Quinn woke up on a Friday morning. Groggily, she reached for her cell phone on her nightstand. Ignoring the two texts from Santana, she checked the time- 11:43 am. Shit. She'd overslept, and overslept badly. She had to be at the Sweet Sixteen party's venue in less than an hour. And with LA traffic, there was no way that was happening. Quinn swung her legs over the edge of her bed, and avoided all of the unpacked boxes in her way. Still not unpacked. But when did she have the time? She rushed into her bathroom, phone in hand, and nearly jammed her electric toothbrush in her mouth. As she brushed through the tangles of her hair, Quinn decided it may be smart to check her texts from Santana.
I am probably the least-excited person about this damn sweet sixteen, but what can you do when people only care about hashtags and what car little rich bitches got for their birthday.
Oh, and I'm giving you a fair warning. I'm bringing Fuckerman as my date tonight. With you and Weezy no-doubt gallivanting around together, I'd need someone to keep me company. Sorry not sorry. Xoxo
"Shit." Quinn cursed under her breath. She did not need this. She didn't need Puck's presence throwing off her game. How dare Santana invite him to ruin another one of her work spaces? Not today. Quickly, she dialed Artie's number.
"Hello?"
She tried to reply, but was muffled by her toothbrush. Quinn removed it, spat into the sink, and was finally able to speak. "Hey." She said gently. "Are you free tonight?"
"That I am. Why?" he asked.
"Because I'm gonna need you to come with me to a sweet sixteen." She let out a huge sigh, knowing this was asking a lot. "Santana's covering the party for the magazine, and she's bringing Puck. If you don't want to, that's fine, but having you there would just make my night a thousand times less stressful." She admitted. They'd been doing this for almost two weeks now, and she wasn't sure if she was keeping Artie around for protection anymore, or for company. Either way, it was working way better than she'd even anticipated.
"No, it's totally fine." He chuckled on the other end. Quinn let out a sigh of relief. "I've had far too many uneventful Friday nights lately anyway." She laughed, and began to undress herself for her shower and turning on the water.
"Thanks so much. You're a life saver." Quinn smiled. "Be prepared, though, for about a hundred fifteen-year-olds. There will probably be obscene dancing and embarrassing amounts of selfies being taken."
"Is there any other kinda party?" Artie teased.
Quinn rolled her eyes with a grin. "Okay, I'll see you tonight." She chuckled.
"Yep. Can't wait."
That night, Quinn was changed into her party attire and stood inside of the venue. Her black and beige dress hit right above her knees and her nude pumps matched it perfectly. She had to admit, she looked pretty hot, and Puck was going to eat his heart out. The magazine crew would have to arrive before the guests, and the guests were due to show up in fifteen minutes. She'd be expecting her friends (and her ex) at any second.
Santana and Puck came through the door. Prepared for business as always, Santana had a blazer over her skin-tight dress, and Puck wore jeans and a t-shirt. It had been a while since Quinn had seen him outside of his janitor's uniform. He'd been working out, she could tell.
"Santana…" she called, adjusting her headset that she used to keep in contact with the owners of the venue, as well as the birthday girl and her family. She pressed on the button and said into the mic, "Crave magazine is here. Are they allowed upstairs to interview the birthday girl before the party begins?" she was granted access just as Santana and Puck got closer.
"Well someone's trying to give those sixteen-year-old boys wet dreams to last a lifetime." She smirked to Quinn's outfit.
Quinn chuckled, and rolled her eyes. "Believe me, they're not the ones I'm trying to frustrate." She smirked, eyeing Puck.
"Oh, is four-eyes coming along?" Santana asked. Right. Her boyfriend.
"Mm-hmm. He's coming with Sam and 'Cedes." She nodded. And just then, as if on cue, the three came through the door as well. Quinn beamed to her three friends, gave hugs to each one, and planted a small kiss on Artie's lips, eyeing Puck from the corner of her eye. Making him jealous was far too fun.
After pulling back, Quinn looked Artie up and down. His maroon button-down was rolled up to the elbows. His suspenders hung taut across his chest. He cleaned up nicely, she had to admit.
"Wow." Was all he said to her. After a moment of silence, he spoke some more. "You look fantastic."
Quinn gave a small smile. "Not so bad yourself. "
"Okay, lovebirds." Santana interrupted, scowling. "We get it- Somehow, O'Wheely over here has this nerdy ability to wet Q's panties. We don't need it thrust into our face every three minutes." She was protecting Puck, now, and Quinn could tell. For some reason, Santana refused to realize that he broke Quinn's heart, and shouldn't need to be protected. It didn't take long for her to think up a retort.
"Oh, that would be completely correct." She nodded, then turned to look Artie in the eye. "If I were wearing any."
The group fell silent, except for Artie, who seemed to be choking on air. Quinn was never one to do things like that- She'd even shocked herself. But the look on Puck's face was priceless, and she knew she'd won that round. She turned to Santana.
"The guests should be arriving any minute, so you may want to start the interview. She's in room 14B upstairs." Santana brought Puck and Sam with her, leaving only Quinn, Mercedes, Artie, and the DJ in the large, colorful ballroom.
Mercedes was still surprised by what Quinn had done. "Girl." was all she said. Quinn gave a shrug.
"It shut them up, didn't it?" she smiled, proud of herself.
"Yeah, but I think you broke Artie."
At the mention of his name, Artie seemed to catch his breath. "No, no, I'm fine." He said, avoiding eye contact with Quinn.
"Don't be gross, it was a joke." She chuckled. He raised his eyes to meet hers and smiled.
"Thanks again for coming, you guys." Quinn looked to both of her friends. "I could be a mess tonight, but I know that if I've got you two by my side, there's no need to be."
Mercedes rolled her eyes. "Oh, Q." she chuckled, taking Quinn into a hug. "Hey, I wouldn't miss an opportunity to feel like my high school self again." She teased.
"Y'all are lucky you didn't know me in high school. Maybe tonight'll be like the prom I never went to." Artie laughed, but the two girls looked at him, horrified.
"You didn't go to your prom?!" they asked in tandem, holding their hands to their hearts.
Artie looked between the two of them, picking his next words cautiously. "….No." was all he said.
The two girls squealed and "aww"ed and pinched his cheeks, and Quinn could see Artie beginning to blush.
"Well you're lucky, because you are in the presence of Prom Royalty, 2004." Mercedes linked an arm with Quinn. Quinn remembered how when they first met, they'd bonded over the fact that they'd both been prom queen at their high schools. "And we will show you the best night ever."
The expression on Artie's face was painfully uncomfortable. "Okay…" he hesitantly agreed.
"Well, if I can tear myself away from my work for more than two minutes, I'll definitely do that." Quinn agreed. Out of the corner of her eye, the guests began to arrive.
Hours passed, and Quinn found herself running around the hotel, making sure that lights were correct, that dancers were in their places, that fire breathers didn't catch the building ablaze. By ten o'clock, an hour before the party had to end, she was beat. But finally, the buzzing in her ear piece had subsided, and she decided to see where Artie and Mercedes were. They were dancing on the dance floor to some club remix of a popular song, teenagers moving around them, thrashing their bodies in ways that Quinn could hardly recognize as dancing. She stood on the outskirts of the dance floor and waited until Artie saw her. He sent a wave her way, took Mercedes by the hand, and rolled over.
"Having a good pseudo-prom?" Quinn asked, smirking.
"Awesome. Girl knows how to bust a move." He chuckled about Mercedes. "How about you?"
Quinn sighed and shrugged. "I don't think you remember that this is my work. I can't have fun."
The song that had been playing changed to a slow one, and the lighting dimmed to sultry lavender. Artie's blue eyes scanned the scene, and he held his hand out to her. Quinn politely declined.
"Oh, no, this thing is bound to go off at any second." She pointed to her headset.
"So take it off." Artie shrugged. "You did promise me the best pseudo-prom ever, and I think a slow dance with my 'girlfriend' would just be the cherry on top of a perfect night." He extended his hand farther, gesturing for Quinn to lean and look him in the eye. Rather than kiss her, like that gesture usually meant he was going to do, he unwrapped the wireless headset from her head, and handed it to Mercedes. He took Quinn's hand, and she rolled her eyes but followed him to the dance floor. "Now you're gonna dance with me all romantic 'n stuff. And if we're trying to scratch for prom authenticity, then maybe I'll get a handjob in the bathroom, too." He teased. Quinn scoffed and smacked him on the shoulder.
"You're disgusting." She said, but she was laughing. She placed her hands on his shoulders, but knew that that was probably the wrong way to dance with him as soon as she did it.
"I used to date a girl," Artie began, "who, whenever we danced, she straddled my lap, even though she was wearing a dress."
Quinn laughed. "If you're expecting me to do that, you're sorely mistaken. Because I am a lady." She said, and then decided to get back at him for his sexual joke. "Besides, there's time for that later." Quinn made sure to add a flirty undertone to her voice as she plopped herself on his lap side-saddle, wrapping her arms around his neck. At her implication, Artie let out a low groan.
"You're killin' me." he shook his head, looking her in the eye now. "You know," he said lowly, ",with the number of boners you're trying to give me tonight, I'd say you might be toying with my heart. And other things." He chuckled. Quinn rolled her eyes with a smile.
"Nope. I just like messing with your head." She ran a hand through his hair. "That's probably going to be what I miss the most when we 'break up'." Quinn said, almost a whisper. A part of her didn't want this to end, but…just not with Artie. He was a really good guy. She didn't like him like that, but she did like his company, and there'd be a time where his company meant she couldn't kiss him or make a sexual joke to him because – who knows - he might end up getting a girlfriend in the future. She had to do all of those things while they lasted. "You should kiss me." she whispered to him, raising a hand to cup his cheek.
"Is Puck watching?"
She knew he wanted the answer to be "no", and that she was kissing him just to kiss him, which she was, but she couldn't let him know that. Puck was actually slow-dancing with Santana, trying to cop a feel and failing. "Staring right at us." Quinn lied.
"Well, then. Let's give him something to look at." She heard the smirk on his voice. Artie placed a kiss on her, slow and passionate—a kiss that would have Puck furious if he was actually watching. And for a second, every anxiety she harbored faded away.
He pulled away sooner than she'd wanted, their lips still brushing each other as he spoke. "Quinn," he said. She could swear her name on his lips was almost a moan. ",I'm going to need you to stop kissing me, and get off of my lap." Just to defy him, Quinn placed a spiteful kiss on his mouth.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because…my ex…"
"The one who straddled you every time you danced?" she chuckled, "What about her?"
"She's here."
And then, suddenly, he all but pushed her off of him. Quinn was still trying to fathom what he'd said, and tried to make sense of it, but didn't have much time to do that when a girl with brown hair, sky-high heels, and a dress that looked like it was made out of feather boas ran to him.
"There you are!" the girl shouted, plopping down in his lap in a straddling position. "I've been looking for you everywhere." She wrapped her arms around his neck, just as Quinn had before, and nuzzled the boy's nose. Quinn knit her brow, showing her disgust at the display that Artie wasn't seeming to be rejecting at all.
"Um, excuse me." she called over the music. The two looked up at her and Artie cleared his throat with discomfort. He gestured for the girl to get off of him.
"Sugar Motta, Quinn Fabray, Quinn Fabray, Sugar Motta." He moved his hand between the two of them, trying to make the introduction less awkward. It wasn't working. Quinn felt herself begin to bubble over with fury. She clenched her jaw and held a hand out to the girl. What was she doing here? What were the odds that his ex would be at this party? And, by the looks of it, Artie wasn't being entirely truthful when he told her that girls didn't usually like him. This Sugar Motta girl was really pretty.
Sugar looked at Quinn's hand and refused to take it, but instead flung her arms around her. Quinn was too taken aback to reciprocate the hug. "Oh em gee, I'm super impolite. I'm Artie's ex-girlfriend. We go way way back to like, high school. You must be the totes gorg new girlfriend he's told me not-so-much about except the fact that you're totes gorg."
Quinn could feel her brain cells rotting.
"Um, yes." She nodded. "If you're from his hometown, what are you doing here?" she asked, eyeing Artie from the corner of her eye.
Sugar rolled her eyes. "Don't worry, I'm not going totally Single White Female and stalking your man. I'm bee eff effs with the birthday girl. We heiresses gotta stick together, ya feel?"
"I feel." Quinn said through gritted teeth. Heiress. She locked eyes with Artie and he gave an exasperated expression.
"Me and Artie were catching up after like, three years of no talking at all, and…" Sugar situated herself back into Artie's lap, to which Quinn gave a grimace. How dumb did she look right now? There was her "boyfriend" and his ex nearly making out in front of her, and she wasn't doing anything to stop it. "…Well, I told him that this felt like the prom he didn't take me to in high school, and he promised me a slow dance." Sugar nuzzled Artie's nose with hers, but the boy was frozen. Quinn was clenching her jaw, trying to fight the words bubbling up to her lips. So her slow dance was just a consolation. Wow, Artie, way to make a girl feel special.
Then, she felt a hand on her shoulder. "They've been like this all night while you were running around," said Puck's voice, "I was hoping I wouldn't have to be the one to tell you."
He thought she was being cheated on.
Well, was she?
Quinn swatted Puck's hand away and turned to look at him. She ought to have grabbed his face and kissed him right there, just to show Artie how badly he'd screwed up. He'd told her that exes were like a drug, and it only took a little thing to relapse. Artie had relapsed. And boy, did she want to do the same out of spite. But that was what Puck wanted, and she couldn't let herself just fall into his arms, heartbroken and crying. All she could bring herself to do was storm out of the room, giving Artie an icy glare over her shoulder. He chased her out into the lobby, calling her name. Finally, she turned her body to him and crossed her arms.
"Do you understand how you're making me look right now?"
Artie searched his brain for words. "Yeah, I mean-" ,but Quinn cut him off.
"No, I don't think you do. I look pathetic sitting there watching my 'boyfriend' totally reconnect with his ex-girlfriend! This is the exact thing we were trying to avoid by doing this whole fake relationship." She spat the words through her teeth, imagining Puck's pitied expression and how much she hated being looked at like that.
"Quinn, I-"
"We had a deal, Artie! If you're going to hook up with other girls, at least don't do it in public, much less in front of Puck and Santana." Quinn was disappointed, to say the least. She thought that Artie was her friend. That he would understand how badly she needed this fake relationship to at least look like it was working out. Without it, she was defenseless. She couldn't focus on her work, she couldn't focus on anything other than fighting the urge to fall back into Puck's arms.
Artie shut his eyes, inhaled, and spoke calmly. "Q," he began, "I'm sorry. Sugar showed up out of nowhere. You of all people should know what it's like to run into your ex totally out of the blue. We were catching up. We danced a little. She went to go powder her nose, and when she was nowhere to be found, I thought she'd skipped out on me." he lowered his tone, "…It wouldn't be the first time." Quinn wondered what he meant by that. "I didn't exactly have time to tell her not to be all up on me. It took me by surprise, okay?"
Quinn sighed. One of the times she and Puck broke up, she saw him cleaning at a hotel two weeks later. They ended up sleeping together that night, and restarting the whole vicious circle all over again. She definitely knew what position Artie was in, and now she felt guilty for snapping at him like that. "Are you getting back together with her?" she asked, her voice low. The distance between the two of them was uncomfortable, so she took a few steps closer to him.
"Hell no." Artie exclaimed, rather animated. That earned a smirk from Quinn. "Look, she may have shattered my heart into a million pieces when I was twenty, but jeez, is she a handful. We're still friends, and I may have promised her a role in my upcoming film, but…Just friends." He was smiling now, knowing he'd broken through to her. Quinn bridged the gap between the two of them and was now standing so that their knees touched.
"Artie," she began, with a sigh, "I can't help but feel like…Like I'm holding you back or something." The boy furrowed his brow, but she held a hand up to insure he didn't interrupt what she was going to say. "I mean, you came to L.A. for opportunities, for actual romance with actual girls." He was laughing, and she followed, but was still completely serious with what she was saying. "I feel like the second you came out here, I whisked you away into this charade and now I'm taking opportunities away from you." She rose her eyes to meet his, and put a hand through his hair. "You deserve to go out and meet girls without worrying about ruining my reputation."
Artie placed his hand atop hers, which was resting on his cheek. "Q, I think you're forgetting who thought up this plan in the first place." She had. "I have way too much to focus on, too. I have the movie project, I'm just now discovering the wonders of Los Angeles." He said that with sarcasm, and brought Quinn's hand down with his, holding it in his lap. "I don't have time for a relationship, either, and you are helping me out a ton. I don't doubt that if you weren't here, I'd have wound up in bed with Sugar Motta tonight, hating myself afterward, and feeling like slime for digging into my past like that." He peered into her eyes, and Quinn felt herself sigh. She didn't want to keep holding him back, but this really was good for the both of them. "I am in this for the long run." Quinn gave a small smile, touched by his words. He was so great to her. "And, besides, no one makes an Artwich like you, so I figure I oughta keep you around."
Quinn wanted to laugh, but was still too emotional over his little spiel. He really cared about her, even if he was getting something out of this deal as well. She knelt and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, taking him into a tight embrace. He hugged her back. When they let go, Artie looked up at her with mischief in his eyes. "Now let's go give Puck some payback for tryin' to get you all vulnerable and stuff." He smirked. "He can't touch your boyfriend's ability to throw down on the dance floor." Quinn laughed, and stood behind him, draping her arms over his shoulders.
"So you had a good pseudo-prom…" she accused, more than asked. They entered the ballroom again, which was still pulsating with lights, but had significantly fewer teenagers in there.
"Oh, the best."
Puck was there, sweet talking Sugar Motta against the punch bowl. The two made a move to go grab their respective exes, but Quinn felt Artie place a small smooch on her lips to show them that they were off-limits. And it felt right.
