Hi everyone! I'm sorry about taking long to update :( my brain was dry and everything I wrote was basically trash but I think this turned out really good so I hope you all like it :D
Thanks so much to the people who read, review and inspire me to write more, you're amazing! I want you to have in mind that I practically changed everything I had planned out for this chapter and started from scratch with what many of you wanted to happen, I truly hope you will be happy with this and maybe it is what you expected. Anyway, read and enjoy!
"I'll come with you." He whispered to her lips. His thumb circling her cheek like he used to do when he kissed her. All of it was just making Rachel smile like a fool and she couldn't help it. His blue eyes were locked to hers and were refusing to look away made her feel dizzy and thinking she might be dreaming. But the best part was that she wasn't and her heart was beating faster than ever.
"Really?" She asked with disbelief, Jesse nodded with her face still in his hands. "What made you change your mind?" She questioned ignoring that she may already know the answer, she just wanted to hear it from Jesse.
"You." He simply said. Because if he was seriously considering, or better even, deciding he would just drop out his life to go and watch a high school production of Grease directed by one of the people he had truly come to hate in his life, it would only be for Rachel, and only because of her.
His lips touched hers once again making Rachel feel like fainting and her hands traveled from the low of his neck to his hair. The hand before firmly set on her waist softened and moved just slightly lower for Rachel to notice.
He was kissing her now for all the times he had dreamed or thought about it and couldn't. For the long time he had spent without the feeling of her mouth within his, like giving herself to him fully and completely. And he just couldn't get enough of it, of her. The drug he had worked so hard to get out of his system had found its way back in and he resurrected the feeling of being alive and in love.
A deep sigh of relieve and calmness left Rachel for the first time. Their mouths making that delicious dance she had wanted to forget about but couldn't. That little something more that, she hadn't realized until now, had been missing.
Jesse laid her down on the couch and before she pulled him to her again, he took a look at her big brown eyes in the search for something more, he didn't even know what he was looking for, but he found it. Her body stiffened and relaxed in a second once she was fully beneath him. Déjà vu filled both of their minds; memories of how many times had they been in the exact same position, doing the exact same thing.
"Finally." She said which just made Jesse laugh a little against her cheek. The little peeks he began leaving on her, suddenly making her tickle all around her body. And when the kisses against her neck started she just could breathe in long. His hand just moving slowly along her hips and her waist and the other one resting on her ribcage. Rachel's hands went back to his neck, trying to pull him closer to her.
Jesse's full kisses went all over her collar bone and then lower to her chest and just suddenly she couldn't let her eyes be open anymore.
"Oh my god!" Kurt yelled terrified. They had maybe had time to pull apart with the unbelievable noise of the opening door, they just decided not to. Jesse pulled away from Rachel and later the both were just sitting on the couch looking to the floor and then back at each other with a smirk. "I'm not going to be able to sleep now..." Jesse smirked fun with Kurt's reaction and Rachel laughed. "I think I might need a therapist." Kurt concluded, still not fully looking at the couple sitting on the couch. Once he set eyes on Jesse and Rachel, Kurt frowned. "Really, Rachel? On my couch? And you," He said dramatically, looking at Jesse, "out! We have to pack and..." He stopped when he saw the look on their faces. "What are you laughing at? I'm serious here. St. James, out and away. You can say your goodbyes once I am some place where I can't see or hear anything." He gave them one last examining look and walked roughly towards his room and if a curtain could be slammed, at least Kurt tried his best to, which just made Jesse and Rachel laugh louder, then they fell quiet.
They just stared at each other for a while. Rachel with a shy smile on her face and Jesse watching fascinated how she had flushed noticeably. He hadn't thought he would have the bliss of watching that face build up in his presence ever again. And yet there she was, Rachel Berry being shy about them kissing, like the very first times they had. Her eyes just looking at him slightly and then away embarrassed about being caught. Everything about her, and about this moment, just made Jesse believe this wasn't real and the fact that it was only made his smile widen.
"Are you two serious about this?" Kurt had already sat down in his plane sit, he had been looking at her thoughtfully since the day before when Jesse left the apartment.
"Kurt, can you stop it? I need you to be supportive of me, of my decisions and Jesse is one of them." She argued while struggling with the compartment door.
"I am!" He protested, although he knew, it wasn't always true. "I just don't want you to get hurt again. Back in sophomore year you became a real suicide risk..." Rachel frowned.
"I wasn't!" She sat down finally after getting her suitcase in the tight compartment.
"Exactly, because you had Finn there, with you, like...like a safety net," he said as if he had just found out the code for some big secret. "And now, well, you just have me and I can't provide that kind of comfort." Rachel shook her head.
"Ok so, Finn might have been the reason it didn't hurt that much but, Kurt, I know this time I can truly trust Jesse." She said finally convinced with what she was talking.
Kurt sighed long and nodded reluctantly at the window, there was nothing he could do when it came to convince Rachel of something, there was nothing anybody could do. She was so stubborn and sometimes so aware of her inevitable talent that you just wanted to shut her up.
Jesse appeared from the aisle of the plane and sat down next to Rachel with a smile on his face that seemed to be copied into Rachel's. Kurt took a discreet glance at the tangled hands and concluded that when he really thought about it, there was no one better than Jesse St. James for his best friend.
Both with that insufferable and talented self, he thought to himself.
"We are so happy to see you Jesse. We haven't met since..." Hiram shot a questioning glance at his partner. "Prom." Jesse nodded and smiled.
"We still have that picture of you two posing in the stairs. That's one of my favorites." Leroy pointed out.
After Burt picked up Kurt from the airport Rachel's dads decided to make an appearance and Rachel was glad about only finding a slight confusion in their faces at seeing Jesse by her side. Later they took them to a restaurant to have lunch.
"Really? I might want a copy of that one. Rachel looked particularly stunning that night." Jesse said with a smirk. Her dads smiled dreamingly at Jesse.
Rachel didn't know why, never figured out why her dads always seemed to like Jesse so much. Even after the egging incident they never took precise sides, as if maybe they had understood his actions and they never judge him for them after. And when she had told them about Jesse wanting to take her to prom, they seemed more than happy about it and though at the moment it made her feel kind of uneasy, now it was the exact opposite. Maybe it had to do with Jesse having a rational mind and not asking Rachel to marry him when she was still in high school. Or maybe it had to do with his good looks and killer charm. Or both.
"We may have time to make one for you." Leroy assured Jesse. "Now, how is NYADA?" Jesse turned to Rachel, waiting for her to answer this one.
"It's great," Rachel started, "last time I was here I didn't have much time to tell you about it. And it turns out, I don't feel fulfilled at the end of the day if I'm not to the drift of exhaustion and dehydration." She joked but her dads looked at her a little worried, how could they not? She thought.
"Don't worry, Mr. Berry, I'm taking care of her." Jesse said, taking Rachel's hand under the table. He had, indeed, taken care of her, since the very beginning.
"Sweet pea! Someone's waiting for you outside!" Her dads called from downstairs.
Jesse had gone to Akron after the lunch with Rachel's dads, he wanted to see his parents and some friends, taking advantage of his impromptu trip to Ohio. He had promised to pick her up early enough so they could go have dinner before they had to pick up Kurt and then off to McKinley.
Her bedroom had been just like she had left it months ago. The sweet scent of her old perfume had still invaded all her senses once she stepped in. A storm of memories had passed through her eyes. The room seemed almost too yellow and pink for her, she was getting used to having nothing but dark and normal wood combined with all sort of grays and blacks, much like her new wardrobe. The thought of herself now living here was almost laughable at. But it just made her smile. Once she had set foot inside the room for real she felt foreign and whole at the same time. But everything here or in Ohio at all, had all the wrong colors and all the wrong shapes, reminding her again of why she had never fitted in the small home town of hers.
Nostalgia had let her to check all of her forgotten belongings and see if she wanted to take any to New York with her. There wasn't much she wanted to keep; the mixtape Shelby had made was one of her more precious belongings, also the first yearbook glee club photo, one of her dads and herself smiling. And she decided that once she had to go back to NY, her dads would have one prom photo less.
Rachel traveled back to her reflection in the mirror and decided her hair and makeup looked good enough, she grabbed her purse and hurried down the stairs, gave her dads a kiss on the cheek and what she saw after closing the her door, well...
She just had to laugh.
"A Range Rover? Really, Jesse?" He looked up at her and stayed quiet, staring at her with his mouth slightly opened, which made her flush a little.
"What? How was I supposed to get here from Akron?" He said finally. "And besides, this is Ohio, it reminded me of old times." He added with a smirk on his face.
"When you were Jesse St. James the star of Vocal Adrenaline," she started saying, walking slowly from her doorstep to where he was, "going to the University of California, Los Angeles. I don't know if you've heard of it, it's in Los Angeles." She said teasingly while walking closer to him.
"Precisely." He reached out for her with a smile and got her in his arms, catching her lips with his. "You look beautiful." She smiled shyly at him, fully aware she could not look away with the way he was holding her, there was no escape from his gaze, and she loved to be trapped in it.
"Should we get going?" She suggested.
"Of course." He let her go of his embrace and walked her to the car door, helped her get in the vehicle and only a couple of moments later he was on the driver's sit. He started the car and drove away from her house, or more accurately, only her parents' house now. "Where would you prefer to go?" He asked.
"I know just the place." She said with a smirk.
It wasn't official until they had dinner at Breadsticks, well, at least in Rachel's head. It was kind of a tradition to go to Breadsticks and she wanted to share it with Jesse, even though he didn't seem to be thrilled with her choosing of a restaurant.
"Well, this isn't that bad." He concluded after trying a bite of what Rachel had ordered for him in the sight of him having absolutely no clue about what was clear to taste.
"See? I told you."
"Well, last time I just had a coffee and I wasn't feeling very well the following day." She glanced at him. "Maybe it just had to do with the fact that I wasn't able to spend the rest of that night with you." He looked at her thoughtfully. Rachel felt a big sting at his words.
"I-I'm sorry about that." She said slowly, looking at the napkin holder in the middle of the table. Rachel hadn't really apologized for that, or for anything after that, and it made the act of looking at Jesse in the eyes harder now.
"Hey," he tilted her chin up, "it's okay, all of that was years ago and besides..." He leaned over real slowly, taking her unsure eyes with him once their lips touched and softly moved together. "We have this now." And that was more than enough. He had, more than a while ago, buried any possible feeling towards Rachel that wasn't love or the inevitable admiration he had always held for her and her hypnotizing voice.
He had been nervous on his way to Rachel's house, and being nervous was something that didn't happen to him that often or ever. Jesse had been serious about not wanting to go and see the play because of Rachel's friends dislike towards him, thing that some, had right back to them. He was nervous because he wanted Rachel and he wanted to be a part of her life now, and not just as a friend. But when he saw her walking out of her house, all of that sticky and foreign feeling of nervousness disappeared and he couldn't think of anything that wasn't her anymore.
Rachel, as he knew her and remembered her, was always music and fire. The way her hair fell in long and thick waves led him straight into her chocolate eyes, which since he has the memory of, reminded him of piano keys moving to the notes of a particular song she always seemed to inspire in him and it wasn't until now, looking at her in that booth of a restaurant with the low lightning, that he saw the lights of the city in her eyes. That he saw her clearer and brighter than anything and anyone else. Rachel Berry, as always, left him speechless.
The hallways weren't big anymore, the classrooms no longer boring and the lockers looked like what they were, not something you could be slammed against at any time of any day. This wasn't her world anymore, and she couldn't help the proud smile that crept up on her face.
Jesse had his arm around her and she was hugging his torso, the way they were walking down the halls, Rachel had to admit, was a bit uncomfortable, but it didn't mattered. She could be closer to him that way and the addicting scent of his cologne reached her nose better making her wonder how it would be to wake up and go to sleep with that perfect scent and the person who carried it beside her. Just a thought.
Kurt was walking by her side looking anxious with his eyes wide open making him look like the complete opposite of Rachel, nervous and scared. They reached the auditorium without bumping into anyone, luckily. Everyone must have been backstage.
"I'll be right back." She told Jesse once they were in the wide room, walking away after giving him a quick kiss on the lips. Kurt insisted they should go backstage and say hello to everyone, Rachel very well knowing he just wanted to run into Blaine, she didn't exactly understand why, but she didn't question his reasons or impulses, just followed him through the small crowd until they saw Blaine's perfectly gelled hair.
"Rachel," Kurt whispered, "take me out of here. I-I can't do this." Blaine looked so taken aback with seeing Kurt, as if he had seen a ghost and with Kurt's skin becoming even paler, he could be confused for one.
"Yes, yes you can." She encouraged, grabbing him by the shoulders and keeping him from running away. "You're Kurt Hummel and you are the strongest person I know. You need to do this." She finished giving him the last encouragement words just in time for Blaine to become a closer part of the scene. Her two friends stared at each other with grimaces that were at first, meant to be very fake smiles. She stood by Kurt's side squeezing his hand like in a tender suggestion to speak up, which he did almost immediately after.
"Blaine." He started confident. "How are you?" Rachel smiled to herself. Kurt's got this.
"Uh, fine. What are you doing here? I thought..." Blaine spoke and then looked at Rachel a little uncomfortable. "Kurt, can I talk to you for a minute here?"
"Well, I'll give you two a moment, then." She said quickly. "I'll be with Jesse." She told to Kurt and gave him one last squeeze on his shoulder, one last piece of encouragement that she knew, he no longer needed.
Rachel walked as fast as she could between all that people and costumes and props to where she knew the backstage door to the auditorium was, but was suddenly startled by a familiar face.
"Mercedes!" She greeted happily and giggled giving her friend a tight hug. "What are you doing here?"
"I ask the same about you." She said between small laughs. "Finn and Artie asked for my help a couple of weeks ago and well, here I am." She explained happily and her face fell slowly noticing that she might have said the particular name too fast, too soon after the break-up. Remembering how the light in Finn's face had quickly dimmed at the mention of Rachel's name. And Mercedes face only concentrated a small confusion when Rachel's smile stayed the same as before. Either the girl had moved on real fast or her show face game was too strong. Mercedes discarded the last one after noticing the genuine about Rachel's expression.
"That's great. Kurt and I wanted to see the play, Tina mentioned how hard you guys worked on it." Rachel answered to the before asked question. Mercedes nodded with pride on her face, they had really busted their asses in that play. There was just the hope of having a great show left, they had checked everything to the last little detail. The rest was in the hands of these inexperienced high school kids, she thought.
"I think she was a risky choice of a Sandy." Jesse argued.
"Why? Because she was a brunette?" She said with a brow raised.
"No. You would have done a hell of a Sandy." He said smirking. "That girl was too flat and her voice was a few tones downer than it should've been." Rachel stayed silent considering his statement. The girl wasn't the perfect Sandy, not at all, but she did had emotion. Blaine was born to play Dany Zuko and instead they had given some weird new kid the part. And the lack of emotion in the play made a painful knot build up in her stomach before the first act had finished. The one thing that had been right about that play had been Santana as Rizo and she was in college.
"But she had a beautiful voice, nonetheless." She said finally, giving Jesse just the slight agreement, waiting for it to go straight into his head. Jesse snorted shortly.
"You're never going to let me win, are you?" He said placing an arm around his girlfriend.
"No." She replied simply with a beaming smile on her face. "What's the fun in that?"
"Rachel." She heard the awfully familiar voice and she didn't want to turn around, not now. "You came." There was a big pause before she decided to break her new little pink bubble with Jesse St. James. "And you brought him." Rachel took a long breath and directed her head and eyes to Finn Hudson, granting him once again with the attention she had decided he didn't deserve anymore.
"Finn." She said with the faker smile there was on her face. "Congratulations, the play was great." She could hear Jesse's little inside laugh. If only they hadn't been talking the exact opposite only a couple of minutes ago.
"Thank you, it means a lot." And through all that Jesse was staying awfully quiet making her feel even more awkward in her skin.
"Rach, I think we should go." Jesse offered fall of a sudden and she could breathe calmly again. She nodded slightly and was about to say a breve goodbye when Finn's voice reached her ears.
"Could you leave us alone? We kind of have to talk." Finn said directed to Jesse and then Finn's glare became even more tough as he saw how Jesse's hand suddenly laid across her waist, making him seem to be a little closer to Rachel than what he really was. She smiled once he felt Jesse hold her again.
"No." Jesse replied confident.
"Actually Finn, I don't know what there is to talk about." Rachel stated sharply and for a moment her eyes wandered all around except Finn. She could be a dramatic person, but when it came to real life confrontations, when she was no longer on stage being someone else, she couldn't deal with it. Jesse's arm around her, pretty much said everything, the possessiveness he held when he was looking at her said even more, she didn't have to explain it to Finn, or so she thought. But with one quick glance, she saw how Finn's expression softened and the bitterness in his eyes was becoming sower.
"Wow," he started, frowning again. "I get it, you two are together now..." Finn gulped down, he could almost be heard thinking. "I suppose that's my fault, isn't it? I let you go and he was there, didn't I told you this would happen?" Jesse raised an eyebrow and then frowned taken aback. Finn was just talking to himself or maybe thinking out loud without noticing because he didn't seem to be talking to Rachel or to anybody.
"We have to go, it was really nice to see you Finn, and the play was real great." She lied, walking away to where Kurt was standing at the end of the hall, looking as if he had just witness one of the most tragical and hilarious scenes on all Hollywood history. Jesse shoot one last glance at Finn and walked away shortly after without a word spoken to Finn.
"Hey, St. James." He called from behind, Jesse didn't turn around, he just stopped walking like indicating he was listening. "Enjoy your time with my girlfriend, it won't be too long until she realizes where she belongs. I'll make sure of it."
Thanks for reading! Please, leave me your thoughts on this one :) till the next chapter ;)