of her head and heading out the door. She got out her BlackBerry, scrolling through her contacts until she'd found the one she wanted.

"Puckerman," she said into the phone. "You doing anything right now?"

"Who I'm doing is probably the better question," he replied through his heaving panting.

"You serious? That's disgusting. Why would you answer the phone?"

Before he could respond, Nicole heard a nasally girl's voice interrupt. "Baby? Who is it?" Nicole tried to decipher who the voice belonged to, but couldn't find suitable owner.

"No one," Puck said nonchalantly. "Go back to what you were doing." A few slurping sounds came through the other end, Puck moaning slightly. Nicole shuddered and was just about to hang up the phone when Puck spoke again. "Listen, I'm a bit busy right now, but I'll call you later to hang out, okay?"

"Ew, no thanks. Go back to your BJ." She could almost hear Puck smirk before she hit the END button. Damn, that kid got a lot of ass. She smiled, before she remembered that she had no one to hang out with. Frowning, she pulled her contact list back up on her phone.

Artie, she liked the kid, but her car wasn't wheelchair accessible. Brittany, she loved Brittany but she could never hang out. She was too busy fucking Santana. Finn, he'd become a very close friend of hers since she moved to Lima, but he'd been a dick ever since he'd started dating Quinn. She noticed Quinn had a habit of doing that to her boyfriends. Kurt, again, too big of a prude. She wanted to have intoxicated fun. Mercedes, she turned so obnoxious when she got drunk. She did not want that kind of a situation on her hands, she didn't deal well with drunks. Mike, did that kid ever even talk? Quinn, she skipped that one real fast. Rachel, hell no. She wanted to drink, not sing show tunes. Sam. Huh, now there was an idea. She'd never seen him fucked up.

Unlocking her car and getting in the front seat, she hit the CALL button, putting the phone up to her ear and listening to the dial tone. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, waiting for Sam to pick up.

"Hello?," a weary voice came through the other end.

"Hey Sam. It's Nicole. What are you up to?"

There was a long pause before Sam answered. "Uh, nothing."

"Cool, you wanna hang out? Maybe grab some food or something?"

"No!," he answered immediately. "I mean, I'd love you hang out with you, but I can't."

Nicole's thin brown eyebrows fixated together. "I thought you said you weren't doing anything."

"Oh, uh," he stuttered, obviously trying to think of an excuse.

"Look, Sam," she cut him off. "If you don't want to hang out with me, you don't have to make up shit. I can take a hint."

"No! It's not that I want to hang with you, I told you that."

"Sure."

"It's just, I'm kind of watching my little sister right now."

"Oh," she said. She obviously understood babysitting conflictions. "Why didn't you just say that?"

"Er-"

An idea sparked in her head. "Hey, maybe I can bring Ashley over! Having someone with you really takes off the burden of watching a little kid." Yeah, it wasn't getting drunk, but it was better than nothing.

"No, I, I don't think so." Her heart sank a little. Was she really this awful to hang out with? "I'm really sorry, Nicole. I'm just, I'm swamped with homework right now, and I have a physics test to take tomorrow, it's just a bad time."

"It's fine," she deadpanned, digging her nails into her faux-cheetah fur steering wheel cover. She couldn't stand liars. "See you at school tomorrow, Sam." She didn't even give him a chance to respond before she hung up the phone, tossing it into the passengers seat. He was back to acting like a jerk off, and this time it couldn't be blamed on his psycho Barbie ex. She slammed her hand on the center console. Nicki was really beginning to like Sam. Maybe, just maybe, she had a tinsy winsy crush on him. But hell, so did half the girls at McKinley. He was hot. And sweet. And adorable. And funny.

"It's Friday! Friday! Gotta get down on Friday! Everybody's lookin' forward to the weekend, weekend," chimed from her BlackBerry, causing her to groan. She hated that song and that little bitch Rebecca Black, but it always got her attention. She grabbed her phone, silently hoping it was Sam, calling her to apologize and say he really did want to hang out, but no such luck. Her screen read "Puck."

"What perv?"

"That's no way to answer the phone," he scoffed playfully. "So we hanging out or what?"

"I don't know," she said, contemplating the situation. She decided that she was in serious need of some alcohol and Puck's jokes. "Yeah, I guess we are. Where you at?"

Puck told her he was at McKinley sitting in his pickup. "What kind of a skank would suck you off in that piece of shit? And at school nonetheless," she'd asked, recalling their previous conversation.

"My kind of skank. So what are we doing?"

"Wanna grab some vodka?"

"Hells yeah! We'll get drunk, and go like, mini-golfing or something."

Nicki smiled. They agreed to meet up outside a Jiffy Lube, looking pathetic until someone felt bad enough for them to buy them alcohol. This had become their tradition in Lima, Puck'd been doing for a while and Nicole had to admit it was a brilliant idea. One of the few he'd ever had.


Two hours and a half a bottle of Grey Goose later, Puck and Nicole sat in the back seats of her Lexus, passing around what was left of the alcohol. Some college-age dude bought them it after Nicole had fed him some story about her parents fighting all the time, yelling and how stressed it was making her. With a few fake sobs, he'd been happy to make the purchase.

"You're a natural at this," Puck had told her. "No one suspects a cute innocent girl like you to be such a good little actress."

But now there they were, staring at the stars. Even with the heat cranked up, it was still fucking cold as balls. "Jesus, Nick. You're freezing your tits off. Want my jacket?," Puck offered, shrugging off his sweatshirt.

"Thanks, Puck," she chattered, taking another swig of vodka. Puck placed the jacket around her goose-bump covered shoulders, keeping his arm around her. Nicole, barely, noticed Puck's move but decided to shrug it off. He was just trying to keep her warm.

"No problem," he said, shifting so that her back was on top of his chest.

"You're warm," she noted, nuzzling her nose into his broad abs.

He laughed, "thanks." The two didn't talk for a while, just gazed into the sky and enjoyed each other's company. It was Puck who broke the silence first, "your hair smells like vanilla."

Nicki smiled into his chest, deeply inhaling the refreshing scent of his cotton t-shirt. "You smell like Downy." Puck grinned again, placing his calloused fingers on her arm, rubbing it sensually.

"Are trying to fuck me right now?," she said light-heartedly. Puck laughed, but something about the look on her face said that she was completely serious.

"I don't know Nicole. Would you be willing?," he asked, an equally casual tone in his voice. Nicki lifted herself off of Puck's chest and turned around so she was facing him. Her blue eyes locked on his hazel the whole time, she placed her legs around his hips, straddling him. After a few seconds of just staring at each other, a deep desire in both of their eyes, Puck gently pressed his lips towards hers. Nicki complied immediately, deepening the kiss and placing her hands around Puck's head, toying with his mowhawk between her fingers. Within a few minutes of deep kissing, she had unbuckled his belt and his hand was underneath her dress, moving up and down her stomach, feeling the contorts of her muscles. Nicole broke away from the kiss, giving him a look, a look that Puck knew all too well. Grabbing a condom out of his sweatshirt pocket that Nicki had tossed off a while ago, he asked her a question, "you sure you're ready to do this?"

"Yeah," she whispered into his ear, then planting a trail of kisses across his jawbones. "I am so ready."