Chapter 3

It's on her mind for the next few days as she tries to figure out what exactly is going on between Dani and James. Rachel tries to ask Santana about them but she just shrugs off the fact that they live together with a "So what plenty of people live together" and then walks off. Rachel realises that Santana probably knows more than she is letting on, but for whatever reason hasn't chosen to share that information with her.

Maybe Rachel was a little too hasty to jump to conclusions about Dani's sexuality, I mean just because she innocently flirts with Santana doesn't mean that she actually has a crush on her does it? But then again just because Dani hugged James, that doesn't mean they're dating; especially when James' steadfast explanation that he doesn't date felt so truthful. She watches them, they don't do anything to confirm either of her suspicions but she sees that they are both just a little too comfortable around each other.

She ends up asking Dani about her and James when they are taking a shift together without James or Santana. The two of them are sat refilling the sauce dispensers together one day during their graveyard shift. James managed to get it off because as she's spent more time with him she's decided that he is too fucking charming, she really needs to stop talking to James he's rubbing off on her, who Gunther loves apparently and is the only one in the entire diner who re-arranges his schedule whenever. The rest of them are at Gunther's mercy and Santana had to make some crap to get the day off.

"So…." Rachel says with a smile. Dani looks up at her and smirks.

"You okay Rachel?" The blonde girl asks as she bites her lip.

"What's the deal with you and James?" Rachel has spent a last couple of weeks watching Dani and James together and how they interact.

She speaks to James several times, in fact she probably looks forward to speaking to him more than she should do but doesn't bring it up with him; I mean how do you ask someone who specifically explained why they don't date if they are dating? Rachel doesn't want to damage the friendship she has struck up with him either, because he's a good listener who puts up with her complaining about how life isn't fair and just stands there with an amused smile on his face.

Rachel can't help but think that James wouldn't lie to her, there was just something about him that made her trust whatever he told her. He honestly seems like an incredibly nice guy who she can easily see growing to become one of her best friends despite his protestations that he is just as bad as Brody. It's funny to watch him interact around some of the guys at the diner, he acts tough and manly but when he settles down to talk to her in the kitchen when it's quiet or she has a break; he turns into this caring guy that Rachel can't help but be smitten with.

"I don't understand" Dani asks with a frown. Rachel rolls her eyes; her observations have left her completely confused. Dani continues to flirt with Santana that makes her think that Dani is definitely a lesbian, but the way that she catches her and James holding hands at they walk to and from work or the way that he will hug her a little longer than Rachel would find appropriate for 'just friends'; or even the way that Dani will kiss his cheek several times throughout the day.

"Are you and James dating?" Rachel says gently.

Dani looks at her for a moment, a look of shock on her face that leaves Rachel wondering what the hell is going on until Dani starts giggling manically. Rachel finds it infectious despite how confused she is and can't help but smile at her while thinking in a way that would make James proud; what the fuck is going on

"Me and James?" Dani giggles when she managed to stop herself laughing. "Rachel, I'm a lesbian"

"Oh" Rachel says softly as her mouth makes an "O" shape. She feels the blush come across her face. "I thought you might be, not that there's anything wrong with it, but I wasn't sure; the way you act around James made me think…"

"I can see where you're coming from" Dani admits, an amused smile on her face. "But no, James and I aren't…but we're close"

"Do you mind if I ask about it?" Rachel asks quietly, not wanting to pray too much into their lives. "I've been speaking a lot with James but he doesn't really mention you much apart from the fact that you're friends"

"I don't mind telling you, but James is very protective of me" Dani replies, placing her hands on the table. "I'm probably the only real friend he is"

Rachel can't help but get a little bit offended about that; she'd like to think that she and James are friends now. Rachel pushes the jealously she feels aside as she speaks again; "So how do you know each other?"

"We're both from Boston" Dani says, sighing. "We've known each other since High School. He's a year older than I am but we've been friends since my freshmen year"

Rachel nods, James had told her that he was 22 but she'd never thought to ask Dani.

"We met my freshmen year…he was a sophomore and as you can imagine he was heavily involved in sports; he played football for the school team and of course that meant he was very popular at school" Dani explains and Rachel smiles, remembering how popular Finn and Puck were for Sophomore's thanks to the football team. "I was this dorky, outcast girl with a guitar. I got bullied a lot and didn't have many friends and there was this one time that I got slushied and I was crying in the auditorium"

Rachel remembers what that's like, the humiliation of getting slushied in the corridors that she can't help but feel sorry for Dani but also feel closer; knowing that the two of them are more similar than she thought.

"For some reason, James was there that day, walking past the auditorium by himself and he heard me. I felt this hand on my shoulder and he asked me if I was okay. I thought it was a joke at first, his moronic friends were the ones that did it to me, but I looked in his eyes and I could just see how truthful he was and how much he actually cared if I was okay" Dani says, letting a smile on her face; Rachel smiles back, knowing that feeling of trusting him completely. His eyes really were the most expressive she'd ever seen. "He cleaned me up, even gave me his Letterman jacket; I thought I'd fallen into an alternate reality but he took me to his house and made me hot chocolate"

"That's so sweet" Rachel can't help but mutter and Dani nods her head.

"He is…I thought that it'd just be a one day thing and things would go back to normal the next day but it came around and the first time he saw me the next morning he put his arm around my shoulder and walked me to class" Dani says with a smile.

"From that day on, he looked after me; took me under his arm. I asked him why and he said that he didn't know what it was; he just had to help me" Dani says and Rachel grabs her hand when she sees the tears in the girls eyes. "I never had to worry about getting picked on again, sure they tried for a few weeks but James would beat up whoever slushied me. He got in trouble and I asked him why he did it all; this time he told me just felt like he needed to protect me"

"So you became friends?" Rachel asks as Dani wipes her eyes.

"He was my first real friend and we spent all out time together from then on. Towards the end of my freshmen year… He was the first person I told about my sexuality." Dani continues. "I was scared about telling him…were we are from isn't the most liberal of places, but he just looked at me and nodded his head before he said; "That's who you are, I think its awesome" and then we just carried on as normal"

Rachel feels her own eyes welling with tears at the beauty of the gesture; feeling happy in her assertions that James really was a great guy.

"We became best friends, I was one of the only people he was himself around; where he didn't act like the touch jock and eventually in my sophomore year he told me the reason why he was at the auditorium that day." Dani says a smile on her as she remembers it.

"I thought it was just coincidence but he said it was was because he was playing the piano in one of the class rooms. We played music together; I taught him the guitar and he taught me how to play piano and even helped him with his voice; he was really bad back then, but now he's good" Dani giggles lightly as if remembering it.

"That's a beautiful story" Rachel replies smiling herself, sniffing back the tears. "You live with him now right?"

"Yeah, that was one of the saddest times when he graduated. I'd made a few friends thanks to him, but he was the person I was closest too"

"He graduated and headed to New York, his Dad paid for him to have an apartment in the city and I missed him terribly, but at least I wasn't alone, thanks to him I was more confident and had made more friends than before. After Christmas of my senior year, I told my parents about my sexuality and they kicked me out. But James was there for me and he insisted that I stay with his parents. He spoke to them and they were more than willing to let me, so I stayed there until I graduated"

"He sounds like a really nice guy" Rachel says without really thinking.

"He is" Dani replies smiling. "I don't go to college; I've never wanted to but he offered to convince his Dad to pay for it. I told him no, I wanted to come to New York and try to break out as an artist…so I moved in with James at his apartment and got a job working in a diner….then I got this job and he got one as well. That was two years ago and we've worked here ever since."

"He tries to act so tough, it's nice to know he has a soft side too" Rachel says with a smile, wiping her eyes on a paper towel.

"The soft side is what he's really like; who he really is" Dani replies, nodding at her. "He's not had the easiest time with people outside of his parents and me; so he tries to protect himself from getting hurt"

"Why?" Rachel asks, and almost instantly regrets it by the way Dani smile fades; she knows that something horrible happened to him. "I'm sorry I shouldn't have-"

"I can tell he trusts you…" Dani says non committedly and Rachel smiles at it. "His girlfriend who he'd been with for years in High school cheated on him with his brother"

"That's horrible" Rachel replies in shocked voice, "How could he do that to his own brother?"

Dani shrugs. "Scott is a fucking prick. He's a few years older than James and they've never really gotten on; James is the favourite son and he walked in on them when he came home from football. Her name was Natalie and they'd talked about moving to New York together; James was in love with her and it broke him"

Rachel nodded, imagining how horrible that must have been to be betrayed like that. It was horrible enough finding out what Brody had been doing when he was supposed to be with her.

"Ever since he's never let a girl get close; he doesn't let them get close" Dani says sadly and Rachel can tell she doesn't like James is now with girls.

"So he just gets drunk and sleeps around" Rachel asks, and she has to admit that it sounds stupid. His girlfriend cheated on him so he goes around having meaningless sex, but there's a part of her heart that aches for him; part of her that wants him to be happy. Everyone deserves to be happy.

"He's caring guy to me and you; but I think he's just scared of getting hurt again"

Rachel smiles, the tears drying on her cheeks as Dani finishes her story and as they move onto Santana; she's determined to set them up now that she knows Dani is a lesbian. Rachel is touched by the story and she can't help but think that he's buried his way into her heart without him even trying to.

…

The next time she sees him, Rachel can't help but pull him into a tight hug as he walks in talking to Jon, one of the waiters there. He seems taken aback at first before he wraps his arms around her shoulders and holds her close to his body. Rachel doesn't know what it is, but she just feels like he deserves it; from the sound of things he doesn't get much care and affection from anyone but Dani and for whatever reason, Rachel feels like she wants to give it to him; feeling closer to him after hearing about him from Dani.

When they pull apart after a couple of minutes, he has an amused expression on his face as he asks her; "What's that for?"

Rachel smiles sheepishly as he moves a hand and brushes the hair out of her face as she says a single word; "Dani"

His eyes flash with recognition and a small smile sits on his face before he nods his head at her, squeezing her hand that she didn't even realize she had been holding. She finishes by telling him that she thinks he's great and if he ever needs to talk she'll be there for him, but they don't talk about it after that. Rachel can tell it meant the world to him, and it did to her as well, by the way he is particularly sweet to her from that moment on and Rachel knows that they're friends.

Rachel finds herself spending a lot more time with Dani and James over the next few weeks, James in particular. Her shifts have started to be changed up thanks to Gunther firing about four of the staff at the diner, so now she finds the times she works getting rotated around almost daily. She and Santana always seem to pass each other as one of them is finishing at the same time the other is starting and if she didn't have Dani and James, Rachel probably would have quit already.

The fact she doesn't get to see Santana at work anymore isn't the only time she's thought about giving up this job. It looked like she might have to quit the diner when it seemed Gunther wanted her working the graveyard shift during the week; while she wanted to be working and earning money, she didn't want to be doing it at the expense of her education. Gunther had been unmoving when she'd brought the fact she was attending college at the same time and told her to basically "Suck it up or Quit". She'd been fully prepared to quit when she spoke to James about it, telling him in quite uncharacteristically explicit terms exactly what she thought about their boss. James had laughed at her and she'd punched his shoulder, his attitude was passing off onto her.

The next time she'd come into work and Gunther had told her to thank her fucking lapdog, what was it with everyone around her suddenly having verbal diahhrea?, because he wasn't going to force her to work the graveyard shift. Rachel frowned at him asking what he was talking about and he'd told her to go and speak to James, referring to him as what sounded likefucking asshole as Gunther disappeared up the stairs to the apartment that sat above the diner. Confused, she'd gone to speak to James in the Kitchen who wore the biggest grin on his face as he told her that he spoke to Gunther and made sure she'd never have to work a graveyard shift unless she asked for one. Rachel had grinned at him before throwing her arms around his neck and enjoying the feeling of his arms around her, in particular his hands in the small of her back more than she probably should have done.

Santana loved to bring up the point that James was being incredibly sweet on her. Rachel dismissed it and said he's just a good friend, but she secretly loved the fact that they were getting closer. She spent her breaks with him during her shift, sitting on the counter in the kitchen as he worked. They talked about anything and everything, and he didn't seem to mind that she talked his ear off.

He listens to her, much like Finn used to but instead James actually listens; like remembers what she says to him and follows along in the conversation rather than just nodding his head aimlessly. She loves Finn but honestly after three years that was fucking infuriating.

...

She loves spending time with Dani and James are the diner, they're both genuinely kind people who she enjoys being around but James is probably the one who she finds herself seeing more often. They'll spend hours just talking to each other if they can get it alone and Rachel finds herself looking forward to their conversations more than anything else.

That's the only thing she doesn't like about James, he swears a lot. She's always prided her self on her exceptional vocabulary but she finds curse words sneaking in every now and then, particularly when she's around him but it's definitely happening when she isn't as well.

He opens up to her about his life, and even the more distasteful shit that he does; she ends up teasing him that he's a man whore.

She surprised that she doesn't make as big of a deal about the fact that he seems to spend at least three nights a week getting drunk and at least once a week telling her how he ended up waking up in some girl's bed and can't even remember her name as he ends up having morning sex with them. Rachel would have judged someone on doing stuff like that in High School, but with James she doesn't.

Rachel doesn't really want to imagine him fucking girls, but they're friends and she tries to make him feel better by telling him he isn't a bad person because of it; because honestly, he isn't. Sure he sleeps around but there are thousands of people that do that in New York and Rachel herself even wonders if she should be doing that. She knows that he's a nice guy, because if he really was a big of a prick as he seems to think he wouldn't feel as bad as he does.

Like she said, she finds herself swearing more and more; insisting upon telling him that he's a terrible influence on her. Rachel puts it down to some of his charm, a strange charm that isn't at all charming, that unless he's talking about something serious he tends to swear at least once a sentence and that makes her laugh mostly as she teases him about how he wants to have a serious job looking after very rich peoples money but can't stop himself from fucking saying the word fucking.

He shoots her his smirk, which she's beginning to notice makes him look incredibly handsome and she has to catch herself a couple of times from staring at him when he isn't looking because well, he's her friend and she can't be staring at friends like that. Still, it's very hard to not notice the fact that he's fucking hot as she's heard a few girls describe him and maybe sometimes she thinks about what it would be like.

Rachel wondered if she should actually try out the whole one night stand business for herself, it doesn't sound that hard if she believed James; his experience is probably vastly different than many others due to the fact that he is so damn attractive and she's never really felt that way about herself. It ends up leaving her blushing when she thinks about it, but if she's honest the fact she hasn't had sex in a couple of months drives her pretty crazy and she definitely feels frustrated about it.

She dwells on this in particular one time when she's taking a bath after work; James had spent about an hour describing this girl that he had ended up sleeping with the night before. Despite the fact that he insisted to her that he doesn't like the whole one side of his life, he still ends up doing them on a pretty regular basis and Rachel finds herself more accepting of it than she would have thought. Alright she teases him about being a man whore but really, she just doesn't judge him. Still while she's washing herself, she wonders about how good James must be in bed; after all, his body looks to be incredible shape with clothes on never mind when he's naked.

Her experience with men has been limited to Finn and Brody and honestly neither of them were particularly good at it. When she slept with Finn, they were both getting used to it and even though she did end up getting an orgasm from it; she doubted anybody would have wanted to watch a sex tape of the two of them together, both of them inexperienced trying to make it good for the other. They'd slept together on Valentines but that was influenced alcohol and a heavy feeling that something was off with her relationship with Brody.

Before she'd slept with Brody, she'd imagine it to be erotic and hot because of how attractive he was, but in the end it had been 'nice'; he'd managed to get her off but she probably wouldn't have paid him for it like those cougars he charged. Maybe that was the problem, he was good enough for the cougars that paid him to fuck them, but when it came to actually to pleasing a girl he had no fucking clue what to do.

Still, it'd been months since she'd actually done anything remotely sexual and simply thinking about it had her worked up. When she ended up snaking her hand between her legs to try deal with that throbbing she felt, well maybe she did think about what it would be like to be with James but she wasn't ever going to admit that to herself or anybody else.

….