Standard Disclaimer: None of this story originally Wild Night by Mari Carr or Glee situations and characters belong to me. I am not doing a lot of tweaking of the original story, so go just go along with the flow this is just a Holiday gift to all you wonderful people who love to read fanfiction, support it by writing your own stories, reviewing, favoriting, and following this and all my other twice-told stories. It is a quick read not one of my 100,000 words plus love fest. Tomorrow or early Friday will be the last update. I appreciate all of you and your sincere words of gratitude and appreciation for me doing this.

Bubbles face claim Christina Hendricks. Patrick's face claim is Robert Redford. I think everybody else has a Glee wiki face claim if you want to know what they look like.

Chapter Seven

Mercedes lay on her couch, staring at the ceiling. Her tiny Maltese puppy Molly, was lying on her chest, sleeping peacefully. When her maternal urges had suddenly appeared two years ago, she thought about getting a dog to help alleviate her desire, and this year she had finally gotten one on her birthday in June. She loved her puppy and loved being a dog mommy, but the animal didn't replace the longings she had for a child of her own.

Getting pregnant and having her own child was not a whim or passing fancy. Some people were not maternal, but she always treated her baby dolls like they were the real thing. Being an only child and having a mother like Roz had limited her to playing with other children. She spent a lot of her young life alone in her room until she went to school and met Stevie. Stevie was like the brother she never had, and the two had clicked instantly.

When Stevie met De'Wanda, Mercedes knew she was going to have to stop being his best friend. Because his family had embraced her, she was not in need of finding a new best friend. His girl cousins who were living at the Evans Dorm at that time had included her, and she didn't miss being Stevie's best friend at all. She was happy for him until De'Wanda's chronic myelogenous leukemia was finally diagnosed when she had entered the final stages of the disease. Her type of leukemia which occurred in adults had no symptoms before she entered into a phase that caused the leukemia cells to grow more rapidly. Because Stevie and De'Wanda knew her chance for battling leukemia and winning were low, Stevie set out to make each day of their lives special especially the holidays.

Watching how much Stevie loved De'Wanda and having to be his and her friend during that time forced Mercedes to grow up. She was reminded just how short life was, and so she began writing down all the things she wanted to do before she die. Being a mother was at the top of her list. She thought she would fall in love as easily as Stevie, Marissa, and Elektra had. However, love just didn't seem to be in the cards for her right now, but her desire to have a baby and nurture her child and love a child of her own continued to deepen and grow.

She researched having a child on her own, and she knew it would not be easy. Children especially babies are selfish. Their needs are paramount and they want to be loved, fed, changed, and basically be the boss. This didn't change much from toddlers or the five and six year olds she work with at her school. Because she worked with children all day, she knew what she was getting into in having a child of her own. She knew that child rearing was one of the toughest jobs in the world, but she knew she could do it. She was actually the idiot looking forward to angsty teen years and the drama that accompanied hormones, first loves, and first heartbreaks.

So, she knew she was not just being hormonal. She also knew without a doubt that she had baby fever, and now on top of that she had Sam fever as well. Trying to ignore that she slept with Sam and still got wet just thinking about what they had done during the blackout was just not working for her.

She tried to escape her thoughts by sleeping, but it was like he haunted her dreams. Sam out of all the men in the world had her lusting after him. She needed to see a therapist. How could someone who had gotten on her last nerve most of her life be the one person who pushed all her buttons sexually as well? After giving up on going back to sleep, she had gotten out of her bed and decided to lay on her couch. She'd been in this same position since eating breakfast. It was Saturday, which was typically her get-shit-done day, but so far, the day had been a total bust.

She would pay for it next week when she ran out of clean socks and undies, but she couldn't make herself care too much about it right now.

Her mind was swimming in a sea of confused what-the-hell-did-I-do and an ocean of I-want-more-Sam-sex.

The past two nights, all she'd one was replay that blackout night over and over in her mind until her body actually ached with physical need, and none of the vibrators in her extensive collection were doing a thing to help that situation.

The worst part of her situation was she couldn't figure out what Sam thought about any of it. He'd said they were fine, but then he'd said they weren't going to move on.

So…what in the hell did that mean?

Surely he didn't intend for them to have sex again?

Oh hell, she was not into self delusion. She sort of hoped that was his intention. She wouldn't mind going in for another round or hundred more, just to see if it was some sort of alcohol-induced fluke.

Of course, if they did sleep with each other, and it was amazing again, she'd still be screwed because it was Sam. She never wanted anything to do with the moron. Never imagined even kissing him. She thought it would be like kissing Stevie which was gross because Stevie was like her brother. Even though with the beard they were not identical, Sam was just a man-whore who didn't want to commit to anyone until he was forty. He was so not going to mess up her plans of becoming a mother next year. After Anthony had said yes, she had even start shopping for her future child. She would not let Sam ruin this.

"I have the worst luck of anyone that I know," she murmured. It was the only way she could explain how shit like this kept happening to her.

She'd meet a great guy she really liked, and inevitably there was always something wrong with him—he hated small dogs, he still lived with his 'mommy', he sucked at kissing and couldn't get her wet.

And now, the one time she'd found a guy who seriously hit every freaking hot button in her body…it was Samuel Patrick Evans of all people.

Screw. Me. With. A. Rusty. Dick.

Her cell phone started ringing, and she considered letting it go to voicemail for a second.

"Sorry, Molly," she said as she rolled toward the coffee table, forcing the dog to move. She picked up her cell, glancing at the caller ID. "Hey, Marissa. What's up?"

"Just calling to make sure we're still on for dinner and party planning tonight."

Mercedes jerked up off the couch and glanced at the clock. She hadn't even managed to shower or get dressed. It was nearly five o'clock, and she was still sporting a bedhead and pajamas. "Shit. I forgot all about it."

"Well, shake a tail feather, girlfriend. We've got work to do and margaritas to drink."

"I'm not drinking."

"We're going to a Mexican restaurant, Cedes. Margaritas are non negotiable."

"You bet I'd fall off the wagon today in that pool of Sam's, didn't you?"

Marissa laughed, not even bothering to feign innocence. "Day's not over yet, and he's got a pretty nice-size pot this year. Get a move on. Be there in an hour."

Marissa didn't even bother to say goodbye or give Mercedes a chance to make an excuse to get out of it. Not that she wanted to.

A girls' night out might just do the trick.

Two hours later, Mercedes was eyeballing the margaritas—the second round—in front of Stacey, Marissa, and Elektra, and regretting that she'd picked now to give up alcohol.

Because if she'd ever needed a drink…

Marissa had her tablet open, going over everything one last time. "Okay, so Elektra is making the cake, shaped like boobs, as well as the cake pops—don't forget the nipples on those. I love the idea of adding a bowlful of Mounds to the dessert table, E. Nicely played. And, Mercedes, you sure you don't mind running to get the art supplies for the upcycling old bras contest."

Mercedes nodded. "I'll make sure to have a good variety of crafty crap so people can really get creative."

They'd spent the last hour planning a Boob Voyage party for Stacey and Marissa's godmother, Bubbles. Bubbles had been an "adopted" Evans since before any of them were born. According to Riley, she and Bubbles had been best friends since God was in diapers, the two of them meeting by chance in Vegas a million years ago.

Riley and Aaron had returned from Las Vegas the week after their elopement with Bubbles, a "former ho," as she liked to say, in tow. Since starting a new life, Bubbles had found work as an in-home caregiver for the elderly. She'd taken countless nursing classes over the years and currently lived in a detached apartment behind Riley and Aaron's house. She'd been a beloved member of the Evans family for years, and she was one of Mercedes's favorite people on the planet.

The woman spoke her language. She never minced words and hadn't met a curse word she didn't love. It was Bubbles who had added the words cuntcake, cunnyeater, and twatwaffle to Mercedes's vocabulary back when Mercedes was in high school.

Bubbles was also extremely well-endowed. Like off-the-charts endowment making Mercedes's Double D's look flat chested. As such, she'd suffered with back pain for years, and a few months earlier, she'd decided it was time to reduce "the beasts," as she liked to refer to them.

And, of course, the Evans clan considered that a reason to throw a party. Riley had put Mercedes, Elektra, Stacey, and Marissa in charge of the food and games.

Mercedes had to admit they'd come up with a pretty solid menu—including nippetizers like meatballs, chicken "breast" salad, and watermelon salad. They planned to play "Pin the B-Cup on Bubbles," as well as award a prize for the most creative upcycle redesign using Bubbles' old size F bras. Marissa also wanted to hold a contest to rename Bubbles, giving her a new, smaller-titty nickname.

The party was going to be a blast, but Mercedes was struggling to work up any enthusiasm for it at the moment.

"So…now that that's all done," Marissa said, turning off her tablet and twisting toward Mercedes. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Mercedes reared back. "What do you mean?"

"You've been way too quiet tonight, and distracted, considering this is usually the type of thing you love."

She should have known Marissa would pick up on her mood. Mercedes considered the three women sitting with her some of her very best friends, the four of them spending countless happy hours and girls' nights out—like this one—together.

"There's a," Mercedes waved her hand around, "thing going on right now and I need some advice. I kind of screwed up."

"Oh Good Lord. You finally broke down and told your manipulative principal off, didn't you?" Elektra said. "Are you fired?"

"No. I haven't snapped over that…yet. Though she tests me daily." Mercedes's principal was a lying, control freak, who obviously slept her way into the position. She also had an alcoholic husband, bratty child, crazy father, and a host of other issues that made her act bipolar depending on which of her many medications she did or did not take each morning.

"Well, if it's not work, than it's sex. Who did you screw?" Marissa asked.

Mercedes shook her head and glanced heavenward. "Why does your mind always go straight to sex?"

Marissa tilted her head in the ultimate know-it-all pose. "Am I wrong?"

"No."

"So I'll ask again. Who did you screw?"

Mercedes bit her lower lip and debated whether or not she should tell them—for about zero-point-four seconds—then she blurted it out because the truth was, she really did need their advice.

"Sam."

Mercedes instantly regretted not having her phone out, videoing their responses. Because it wasn't often she was able to shock three Evans women into silence.

Marissa, of course, recovered first. "Shut the front door and maybe the back door, too. You did not!"

Mercedes nodded slowly. "It was sort of an accident."

All three women burst into laughter as Stacey said, "Accident? So what happened? You slipped and fell on his dick?"

"I hate all of you," Mercedes said even as she tried not to laugh. "I really need a drink."

Marissa lit up and then raised her hand for the server. Mercedes grabbed it and pulled it down.

"Forget it. I'm not caving in just so you can win a bet. And it was an accident," she insisted to Stacey, "because I didn't know it was Sam."

"How can that even happen or are you screwing Stevie without telling us and confused the two?"

Mercedes crossed her arms. "You are a psycho. Hell no, Stevie is like my brother and he is totally not over De'Wanda. There was a blackout, and we each thought we were with someone else."

"Halloween? The two of you had sex on Halloween, and we're just now hearing about it?" Elektra picked up her drink and took a big sip. "I can't believe you held out on us that long."

"I only just found out it was with Sam on Thursday night, at karaoke. I thought I'd slept with Anthony…and then…" She stopped right there, deciding to omit the Stevie part of the story because she didn't want to go there again with them.

"But Sam must have known," Stacey said.

Mercedes shook her head. "He thought he was with Penny."

Elektra frowned, clearly struggling to make sense of it all. "I know it was super dark, but surely you recognized each other's bodies and voices."

Mercedes shot Marissa a dirty look. "We were still playing your stupid Quiet Place game and both drunk as skunks for mixing alcohol."

Marissa laughed, completely unrepentant. "Oh my God! Do I know how to throw a party or what? Just when I think I can't top myself—boom, Mercedes and Sam hook up and don't even realize it. I might just hang it all up now and rest on my laurels because there's no beating that."

"What about the Boob Voyage?" Elektra reminded her cousin.

"And Friendsgiving?" Stacey added.

"Hell. Yeah. Okay. I'll hang up my hat after the holiday season." Marissa lifted her margarita glass, but put it down again, leaning closer to Mercedes. "So, how was it?"

"Seriously, Rissa? He's your cousin."

Marissa shrugged, and Mercedes knew the other woman wasn't going to give up. She was as nosy as the rest of her family, and she loved a good sex story. "So what? Details or it never happened."

"I'm not giving you details."

"You said you needed advice," Elektra—God bless her—said, changing the subject. "What's going on?"

"Please tell me my cousin isn't acting like a total douchebag about it." From her tone, it was clear Marissa would give Sam crap if he was.

Mercedes shook her head. "No. He's cool. I mean, we talked about it and we're okay." She didn't know why, but she hadn't told any of the Evans clan that she had been going out to dinner with Sam, cooking for him on occasion, watching Marvel movies with him, and basically spilling her guts to him like he was her best friend. Before finding out that they had slept together during the blackout, Sam had stopped being the jerk she knew from her childhood, and had become a real friend. He shared things with her that she didn't think he shared with anyone else. That they were no longer frenemies and discovering that they had slept together was really confusing her.

Stacey studied her face. "So if you're both cool with it, and you still need advice…"

Marissa's eyes widened. "You want to sleep with him again, don't you?"

Mercedes's knee-jerk reaction was to deny that assertion immediately—but she couldn't. She was not into self-deception or lying to her friends. It killed her to keep sleeping with Stevie a secret from him when she thought he was the one she had slept with during the blackout. Her face was an open book and lying never worked for her anyways.

"Holy crap, Cedes," Marissa said, letting Mercedes's silence provide the answer. "He was that good?"

Mercedes rolled her eyes. "If I said yes—and mind you, I'm not saying that, I'm only asking out of curiosity—how much crap would you guys give me and for how long?"

Marissa leaned back and pretended to consider the question. "That's a tough one. Because, shit, there's just so much material to use."

Mercedes sighed heavily, but Marissa was only just getting going.

"I mean, a picture is starting to form of you and Sam in bed together. I can almost see him playing the cocky macho card the entire time, pissing you off, while he loses his crap every time you tell him what he's doing wrong and how to correct it."

Stacey and Elektra both tried to hide their giggles behind their hands.

Mercedes would love to be annoyed by this whole conversation, but the truth was…it was exactly what she needed. She'd been too in her head the past couple of days, worrying about something that really, actually, was pretty funny.

At least on the surface.

If she could just focus on the humor of the situation, she'd have already forgotten and moved on. But…she couldn't let go of the way it felt to be held by him, the way he kissed her as if he couldn't get enough, the way he slid deep inside, filling her, touching places she hadn't even known existed.

Everything Marissa had said about their personalities and the way she and Sam had always communicated in the past was true, so she wasn't wrong to think that would carry over to the bedroom.

Except it hadn't.

Of course, he'd thought she was Penny. What if that was why it had been so great? And who was to say that if they decided to have sex again, it wouldn't turn out exactly as Marissa described? They'd taken talking…and vision…off the table the other night. That wouldn't be the case if they went back for seconds. "So what you're saying is, forget it. It'll never work."

Marissa sobered up, and for the first time, Mercedes could see her friend was suddenly taking her seriously. "No," she said after a moment of reflection. "I'm not. It's obvious something happened between you two that night. Something that's shaken you up a little. And I'm glad."

"You're glad I'm shaken up?"

Marissa nodded. "Yeah. You needed to have your foundation rocked. I don't think that's happened to you in a very long time. If ever. And the thing is…that's what makes life worth living."

Mercedes hadn't considered that, but she could see now that Marissa was right. She'd merely been existing the past year or…maybe decade. Stuck in a rut, miserable, lonely.

Marissa ran her finger around the rim of her margarita glass, sucking the sugar off the tip as she thought. "If you'd had amazing sex with any other guy in the world, you'd be going back for seconds, right?"

Mercedes nodded. "And thirds. And fourths. And—"

"Wow. Way to go Sam," Stacey murmured.

"So why aren't you going for that now?" Elektra asked.

"You all think I should just go with the flow? With Sam of all people?" she stressed.

Elektra nodded and smiled. "Yes. That's exactly what you should do."

"And when it blows up in my face? It is not like we would never see each other again. He is my best friend's twin brother."

Elektra rolled her eyes. "Always so negative, Eeyore. Always waiting for things to go wrong."

"Because they always do!"

"Until they don't," Elektra added. "And then…it's perfect, and completely worth the risk."

"Spoken like a true Evans." Mercedes smiled as she said it, then considered their advice, realizing she hadn't given them all the facts.

Mercedes hadn't told her girlfriends about wanting a baby. She wasn't sure why she was holding that part back.

This whole conversation was probably moot because the fact still remained that she still wanted to move forward with the baby plan.

Though she didn't have a clue exactly how that was going to happen at the moment. Sam hadn't been on her original list, and he still wasn't because she knew he and Stevie had more in common than just looks. Sam wouldn't "gift" her sperm and walk away, and things between them were complicated enough without adding a baby to the list of things that were inherently wrong with them.

And now she was worried about Anthony's participation because she didn't have a clue what was going on between him and Penny.

Regardless of all of that, her decision to have a baby had been made months ago, and it was rock solid. Her blame it on the alcohol and blackout night with Sam hadn't changed that at all.

Which should have made walking away from Sam very, very easy.

She'd sworn off men, determined to focus on getting pregnant, on motherhood, on setting her feet on a path she knew—beyond a shadow of a doubt—would bring her happiness. De'Wanda's death had prepared her to be future and goal oriented. She didn't want to live with any regrets. She did not want to be like her mother bitter and alone. She was open to love but wasn't going to waste time waiting for it. If it happened fine, if it didn't fine. She was so tired of being disappointed.

The same couldn't be said of Sam. While everybody insisted that they were just alike. She knew the truth. She was a relationship disaster, while he was a commitment-phobe, determined to screw his way freely all the way to forty.

And that was just how they were about relationships separately. Together, they were oil and water, Harry and Voldemort, Ursula and Ariel. They were meant to be enemies, weren't they?

In truth, the whole thing was a no-brainer. She had more to lose if she continued to pursue this with Sam than she had to gain. An orgasm was not worth the trouble this could cause to her and her future baby plans. She knew what she had to do. Shake off the one-night stand with Sam and move on, move forward.

So why wasn't it that simple?

"Alright! They did it!" Mercedes high-fived Sam, both of them grinning widely over the Bengals' big win.

"They're going all the way to the Super Bowl this year," Sam said. "I can feel it in my bones."

The two of them stood up, stretching after sitting through the game and overtime. Mercedes did a little victory dance, bumping her hip against Sam's as she laughed. She looked adorable in the Bengals jersey he and Steven had bought her for Christmas a couple of years ago. She was as big a die-hard fan as anyone in his family…and that was saying something.

Of course, when he considered it, it made sense. She'd been watching Sunday football with his family for close to two decades.

He'd been way too happy when she'd arrived a few hours earlier, chips and dip in hand, just like always, grabbing a seat with him and his cousins, ready to watch the game.

Sam considered it a victory that she'd shown up without him having to go get her. Now it was time to scale the second wall because, while she was here, she was working overtime to resume their previous trash-talking frenemies relationship.

Mercedes was about to figure out sooner rather than later that there was a new norm.

He watched as she started gathering up the dirty paper plates and empty beer cans. Knowing her, she was a few minutes away from saying goodbye and trying to escape, but her good manners wouldn't let her leave without offering to tidy up.

"What do you say we go down to the pub and celebrate with Pop Pop and beer?" Spencer suggested. The youngest of Sam's cousins, the poor boy had spent too many years longing to be a part of the older cousins' group, bemoaning the fact it had taken him forever to turn twenty-one, so he could start hanging out at the pub with them. Unfortunately, now that he'd finally arrived at legal age, most of the cousins he'd wanted to go club-hopping with were now married and starting families.

Sam felt sorry for the kid—as the family called him, much to Spencer's annoyance—and tried to pick up the slack as much as he could. Not that it was a hardship. Spencer was exactly like his father, Sean. Laid-back, up for anything, live and let live. He was quick to laugh, told great stories, and had never met a stranger.

Of course, Sam figured that probably described at least half the members of the Evans clan.

Rory, Spencer's best friend and foster brother, stood up immediately, all in. He grabbed the empty wings platter, nothing left but a pile of bones and globs of barbecue sauce, and carried it to the kitchen.

"Sounds like a great idea," Mercedes said, as she continued to clean up.

Sam grinned. She was taking great care, making sure they didn't end up alone together.

Unfortunately for her, she was going to lose that battle.

She'd been sitting next to Sam on the couch all afternoon, their legs pressed against each other as they shared the space with Spencer, Rory in one recliner, Stacey—who'd left at halftime for some reason she didn't seem willing to share—in the other chair.

Once Stacey left, Spencer claimed her spot, but he and Mercedes hadn't separated, hadn't put so much as an inch between themselves.

He wondered if she was feeling the pull. Now that the truth about the blackout was out, Sam was hard-pressed to resist the need to have her near him, to caress every inch of her.

"Mercedes and I will clean up and meet you guys down there in a little while," Sam said, spying a way to steal a few minutes alone with her.

Mercedes flashed him a suspicious look but didn't reject the idea. Words couldn't express how grateful he was that she was going along with his plan.

Spencer and Rory—no fans of housework—immediately took them up on the deal.

"See you in a few," Spencer said over his shoulder as they walked downstairs to the pub.

Mercedes grabbed some more trash and carried it to the kitchen. He followed her with the roll of paper towels and a few half-eaten bags of chips.

They tidied up a few things in the kitchen, then Mercedes grabbed a wet dishcloth and headed back to the living room to wipe up the coffee table.

Sam grabbed the dishcloth away from her just as she exited the kitchen and pitched it back toward the sink.

"Hey," she started, but she stopped when he took her hand and guided her into the bathroom.

"What in the hell…" That was all Mercedes bothered to say when Sam shut the door and locked it.

And that was the end of her resistance.

She met him halfway, the two of them kissing as if their lives depended on it.