CHAPTER 17

Dinner together tonight at Breadsticks?

As Marcus read the message he had just received from Quinn over and over again, his eyes were so wide they nearly bugged out of his head. Quinn was asking him to dinner? What did she mean? Was she asking him out? Was this just a friend's outing? Marcus' mind was spinning as he read the message. He was torn. A small part of him was over the moon to receive the message, he forced that part of him deep down as he debated whether it was even a date or not.

"There's only one way to find out." Marcus murmured, and he began to type out a response.

Sounds great. Pick u up at 7?

Marcus was about to send the message, but his finger froze hovering over the send button. Even if this was a date, did he really want to do this? All of the Glee guys egging him on had gotten into his head, but now that he was alone, he was able to stop and think about this. Agreeing to date someone would mean allowing them to be dragged into his shit. So many things he kept hidden from everyone in the Glee club and it was easy to do so when they were just friends, but if one of them were to become his girlfriend, particularly someone as caring as Quinn, there would be no way he'd be able to hide it anymore. Right now, things between them were good. They were close friends, but nothing more. Did he really want to allow that to be destroyed, all for a short-term relationship that was bound to end as soon as Quinn realized who he truly was?

"Hey, Marcus?"

All of a sudden, the voice sliced through Marcus' deep thoughts and caused him to jump in surprise and quickly put the phone in his pocket, the fabric rubbing against the screen and accidentally tapping it, before Marcus turned to face the person who was standing in the doorway.

"Hey, Sam. What's up?" He asked the blonde teenager as the boy stepped inside. The first thing Marcus noticed was that Sam looked uncomfortable. Very comfortable. Shifting from foot to foot in nervousness, fiddling with his hands in his pockets, unable to make eye contact with him… clearly whatever Sam had to say, he didn't feel good about.

"Look, Marcus, I've got to tell you something." Sam admitted. Marcus slowly nodded and sat on one of the tables in the empty classroom, Sam sitting opposite him.

"Sure, what's going on?" Marcus asked. Sam took a deep breath, still avoiding Marcus' gaze.

"I never got to tell you about how I feel about you going after Quinn." Sam said. Marcus' eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he thought back to the conversation he had just had with the other guys, and he recalled that Sam had indeed been weirdly silent the other time.

"Right." Marcus nodded. "I meant what I said by the way. You have any problems with me trying to date her, you tell me and I swear I won't date her. Just say the word, no hard feelings."

Sam shook his head.

"I would never say that. If you want to date her, go ahead and date her. But before you do, I just want to warn you."

"About what?" Marcus asked. Sam sighed.

"Look, I'm going to try my best not to sound like a petty ex-boyfriend as I say this, because I swear to you I am genuinely over her and happy with Mercedes. But you should at least know the truth about Quinn. You deserve to know the truth about Quinn before deciding whether or not to date her."

"Which is?"

"Well I dated her, right? Last year. And while we were dating, it was awesome. She was really pretty. She was sweet. She was nice. There was just one thing though." Sam said. "How do I put this? Quinn… she holds her cards very close to her chest. I don't know why, but it feels like you never really know where you stand with her."

"Isn't that most girls?" Marcus remarked. Sam shook his head.

"Trust me, it's way more prevalent with Quinn than anyone else. Even Santana was more expressive. At least when she was pissed off, you knew." Sam replied. "But it's not just about her hiding her feelings. Because she hides them so well, she's a flight risk. She can be all lovey dovey with you at one moment, and the next she's kissing another guy. Literally. That's what happened to me with Finn. That's what happened to Finn with Puck. You'll begin to care about her so much, maybe even fall in love a little, but then one day, without you knowing when, without you being given any warning, that switch will be flipped and she'll turn her back on you."

Marcus didn't say anything. He looked down, his mind consumed in deep thoughts as he contemplated what Sam had just told him. The blonde looked on at his friend, sympathy in his eyes.

"Look, maybe you're different. Maybe you're the one who's going to break the pattern. I'm sorry for being the bearer of bad news. I just thought you ought to know what you'd be signing up for."

Marcus gathered himself enough to nod at Sam.

"Yeah, thank you for telling me, man. I appreciate it." He told him. Sam placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Just be careful, Marcus." He said, before leaving the room and leaving Marcus to think. To say that Sam had rattled him was an understatement. He was already uneasy about this "date", if it even was a date to begin with, and what Sam said had sent him over the edge. After his past, if Quinn did what Sam said she would, he didn't think he'd be able to handle it. He needed to cancel the date ASAP.

Pulling out his phone, Marcus turned it on and immediately, he saw that there was an unread message from Quinn. What was that all about, he thought to himself? He opened his text chat with Quinn and his heart immediately dropped. That message he had written out earlier to Quinn accepting the date… it had sent! And worse… Quinn had seen it and she had responded!

"Please have rejected me." Marcus murmured quietly to himself. No such luck. The reply he read on the screen said…

Can't wait! C u then

Marcus put his head in his hands. This was not good. Not good at all…

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Quinn sat before her vanity mirror in her bedroom. There was still a little while until her date with Marcus, but her heart was already pounding, and she could already feel the butterflies fluttering in her belly. For some reason, this felt different to any of the previous dates she had ever been on. Not that she hadn't cared about Finn, Sam and Puck. But during this date, she felt like there was more at stake. She knew that she had a relationship waiting for her with them, no matter how badly their first dates had been. She was the head Cheerio. She was smoking hot. She was the most popular girl in school. They all had wanted to date her, no matter what her actual personality looked like. But Marcus… Marcus actually cared. He didn't care about the looks or the popularity. He cared about the person within, and Quinn just prayed that that person was good enough for him.

That being said though, she did spend the entire afternoon/evening prettying herself up in front of the mirror, applying delicate touches of makeup with surgeon-like precision, and glancing at her phone a few times to make sure she didn't miss a text from Marcus. Not that she was expecting one from him. He didn't really use technology much. He didn't have any social media other than Messenger. Quinn found that one out the hard way as she spent an entire night trying to stalk him on Instagram, only to find that he didn't have an account on the app. A weird move, particularly for a teenager during their generation, but it only added to the mystery that was Marcus James.

No… mystery was the wrong word to use to describe him. Enigma was probably more accurate. There was no doubt that Marcus had a large personality. He was strong-willed but quiet, competitive but kind. But underneath all of that, there was a part of him that he hadn't revealed to anyone. From what they had talked about during the introduction assignment, Quinn figured it had something to do with his mom's passing, but she didn't know what. All she knew about it was that it had been a car accident and it had happened when he was very young. Little did she know that both of those things were lies. The mystery around him only made Quinn more interested in him, but not in a standard teenage girl getting to know the new quiet kind of way. This was deeper. After Marcus' harsh words had dragged her out of her emo funk, she had caught a glimpse of the immense pain that he held within, and she was determined to help pull him out of it. Determined to give him what he thought he didn't deserve, but in reality he deserved and more.

Another reason why she was so nervous was that for the first time in her life, she had actually made the first move. Her and Marcus had chemistry. She was sure of it. Not artificial chemistry concocted by pressure from the rest of the school like it had been with the football players she had dated. This was real chemistry. Every time she saw him, she saw snippets of what could be between them, and what it could be was a realer relationship than she had ever had before. They could be something really special. Quinn knew it. She just hoped that Marcus felt the same way.

After she was done getting ready, she paced around her room, trying to calm her nerves. She watched the clock on her wall tick closer to 7 pm, and as it did, her nerves amplified ten-fold. Would he show up on time? Would he show up at all? They hadn't seen each other all afternoon, so they had not communicated about the date further than the few text messages.

But if there was one thing that Marcus was, it was that he was punctual. Sure enough, at almost 7 o'clock on the dot, Quinn heard a loud ring of the doorbell. He had arrived! Well actually he had arrived 15 minutes ago, and had spent the past 15 sitting in his car, debating whether or not he should cancel the outing or not. He couldn't even bring himself to call it a date, as he had no clue if it was or if he was just overthinking dinner with a friend. On the off-chance it was the latter, he had decided that he should go.

The theory that this was just a platonic outing was dashed though from the moment Quinn opened the door. Marcus' jaw immediately nearly hit the ground. Quinn looked like an absolute vision. He knew that she was a naturally gorgeous girl, but given the way she was dressed, there was no way she assumed this was just an outing between friends, right? Because if it was, he had to be the luckiest friend in the world.

"Wow… you look… you look… I mean… you… you clean up nice." Marcus stammered, unable to complete a sentence as his jaw was still very much on the ground. Quinn couldn't help but giggle at his gobsmacked reaction, blushing faintly at the compliment.

"Thanks." She replied. For a moment, Marcus was frozen to the spot, unable to get his brain to communicate with the rest of his body. It took standing there for a few more seconds, gawking at her like a weirdo for him to finally snap out of his trance.

"Let's get going, shall we?"