Puck is pretty stoked when the semester finally ends. Spring semester always feels longer than the fall, and he's spent the last few months running around a lot. Maybe it's weird, but he's sort of looking forward to just fucking around in Lima, even if it is going to be super low-key. As far as he knows, Rachel's the only other one who's going to be around, biding her time before she moves to New York to be a star. Santana will be in Columbus in between trips to Greece and Hawaii with various family members (chick has more cousins than anyone on the planet, legit), and Sam's staying in Puck's room at the house while he works in Columbus for the summer since the dorms are closed. Finn's still doing the football thing and has camps and practices all summer, and Puck doesn't really keep up with anyone else that much.
His mom's the only reason he ended up deciding to come home. Well, not that she gave him much of a choice. One of the doctors at the clinic where she's a nurse is doing a tour in Nepal or Nicaragua or somewhere with Doctors Without Borders, and she volunteered Puck to house-sit for the guy. And yeah, Puck kind of got roped into it, but Dr. Steward is cool as hell, and he's actually a really nice guy. His wife died of breast cancer a couple of years back, and he has two sons who are a few years older than Puck, which means that his house is way too big for the guy, but he refuses to move to a smaller place. The place is huge, with a pool and an indoor jacuzzi and all that stuff, and Puck's basically going to be living there for most of July and part of August, and getting paid a shit ton of money to do it.
So, yeah. Summer in Lima won't totally suck.
Abby's thirteen now, and he's about ninety percent sure that the attitude she's giving him is something she learned during those couple of months when Quinn was living with them. She's a cheerleader at her middle school, and she's already talking about trying out for the Cheerios, which...well, Puck's trying really hard not to think about it, especially since it's at least a year away.
He spends his first week catching up on all the sleep he didn't get during finals and vegetating around the house, but then he starts to get bored. Plus, Abby's around most days, and his mom gets home at 5:30 exactly each night, at which point she hovers. At first, it's kind of nice, having her cooking and checking up on him and stuff, but he's spent two years living on his own, so it's not exactly necessary. He loves his mom, but she could give nice Jewish girls lessons in how to smother a dude.
He doesn't bother calling Rachel before driving over to the Berrys' house, stopping at Starbucks on his way, and he can tell that she's surprised to see him when she answers the door. She's wearing little red cotton shorts with a gray tee shirt, her hair is up in a ponytail, and she isn't wearing any makeup. "There are too many women in my house," he tells her, holding out the iced soy caramel macchiato he got because he knows she likes them.
"Okay," she draws out, taking the drink from his hand. She's not even bothered by his failure to greet her like a normal person or the fact that he just pushes past her into the house without an invitation, though she does wonder why he left the women in his house to come spend time with her.
He shrugs when she asks, wandering into the living room and flopping down onto the couch. There's a book open on the coffee table that he can tell she was reading, and Martha Stewart is on the TV talking about covering glass Christmas balls with glitter. (Seriously? It's June.)
Rachel follows him, and she's just waiting for him to comment on how boring she's being, reading book and watching reruns of talk shows on television. Honestly though, she isn't bored. It's nice to slow down a bit and do nothing, and besides, Daddy always used to say that only a boring person could ever be bored. Just because she isn't doing anything exciting doesn't mean that she isn't enjoying herself.
She intends to use this summer to relax, making the most of what she thinks could be her last opportunity to spend a long stretch of time at home without any real responsibility. She doesn't have any real intention to coming back to Lima for any significant amount of time after this summer. It's where she's from, where she grew up, but she feels quite sure that New York will be home just as soon as she gets there.
They end up just hanging out at her place. She reads her book and he flips channels, and they find That '70s Show playing on some channel. Noah points out all of the marijuana references (unnecessarily, but she doesn't tell him that) and makes some less-than-subtle references to wanting to get high with her that she completely ignores. She's never been quite as innocent as everyone seemed to believe, but she likes letting them; it amuses her to see the surprise on their faces when she references something they don't expect.
It becomes a habit pretty quickly, just the two of them hanging out. Rachel is teaching a couple of dance classes at the JCC and spending time with Dad while she can, but most of her time is spent with Noah. They don't really do anything. They see some movies and go to the lake a few times, but it's mostly just television and books and movies and video games. (Because Rachel is secretly really, really good at Mario Kart, because she secretly really, really loves the game.)
"You and Noah have been spending an awful lot of time together," Dad comments one night at dinner. She looks over at him and sees the unspoken question in his eyes.
"We're just friends," she tells him easily. It's the truth. Yes, they're spending a lot of time together, but that's because there isn't anyone else around to spend time with. It stands to reason that she feels a certain amount of affection for Noah, but that doesn't mean that there's more to them spending time together than friendship.
Dad doesn't say anything else about it, but there's a little grin on his lips when he goes back to his fried rice that she finds more than a tiny bit annoying, and she catches herself thinking about the conversation more than once in the weeks to come.
A year ago, Puck had a dozen friends in Lima, and it doesn't matter how much of Dr. Steward's trust he'd have been putting in jeopardy: He would have invited every single one of those friends over the first night he was in the dude's house, and they would have gotten fucked up.
And they probably would have torn shit up or broken something, so it's probably a good thing that Puck didn't get this house-sitting gig last summer.
He invites Rachel over the first night he's there instead, and they drink beer and watch Almost Famous in Dr. Steward's totally impressive basement media room, and once the movie's over, she goes home. Completely low-key.
House-sitting is the easiest money Puck has ever made. The dude has a housekeeper and a landscaper to take care of the house and the yard, and he doesn't have any pets, so all Puck has to do is check the mail, hang out at the house, and sleep there most nights so the place isn't empty and susceptible to little teenage jerks. (You know. The ones who act the way Puck did when he was in high school.)
Rachel and Noah are still spending the majority of their time together, though now they're taking advantage of the doctor's amenities instead of just hanging out at her house. His multi-media room is incredibly impressive, the pool is lovely, and he has a kitchen that her little baker's heart is just dying to have a go at. Sometimes it feels a little like playing house, like when she makes lunch for them when they're just hanging out, or when they spend an evening curled up downstairs for a movie marathon. It's fun, having this big place all to themselves, and Rachel would be lying if she said she hadn't pretended, once or twice, that it was their house.
Marlene catches up to her at the JCC one day to ask if she would be willing to bake something to donate for Abby's middle school cheerleading squad's bake sale. It's the perfect excuse to use Dr. Steward's kitchen, and besides that, Rachel likes to bake and she likes the Puckermans. Even though she's about half-terrified of the idea of Abby becoming a Cheerio someday, she's happy to help out. Cheerleading does make sense for the girl. For all of her own personal clashes with cheerleaders, Rachel understands that it can be a physically demanding sport, and Abby certainly has the athleticism for it. There's also the fact that the girl has really grown into her looks in the last couple of years, and she's going to be absolutely stunning in another year or two. (Really, a girl that gorgeous? She's going to end up being just as popular as Noah was, and Rachel can already picture her with the high ponytail and the short skirt.)
She doesn't so much ask Noah if she can use Dr. Steward's kitchen to make her famous cinnamon oatmeal chocolate chip cookies as she just shows up with bags of ingredients and asks him if he wants to keep her company while she bakes.
Puck just smirks and asks if he gets to keep cookies of his own, then parks his ass on one of the stools on the opposite side of the center island from where she's working, watching her like she's on Food Network. She's using a Kitchen-Aid mixer like a pro, measuring and dumping things, and she's even wearing a a red checkered apron.
It's kind of fucking adorable.
She's scooping the dough onto sheet trays with a miniature ice cream scoop, and he's watching her like it's the most fascinating thing. "What?" she laughs after a while.
He shrugs. "You're so housewifey," he answers, grinning when she laughs. "It's kind of hilarious that you can be all Barbra Streisand and then do this."
She tries not to smile too widely at the comparison when she puts the cookie sheets into the ovens. (Yes, plural. This kitchen has gorgeous, spotless double ovens, and they make her jealous.) "I've always been very multi-talented, Noah. I thought you knew that," she finally says, taking the cooling racks from the cabinet and spreading them out over the counter so they'll be ready when she needs them.
"I guess I just haven't seen all of them," he says lecherously so that she looks sideways at him.
She doesn't have anything to say to that, but she makes a point of putting two cookies on a plate just for him when the first batch comes out of the oven, setting it in front of him with a wink before pouring him a glass of milk.
They go to see the latest summer comic book hero movie one night, and as much as the genre isn't her preference, the worst part of the evening is when they walk out of the too-cool theater into the hot, humid night air.
"Why is it so awful?" Rachel asks when the goosebumps rise on her skin at the temperature difference. It's so humid she'd swear she can feel condensation collecting on her skin.
"That movie was not awful," Puck tells her seriously, and Rachel shakes her head.
"I mean the temperature."
"Oh." Honestly, he doesn't give a fuck why it's hot. It's enough for him to walk outside and know that it is. "Let's go swim," he suggests. They've used the pool a lot, but they haven't swum at night yet, which seems like a waste of a good pool. He's working himself up mentally to convince her when she says yes, and he just barely catches the 'but swimming in the dark is awesome' on his tongue before it comes out.
Puck's already in the pool when Rachel comes out of the house in a hot pink two piece, dropping some towels onto a lounge chair and tugging the elastic from her hair so that it falls around her shoulders. Rachel's body has always been kind of ridiculous, and it's not so much that he forgets that she looks like that under her clothes, but...okay, so maybe he forgets. Whatever, now that she's showing it off, he's gonna look.
She never feels like her dives are graceful, so she instead sits at the edge of the pool so she can slip down into the water, loving the way the cool water surrounds her before she resurfaces, tipping her head back to slick her bangs out of her face. "What?" she asks when she notices Noah staring at her.
"You look really fucking hot right now," he tells her easily, moving towards her so he's standing chest-deep water.
She shakes her head a little, then leans back until she's floating on the surface of the water, letting her arms drift out to her sides. She closes her eyes for a long moment, and when she opens them again, all she sees are stars above her.
It startles her when something brushes her wrist. She lifts her head, looks over, and sees that Noah is imitating her, floating on his back beside her with his eyes closed. Looking at him, she has the sudden urge to take his hand and weave their fingers together. It startles her, and she sucks in a deep breath before blowing it out, her body losing the tiniest bit of its bouyancy and dipping a bit further beneath the surface of the water.
"This was a good idea," Rachel says after a while, and Puck opens his eyes to see that she's standing again, skimming her arms along the surface of the water.
"Told ya so."
She just shakes her head and watches him turn over so he's swimming underwater, and even with the lights in the walls of the pool, she can't see where he is. It worries her immediately, because there's no telling what he's going to do. She's startled when she feels his hands wrap around her ankles, but not surprised, and she just manages to kick out of his grip, pushing away until her back is against the ledge of the pool.
He's right in front of her when he resurfaces, flinging water droplets against her face when he shakes his head. She sets her hands on his chest and pushes him away, but he grabs her arms and pulls her with him into deeper water. "What are you doing?" she asks after a moment, feeling a little breathless. She's standing on the very tips of her toes to keep her head above water, and he takes hold of her forearms to hold her up, so there's almost no space between them.
"Fuckin' around," Puck answers. He isn't doing anything.
She just shakes her head, pushing away from him, sinking down below the surface of the water and coming up against the wall opposite from where he's standing. It's been ages since she's been touched by a man, and if she lets herself get too close to Noah, she's going to do something she's going to regret, something that's going to mess up their friendship.
She'd like to blame her father for even putting the idea in her head, but that's just scapegoating, and she knows it. Her feelings towards Noah have been changing for a long time. It's just harder to ignore it when he's wearing so little and touching her and pulling her close, when they're all alone and there are stars above them.
She leaves a little earlier than she normally would, making an excuse about the dance class she's teaching tomorrow (because he doesn't know that it isn't until three o'clock), leaving him there in the pool when she goes. Dad is already in bed when she gets home, but Rock Hudson is sitting on the landing when she walks by, and he follows her into her room, curling up beside her and purring while she tries to make herself focus on the novel she's been reading each night before bed instead of thinking about her best friend's naked chest.
On Puck's last day house-sitting for Dr. Steward, Rachel insists that he needs to make the most of it, shows up with makings for fajitas and margaritas, and sets herself up in the kitchen like she actually lives here or something. He makes the margaritas, and she thwarts his efforts to sit his ass on a stool and watch her cook, handing him a knife and a package of steak and telling him that if he intends to eat meat tonight, he's going to have to cook it for himself.
They drink the entire first pitcher of margaritas before dinner is even finished cooking, and Rachel's just glad that they didn't get drunk until after they were finished chopping things, because knives and liquor really don't mix. And maybe Noah isn't completely drunk, having a higher tolerance for alcohol, but she most definitely is. (She even manages to burn her wrist on the edge of the pan when she stirs the rice, though she keeps it to herself, not wanting to listen to whatever comment Noah would come up with about her being a lightweight. She runs it under cold water for a moment under the guise of washing her hands, but it isn't anything serious.)
After they've eaten, he's stacking dishes in the dishwasher as she rinses them, standing beside her at the counter and sipping at the last of their second pitcher of margaritas.
"It's gonna be weird without you around this year," he tells her. She blinks at him because it's so out of nowhere; they were just talking about granite versus marble counter tops in an ideal kitchen. She doesn't really know how to respond to what he's said, so she doesn't say anything, focusing instead on rinsing out the blender pitcher before handing it to him. "I guess you're just happy to be done with Columbus," he says after a minute.
"I don't hate Columbus," she murmurs, rinsing out a sponge so she can wipe down the counters. "It just isn't where I'm supposed to be."
Puck finishes dumping detergent into the dishwasher and closes the door, then watches her wipe off the counter around the stove top and sink. "I'll miss your crazy ass, you know."
She leans back against the counter across from him, drying her hands on a towel. "Really?" He nods. "Just my ass though, right?" she teases, smiling when he grins and shakes his head. "It's going to be weird not to have you all right there," she admits, though she knows she's being too broad as soon as she says it. She and Finn are still friends, but they haven't really hung out since they broke up in November, and she's drifted away from Sam a lot, too. She'll certainly miss Santana, but she's going to miss Noah most of all.
Realizing that makes something tighten just behind her sternum.
She's starting to accept that she has a bit of a crush on Noah, and given that he's her friend, it's rather problematic. In the last year - maybe even longer than that - she hasn't gone more than a few days without seeing him, and they've spent enormous amounts of time together this summer. She already sort of hates the idea of going from seeing him every day to not seeing him for months.
It's probably why she takes a step forward and kisses him.
Puck's eyes are open when she presses her lips to his because this is totally out of nowhere. His eyes fall closed when she slips her hand into the back of his hair, pressing herself against him, and he has no idea what the fuck this is, but it feels awesome.
She pulls away from him after just a moment, leaning back a bit and looking up at him with wide eyes. He's basically her best friend, and kissing him could ruin all of that, could blur the lines of the relationship that they have and make things awkward just before she leaves. She's never had a lot of friends, and the last thing she wants to do is jeopardize what she has with Noah, but...
Well, she's drunk, and he's an amazing kisser, and it's been ages since she kissed anyone, and he's looking at her differently right now than he has in literally years. So she kisses him again, curling her fingers into his tee shirt at his side and moaning when she tastes tequila on his tongue, the lingering sharpness of the lime.
He doesn't know what the fuck's gotten into her, but it's hard to care when she does this thing with her tongue that shoots straight to his junk and almost pulls a moan from his throat. He backs her up against the opposite counter, pressing his hips into hers and pushing his hand into the back of her hair, tipping her head back just a little so he can kiss her more deeply.
She gasps his name when he sets his hands on her waist and lifts her up to sit on the counter, his lips skating up her jaw so he can nip at the lobe of her ear. "Rachel."
She just kisses him again, hooking her feet behind his thighs to pull him closer, whimpering a little when he presses himself between her legs and fists his hand in her hair. It's been so long since she's done this, since she was last with Finn, and god, she's missed it.
Puck slides his hand up the back of her shirt, pressing his palm in the center of her back to keep her close to him when he slides his other arm under her ass as he tugs her off the counter and walks towards the stairs. He fucking wants her, even though he knows it's wrong, and he doesn't want her in Dr. Steward's kitchen. No, he's spent enough time thinking about what Rachel would be like in bed to actually want to have her in a bed
And yeah, it's probably really, really wrong to do this when she's drunk, but she's got her legs wrapped around his waist, and she whimpers his name when he sucks at the skin on the side of her neck, and Puck hasn't gotten laid in like, weeks, since the weekend he went back to Columbus to hang with Sam for his birthday and he took that blonde back to the house with him.
He sets her gently on the side of the bed in the guest room he's been using as his own, tugging her tank top up over her head and leaning down to lay kisses across her chest just above the cups of her bra. "Noah," she breathes out, her hand sliding across the back of his neck. She watches him when he pulls away for just a moment, to pull his own shirt over his head, biting her lip when he smirks down at her. It's an expression she's seen so many times, but it's different now. "Noah, please." She feels a little desperate, looking up at him. She brings her hand to the front of the shorts he's wearing, pops open the button and tugs at the zipper just a bit. "I need you."
Something about those words, the way they sound coming from her lips, snaps Puck back to reality. This is Rachel. He kind of hates himself for it, but he catches her wrists in his hands and stops her from taking his shorts all the way off. "We can't do this."
She gapes at him. "What?"
"You're drunk, and I'm drunk, and it's probably a bad idea," he finishes lamely when he realizes that she's glaring at him. And fuck, it's kind of hot, because the flush on her cheeks is spreading down her chest, across the top of her tits. But fucking around with his drunk friend is a bad idea, and Puck knows it; he learned that lesson with Quinn years ago.
"Be serious, Noah." She tugs her hands away from his and slides them up his stomach, scratching her fingernails gently back down his sides. "I've seen the way you look at me sometimes." She licks her lips and gazes up at him, letting her fingertips slip beneath the waistband of his boxers. "I know you want me."
"Rachel, stop." He sounds almost like he's in pain, which, given the erection she can see that he has, makes sense. The fact that he's telling her to stop, however, does not, so she just shakes her head and pushes her hand a little lower. "Rachel, stop," he repeats harshly, batting her hands away from his body. "Fuck."
Honestly, she doesn't understand this game that he's playing, but she thinks that's what it must be: a game. Some strange version of hard to get, maybe. She doesn't know the rules, and she doesn't feel like playing games anyhow, so she reaches behind her back and unhooks her bra, shrugging the garment off and letting it fall onto the floor between them.
"Jesus fucking Christ," he bites out, scrubbing a hand over his head and looking up at the ceiling to keep himself from looking at her tits like he wants. "Rachel, I don't want to have sex with you."
She blinks, looking up at his face. He won't meet her eyes. "What?"
"I don't want to have sex with you," he repeats, and he sounds so serious that she wishes she knew where her shirt was so she could cover herself. She crosses her arms over her chest instead. "Rach-"
"Fine," she interrupts quickly. She glances around and sees her shirt on the floor next to his feet, so she leans over to grab it, tugging it over her head quickly without bothering with her bra.
"Rachel-"
"Don't," she snaps. She's humiliated, and she wants to be as far away from him as possible, so she stands up and pushes past him, walking out the door as quickly as she can without running.
Fuck. Puck fucking hates himself for this shit, and he never should have let it get this far, but he he can't fuck Rachel. He knows her, and the girl isn't built for one night stands, for sex that doesn't mean anything but feeling good and getting off. It would turn into a big thing if they slept together, and he doesn't want that. He's pretty sure that she doesn't either. It's just better to let her go, especially since she's drunk.
He goes looking for her when it occurs to him that she's drunk and she just ran out of the room like she was leaving. She cannot drive like this, and it doesn't matter how mad she is, he can't let her. Her car is still in the driveway next to his when he looks out the front windows, so he knows she's here somewhere.
It takes twenty minutes, but he finds her in the basement, in the media room. Crying in the dark.
Fuck.
He leaves her there because he knows there isn't anything to say that can make this better. But honestly, he'd rather she be mad or upset or whatever because he didn't have sex with her than because he did.
She hates him.
Or maybe she hates herself.
Rachel stayed in the basement for two hours, waiting to feel sober enough that she could drive herself home without feeling like she was driving drunk. She still felt pretty terrible doing it when she did, but she couldn't stay in that house any more, and besides that, it's less than a mile from Dr. Steward's house to her own, and there isn't any traffic in Lima at that hour.
But honestly, driving with alcohol still in her system just makes this entire situation that much worse. Drinking and driving is incredibly irresponsible, and not something she would ever do under normal circumstances. She certainly wasn't drunk when she drove home, but she normally would have at least slept it off before driving.
Rachel has been humiliated a lot in her life. God, high school was a string of humiliations, most of which involved various food stuffs (and once, vomit) being thrown in her face. But this...she was half-naked, and he said he didn't want to have sex with her.
Her ego is bruised, sure. But worse than that, Noah's rejection hurt her feelings.
His phone call wakes her just after nine the next morning. She ignores it, then turns the phone off before rolling over to close her eyes and pretend (for whose benefit, she isn't sure) to sleep.
Puck waits until after he knows David will be home from work to go over to the Berrys' house. He knows Rachel, and if she's mad, she just straight up won't let him in the house. David, however, obviously has no idea that anything happened between Puck and his daughter, because he just lets Puck in and tells him that Rachel's in her room before going into the kitchen.
Rachel rolls her eyes when Noah walks into her bedroom, but he ignores her, coming over to sit beside her on the bed. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the bra she was wearing last night, dropping it onto the bedspread between them. Asshole. She keeps doing what she was doing, looking at handmade recycled wood jewelry on Etsy. At least, she pretends that she's still looking. She's really just waiting for him to say whatever he has to say.
"Last night," he begins, and fuck, if he couldn't figure out what to say to her all day, he doesn't know why he thought he'd figure it out when he got here. "We were drunk," he offers lamely.
She scowls at him, closing the lid of her laptop. "Yes."
He lets out a sigh. "I didn't want to fuck things up between us," he admits. "I like that we can actually be friends, and getting all naked and sweaty would have changed shit."
"Eloquent," she deadpans. And no, he isn't wrong. Sleeping together would have changed things.
So has her realization that she has some sort of feelings for him.
She doesn't have to tell him that though. She can keep it to herself, and nothing has to change. It wouldn't be the first time she's had more-than-platonic feelings for a friend, and besides, it's not like she can act on those feelings when she's in New York and he's in Ohio.
"Go home," she tells him after a moment. She can't do this now, and she doesn't want to.
"Rachel," he starts, but she shakes her head, and he can tell by the look on her face that she has something else she wants to say.
"I'm embarrassed," she admits, not quite meeting his eyes. "I don't want you to think of me like that." She glares when she sees the smirk on his lips, though she isn't surprised. He practically lives in the gutter, and he hasn't made a secret of the fact that he's imagined her in compromising positions before. But before, he hadn't actually seen her half-naked. "Throwing myself at you," she clarifies. "That isn't me."
"I know." Fuck, that's why he stopped her. "You wanna go get dinner or something?" he asks after a while.
She shakes her head. She doesn't want to spend time with him at all, not now. "Dad and I have plans," she lies.
"All right." He get off of her bed and crosses the room, stopping in the doorway. "I'll see you around?"
"Sure." She's smiling, but it's fake. Puck can tell. It's not that she's not a good actress, but he knows her. She's still upset about what happened, plain and simple, and until she's over it, shit's gonna be weird.
Rachel waits until she hears his car pull out of the driveway to sink back into her pillows, letting out a sigh. She messed everything up, made things awkward with her best friend, and basically ruined her last two weeks of summer, her last two weeks in Lima, and she's completely annoyed with herself for that.
She feels like she just needs to get away from Noah, maybe even more than she needs to get out of Lima.
Puck can tell that Rachel is avoiding him the last couple of weeks that she's in town, which sucks. The whole point of not sleeping with her was to not fuck up their friendship, and that apparently worked not at all. But then, Rachel is basically the queen of forgiving people for shit; in fact, just about everyone who is her friend now is someone who broke her heart or spread rumors about her or tossed slushies in her face, Puck included. She's going to realize, at some point, that what he did was a good thing. She's going to realize that she didn't really want to sleep with him, and then she's going to be grateful.
He just hopes she figures that out sooner rather than later.
She shows up at his house the night before she leaves. She's wearing this little yellow sun dress, and she has her hair braided over her shoulder, shorter pieces sticking out all through it. She's toying with the end of the braid when he opens the door. He leans against the frame and smirks at her. "Hey."
"Hi." He jerks his head towards the stairs, because Abby's in the living room and his mom's in the kitchen, and he doesn't want them eavesdropping or whatever. Rachel nods, and he goes up first so he won't be tempted to look up her dress.
"I didn't want to leave without seeing you," she admits once they're in his room with the door closed.
"But you're still pissed," he supplies, and she sighs. Pissed isn't exactly the right word, though she's certainly been keeping her distance. "Rachel."
"I'm going to miss you," she says, ignoring his question. "I'm sorry I messed things up."
"Rachel." Fuck, she didn't mess anything up. "Don't be stupid."
She shakes her head. "I didn't come over here for reassurance. I just wanted to tell you goodbye."
Puck just nods. If she doesn't want to have a real conversation with him, she won't. She'll leave things like this between them until she's ready to be done with it, and yeah, it sucks that it won't be before she goes, but he's pretty sure that she'll come around before too long. "C'mere," he says after a minute, grabbing her arm and pulling her into a hug.
She takes a deep breath, inhaling his scent, cologne and laundry detergent and something else that she can't quite place. She sets her hands on his arms, just below his elbows, when she pulls away, smiling up at him just a little. "I really am going to miss you," she repeats quietly.
He squeezes her hips a little, where his hands are sitting on her body. "Me too."
She stands up on her toes to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth, their lips just barely touching before she pulls away. "Bye."
He doesn't say anything when she walks out of his room, even though he probably should. But this is weird, and he doesn't know what to say.
Her first night in New York, Dad stays with her. He helps her unpack the majority of her things, offers his opinion on the layout of her few pieces of furniture to maximize her very limited space, and takes her grocery shopping at the store two blocks down. He even installs a fifth lock at the top of her door, high enough that she has to stand on her toes to reach and slide it over.
She can tell, when he glances over at her when he's packing his electric drill back into its case, that they're both thinking the same thing: This was the sort of thing Daddy always did, the little home improvement-type projects. She just kisses his cheek and murmurs a thank you against his skin.
He leaves early in the morning to drive back to Lima, hugs her tight right in the middle of the sidewalk outside the front door of her building before he climbs up into the truck, and then Rachel is finally all on her own in New York like she's always known she's meant to be.
She can't decide if the feeling in her stomach is exhilaration or terror.
She makes sure that her day is so busy that she can't really think about it. She goes to campus to pick up her books for the new semester from the bookstore, timing the trip for future reference. She explores her neighborhood, noting the location of the nearest coffee shops and a laundromat that looks both clean and safe. She must walk a hundred blocks, just soaking in the city that is now - finally, officially - hers.
She stays up late, alphabetizing books and DVDs on their respective shelves and organizing and re-organizing her kitchen cabinets. It doesn't seem to matter that she got up early and walked however many miles through the city; she has so much energy that she knows she'll just lie in bed and stare at the ceiling in the dark if she tries to go to bed at a reasonable hour.
She takes a hot bath in an effort to relax herself, but she still can't seem to close her eyes when she finally does lie down to try to go to sleep.
This is where she's supposed to be. She knows that, and it's more than a little bit exciting to finally be here. But that doesn't mean that it feels like she always thought that it should. She was supposed to come here with Kurt and Blaine, and she can't even remember the last she talked to either of them; the only reason she even knows that Kurt is still in the city is through Finn, and for all she knows, Blaine has had an affair with a tall, pale, blonde woman named Svetlana and run away with her to Russia.
Rachel spends more than a few minutes considering that absurd little scenario solely because it amuses her.
She's always known that coming to New York would mean leaving Lima behind forever, really, but before, she always knew that her parents would be there, ready and waiting if she needed them. Dad will still be there for her, of course, and he's done a remarkable job trying to be everything to her that they both were, but it just isn't possible. Daddy was the one who gave her reality checks, who made sure that she was looking at things with her eyes open and without the benefit of rose-colored glasses. She's a little bit afraid of getting caught up in things without him there to remind her to keep her feet on the ground. Now that she's here, that fear is more real.
There was a part of her who thought that Noah could be the one to help keep her grounded, but after what happened, she can't be sure that that's still the case. She let herself get too close, and it isn't fair for her to lean on him like that, to expect him to be there for her.
She's just going to have to take care of herself.
She remembers the last time she spent her first night in a new apartment, when she called Noah because she couldn't sleep, and if she wasn't still so embarrassed about what happened in Dr. Steward's kitchen, she would call him now. She knows he's still in Lima for a few days, and he wouldn't mind the late night call, but she just can't. Every time she thinks about talking to him, she thinks about the way it sounded when he said he didn't want her.
In the end, she just turns over onto her other side, pulling the duvet up around her shoulders and closing her eyes, listening to the sounds of the traffic on the street below her apartment when she falls asleep.
A/N: Two things: First, while I ask you to please continue to trust me, I'd love to hear what you think about the latest developments in Puck and Rachel's relationship. Second, a quick reminder that you can keep up with what I'm working on next (or just come chat and look at pretty things) on my Tumblr, which is linked in my profile. Thank you, darlings!