Disclaimer: I own pretty much nothing in the world except for clothes and a puppy, so I definitely don't own Glee or anything related to it. Anything I mention in this chapter is probably copyrighted by somebody else, so the credit goes to them.
Chapter 9
Jake Puckerman sunk into his chair on the McKinley High stage. It was a Friday afternoon, and he and Marley had been having increasingly unsuccessful duet rehearsals all week. Frustrated, he rested his hand on his chin and turned to Marley, who had curled her knees up to her chest in the chair next to him.
"Okay, so, I hate to admit this, but – we sort of suck," Jake said, trying to meet her eyes. She was looking down at her feet.
"It's not you," Marley said quietly, and Jake barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Typical Marley, always blaming herself for stuff.
"Dude, it's not you. I mean, sure, you've seemed kind of weird this week," Jake said, looking at her expectantly. She still stared at her knees as if the denim adorning them was the most fascinating thing in the world, and he didn't try to press the issue. Marley had always been the kind of girl to say what she was thinking, and if she wasn't readily offering information, pressing her for it wasn't going to get him anywhere.
When Marley remained silent, Jake continued. "As much as I hate to admit it, I think the problem's me. You sounded wicked awesome when you sang this with Ryder." Maybe it was Jake's imagination, but he thought he saw Marley hug her knees a little bit tighter.
Neither one of them had really dared to mention Ryder in the weeks since Valentine's Day. In fact, Jake and Marley avoided serious conversations in general. Jake knew that he should try to redefine their relationship, but part of him didn't care. Marley was talking to him, and she didn't seem to be talking to Ryder. As far as he was concerned, he wasn't really in a hurry to claim Marley as his girlfriend again. He had forgotten that it could be pretty fun just to chill with her without all the pressure of impressing her and showering her with love and affection. She still wanted him to be a part of her life, obviously, so he was down with that for the time being.
"Yeah, well, I doubt we'd sound good on it now," Marley responded, and Jake raised an eyebrow at her.
"Are you going to keep being all vague, or are you going to tell me what that means?" he asked, torn between sighing and laughing.
"It's nothing. It doesn't matter," Marley said automatically, and Jake turned to face her. He knew that flat, emotionless voice meant that something was seriously bothering her. He had only heard her sound that way twice before: once just before their Sectionals competition, and again when she was stressing out about Ryder kissing her.
"Did he do something to hurt you? Because I swear, he can't be a dick to you when he's the one who kissed another guy's girlfriend and started this whole mess in the first place," Jake said protectively. He had always felt the need to look after her, and it didn't hurt that he was still sort of pissed at Ryder anyway.
"No, no. He didn't do anything. I just – I ran into him on a date with another girl last weekend, and it was really awkward. I know that I can't expect both of you to just sit around and wait for me forever, but I guess I just wasn't ready to see that," Marley admitted. She teetered on the edge of her seat as if there was more she wanted to say, but she bit her lip instead.
"Are you mad at me?" she asked after a few seconds of silence.
Jake blanched a bit. He was never sure why her instant reaction to confessing her feelings was always to ask if Jake was upset with her, but he didn't want to waste time pondering it. Instead, he blurted out the first question that had come to mind.
"Was she hot?" Marley's eyes shot up to meet his, and for a second he was afraid that he had kind of pissed her off. Instead, though, he saw that she was resisting the urge to chuckle.
"Yeah, she was pretty hot. Like a clone of Santana," Marley said, rolling her eyes at Jake. "Are you going to go make an online dating profile so that you can ogle her too?"
"Nah – may fight him for her, though. Just to let him see how it feels," Jake said, mostly joking, and Marley bumped her shoulder into his playfully.
"You're ridiculous," she said with a straight-face. Jake hated to interrupt the moment of goofiness – it had been surprisingly cheerful considering Marley's recent mood – but he couldn't resist the urge to ask.
"Have you talked to him?" Marley shook her head fervently.
"Have you?" she inquired. Jake shook his head.
"Nah. Haven't had any reason to. Didn't want to end up using his head as a punching bag again. Why haven't you, though? I thought you told me that you didn't think you could freeze him out," Jake pointed out.
"I guess – I just didn't want to make you madder," Marley admitted, shrugging. "I'm just so surprised that you even still want to talk to me, and I guess I was scared to screw that up." Jake tried not to let his thoughts show on his face, but he couldn't help but feel like that was a pretty stupid reason to not be talking to Ryder. Jake had been intermittently pissed off at Ryder for months as they had both struggled for Marley's affections, and that hadn't stopped her from talking to him at first. She was obviously miserable without having Ryder in her life, too – he wasn't sure exactly why she missed Ryder so much, but it was clear that she did. He made a mental note to try to start being friendly to Ryder again so that Marley would perhaps start talking to him again. Maybe then she would perk up a little bit.
"Well, time to stop worrying about me. There are only two things you could possibly do to make me mad in the near future," he said, keeping his voice playful.
"Oh? And what's that?" Marley said. Jake felt a little bit sick when he heard how nervous she sounded; he had hoped that joking around with her would make her realize how ridiculous her notion that he would get mad at her was.
"Well, number one, you're going to let me tell Mr. Schue and Ryder that I shouldn't be the one doing the duet with you after all," Jake said, and Marley's eyes grew wide at his statement.
"Seriously? But Jake, you've worked so hard for this duet!" Marley insisted, and he put his hand up to silence her.
"Not listening. You wanted to win Sectionals so badly, and you still feel like you screwed it up. And I took away Ryder's solo at Sectionals – well, fine, he kind of gave it to me, but he did it because it was what he thought would help you to feel less stressed. This is my chance to return the favor. Dude may have stabbed me in the back, but I also owe him a couple for all he's done that didn't suck."
"Er – okay," Marley conceded, stammering a bit. He tried to ignore her barely-contained excitement at the chance to sing with Ryder again. "And what's number two?" she asked coyly. She had regained some of the spark that she usually had during their conversations.
"And number two, you're going to let me kick your ass at some Mario Kart this weekend or else I'll be pretty pissed," Jake declared, and Marley's smile widened.
"In your dreams, Puckerman!" she chuckled. "What do you say I prove you wrong right now?" She grabbed her bag, and Jake followed her out the door of the auditorium.
Ryder was out sick for a couple of days at the beginning of the next week, but when Jake finally ran into him in the locker room on Wednesday morning, he said hi for the first time in weeks.
Ryder gazed up from the mat where he had been doing sit-ups. "Hey dude. What's up?"
"Not much, man. How was your weekend?" Jake responded, doing his best to remain casual.
"Eh – kinda sucked. I was sick in bed the whole time. Just sat around and did nothing on my laptop," Ryder said, shrugging. "How about you?"
"Pretty chill," Jake said vaguely. He didn't think it would help to mention that he had hung out with Marley, no matter how platonic it had remained; then it would seem like he was being a douche and rubbing it in Ryder's face when really he was finally trying to suck up his pride and just get along with his friend again.
"Hey, man, I gotta ask you a favor, though," Jake said deliberately, and Ryder sat up fully.
"Sure, dude. Anything," he said earnestly.
"Well, you remember how at Sectionals you gave up your dance solo so that you could help Marley feel less pressure?" Ryder nodded slowly; he seemed surprised that Jake had mentioned Marley so casually. He could see no desire to punch him in the face in Jake's eyes.
"Yeah, man. It was the right thing to do," Ryder replied.
"At the time I didn't get it, man. But now, I kind of need you to do the same thing for me. You may have noticed that Marley and I sound like shit on this duet," Jake admitted, and Ryder had the decency to pretend to disagree.
"No way, you guys are both crazy talented. You could never sound bad," Ryder assured him.
"Dude, I hear the comments Kitty makes to you. She thinks we have all the chemistry of a couple of Care Bears, and she's kind of got a point."
"So what does this have to do with me?" Ryder asked, and Jake shot him a knowing look.
"You've gotta sing the duet with her instead," Jake insisted. Whatever Ryder had been expecting, it didn't seem to have been that. There was genuine shock on his face that, if things hadn't been so tense between them still, would have made Jake laugh at any other time.
"Me? Dude, she didn't want to sing it with me in the first place; I think that would only stress her out more," Ryder said, and Jake shook his head in disagreement.
"You didn't see the look on her face when I ran the idea by her. She's totally into it," Jake persisted.
"She hasn't even talked to me except for when I ran into her at Breadsticks last weekend," Ryder argued, and it was as if a light bulb had gone off in Jake's head.
"Last weekend? Did you run into Marley while you were on your date?"
"Um, yeah – how did you even know about that?" Ryder questioned, and Jake tried to play it cool.
"She misses you," he stated, avoiding Ryder's question.
"Yeah, well, I miss her too, but she seems to have made her choice. I mean, I always figured she'd pick you, but I didn't realize she just didn't want me in her life at all." Jake was shocked by the fact that Ryder had grown a bit defensive.
"Man, that's not it at all. I think she's worried I'll get pissed off at her if she talks to you before we figure things out completely – that's part of why I'm talking to you now. So, even if you're serious about this other girl – "
Ryder instantly interjected "I'm not." Jake snorted a bit derisively at him.
"Well, then, all the more reason to go ahead and sing this damn song with her," he insisted, and Ryder seemed to be trying too hard to convince himself that it was a bad idea.
"You've got your thinking face on, which, honestly, makes you look kind of confused. Just agree already, shake my hand, and let's move on with our lives like none of this shit ever happened." Ryder broke into a grin, and stuck his hand out to meet Jake's.
"Sounds like the best plan I've heard in ages," he beamed.
"Even the song?" Jake asked just to be sure. Ryder hadn't been the best with multi-part instructions in the past – once, it had resulted in him bringing a bunch of the guys chocolate chip cookies and Chopsticks during a Halo night at Artie's. Somehow along the line, Ryder had forgotten that there was Chinese take-out that was supposed to accompany the Chopsticks.
"Even the song," Ryder said, and Jake was sure that he heard him say, "Especially the song" under his breath as he hoisted himself off the ground.
"Good. Now change your clothes so that I can drag your ass to math class," Jake said, shoving Ryder gently to indicate that he really wasn't pissed anymore.
"Be right there, dude!" he called over his shoulder, and several minutes later he had returned fully clothed.
Jake and Ryder walked towards their math class together, chatting about videogames and their bracket choices for the March Madness tournament. It would have felt like things had before the Valentine's Day debacle if not for one thing – as they walked through McKinley's halls, Jake couldn't help but notice that Kitty was lurking around the door of a bathroom that Marley usually used to freshen up before her Spanish class each day. Kitty gave Jake her trademark smirk, but she also nodded slightly at Ryder, and in that instant, Jake was 100% certain that the blonde cheerleader was up to something.
