Hi everyone! This is a shorter chapter just because it helps lead up to the next chapter, which is going to be my favorite! This story will be wrapping up soon and I'm really grateful for everyone who's reviewed, alerted and favorite this story/me during this. It's really helped me grow as a writer and I definitely take your comments into consideration while writing! Thanks again!

"Look, I know we haven't exactly been friends lately, but I want to talk to you guys." Quinn looks up from her bowl of potato chips and reaches for the remote. "I think that we've grown apart and I want us to be friends again. If that's what we were to begin with." She turns the volume down on the TV and Santana and Brittany both sit up, Santana shooting Quinn a death glare.

"Do you ever wonder why we might have grown apart, Quinn? I mean, it's not like you've really been the best of people lately." The blonde narrows her eyes and looks at Santana, looking angrier than ever.

"It's not like I've been in the wrong," she argues, crossing her arms over her chest. "It's just… ever since that Rachel girl got here, everything's turned to-"

"See, that's where I want you to stop," Santana quips, her voice becoming sharper. Brittany looks up at the two from her position on the floor and her eye widen, shocked by how they're both getting so angry so quickly. "Ever since Rachel's been here, all you've been able to do complain about how much you hate her, how ugly you think she is, whatever. You probably haven't even had one conversation with her," Santana argues.

Quinn looks at her and raises her voice slightly. "Ever since she's gotten here, she's ruined everything," the blonde begins to explain. "Everyone acts like she's this great thing that happened to all of us, but she's just managed to destroy everything for me, Santana. The show hasn't even started yet and she's already wrecked all of it." The blonde throws her hands up in the air in frustration and looks at Santana, anger raging in her eyes.

"You're acting like a pampered little baby, Quinn Fabray," Santana reminds her snidely. "Look, I kind of felt the same way about Rachel when she first got here too. But the more time you spend around her, the better she gets. She has good intentions, Quinn."

"She's really nice," Brittany says, quietly managing to interrupt and rip off a piece of her Twizzlers braid with her teeth. "She taught me how to make these cupcakes that have little frosting flowers on them… you should spend more time around her, Quinn. She even knit Lord Tubbington a sweater."

Quinn looks at Santana and Brittany like they're crazy, exclaiming a bit. "You guys," she begins, frustration oozing from every pore. "She took my boyfriend away from me. I saw-" Her voice drops off and she feels a lump form in her throat, swallowing thickly before speaking again. "The other night, when I went to the fair with my parents and sister, Finn was there. With her." Santana and Brittany look at one another and make the same face as Quinn looks down into her lap, her emotions beginning to get the best of her. "They were on the Ferris wheel together and she kissed him." Tears begin to well in her eyes and her voice becomes lower, scratching against her throat as she tries to speak. "I know it's selfish of me to just think about myself and how I feel during all of this, but I loved him, you guys." She sighs, regaining her composure somewhat and a heavy sigh escaping her. "She just waltzes in here and has the entire town cater to her on a silver platter," she mutters. "I really thought I would be getting out of here with Finn," she says. "She's ruined everything."

Santana looks at Quinn with a smug look on her face, managing hesitate an eye roll. For as much as she's grown apart from Quinn in the past few months, seeing her in such a vulnerable position makes her feel like she's not as horrible as she comes across most of the time. Maybe hearing her talk makes her realize just how fragile she is.

"Look, Quinn, I know things suck, okay?" Santana moves over to actually look at the blonde, who's looking up from her lap and at Santana. "But the way you handle things… it's not like Rachel did all of this intentionally. That's something I would do. She's just… if you talked to her, Quinn, you'd realize just how much she loves him. She loves him, Quinn, and I just… she gives him the love that you never gave him when you were together. All Rachel can talk about is how much she loves him and how much he loves her… and he's happy, Quinn. He's happier than I've seen him in a long time." Quinn looks down into her lap again, hands clenching in fists.

"Did she tell you this?"

Santana just looks at Brittany and back to Quinn, almost afraid to say anything. She's seen her in action before and she knows just how cruel and manipulative she can be. "Last I spoke to her, she told me that she loved him," Santana begins, her voice quiet. "Do you want me to be honest with you?"

Quinn purses her lips and looks at Santana, nodding tightly.

"She slept with him the other night. Like, I shouldn't say slept with, because that's not really what happened, but they had sex. Made love, whatever. She loves him, Quinn."

Quinn feels something kick in the pit of her stomach and she gasps a bit, feeling her blood rush to her head. "I'll talk to her," she says, almost plainly. Her emotions have flushed and she no longer seems as upset as she was before. "Just her and I. It will be like… a meeting, or something."

Santana looks at Brittany and swallows thickly. Quinn stands and says something along the lines of having to use the bathroom, and Brittany looks at Santana, fear in her eyes.

"She's really mad, Santana," the blonde says, worrying her bottom lip in her teeth. "I know it doesn't look like it, but she is." She pauses for a moment and then gasps, grabbing onto Santana's hand in fear. "What if she kills Rachel?" Santana rolls her eyes and looks down at Brittany with a smile, running a hand over her hair.

"She's not going to kill Rachel," she assures her girlfriend, her voice soft enough so that Quinn can't hear them. "But I am worried as to what they're going to talk about. Quinn Fabray never takes shit like this lightly."

:.:.:

Rachel's made him her famous banana bread, which Finn hardly bothers to share with her after having the first slice. He thought that his mom's banana bread was good, and then he thought Quinn's was, but Rachel's has got to be the best he's ever tried. He's sitting on the living room couch and he's finished up the last slice, the TV playing lowly in the background. He figures he might as well ask her what makes her recipe so good, to which she just replies with a smile.

"Because I bake mine with love in it," she says as she walks back into the living room from the kitchen, smiling at him with a smile that he's sure could light up the entire house in a power outage. It's one of the hottest days so far this summer, and both of his parents are busy at work, while Kurt's left for the day to go to the mall with Blaine. Rachel thinks it's 'absolutely darling' how they're actually getting to see each other more and more, and she keeps on telling Finn how she believes that they truly are in love with one another and she hopes that she gets to plan their wedding, and by the time she begins her ramblings about what she thinks the color scheme should be, Finn attacks her with a flurry of kisses, causing her to giggle as he places his hands around her waist.

"Are you excited for the show this weekend?" Finn asks her, pushing her hair out of her eyes as it falls in her face. Since Kurt's been spending all of his free time with Blaine, he isn't around to style and straighten Rachel's hair like he had been every day, so she lets it dry on its own after she steps out of the shower and it truly does look lovely; all soft and thick and wavy and falling in her eyes when she isn't paying attention to it. "I'm so excited so hear you sing, Rach. Like, I know I've heard it forever, but getting to hear you sing in front of a big audience… you'll be perfect." She giggles and adjusts herself in his lap so that she can straddle his waist, looking down at him with a smile.

"I'm so lucky to be your girlfriend," she tells him, letting her hair fall in his face a bit. She smiles and he cranes his neck up to kiss her, not letting his hands leave her waist as he lifts her up slightly, making her giggle loud enough that it echoes throughout the entire house. He laughs at her smile and for that moment he just wants to look at her, to admire how beautiful she is and how lucky he is to be her boyfriend. "I just hope Quinn didn't take anything too seriously. I wouldn't want to have her break her heart because of her past romance with you." Finn feels his gut clench and a cold sweat break out across his forehead. As far as he's concerned, Quinn doesn't know anything about him and Rachel. He didn't think it mattered at the time, since he and Quinn were growing so far apart anyway. They argued every time they saw one another and Quinn seemed more concerned about the image of their relationship versus what it actually was, and he didn't want that. Still, he had never officially broken up with her. Then he thinks of Rachel, and how it might affect her. Would it really make him a cheater if he wasn't attached emotionally to Quinn anymore? She sure wasn't, and even if she was, she did a terrible job at showing it.

"Rach," he begins, his voice beginning to sound more serious than before. It immediately causes Rachel's brow to furl and her eyes to become darker, looking at him almost accusingly. "I need to tell you something…about Quinn." Rachel looks at him, confused.

"What about her? True, she can be a bit coldhearted at times, but there's nothing truly wrong with her."

Finn can't help but crack a smile at what she says. "No, Rach, it's just… I never really officially broke up with Quinn before… before falling in love with you." Rachel looks down at Finn and she looks disappointed, shifting herself over so that she isn't in his lap anymore.

"So I'm just… I'm a mistress to you?" She looks disappointed and sad, and stands up from the couch. She isn't wearing one of her regular dresses and instead is in a pair of shorts she's borrowed from Santana and a paper thin blouse that Finn's more than able to see her bra through, but he doesn't notice that now.

"No!" Finn says quickly, not even sure what the word mistress means. "No, Rach, you gotta understand, you're the only person in my life that I love, alright? Quinn and I haven't even been really seeing each other for the past… three weeks." She walks around for a moment before throwing her hands up in the air and raising her voice.

"But you didn't see the importance in doing so?" She looks at him, frustration burning in her eyes. "I love you, Finn, and I know that the two of you aren't even seeing one another anymore, but to not make it something official?" She sighs and she isn't facing him anymore, her arms falling down to her sides in a frustrated huff. "I don't want her to become upset with you," she says, not bothering to face him. Finn walks up behind her and rests his hands against her arms, rubbing them softly as she continues. "I know you love me, but I don't want anything bad to happen between you two." Finn wraps her in an embrace and she places her own arms around herself, leaning into his chest.

"Believe me, Rach, I just… I shouldn't have said anything." He sighs and looks down at her, holding her close. "I don't want you to think that Quinn and I are still in a relationship or whatever, okay? We've been growing apart forever lately, and ever since then, Rach, you're the only person I've been in love with. And I'm still in love with you, and I never want to stop being in love with you. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me." He presses a kiss to the top of her head and he can feel her sigh against his chest, putting him at ease a bit. "I'm going to talk to her and sort things out, okay? She just… she just can't know about us." Rachel turns around to face him and instead ends up in his arms, causing her to giggle as she looks up at him.

"Promise?"

"With whipped cream and cherries on top." She giggles and stands up on her toes to kiss him, only she needs help from him this time because she's not wearing heels, so he dips down to kiss her and she smiles into his lips, making him smile back. She doesn't stop kissing him, however, no matter how many times he tries to pull away from her and return back to his place on the couch from earlier.

"We just had our first fight, didn't we?" She says, looking up at him with a little twinkle in her eye. Finn just smiles and pushes her bangs out of her eyes, tucking them behind her ear. Sometimes he just wishes she would grow them out or at least pin them back more often, because they fall in her eyes all of the time and he's never able to see the big brown eyes he fell in love with in the first place.

"I guess we did," he says softly, letting his hand fall to the side of her face. She giggles as he traces his thumb against her cheek, looking up at him and batting her eyes.

"We'll just call it a lover's quarrel," she says sweetly, her voice the best thing in the entire world. She looks up at Finn and flashes him a smile, walking back to the couch. "Our first real fight means it's serious," she reminds him, sitting back down on the couch and patting the space next to her. "And I love she you and you love me, so it only makes sense." She giggles and Finn walks towards her, sitting next to her and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. He loves how sweet she is and how she loves to say that they're together. They've already decided to keep it under wraps from most people, although Rachel's told Finn that Kurt knows – not only about the two of them, but her background and how she's not really from Carmel.

Rachel looks at Finn and she giggles a bit mischievously, leaning in to press a kiss to his cheek. Only instead of kissing him once on the cheek and being done with it like she normally is, her breathing becomes hotter and heavier and her kisses become more labored; placing open-mouthed kisses on his cheek and jaw and neck, whimpering softly before looking up at him.

"Remember that one night when I told you I would give you something to look at if you wanted it?" Her whisper is hot against the side of his face and he feels a chill go down his spine, unable to understand how she can go from being someone so sweet and seemingly innocent to where she is now, kissing him and having her hands rove his chest. He never would have expected Rachel to become such a… a vixen, actually. She's always been the image of innocence and angels and cherry pie and sweetness, and now, she's kissing him and whispering things into his ear to get him hot and bothered.

He's lost his train of thought now though, because she's standing right in front of him and she's got her hands against her perfectly toned legs and the way her arms push her breasts together make him weak at the knees. She's gorgeous.

"N-no," he stammers, not able to take his eyes off of her. He has no idea what she's doing, but he'd love to know what she has in mind.

"Well, Santana gave me a few pointers on how to spice things up between the two of us," she says, her voice low and husky. "I told her about how the last time we were together was so romantic and you really paid attention to all of the things I needed in order to be sufficiently pleased." She walks to him and sits on his lap, straddling his hips again. "This time, I want to make sure that I do every little thing you want me to do." Finn can't believe her. Only their second time having sex and she's all over him; seeming to be more comfortable with him almost than he is with her.

"Rach," he chokes, feeling her roll her hips into his for a moment. "I d-don't know if we can do this. At least not here." She looks at him with a small pout, her eyes sparkling.

"No one's home," she whispers, letting her hands fall between his legs. "Besides, I'd like to see how the couch compares to your bed, darling." She pats him lightly on the cheek and Finn can't believe what he's seeing, because she's so sweet and cute and all his.

"Fine," he says, kissing her back rougher than before. "Let's see what you wanted to show me." Rachel giggles and gets up again, standing in front of him and pushing her boobs together like she was before. Her fingers move to the buttons of her shirt and she's got them all the way undone before she opens it and throws it to the floor, pausing to look at Finn.

"I figured since I was an actress, I would put on a show for you…" she says, letting her voice trail off as she lets one shoulder of her blouse fall off at a time. Before letting it fall off she looks at him and he looks shocked for a moment, trying his best to keep his eyes on hers and not on her boobs, no matter how hard it is. "Do I look better with this on or off, Finn?" He can't believe it. She's dancing around his living room and shaking her ass around and she's performing a fucking striptease for him.

For once, Finn's glad he's letting Rachel live with Santana.

:.:.:

"You're not just doing this for Rachel and I, are you?" He nervously clutches the cup of coffee in his hands as they walk around the mall, Kurt looking at him with a smile.

"Of course not," he tells him, holding his hand in his own. "I really.. I really love you, Blaine."

It had slipped out while they were sitting in the one dollar massage chairs by the elevator in the rotunda of the mall. Blaine had told a joke and Kurt laughed affectionately at him, casually letting the words 'I love you' slip from his lips.

"You're a great person, Blaine, and that's really all I can ask for. I truly think you're wonderful." Blaine smiles and looks at Kurt, causing the other boy to erupt into a fit of laughter.

"What?"

"It's just that I love you too," he tells him, making the two of them stop off towards the side. "I love you, Kurt."

He smiles and sighs happily to himself as they continue to hold hands with one another, walking out of the mall. He couldn't be happier, and neither could Rachel. Maybe everything would work out in the end after all.