As the car pulled into the cove's driveway, Mercedes clicked her phone off and stuffed it in her pocket. She'd texted Sam when they left the spa to let him know they were on their way back – she had no idea what Santana's expectations were for the guys to have done before their return, but she figured it fell somewhere under the 'for better or worse' part of their wedding vows to give him the heads up. She'd then aimlessly scrolled through her phone for the rest of the drive, smiling when she received back, in quick succession, a thumbs up emoji and then a 'see you soon' and then a kissy-face emoji from her husband.

"I need a shower," Quinn said as they headed into the house and Mercedes nodded.

"Me too."

"You go ahead," Quinn said as they reached their shared room. "I don't mind a little extra time avoiding – everything."

Mercedes studied her for a minute. "You're really sure you're okay?"

Quinn nodded. "I really am, I promise. I feel like this weekend is a turning point for me, in some weird way. I just – need a little time to gather myself before the evening's festivities."

Mercedes nodded and went to get her things to take into the bathroom and get herself ready for the night.

Feeling much more refreshed and awake after her shower, Mercedes headed out of the house through the back door and surveyed the scene. Tina and Santana were in a quiet conversation at the table on the deck while Puck, Mike and Finn were goofing around in the lake. Rachel, Lauren and Artie were sitting on the dock with their feet in the water. She knew Quinn was in their room and it seemed that Sugar, Brittany, Sam, Kurt and Blaine were nowhere to be seen. She headed down the steps and once she reached the shared landing, she could see what Santana had been expecting from the guys.

The patio area now had two long tables set up and ready for dinner. The bar area was fully stocked and prepped – Santana must have bought practically an entire ABC store – and if Mercedes had opened the fridge, she would have found all the food ready for dinner – things just needed to be heated up. The guys had been responsible for accepting all the deliveries and getting the tables ready for the evening. There was even a fire already laid in the fire pit, just waiting to be lit.

"Well, you're not wearing a cowboy hat or a giant belt buckle, so Nashville hasn't fully corrupted you yet, I suppose."

Mercedes laughed as Kurt came up beside her and gave her a hug. "You know there's more to Nashville than just country music, right?"

"Such as?"

Mercedes thought for a moment and then grinned. "Such as more gospel music is recorded there than anywhere else in the world."

Kurt wrinkled his nose. "Darling, that isn't really a selling point for me either, you know."

"I know, why do you think I picked that stat?" Mercedes joked and Kurt just shook his head.

"Anyway, it's so great to see you. I really can't believe you guys all kept this a secret all summer."

Kurt smiled, pleased. "I know. I'm especially proud of Finn and Mike and Sam."

"I'm not sure if I should be proud of Sam or worried that it was apparently so easy to lie to me," Mercedes said, only half-seriously, and Kurt rolled his eyes.

"Please. That boy would never be able to lie to you about something truly important. And really. Did he ever actually lie about this or did he just not tell you all the details?"

"Yeah, I know."

Their conversation was interrupted then by Santana informing them all when dinner would be served and threatening the boys in the lake with death if they didn't get out and get dressed in time. The three of them dispersed and Kurt went to say hello to Tina while Mercedes settled herself on one of the outdoor sofas, content to just sit quietly on her own for a little bit, people-watching, observing the movements of her friends.

She wasn't really sure how long she'd been sitting there when a shadow fell across her lap and Mercedes looked up to see Sam standing there, beer bottle in one hand, Solo cup in the other and she smiled.

"I hope one of those is for me," she said and he turned the cup so she could see that 'Mrs. Trouty' was written on it in Sharpie.

"Courtesy of Santana," he said, sitting down beside her and Mercedes just shook her head, glancing behind her to see Santana, Puck and Blaine by the bar, Santana sticking her tongue out at her when she saw her looking in their direction. "Rum and Coke," he added as he handed her the cup.

"Mmm, thank you. You're the best husband ever," she said, leaning over to kiss his cheek.

Sam made a face. "I better be your only husband ever."

She made a face back at him. "Obviously," she said as she took a sip of her drink, coughing a little bit at the strength of it. "Jesus," she sputtered. "Try mostly rum. IS there actually any Coke in there?"

Sam laughed. "Yeah, Santana's goal is to get as many of us as possible, and I quote, 'shit faced as hell.'"

Mercedes laughed in response. "I just might do that. I didn't actually drink much last night. I felt bad for Tina automatically having to DD." She looked lost in thought for a moment and then shook her head. "It's crazy, isn't it? Them having a baby? How your life can just change in an instant like that?"

"It's pretty wild," Sam agreed.

"I just kind of can't believe it, that they're having a baby. That just seems, like, SO adult, right? Like, yeah, we're married, a bunch of us are and that's adult, but a baby? That's a whole other level."

"Yeah," Sam said in agreement again and they fell into companionable silence for a few minutes before suddenly, from Sam –

"Do you want to have a baby now? Like, get pregnant soon?"

Unfortunately, he waited to ask this while Mercedes was taking another sip of her drink and the conversation was paused for a moment while she worked on not choking to death.

"Do I want to what?" she finally managed to say, continuing to speak before Sam could get his mouth open to answer. "No! No, no, no."

"Geez, okay," Sam replied, looking the slightest bit hurt, and she hastened to elaborate, putting her hand on his arm.

"I don't mean, no, never, you know that," she said. "I mean, no, not right now. What, just because Mike and Tina are, you thought – "

He looked sheepish now and maybe even just a tiny bit relieved. "Well, I mean – we got engaged a few months after them, our wedding was a few months after theirs, and you looked like you were really lost in thought when I first saw you sitting here so I didn't know if -"

"Oh. Okay," Mercedes said slowly. "It makes a lot more sense that you would think that when you look at it that way. But, no. I'm not ready for that. Are you?"

Sam shook his head. "Not really. But if you were, then, I mean, we could talk about it, you know?"

"Yeah. I know," Mercedes said, shifting on the couch so that she was sitting with her back to the armrest and bringing her legs up to drape across his lap. "I promise, when I'm ready to have a baby, or even think about having a baby, you will be the first person to know."

"Deal. Same."

"You really are the best husband ever."

"As long as I'm the best husband for you, I don't care about anything else," Sam said as he leaned over to kiss her, his hand trailing up her thigh.

"Okay, okay, enough of THAT." Santana was suddenly sitting down beside them on the couch and shaking her head. "You can do that at home, on your own time."

Mercedes looked at Sam and they both just rolled their eyes as pretty much everyone started drifting over to the patio area.

"Okay, okay," Rachel said. "Now before we eat or get too drunk, we girls have prepared a little something for our brides. Is this acceptable to you, Santana?"

Santana waved a hand. "I suppose I'll allow it. But I reserve the right to be judgey."

"Jesus," Mercedes muttered to Tina as she took her place beside her and the music for The Ronettes' "Be My Baby" started.

Rachel had insisted on the song, due to its placement on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, but Mercedes had to admit it kind of fit Brittany and Santana pretty well. And they seemed to appreciate it, so maybe the Zoom rehearsals hadn't been such a pain in the ass after all.

"Fine, that was pretty great, you guys. Thank you," Santana said at song's end and Brittany piped up in agreement that it was awesome.

"Well, you may or may not have seen this coming, but we guys have worked up a little something as well," Kurt said.

"We weren't able to rehearse as a full group until last night, since Sam would have gotten us busted on a video call," Blaine added, "But I think it's all right overall."

"Sorry guys," Sam said as he got up to join the rest of the guys. "But if you didn't all live in the same city, Finn and Mike would be equally to blame here."

Santana suddenly whirled around to glare at them all. "Don't anyone DARE tell Mr. Schue that we did boys versus girls without him telling us to, okay?"

There was laughter at that statement, even as Santana focused in on Rachel. "I mean it, Berry. Do not give that man the satisfaction."

"Okay, anyway," Kurt said, clapping his hands a couple times and drawing the attention back to the group of men. "We had a little advantage, in that we knew what your song selection was, so here is our companion piece."

And with that, they launched into Bruce Channel's "Hey Baby," also from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack and also pretty well suited to Santana and Brittany.

The highlight came on the second chorus when Mike and Blaine started doing the choreography from the tree-bridge scene of the movie. This of course led to Brittany jumping out of her seat and pulling Santana up to dance with her. And then Sam went for Mercedes, Finn for Rachel, Kurt for Tina, Puck for Lauren and Artie waved Quinn and Sugar both over to him, all of them laughing and dancing until the song ended and Santana declared it time for dinner.

Once dinner was completed, the fire in the pit was lit and an iPad and speakers appeared from somewhere, a playlist ready to go, and the party really kicked off.

"SAM?! Did you sneak country onto this playlist?" Santana yelled when Kenny Chesney's "American Kids" came on and Sam ducked away from her.

"Yes! But just wait for the chorus! It totally makes fun of Kurt and Blaine!"

Santana narrowed her eyes at him but waited it out for Sam (and Puck) to sing along with 'we were Teenage Dreamin', front seat leanin', baby, come give me a kiss' to which Kurt and Blaine looked at each other and on the second chorus, ran up to kiss Puck and Sam on their cheeks, much to everyone's amusement.

At some point, "We are Young" came on and Quinn started yelling something about didn't they remember that she had gotten the girls back to Glee Club but high school wasn't the best times of their lives after all, the best times were whenever they were all together and then the song changed to "This One's for the Girls" and Quinn was happily singing along, so who knows how much she'd had to drink?

Mercedes had no idea, especially since she didn't even know how much she herself had had to drink, but she knew it had to have been a lot when TLC's "Way Back" came on and she found herself scream-singing with Santana 'but you still my BITCH, can't tell us nothin.'

So it was quite a party.