Hello everyone! First I'd like to thank all of my reviewers, I love to hear about you opinions on the chapters, it really makes me smile all day long 3 and also to everyone who has followed and favorited the story. Thanks!
Second, I hope you don't want to kill me, I'm so sorry for not updating sooner, it was a crazy week for me, but I did had time to write just I couldn't even open my laptop. Good news is, the next chapter should be up by Monday :D
Third, this is another part chapter-episode, Glease will only have this one and another, I hope you like that :) read and enjoy!
"How did everything go?" Jesse had tried not to think about Rachel that much when she went to Lima, but since he found that photo in the book, he hadn't been able to spend a single hour without looking at it and sighing. He had been so blinded at the time.
"Fine, thanks. Now that Finn and I are officially," she paused and looked at his eyes intently, "officially broken up, I feel like I can finally focus on what I came to New York to do." He grinned at her and was about to say something else when Cassie entered the studio with several other people behind her.
"All right people, since your inaptitude is making me lose my will to live I decided to bring one of my best upper-class men to help you up your game! Partner up!" Jesse laughed silently at his teacher's words, Cassandra reminded him of so many people; Shelby, that Cheerios coach and himself when he was coaching Vocal Adrenaline. That's why he liked this particular class so much. He knew his classmates weren't that bad and all those mean words of disappointment where actually encouragement ones. He knew everything the teacher said didn't always mean what it was supposed to.
"You heard her, you're with me today St. James, lucky you." He blinked twice trying to get back to the present. Erin was in front of him with that smile she always carried around and made everyone instantly like her. Jesse smiled momentarily at Rachel and then went back to Erin.
"Lucky me." He agreed.
Jesse saw how some junior guy went towards Rachel and partnered up with her. Jesse had never been the extreme jealous type like a certain ex-boyfriend of Rachel's, he knew how to control himself and how to keep his feelings and thoughts to himself which only came out when necessary. But there was something about seeing Rachel with someone else right now that just made the act of breathing harder and harder.
"She's pretty." Erin once again got him out of his head. He didn't want to seem so obvious, Jesse St. James wasn't obvious. He was anything but.
"What?" Playing fool was all he got left, but he knew he was past the stage on where that could've been an option.
"I heard her sing the other night at CallBacks with some other guy, your competition, I assume." Erin position herself with Jesse like every other couple in the classroom and the both started dancing.
"Well, you assume incorrectly, Rachel and I are just friends." He said it and he didn't believed himself, he had always been an excellent actor, he didn't know what was happening to him. Erin chuckled and shook her head casually.
"Jesse, you are forgetting something, I am a woman, I know. You can't take your eyes off her and I think she is starting to notice." He directed his gaze elsewhere at the mention of that, and sighed dramatically.
"You're right," he gave in, "but I just need a couple of weeks to get over this."
"Hey! No!" Erin actually sounded mad and her hold on his shoulder intensified to the point he almost could feel her nails pass through his skin. "That's...that's just stupid, Jesse." Erin frowned. "Something about you tells me that you don't fall in love that often, and you can't just give this away like that, it would be idiotic."
"I'm not in love with her." He said quickly and louder than he had intended to, causing other couples to look at them curiously.
He thought he wasn't in love with her, but what if he was? Would it be that bad? Yes. No. Maybe. The fact was that he had no idea when it came to Rachel, his endless puzzle. There was a reason why he had pushed himself so hard to get over her and now that he was starting to catch feelings for her again, all that hard work was left to oblivion and he couldn't be more thankful for that. Jesse had absolutely forgotten how it felt to have someone for whom you would do anything, like he had done for Rachel so many times now. And with that, his life felt a little more or much more transparent and easy, like he could smile more thanks to Rachel, and he could sleep better thanks to the dreams about her dreaming smile and her hopeful eyes. But, no, obviously he wasn't in love with her.
"Say what you want St. James, but I am telling you, us women have a sixth sense about this, and it won't take too long for her to notice or maybe, she already has." He felt his heartbeat in his head at Erin's words.
"There's nothing to be noticed, believe me, I've read that book before and I didn't like it." Erin gave him a look. Jesse was telling his truth, dating Rachel had been the best and most exhausting experience of his life, besides obviously, being the lead of Vocal Adrenaline.
"Just because you believe you know how it ends doesn't mean you're right. And besides, how many girls can say that Jesse St. James is in love with them? Lucky girl." He raised a skeptical brow at her.
"I'm not in love with her." And every time he said it, the less he believed it.
"I can't believe you've got a dance audition for The Glass Menagerie."
"Well, Ivan is a very physical director, all of his work has a lot of movement." She had never imagined getting a real audition in a very promising off-Broadway production this soon. Rachel felt like the world was already opening up to her.
"Grease update from Tina! Oh, apparently the girl playing Sandy is gaining so much weight she can't fit in her clothes." Rachel remembered the odd time of her life when she used to be so self-conscious of her body back in her soft-more year and when a certain curly haired guy entered to her life and she suddenly wasn't anymore.
Tina was the only person they had contact with in Ohio so naturally Kurt was asking her all about McKinley and all about Blaine. Tina had texted Kurt about Finn directing the musical along with Artie, Mr. Shue going to Washington, Finn taking over the glee club and that most of the time Finn seemed lost on what he was doing, not much to everyone's surprise, really. The text about Blaine auditioning and turning down the Dany Zuko part came with an extended explanation about Mike being there with Mercedes and why Tina refused to audition herself for the musical on which Kurt didn't bother replying to.
"No. That's unfortunate, but doesn't really have to do anything with us." She could see the distinct puppy dog eye face Kurt was giving her. "No! We're not! We're not going to see it." Rachel had spent all of her savings in her last trip to Lima and when she went she discovered she didn't want to go back, too much to handle on her own. And she imagined that even with Kurt by her side it would be unbearable.
"Not going to see what? What are you doing in my studio Schwimmer? Practicing for you big audition?" Rachel and Kurt stood up almost instantly when they heard Cassandra's voice.
"Yeah, this is actually my roommate Kurt. He's helping me with it." Rachel made a gesture towards Kurt.
"It's an honor to meet you Miss July and ooh! You've got some abs." Rachel shoot a killer glance at Kurt, he just shrugged and showed a half smile.
"How sweet, can you get the bar? So, you were saying, not going to see what?" The both reacted and went to do as she said. Rachel was often very nervous around the teacher, thing that she hadn't seen happening to any other of her classmates. She concluded that it was perhaps because she had the personal feeling that she had to prove herself to the teacher more than anyone else.
"Uh, her recently broken-up ex-boyfriend is directing my recently broken-up ex-boyfriend in a school production of Grease and we've got a bunch of friends in it and so we are debating whether or not we should go." Rachel glanced at Kurt with disbelief. She didn't exactly wanted her teacher to be aware about every little detail of her problems, let alone her personal life. And Rachel could feel that Kurt was trying to be liked by the teacher, she couldn't blame him, if he was trying to get into NYADA he could use all the extra advantages he could get and being liked by The Miss Cassie July was more than an extra inch.
"When is it?"
"This weekend." Kurt answered quickly.
"Oh, you need to go. I mean if you're both not over your exes, it's a perfect opportunity for closure."
"I had closure." Rachel cleared up quickly. That had been the most expensive closure ever, she had to get the last minute tickets to Ohio leaving her without food for at least a month and she could see what Jesse had meant at the time, she just caught it too late. Now she was stuck with what Kurt could afford and praying for Jesse to invite her to lunch or whatever, her extra excuse to be with him.
"...okay, then go have fun, Schwim. Or go because it's Grease, go because it's your friends, your high school." She wasn't that sure she would have fun, she would get to see her dads and Mercedes, it had to be fun, she thought, just it wouldn't be.
"Rachel, I'm going, I need to see him, haven't seen him since. I-I'm not sleeping, I'm living of of Ambien and The Notebook. Please come with me, I can't do it alone." Kurt said. Rachel grimaced, she had made her intentions about not going very clear, but she had, indeed, seen Kurt eat nothing but cans of ice cream all day long and sobbing into his pillow. Rachel had been able to overcome her break-up because she was the one to make the decision and break it up but in the case of Kurt he hadn't had any other choice.
"Look, even if I wanted to go which I don't, we don't have the money." She turned to face Cassandra who was stretching with the bar "Kurt's and intern and I spent all of my money on my last trip home, so." She explained, not sure why, really.
"Well...I could give you my JetBlue frequent flyer miles." Kurt was nodding at Rachel eagerly, "I can't use them since I was banned for my Bloody Mary attack at 3000 feet resulting the hospitalization of three flight attendants." Cassie turned to look at Kurt. "Don't ask. And don't go if you don't want to but I just think you'll regret missing it."
Would she? Regret it? It wasn't quite the experience of a life time, it was just a high school production of Grease, it wasn't much. But then she thought about it again and not more than a year ago a high school production was all her life was about. It may not mean much to her now but it meant a lot to the friends she still got in McKinley and most importantly to Kurt, her best friend.
"Do you think I should go?" Suddenly Jesse's opinion seemed key and Rachel knew what his exact words would be; the same he had given her when she wanted flied down to Ohio to have a closure with Finn. And maybe she wanted to hear them.
"Where to?" Jesse did not took away his eyes from the TV. Friday night had become movie nights for them and with Kurt at work or hanging out with Isabel all the time they could debate all they wanted about musical theatre and not being disturbed.
"To see the musical." Her tone was more like a questioning than a statement, she was afraid of what he might say.
"That Grease production at McKinley?" Jesse looked at her and frowned.
"The same." She said quickly.
"Do you want to go?"
Should she want to go? Rachel didn't exactly wanted to but, everything was just accommodating itself, with Cassandra giving them the miles she had and Kurt wanting to go so badly. She didn't want to see Finn again and she wouldn't have to anyway, she told herself. Rachel could just sit at the backroad and slip out from the school easily without being seen. But she knew precisely that if Finn was there and her friends were there she would have to say hello at some point and wish them good luck out of courtesy, Tina had mentioned how much everyone had worked in order for the school production to be worthy of everyone's attention and applause like last year with West Side Story. And then there was Kurt, her best friend, who had given up so much for her and had done so much as well for Rachel's happiness and if what Kurt needed was a strong support system to be able to watch Blaine perform and to talk to Blaine at all, she would do it, she would be that system. And at this point her own wanting or not wanting to, hardly mattered.
"I don't know." Jesse sighed and grabbed the remote, later the screen wasn't showing anything anymore. He pushed Rachel to sit down instead of being leaned on him like she was before in order to be able to look at her straight into her eyes.
"Rach, I believe you know what I think but, what is this really about?"
"It's not about Finn, I promise," her voice and words almost seemed like she was trying to justify herself to him. That just made things more difficult for Jesse. "I just..."
"If it is, about Finn, there's nothing wrong with wanting to see him again." The look in Jesse's blue eyes-of frustration and care-made her throat burn and she bit her lip. "And besides, you can't never get enough of Grease." His smile appeared again and the look in his eyes faded slowly, like a very good acting technique.
"Then, come with us, with me." The words were out of her mouth before Rachel could do as much as stop them. This was one of the times she didn't had her filter on and she was surprised at the finding hope instead of embarrassment in her stomach.
Jesse, on the other side, wanted to be with her. He wanted to stop what was growing considerably in his heart every time he watched Rachel sing or speak or smile but every single minute he got to be with her was like being in an audition, with the constant reminder that at any time he could screw up and would not get a call back. But then there was common sense...
"I don't know Rach, it doesn't sound like a good idea, and many of your friends kind of...hate me." He laughed a little at that. Rachel sighed resigned, Jesse was right or sort of, not everybody hated him. And if one of them did, that was because they hadn't met Jesse, just Jesse St. James, the cocky star of Vocal Adrenaline and later the guy who was just being honest with everybody who auditioned for the Nationals solo. It wasn't his fault that Santana's performances often inspired drawing black cats.
"But it's Grease." She insisted and Jesse only chuckled and shook his head.
"As much as I'd love giving your friends some pointers concerned to their flawed performances, I think is best for me to stay here." She sighed and nodded understanding. He just didn't want to make it more awkward when it came to Finn, and it was not like McKinley or Ohio were very special to him. "But, you can call if you need anything, I'll even read you the New Yorker so you know what's happening back here while you're in Ohio." Rachel smiled.
"It's just for two days." Rachel said.
"It's long enough," he stated and Rachel saw him hesitate a little, "and I'll miss you anyway."
"You will?" She couldn't help but smile, there he was, Jesse St. James, telling her he'll miss her, even if she was just gone by the least possible amount of time. Jesse smiled back and nodded absently.
"I will, indeed, Miss Berry. Will you?"
Rachel instantly felt as if joy took over her body and worked with every little impulse she got in her. Her hands laced around his neck and his smile faded. All she could see were blue eyes filled with intensity and hints of a happy gray around it. Their lips touched and the ache she had been carrying around in her lips disappeared. Jesse's hands found her cheek and her waist and held onto it, quickly pulling her closer to him without breaking the contact they had created with their mouths.
As their lips moved and slowly began to deepen the kiss, the feeling couldn't be more indescribable. It was if like a million of drums were playing non-stopping inside their hearts and they were in a whole trance of calmness and the knowledge of how being really fulfilled felt was drowning them both. And then they had to come out for air.
Soooo...this is kind of a cliffhanger, I think xD tell me about what you think on this and what would you like to see next, it would help a lot :DDD thanks for reading!