Author's Note: First of all, thank you to everyone who has been reviewing this story, adding it to favorites, or putting it on alert. I've never had any of my story be put on alert by so many people! So a big thanks! Secondly, I'd call this a filler chapter but I really wanted to write it...so I hope you like it, despite the fact that the plot doesn't really move ahead too much. I still think it's important, as I address the big question of "WHY?" Why do they like each other, really? Don't forget to review...it's so easy! Your opinions mean a lot to me! :)
Puck's Girl
Confessional
Pushing his foot against the gas pedal Puck couldn't, despite the circumstances, stop himself from thinking about Rachel. The flash of pain on her face as he had run away popped up in his head. He wished he'd explained everything to her earlier but he'd been bound by his own stupid pride. Now she was left thinking something that wasn't true was true. His heart felt like it was being squeezed in his chest as ponderings on life and loss floated around his brain. Before he could be consumed by grief, over everything that was happening, he shut his mind off, focusing on the drive.
Just a few more miles, a few more.
He could deal with Rachel later, tell her everything.
If she let him.
- - - - - -
Rachel remembered when she'd been a strong independent woman, not caring about whether or not she'd had a boyfriend.
Yeah, right, her conscience taunted her. You've always cared about it, you've just have never been embroiled in any romantic entanglements until this year.
Sighing, Rachel fell dramatically to the seat in front of her mirror and gave herself a good long stare. She frowned at the sadness in her eyes, wondering how she'd ever let Puck - Noah Puckerman, for goodness sake! - wander into her heart and trash that meticulously arranged area. Not even Finn, with all his indecisiveness and soulful eyes and promises to her that what he felt for her was real, even while going out with Quinn, had been able to disturb the contents of her heart this much.
Why? What was it about Noah that made her care so much?
He was very good looking, that much was true. But her feelings ran so much deeper.
It was the way he bit the inside of his cheek when he wasn't sure how to answer a question, the way his left cheek indented and his lips quirked to the side as he did so. It was the way he smiled at Glee rehearsals when they had done well, a smile that reached his eyes and revealed that he really did like the club he had once claimed was only for losers. It was the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn't looking (and sometimes even when he knew she was), a fire lighted in his brown orbs and a type of affection there that she knew no one else had felt for her (at least not in that way).
The way his callused fingers brushed over the back of her hand, causing shivers to race up her spine, seeing which could reach her neck first and make the fine hairs there stand on end. The way he played guitar, lovely fingers dancing across the chords to create melodies that came from a place deep inside of him, a place that not many knew existed within him. The way his whole face had softened when he told her he liked her, that one and only time, making her want to melt into his arms.
She had destroyed that moment, chasing away that expression, with her careless words. Could she have expected him to be anything but hurt?
Of course not. Still, she had more than made up for her glaring blunder by her words since but Noah - Noah was still Puck.
Rejecting her for another girl.
Keep a stiff upper lip, she told herself.
It was no use, however, and soon both lips were drooping to form a frown.
"I can't stop liking him," she confessed to herself. "But I'm going to end this charade right now."
And without any delay, she marched to her cell phone. In a minute, someone on the other end picked up.
"Can you pick me up tomorrow morning? That's great. Thank you so much. Be here at 7? Yes, I know that's early but…please? You're the greatest!" With a satisfying click, she ended the call, trying to smile but finding it just wasn't worth the effort.
- - - - - -
Laying on his bed, Puck listened to the other people in his house, hating that they were there but knowing that his mom needed them.
Every freaking one of them.
As long as they stayed out of his room, especially his two ten year old twin cousins, Frederick and Benjamin, he would be able to make it through the hectic ordeal.
Flipping over, Puck thought of Rachel. Like that was anything new. He was constantly thinking about her.
Part of him wanted to call her, tell her he needed her and ask her to come over. Or maybe he could pick her up and they could drive to the point and just sit.
Running a hand over his face, he realized he was tired, had been tired for a long time and the complicated situation with Rachel didn't help matters any. A short nap might've been nice but he had a feeling that just as he began to doze his mom, or, worse, Fred and Ben, would come barging in. Sitting up, he stared at himself in the small mirror that hung across from his bed. He studied his face in it, trying out different expressions until he settled into his usual "whatever" face, as his mom called it.
"She's never going to let me tell her what happened," he told himself. "But I can't do nothing. Gotta do something."
He had to do something because he cared. Cared too much, cared more than he ever had for a girl.
And not just because she attracted him like a fly to one of those bug zapper thingys (and how he hoped that being with her wouldn't have that kind of effect, though part of him believed it very well would and he might even like it).
It was the way she smiled crookedly when explaining something that no one else understood, such as the importance of show tunes or why jazz hands didn't really enhance a performance. It was the way she held her chin up high in a show of defiance when she was upset about something, the higher her chin, the more upset she was. It was the way her eyes had betrayed sadness and, at the same time, passion when she had sang that ridiculously old song about some guy named Bobby (and by 'Bobby' he knew she meant Noah).
The way she said his name, in a breathy voice, in a way that conveyed she was willing to forget the Puck he had been, the Puck everyone else saw, and embrace the Noah within. The way she fit so snugly in his arms as they danced, a memory that made him long to hold her in his arms like that once again. The way her bottom lip had trembled when he had mentioned hanging out with Brittany just because he wanted to hurt her as much as she had hurt him.
I'm such an idiot, he thought.
He should've just laid it all out (fear, failure, and Finn) before her on the football field, exposing himself to her in a way that he never had to anyone.
Should've.
A should've of the past, though, couldn't change the present.
Grasping his guitar, he made up his mind.
Glaring at himself in his mirror, he confessed, "She makes me feel like no other girl has. That's why I'm going to do whatever it takes, whatever it takes."
Even as the words fell from his lips, he wasn't sure if he would actually follow through.
He wasn't as brave as he often pretended to be.
