Chapter 14

While she's sure that the odd little conversation she had with Santana in the library helped Noah feel much more secure in their relationship, it only served to totally undermine her own security. Now pretty much all she can think about all the time is how close Noah and Santana are and how many memories they've shared and how important that friendship is to him. And beyond that mostly all she can think about is how much Santana has always despised her, how insecure she apparently makes Santana feel and what would happen if Santana decided she wanted Rachel out of Puck's life?

It's the last scenario that has Rachel literally staying up all night after their conversation. Logically, she can see how much Noah cares about her, so she obviously doesn't want to ask him about her fear because that would be needy and overbearing and generally annoying, but emotionally, she cannot shake the picture of Santana Lopez looking so kind and soft and gentle as she discussed just how much Puck had been hurt in the past.

She knows she's being ridiculous but whenever her mind wanders she cannot stop obsessing over it. He took her on this beautiful, well-thought out date earlier tonight, right after she'd had that conversation in the library with Santana. It had been perfect and intimate and she hadn't thought about Santana once, but ever since that night her mind has continued to drift back to this afternoon in the library.

This date, though. It had seriously been perfect. He'd taken her to this tiny little Italian place, and it just showed how well he knew her. Instead of driving her miles and miles to a vegan restaurant in Cincinnati where she'd be far away from her dad on the off chance that something happened, and instead of taking her to McKinley's go-to date destination (Breadstix), they'd gone to Lucia's, an Italian bistro in the next town over, where their date wouldn't be interrupted by one of their less than understanding classmates but where she could still get home quickly, if need be. They'd been shown to a tiny little table in the back corner of the restaurant, dimly lit by candles. Noah had pulled out her chair for her and then sat on the side perpendicular to her, leaning forward on the table so they were merely inches apart and settling his foot against hers under the table. They'd lingered over their meal, and he'd insisted on salads, entrees and desserts for both of them and then coffee (tea for her) to finish it off. When they finally left the restaurant, they'd spent over three hours, tucked away in that corner conversing in hushed tones and whispered flirtations, and she'd never felt quite so cared for or loved.

After dinner, he'd driven her back through Lima and out to a deserted field which she knew was often used as a prime make-out spot for many of McKinley's couples. But instead of stopping in the woods-surrounded clearing where she always overheard girls telling their friends on Monday mornings in the bathroom about getting to third base or losing their virginity to their boyfriends, he kept driving down a dark gravel road until they pulled into a wide open field where they could see the stars twinkling far above them.

He'd laid down a thick blanket in the bed of her truck, lifted her up like a true gentleman and then settled across from her with his guitar across his lap, quietly strumming some old James Taylor classics, like she'd confessed she loved after that afternoon he'd sung for her at the nursing home. His rendition of "Fire and Rain" had so much emotion that it had literally brought tears to her eyes, and he'd had to stop halfway through to make sure she was okay. But the date had been beautiful and perfect and romantic and not once, through the whole night, had she thought of anything other than how much Noah obviously cared for her and how much potential their relationship had. And yet, the moment she'd woken up the next day her insecurities had reared their ugly head again.

She's lying in her bed, having resolved to laze around all day, avoiding her boyfriend when her phone chirps. Rolling over and grabbing it off her nightstand, she sees that the display says Noah Text Message and she reluctantly unlocks the screen and types in her passcode, and the conversation between her and her boyfriend pops up.

Good morning baby wanna go down to the lake?

Damn him! She's been begging him to go to the lake with her since the temperature broke fifty degrees in March. It's like he knows that she's planning on avoiding him today. He knows that her fathers have already left for their spring weekend at a charming little bed and breakfast in Niagara Falls, so she can't fake plans with them and there's no way that he'd believe that she had plans with anyone else because he still is, for all intents and purposes, her only real friend.

Setting her phone back on her bedside table, she rolls over, pulls the covers back over her head and tries to ignore the world. Unfortunately her boyfriend is nothing if not persistent and her phone beeps again a couple minutes later. Come on baby it's so nice out and I already put the rowboat in my truck.

She can't deny him that. For the past couple days, the weather report has been calling for 70 degree weather this weekend, and the sun is streaming into her room. Rolling her eyes, she texts him back give me an hour devoid of all the smiley faces and exclamation points that she usually uses in text messages.

It's not that she doesn't want to hang out with him. Of course she does, but she's so distracted by this Santana thing that she doesn't think she can put it out of her mind to hang out with him, and she certainly doesn't want him to know because he has been absolutely perfect and she doesn't want him to doubt that for a second.

Then again, she doesn't even think of the fact that he's definitely going to know that something's not right when she didn't text him back and she didn't jump at the chance to go to the lake as soon as he offered. He knows her well enough to know that something's up when she doesn't text him back immediately because she prides herself on responding to text messages extremely promptly.

Dragging herself out of bed, she's picking out a bikini that strikes a tasteful balance between sexy and classy when her phone beeps again. Okay, can't wait to see you, rach. She knows that he thinks he's done something wrong because he's laying it on thick, and she immediately feels bad because he's done nothing but be absolutely perfect since her dad got sick; even before they were dating, he did everything he could to be there for her and to help her get through the scariest, hardest time in her life, and now she's repaying him by having a stupid, insecure schoolgirl freak out.

Taking a couple of deep breaths, she tries to rid her mind of all thoughts of Santana and focuses on getting rid for her day out with Noah. She considers straightening her hair but then realizes there's no way she's getting through this day without going into the lake because she knows that Noah loves to swim and will definitely be sweet-talking her into the water at some point, so she forgoes doing her hair aside from brushing it and pulling it into a long braid over her right shoulder. Grinning a little, she also tucks a white flower behind her ear to spice up the hairstyle before she swipes on minimal make-up (it'll wash off in the water, anyway) and picks out a dark blue beach halter to wear over her mint green bikini. And then she gathers an apple and puts together a salad in a Tupperware for lunch before sitting down to eat a grapefruit before Noah gets there to pick her up.

He pulls into the driveway when she's about halfway done and lets himself into her house, strolling into the kitchen and tossing his keys in the little dish on the counter where the whole Berry family keeps their keys. He pours himself a mug of coffee from the pot she made and presses a kiss to her bare shoulder as he drops into the seat kitty corner from her. He sips his coffee quietly until she's finished her grapefruit and then leans back in his seat and asks her what's up conversationally.

"Nothing, I'm just not feeling like myself today, so I was planning on kind of lazing around home."

He narrows his eyes at her skeptically, but just finishes the last swig of his coffee and puts his mug in the dishwasher.

"Forget it," she tells him. "Just drop it. I'm fine now; let's just go to the lake."

He continues to look at her skeptically but takes her hand and leads her out the door and to his truck. When he speaks next, it's to ask her if she cares what music they listen to on the way to the lake, which is about half an hour from her house, so she knows that the subject has been dropped (at least for the time being—she knows he's not going to let it go forever).

She lets him pick the CD, but for the first time ever she has to consciously make sure that she's singing along so that he doesn't get any more suspicious. They get to the lake without any further incident, and she's happy to see that it's largely deserted; it's still early in the season for anyone to go swimming and not a lot of people come out here just to hang out by the water, but she likes it best this way: just her and Noah.

Of course, she realizes, not long after they arrive, that their solitude provides very little in the way of distractions, so Noah really has his complete attention on her, even though she knows he really does whenever they're together—it's one of the reasons she's in love with him.

Wait, what? She is not in love with him, is she? This is nothing what she felt like when she was with Finn. With Finn, she felt the need to check up on his every move, to seek constant reassurance from him and to make sure that he was constantly aware that she was a part of his life. She doesn't feel the need to do any of that with Noah, and she knows she was in love with Finn, so that must mean that she's not in love with Noah, right?

Or, maybe that just means that she trusts Noah much more than she ever trusted Finn. She knows that he's conscious of her role in his life because he carved it out especially for her. He created a Rachel sized and shaped hole in his routine to make sure that she had a safe and special place in his life. Finn, on the other hand, she's just realizing now, tried to make her fit into the generic girlfriend shaped hole at his side, a hole that had no room for her quirks and passions, no room for her admittedly oversized personality. Noah wants her in his life so he made room for her, not for Quinn or Santana or a generic, faceless girl but for her and everything that comes with her, so she doesn't feel a psychotic need to check up on him or wear "Team Puck" shirts (although she got the impression that he would be a much bigger fan of that than Finn ever was) or give him matching, kitten adorned, relationship calendars because she knows that she's already an essential part of his life without her shoving reminders in his face at every turn.

And with that realization, she's able to turn to him, kiss him and tell him, with her signature beaming stage smile on her face, that everything is truly fine, and that she had a little freak-out earlier but it's not anything that he should concern himself with because things are perfect just the way they are and she hopes that nothing changes for a long time. And then he pulls her back for another kiss, lays her out on the picnic blanket he had spread carefully over the grass and presses her body deliciously between the hard planes of his own and the ground beneath her and she truly believes that nothing has ever been so perfect in her life. (She seems to have that feeling a lot with Noah around; she could get used to it).

On Monday, when she and Santana are walking towards each other in an otherwise deserted hall, Rachel stops her. "Did you tell Noah what we talked about?"

Santana looks at her suspiciously. "Why?"

"We just had a really nice weekend together, so I was curious."

Santana shakes her head and says simply, "I haven't seen Puck since I talked to you in the library on Friday." Then she keeps walking down the hall, leaving Rachel in her wake.

Now Rachel's not really sure how she's still standing because that fifteen second exchange with Santana honestly made her weekend with Noah that much more perfect. Even though she doesn't know if that conversation she and Santana had in the library on Friday was initiated indirectly by Noah, she knows that what was said will get back to him as soon as Santana has a chance to talk with him, but knowing that he planned everything over the weekend because he knew she would like it and because he wanted to do it for her even though he didn't know just how invested in the relationship she is (although, Rachel Berry doesn't ever do anything half-assed) makes her want to show him just how invested she actually is.

And since she thinks it might be too early for a confession of love, even though she's positive she feels it, she's going to have to think of the perfect plan to convey how she feels to him without actually saying the words, so that he feels loved and appreciated without her blatantly throwing it in his face. It's going to be a challenge, and there's nothing that Rachel Berry loves more than a challenge.

It comes to her only a period later. Noah has been begging her since before they started dating to just give his favorite movie series a chance, and she just hasn't been able to drum up any interest, so she's been feeding him excuses and cutting back on the musicals and show tunes while they're hanging out and frankly it's killing her.

She was as surprised as anyone the first time that he asked her to watch "The Fellowship of the Ring" with him, and she's certain that no one other than his mother, who paid for him to buy them on iTunes even knows that he's a fan of the series because she's sure he thinks it's "nerdy" or "lame," so she knows exactly what she's going to do for him. She's going to one (or two) up his request of watching one film of the trilogy together. She's going to watch the whole thing with him, and she's going to buy him the box set of all three DVDs because she knows how much he hates watching movies on his tiny laptop screen.

When he drives her home after school, she can hardly contain her excitement, and being the observant boyfriend that he is, he notices before they've even turned out of the school parking lot. He shoots an incredulous look at her and says "Christ, Berry, did you take speed since I saw you at lunch? You can't even sit in your seat."

She giggles at him and tells him the first lie of their relationship. "No I just had a really good idea for a song for Glee, so I'm excited to get home and print off the sheet music and arrange it."

He gives her another look. "Jesus, Berry, you're so lame." But his voice doesn't hold any of the malice she's often come to expect from her peers; it holds the gentle teasing lilt that she's come to associate completely with his smooth voice, and it makes her want to kiss him so badly that she scoots over on the bench seat of his truck and kisses her way up the column of his neck until she gets to his ear which she nibbles on causing him to let out a strangled moan and jerk the steering wheel jarringly. He pushes her slightly away very gently and wraps his arm around her shoulder, grinning down at her at the next stop sign. "I gotta keep you right here so you don't get up to anymore trouble and actually cause an accident, you little vixen."

She smirks at him before leaning up to press a much more innocent kiss to the defined cut of his jaw and then she pulls completely away and settles back in the passenger seat with the shoulder belt properly fastened—it's much safer.

When he pulls his truck into her driveway and sees her dad's car in the driveway, he's reminded once again of their severe lack of alone time. Between her dad's recovery and his sister's constant presence in his house when she's not in school (it's so inconvenient that they have school at the same time), they're literally never alone except when they're driving somewhere or out to dinner (which obviously doesn't count since there are societal norms that dictate appropriate behavior—her words). Instead of getting out and following her up to her bedroom and initiating a super hot make out session on her (ridiculously comfortable) bed like he wants to, he settles for sliding over so his right side is pressed flush against her left side and leaning down wordlessly to kiss her. When he feels like he needs to feel more of her or he might actually die, he easily lifts her so she's straddling his lap and they pick up right where they left off. When, eventually, he knows he needs to stop or things are just going to have to progress, he pulls away slowly and reluctantly, leaning back into to drop a few chaste kisses on her swollen lips.

Eventually he pulls his head off her shoulder and looks up to meet her eyes and he's happy to note that they are still very much glazed over. Smiling up at her, he cups her face in his hands and says "baby, that was fuckin' hot."

She giggles, and god, he just can never get enough of that sound. But unfortunately, his truck has been sitting in her driveway for the better part of ten minutes and he has to get home and he's pretty sure her dad is probably catching on to what's going on out here, and he really doesn't want Mr. Berry to have any more heart trouble and defiling their little girl certainly isn't going to help that cause. Unfortunately all this means that she has to get off his lap, so even though that sounds like just about the worst thing ever, he gently pats the outside of her thigh and she slides reluctantly off him, straightening her clothes before she pecks him chastely on the lips one last time and hops from the car.

He watches her go inside and then backs out of the driveway with a little smile playing on his lips. It sits there for much of the rest of the afternoon. (He's found recently that he can't really stop smiling a little bit for hours after he hangs out with her; people are starting to notice and he's pretty sure it's really crippling his reputation yet he still can't care). He likes the way he feels when he's got that smile on his lips, so everyone else can go fuck themselves.

When she gets inside, she dutifully hangs her light spring coat in the hall closet and tucks her shoes there as well and then goes and talks to her father, asking him about his day and telling him about her own. She blushes to the roots of her hair when he asks what Noah's truck was doing in the driveway for so long, and she tells him that they were just saying goodbye since they don't have any plans to see each other until he picks her up for school in the morning. Her dad gives her a knowing look but doesn't say anything else, so she kisses him on the cheek and then scurries back to her own room to start researching her awesome surprise for Noah. She checks the price of a box set of Lord of the Rings DVDs including shipping (quite reasonable and very manageable since she is an extraordinarily responsible saver for someone of her age), has them sent overnight because she wants to make sure she has them the next time an opportunity presents itself for her and Noah to have a special night for themselves and then she goes back to her Dad's room to discretely find out the next time her parents plan on going anywhere and whether or not she can get out of it.

She's pretty sure that the stars are aligning for her to have a special night with Noah when her Dad tells her that he has an appointment on Friday afternoon in Ann Arbor, so he and her Daddy have decided that they're going to spend the night Friday night in the apartment there to cut down on the stress of driving there and back in a day. She knows she pulls off the disappoint, "I'm going to miss you so much" look perfectly because he pats her knee and says "oh, star, I'm so sorry we'll have to leave before you get out of school, but my appointment's at three so we'd never make it if we waited for school to let out, and your education is very important. Your daddy and I already discussed it and we know you'll be fine for a night. You're a very bright, responsible and resourceful girl."

Smiling brightly at him, she rises back to her feet, barely able to contain her inner excitement at how perfectly her plan is working. "I'll be fine, Dad, I'll just miss you guys." Bouncing from the room, she calls over her shoulder "I'm sure I'll have plenty of homework." Little does her father know, she's shooting her boyfriend a text at that very moment. I'm home alone Friday night. Keep me company? :).

She hasn't even gotten down the hall from her fathers' room to her own before her phone chirps with a response. Fuck yes baby can't wait. She spends the rest of her night smiling—her plan is working out perfectly. It will be nothing to execute it to perfection. As far as she's concerned Friday can't come soon enough.

She should have known that nothing ever works out as serendipitously as her plan for her and Noah did. The next day he texts her in the morning that he can't pick her up for school and that he wants to talk to her when he gets there, so he asks her to meet him by his locker at 7:40. She agrees, and she's there by 7:35. When he walks into school at 7:41, his backpack is hanging off one shoulder as he digs around in it while shuffling unseeingly toward her. He looks tired and harassed, a stark contrast to the cool, confident demeanor he almost always portrays.

Managing a smile when they make eye contact, he leans down and kisses her quickly before straightening and zipping up his backpack. "Hey baby, sorry I couldn't pick you up this morning. Eliza's friend who usually brings her to school has chicken pox, and they only called and told us this morning so I had to rush her to the before school program at her school and get that all settled because Ma worked overnight."

"It's ok. Daddy drove me on his way to work, so it worked out fine." She smiles up at him and pops up on her tiptoes to wrap a hand around the back of his neck and draw herself closer. "I'm can't wait for Friday though." She leans forward to kiss him and nips his bottom lip just a little and he can't help the way his arm shoots out to wrap around her waist and pull her body flush against his.

"Yeah, baby, about that," he looks down guiltily, "I think I'm gonna have to cancel."

Her stomach drops and she can feel her lips pulling into a frown but she's slightly heartened by the fact that when she finally makes eye contact with him he looks as disappointed about it as she feels. "What do you mean cancel?"

"My mom works Friday nights, and Eliza was supposed to sleep over at her friend's house so I was free, but the friend that drives her to school in the morning is the friend that she was supposed to stay with Friday night but she got chicken pox so Eliza can't go over there because she's never had them. I'm so sorry, baby."

Rachel, of course, is still confused on the logistics. "So what does Eliza usually do in the mornings when you don't bring her to the early morning program at school?"

"I bring her to her friend's house on my way to school. Her friend lives on Oak, right around the corner from you, so I still have time to pick you up and not be late for school, but Eliza's school is all the way on the other side of town so there's no way I could drop her off and then pick you up and still be on time for school, which I know is important to you." He loves the smile she sends him but still has to ask "why does this even matter?"

"I don't know; it just seems like it does. I'm really disappointed, Noah. Who knows when my dads will be gone overnight again?"

Puck smiles at her but he can't help the annoyance that bubbles right under the surface. Does she really have to say that she's disappointed? Of course he is too, but there's nothing he can do about this and she knows how important his family is to him. Before he can say anything more, the second bell rings, and they exchange a look. "Did you hear the warning bell?"

She looks around at the noticeably empty hall they're standing in. "No, not at all. I better go though, I have Mrs. Benson this period and you know how she is about being on time." She smiles a little bit at him and then hurries down the hall toward her classroom without even kissing him goodbye. She always kisses him goodbye.

By the time lunch rolls around he's actually getting angry. He honestly cannot believe that Rachel's actually mad at him about this. Disappointed or upset he definitely gets, but mad makes no sense. For once, he actually did nothing wrong and he doesn't see how it's fair that he still gets blamed because he honestly would like nothing more than to spend Friday night in completely alone with his girlfriend with no interruptions for the first time since they started dating. When he sits down next to her, she leans over and kisses him on the cheek instead of on the lips like he's used to and then she goes back to her conversation with Tina without saying anything else at all to him.

He's pissed that she's not talking to him, so he turns his back almost completely to her and strikes up a conversation with Mike and Matt about the Victoria's Secret catalog that he'd gotten in the mail last night. He knows it's petty and stupid but he wants Rachel to hear him talking about how hot the models because he just wants to make her mad. He knows his girl well because just over ten minutes later he can tell that she's fuming as he and Mike discuss whether Adriana Lima or Alessandra Ambrosio is hotter. And when he wins the argument with an (admittedly) disgusting but extremely thorough and detailed analysis of why Alessandra is obviously way hotter, Rachel lets out a huff and levels him with her best glare.

Smirking at her, he takes a sip of her water and then leans forward with his elbows on the table ready for the fight he knows he's about to get. "What's up, baby?"

"I just don't understand what would ever make you think that this is an appropriate conversation to have in front of me. Don't you respect me at all?"

He rolls his eyes. "Well, I don't understand why you think that it's appropriate to be angry with me and stop talking to me because Eliza's friend got chicken pox. It's not like I infected her to get out of hanging out with you. Don't you think I'd rather be alone in your house with you than watching Hannah Montana for hours with my kid sister?" At this point, he's standing, his chest is heaving with exertion and most of the kids in the dining hall are looking at him with confused expressions on their faces. Glancing around, he waves them vaguely off and turns his attention back to Rachel who looks just as confused as everyone else in the room. She also looks hurt. It's not an expression he likes on her face, and he's really not sure how they got to this point or when he got so angry.

"I'm not not speaking to you, Noah. I've barely seen you at all today; in fact, I've spent all morning trying to brainstorm a way to make our night together special even though we don't get to be alone, but clearly that's not even an option to you. I've forgotten how vengeful you can be." Her eyes are glassy as she maintains eye contact with him while she stands up, gathers her things and then she turns on her heel and is out of the lunchroom before he can even react to stop her.

He looks up at the ceiling, as frustrated as he's ever been, and then back down at his friends. They're all staring at him like they've never seen him before and he's a completely different person. Rolling his eyes, he grabs the trash from his half-eaten lunch and dumps it in the trash can on his way out the door. He doesn't really know where he's going but he realizes that he just had his first fight with Rachel and it fucking sucks.

When she storms from the lunch room she heads straight for her favorite place in the entire school. It's not the choir room or the auditorium; it's the press box above the school's swimming pool. No one knows how to get up there, and since the swim coach is a lawyer at the only firm in Lima, she's never at school during the day so no one is ever in the pool room. It's where she always goes to think, avoid being slushied or to eat on days when she doesn't want to sit in the library.

She had thought about going out to the bleachers because it's such a nice day out but she knows that Noah will look for her in the auditorium, the choir room and on the bleachers and she's so hurt and offended and confused about how their fight even happened that she cannot see him right now. She has no idea where they went wrong. One moment she was sitting there at lunch listening to Tina talk about her latest fight with Artie and the next second she was overhearing Noah talk completely crudely about these Victoria Secret models. And even then everything was fine until she heard the sentence that changed everything. That's the turning point that she can pin the fight on. "Yeah, man, I mean they're all better than anything we're ever gonna see in this town but if I'm picking my top one, it's Alessandra. She's the whole package: tall, thin, curvy, perfect face. She's definitely the whole package."

That was the point at which she huffed and he started talking directly to her and the whole fight blew up from there. She can feel tears gathering in her eyes because he actually did what she rationally knows what he was intending to do with all those comments, and even though she knows, she can't help but react any way. As much as she would like to be able to, she still hasn't trained herself control the way she feels, so she's just hurt, which she knows was Noah's goal. So yeah, she's equal parts hurt and infuriated with him actually which explains the blow up, although now that she thinks back on it, he really did all the talking, which sucks (god, his language is rubbing off on her) because she actually has a lot to say.

Before she can work herself into any more of a rage about the whole incident, she hears footsteps and her heart starts racing and it feels like when Santana was walking toward her in the library except much worse because she's allowed to be in the library and most certainly is not allowed to be here. She's more than a little surprised when the door creaks open and she hears her boyfriend's drawl. "Ah, fuck, I give up looking and then I find you. Figures. What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?"

He rolls his eyes. "This is where I come when I actually don't want anyone to find me."

"This is where I come to think."

"How did you even know this was here, Rachel? You've never broken a goddamn rule in your life."

"I just found it one day, and it kind of became my spot."

As long as he lives, he'll never be able to explain what happens next. "Fuck, baby, this is why I love you."

Oh, fuck. He's never actually said that (and meant it) before, but even he knows you're not supposed to be saying for the first time in your first huge fight.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.