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"San, get pads for me." Rachel groans into the phone, "I'm dying."
She feels her heart drop to her stomach when she hears the familiar chuckle from the phone. She rips the phone from her ear and checks the caller i.d.
Noah.
If there was a hole she could crawl into, she'd be there right now, dying of embarrassment. Here she was, a grown woman, calling her best friend for pads, only to find out she'd told the man, who was more than a friend but not exactly a boyfriend, she was dying because of her period. Great.
His voice pulls her from her thoughts, "Rach, babe, you there?"
"I don't want to be."
She hears his low chuckle and her embarrassment is forgotten. "You need pads, Rach?" Nevermind, it comes rushing back instantly.
"No, it's okay, I'll-"
He cuts her off, "I'll get them for you."
She splutters for an answer, grabbing at straws.
"You're at home right?"
She nods, then realizes he couldn't see her gesture she answers him, "Yea."
"I'll be there in 15 minutes." He outright laughs at her, "Change my contact name, I don't want to be 'Number 2'."
"It isn't-"
"Don't lie. No. 2, isn't cutting it, I want a better name, maybe 'Badass', 'Stud' or 'Handsome'."
She giggles over the ridiculous names before he hangs up.
"He bought pads, movies and ice cream for you?"
Rachel nods and looks around the small coffee shop, praying no one heard Santana's loud outburst.
"Lucky bitch."
Rachel gives her a smug smile, but it doesn't last long as she feels the guilt.
"Don't start." Santana lifts her hand up. "He loves you. He'd probably quit his job in the company just to please you, he knows you need time." She seems to hesitate before speaking, "But if Finn asked, he'd let you go."
"I…" she keeps her focus on her cup, "I don't want Finn anymore."
Santana's exuberant yell, gains everyone's attention. Rachel nods apologetically to everyone and pulls Santana back into her chair.
"Finally."
"I'm not going."
Noah and Santana both look at her, with twin looks of horror.
"You have to." Both of them yell out at the same time.
"I don't want to smuck with the rich and famous. I can't play nice and talk about politics." Santana throws her hands in the air. "It's always something you've done. You can spend hours and hours cooing over some overly rich, spoiled baby. I can't even talk to some rich schmuck without boring myself to death."
"Nope." She props her hand on Noah's desk.
"Why not?"
She forces her eyes to meet Noah's. "I don't have a date."
It was her first ball going without Finn.
Santana scoffs, "Go with Noah, it's not like he has a date either."
"Em," Rachel slightly reprimands. "you can't just offer up someone else when you don't even know if they want to."
"I want to." Noah quickly interrupts.
"I-" she closes her mouth again when she doesn't know what to say.
"-would love to." Santana finishes for her.
She leans toward Noah and whispers conspiratorially, but loud enough so Santana can hear, "How do you take her out without adult supervision?"
Noah laughs, throwing his head back, while Santana huffs and slaps her arm.
"I'll pick you up at 6?"
She nods, because what else could she do?
He ruffles her hair and drops a kiss to the top of her hair. He gets up and walks to the door before leveling the two women with a look, "Don't touch the laptop."
"Stupid Christmas ball. I'm just gonna wear sweatpants."
Noah looks up from his seat on her sofa. "What color do you think your sweatpants are going to match, I've gotta match it, ya' know?"
She giggles, "Hot pink."
"Sure." He knows she's not going to do that, everything she did had to be perfect.
She flops down onto the sofa, next to him, her legs naturally draped on top of his. "So much for picking me up at 6."
"I wanted to see you."
She rolls her eyes at his excuse, "Please, you just wanted to watch tv without Finn and San nagging you about it."
"No," He doesn't even blink an eye or let his eyes stray from the tv.
She crosses her arm and waits. She knows he's going to cave.
"It's because your tv is bigger."
She rolls her eyes again at his response.
There was a selfish part of her, the meaner part of her that wanted to watch Finn struggle with the uppity ups in the party.
So she did.
She stood next to Quinn and Finn, silent, carefully sipping from her champagne. She watched on as all Quinn did was giggle. She held in a small smile as Finn struggled to bring up names of the person he was talking to. She had always been the one standing next to him, whispering him the names and little, but thoughtful tidbits.
Mr. Schue, a nice, but blunt man, who was also a big investor, eyed her then Finn. "Why aren't you two together?"
Finn tries to splutter some excuse about it being more efficient if they split up during the party.
She quickly locates Noah talking to some woman further away from the room. It's as if he had a built in radar to spot whenever she looked over at him, he looked up and met her eyes. She crooked a finger at him. His grin was so innocent and hopeful, she felt that pang in her heart again. He quickly excuses himself from the woman and practically runs to them.
She turns back to Mr. Schue just as Noah reaches them and easily slips his arm around her waist. "This is Noah, my date."
"It's nice meeting you." Noah stretches out his hand.
Handshakes are quickly exchanged.
Mr. Schue gives her a weird look, "I thought you were Finn's girlfriend. You two always seemed so close, but I guess I was wrong." He stares at them for a while before smiling. "I wish you two the best of luck."
She smiles graciously at Mr. Schue, "Thank you."
Noah snakes his arm around her waist and it's like all the mean thoughts against Quinn and Finn disappears.
She then turns to Finn and Quinn, "This is Quinn, you're probably going to be seeing her around quite a lot." Smiles are exchanged. "I hope your wife is well, I heard she's been sick with the flu for a while now."
Rachel buried her face in her hands as Noah clambered up the stage.
When his drunk ass finally made it up the stage, he leaned against the mike, "This is for Rach, the girl of my dreams."
He presses two fingers to lips and presses them to his chest, over his heart. The girls beside her giggled and cooed over the mushy gesture.
She felt a blush rising on her face when he pointed to her as he sang.
"God, how gross can he be." Santana complained.
"He is inebriated." She defended.
"Don't defend lover boy, I don't need to imagine you two sucking faces yet."
She ignored Santana and placed her attention back to the stage.
She swallowed her urge to rip the blonde extensions from the girl currently trying to push her boobs against Noah's arm. He, being drunk and oblivious to the attention, continued to joke around with her and Santana.
It was the final straw when the girl, being frustrated with the lack of attention, just plopped herself onto his lap and pulled his head down for a kiss.
Later Santana tells her she practically threw herself at the girl and ripped her off Noah. But it being Santana, she wants to believe that she's exaggerating as usual.
She remembers yanking Noah out the door in seconds and into a taxi not long after. She remembers listening to Noah's slurred attempts to explain himself. She remembers telling him to shut up.
But she doesn't remember how she ends up in his bed, only in her bra and panties.
The arm wrapped around her waist doesn't help, nor does the leg stuck between hers. Her back is tightly pressed to his hard chest.
She lays there, scrambling to find the memories she had somehow lost.
"Good mornin' beautiful."
She stiffens slightly. He feels it and loosen his hold on her, giving her the option of leaving his hold.
"Good morning." She whispers the greeting back, "Merry Christmas." She keeps her back faced to him because she isn't ready to face him yet. In the flashes of memories, she remembers sucking on his neck, him lifting her shirt off her. Neither was particularly modest. Very shame inducing.
"Merry Christmas." He repeats, his voice still husky with sleep. She feels his thumb absently tracing circles on her stomach, his other hand, the one under her neck, twirling her hair.
They stay like that for a while.
"We should get breakfast." He says.
"We should."
Neither of them move. She doesn't move because she likes the feeling. He doesn't move because he knows she's going to avoid him like a plague or pretend nothing happened, once she had time to think it over.
He wasn't going to let that happen. He had made so much progress not to let it be screwed over because of one night, not because she thought it was safer this way.