I greatly apologize for the long wait. It was midterm week and I had to (try to, at least) prioritize my life for a little while. However, I am back! And with 2 new chapters for you! These 2 were originally one very long chapter, but I decided it would be best to break them up. Hope you enjoy :)

Quinn waited an entire 60 minutes before calling.

After Quinn had left the coffee shop Santana had stayed a while after to finish her coffee and go back over the entire conversation she and Quinn had. It all seemed kind of sudden; she and Quinn had only reconnected a few days ago, and it had been years since they last talked. But Santana also realized thinking in depth about things didn't always produce positive results, so she let it go. Life was too short to worry if this whole thing with Quinn was too sudden. She eventually decided she should head home so Brittany didn't worry, but she walked at a leisurely pace on the way back, lost in her thoughts.

Santana was walking up the steps to the loft when she felt her phone vibrating in her back pocket. She assumed it was Brittany or Rachel or Kurt calling to ask her where she was and rolled her eyes. They may be her best friends, but sometimes they needed to just mind their own business and let Santana do her thing.

But when she pulled out her phone and saw the caller ID, Santana grinned.

"Hello?" she said as she brought the phone to her ear.

"So I was going to call you a half hour ago, but I didn't want to seem over-anxious," Quinn said sweetly on the other end of the line.

Santana let out a chuckle. "Right, because calling just an hour after seeing someone doesn't seem anxious at all." She reached the landing to the loft and leaned against the outside of the door, not wanting anyone inside to hear the conversation.

"Fine. I could hang up and call back in a few hours?" Quinn suggested and Santana could hear the smile in her voice.

Santana suddenly realized how much she already missed Quinn's voice, even though they had been together literally an hour ago.

"No, no," Santana said quickly, not wanting the conversation to end, "60 minutes is plenty of time to go without speaking."

Quinn giggled and even over the phone it was a heavenly sound. "Now who's the anxious one?"

"Whatever. So what's up? Any specific reason you called?" Santana asked sounding hopeful. She knew Quinn wanted to take things slowly—and she genuinely didn't have a problem with that—but that didn't mean Santana wanted to go absurd lengths of time without seeing or talking to Quinn.

"You told me to call you, didn't you? So here I am. Calling you."

Santana felt her heart sink a little when Quinn didn't say anything further. "Oh," she said so quietly she wasn't sure Quinn had even heard her at first.

"Santana, I'm kidding!" Quinn laughed and Santana let out a deep breath. "I can't believe you actually went for that. I was calling to see if you wanted to hang out Thursday night."

"Like a date?" The words were out of Santana's mouth before she realized what she said. She slapped her hand to her forehead, immediately resenting her lack of impulse control.

"Mmm," Quinn replied as she thought about her response, "not necessarily. I'm not sure that would constitute as taking things slowly. I was thinking we could just, you know, hang out and…see where it takes us?" Quinn was hesitant with her wording, and it seemed like she was doing everything she could to keep Santana's temper intact.

Santana nodded to herself, agreeing with Quinn. She was too embarrassed to get mad at the fact hanging out with Quinn wasn't considered a date just yet. "Right, yeah, of course. Sorry." She took a deep breath and collected her thoughts. "Thursday night sounds great."

"Awesome. I will text you later in the week with details."

"There are details?" Santana asked with her eyebrows raised.

"Yes, don't worry about it. I will talk to you later, Santana," Quinn ended the conversation abruptly and hung up, leaving Santana gaping at the lack of information. She slid her phone into her back pocket and ran her hands through her hair before turning around and entering the loft.

She was met with two pairs of eyes staring at her from the couch.

"You two are aware you no longer live here, right?" Santana asked in an irritated voice, not even bothering to look at Kurt and Rachel as she made her way over and flung herself in the chair next to them.

"Britt called me," Kurt explained shortly, looking back towards the television. He and Rachel seemed to be watching some reality show about makeovers. Thank God they don't actually still live here, Santana thought inwardly.

"And I was with Kurt when Britt called, so I just came along for the Disney movies. Which we finished watching only about 25 minutes ago," Rachel chirped to no one in particular because Santana really wasn't listening.

Santana glanced around the loft. "Where is Britt?" She still didn't feel like discussing Quinn with Brittany, but Santana also remembered the look on Brittany's face earlier and wanted to make sure she was okay.

Kurt turned back to her. "Oh, Sam came by after his shoot and took her to lunch. You just missed them."

Santana had a hard time caring that she hadn't seen Sam, and it wasn't just because he could be credited with breaking Santana and Brittany up. No, it was more than that. His lips were huge, his impressions weren't great, and he wasn't as innocent as he seemed. In high school, Sam had dated half of girls in glee club, never seeming to care it made him look like a man-whore. Whatever, Santana thought. He wasn't worth her time.

The three friends sat in silence for a few moments before Rachel spoke up. "So how was your date with Quinn?" she asked in a controlled voice, and Santana could tell she had been waiting from the time she walked into the loft to interrogate her about it. Santana looked pointedly at Kurt, indicating that she didn't want to talk about it in front of him, but Rachel impatiently waved her hand. "I already filled him in on everything. He knows."

Santana gawked at the girl in disbelief before looking at Kurt, who smiled widely. "It's true, I do. And I must say, I have always been under the impression that Quinn Fabray would never even explore the realm of Sapphic relations so this does come as quite the shock to me. However," he continued as he clapped his hands together, "the more I thought about it, the more sense you and Quinn being together made. You guys have this sort of fire and ice thing going on between the two of you. It works. The actual thought of you being in love with Quinn is somewhat disturbing and terrifying, but I also think you girls balance each other out."

"Okay, first of all," Santana started, "Berry, I can't believe you actually told him without my permission!" She glared at Rachel threateningly but then turned to Kurt. "And second of all, I am not in love with anybody. We literally just had coffee. That is all that happened."

"But you want more to happen, right?" Rachel pressed. "I'm assuming from the look on your face, and the fact you didn't even lay a finger on me for telling Kurt means the coffee date went well and you'll be seeing more of Quinn?" The girl could be irritating as hell sometimes, but damn was she perceptive.

Santana rolled her eyes and tried to neutralize her expression, not wanting to give anything else away. "God, fine, yes, okay? The whole coffee thing went well. And I'm seeing her on Thursday."

Kurt's eyes widened in surprise. "Like a date?" he echoed Santana's words from her conversation with Quinn.

"No," Santana stressed, "not a date. She wants to take things slowly."

"And you're okay with that?" Rachel asked in a confused voice.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Santana felt the irritation rush through her body and she took a deep breath.

"It's just, Santana…" Rachel began but Kurt quickly cut in.

"You do realize if you're actually going to try this thing with Quinn—and I mean actually try dating her or whatever—you're going to have to stop your womanizing tendencies? No more random, drunken one night stands with women you pick up at the bar? No more all night bar crawls? Not even Quinn Fabray can handle all of that. Is this really what you want?" Kurt rested his hands on his crossed legs as though he had just made the most assertive, undeniable argument ever.

Santana sat back in the chair and closed her eyes as Kurt's words registered with her. Is this what she really wanted? Santana loved skating through life with no commitment and no strings attached. She lived for the Friday and Saturday nights when she didn't work so she could down abhorrent amounts of alcohol and forget about everything. She was 22 years old and worked as a bartender while attempting to graduate college; it's not what you would call a glamorous life.

She'd always had a problem with self-esteem. Growing up in Lima Heights proved to be more difficult than she could have ever imagined; all throughout grade school whenever a teacher found out where she was from they would write her off in an instant. Assume she wasn't good at anything and was destined to work on a pole for the rest of her life. Working as a bartender wasn't too far from that in Santana's mind. Sure, she was going to graduate in 3 years, but what about until then? She needed a way to ease the pain of living up to the Lima Heights stereotype until she could break out of the mold. And alcohol and sex were the perfect remedies.

Nonetheless, there was also a part of Santana that knew she could do better. The string of random hookups were all fun and games until the morning after when she woke up without a single memory of the events from the previous night, with a stranger in bed beside her. That part made Santana feel empty inside. She wanted more—wanted someone more. Yet, every weekend she didn't work ended up the same way: long nights at the bar followed by alcohol-induced sex with a woman she didn't even know, all leading up to a raging hangover the next day.

But then Quinn came sweeping into her life only days ago, in all of her grace and elegance with her hazel eyes and angelic voice, and made Santana's mind fuzzy and clustered with thoughts and emotions. She hadn't felt anything towards anyone since Brittany, and lord knows how that went. But Santana was tired of taking strangers to bed. She was tired of having to consume excessive amounts of alcohol to numb herself enough to not think about anything. She didn't know if this thing with Quinn was going to last, but she'd be damned if she didn't try.

Santana opened her eyes and nodded at Kurt and Rachel, who had been waiting patiently as she mulled over her thoughts. "This is what I want. Quinn and I may have only spent one night together years ago, but it clearly turned into something I wasn't expecting, considering I still have lingering feelings about it. I'm sick of feeling like a freeloader in this godforsaken world—I need something, or someone, to prove to me my life isn't a train wreck, that I'm not worth nothing. I don't know if that thing is Quinn," she amended quickly once Rachel and Kurt's faces lit up with excitement. Of course she is, you self-destructive moron, "but I do know that I would be a fool to pass her up. And I might be a lot of things, but I am most definitely not a fool." And with that, Santana got up from the chair and made her way to her bedroom area of the loft, snapping the curtain closed behind her.