Chapter five.

The next day I felt high as a kite. As a bird. Nothing can ruin this good mood, I thought to myself as I drove Sarah to school in the morning. I sang extra loudly to every song we listened to, making her giggle.

"Bye, bye Noah bear."

"See ya little Sarah cub." I watched as my little sister kipped to join her friends outside the school I used to go to. I was reminded of when I did the same, my Ma dropping me off with Sarah- too young to go to school at that time- and me racing out to meet Quinn before the car had even stopped. I smiled as I parked up my truck. Nothing can ruin this good mood.

"Hey buddy." Finn greeted me when I got to my locker. I felt a small pang of guilt,

If only you knew I made passionate love to your extremely willing girlfriend last night.

"Hey Finn. You okay?" he looked at his shoes.

"Yeh I'm fine. It's Quinn. She seems…. distant. Weird." My head snapped up and I answered Finn too quickly,

"Don't worry Finn, I'm sure she's fine." Luckily, he nodded.

"You're probably right. Come on, let's get to class." I sighed gratefully and followed him into chemistry.

She didn't talk to me for a whole week after that. she was nearly always with Finn or her cheerios friends so getting her alone proved very difficult. I managed to corner her during second period the Tuesday after we hooked up.

"Hey sexy, you haven't returned my calls. What's with that? don't tell me you've had enough of the Puckster?" She shut her locker then turned to me."

"I cant do this Puck. You mean a lot to me and we had a really amazing time the other night but I cant do it to Finn. He's such a good guy and he loves me Puck. He loves me." She began to sob.

"But you don't love him." She looked up at me and cried harder. I wanted to hold her and kiss her and tell her I loved her but I knew I couldn't. Not in public anyhow.

"So that's it then. We can never…." I didn't finish my sentence.

"No. No, never ever again." She pronounced each word as if she was convincing herself.

"Fine." I said and walked away from her. Away from happiness.

Away from love.

Over the next month and a bit after my thing with Quinn, I threw myself into being Puck again; getting drunk, laid and terrorizing nerds. I must have tossed that gay kid in the dumpster several times. The day Finn joined the Glee Club, 'Homo Explosion' as I called it, was a dark day for dudes everywhere. Granted the guy could sing good, but Glee was social suicide. Before the game against Carmel High, our rivals, that same gay kid I used to toss in dumpsters- Kurt Hummel, got the football team doing Singles ladies by Beyoncé to improve our teamwork and stuff. I was down with it- anything to win a game- but the guys on the team weren't so I pretended I didn't want to. After yet another practice in the choir room doing the gayest dance in the world in FULL pads, I caught up with Finn in the hallway.

"Dude, what's up? You've been quiet lately." Finn looked awful; tired anxious and stressed.

"Nothing." He replied.

"Come on you're my best friend. Talk!"

"S'nothing. It's personal. He said. He really did sound bad but I teased him.

"I knew it. You're in love with Kurt."

The Finn said something that changed my life forever and shaped the map of my entire future.

"Quinn's pregnant she's keeping the baby." He walked off. I stood outside the choir room, mouth open. I wanted to cry. No way is the kid Finns was my first thought, he'd have told me if they had sex. That must have meant I was the father. I frantically went over the dates in my head. Quinn and I had done it about a month and a half previously. I didn't know how long it took for a chick to get knocked up but I obviously knew the basics.

Quinn Fabray was pregnant with my baby.

I caught up with her that day after lunch. I should have been apologetic and helpful, vowing support and as much money as I could offer but instead I was angry. Angry and scared.

"Sup MILF."

"Go away." I'd never heard her sound so young. Or afraid.

"Who's the daddy? I'd think it kinda weird if it was Finn seeing as you told me you were a virgin when we did it? And I know for a fact you didn't do it with him." She stopped walking and turned around to face me.

"How can you be so sure?" she asked. I could tell that the whole Queen Bitch thing was a total front.

"Finn's my boy. He would have told me."

"You make a habit of sleeping with your boy's girlfriends?" She began to walk away from me. I called after her,

"Well call the Vatican we've got ourselves another immaculate conception!" She turned around and grabbed my arm, pulling me away from the main hall to the lockers.

"I'd take care of it you know. You too. My dad was a dead beat but I don't roll that way." She scoffed.

"Weren't you fired for peeing in the fast food fry lighter?" she asked me. How did she know about that? Yeah I did do that and proud of it. The boss was an asshole. When you gotta go you gotta go. She looked me right in the eyes as she continued,

"I had sex with you. Because you got me drunk on wine coolers and I felt fat that day. But it was a mistake. You're a Lima loser and you're always gonna be a Lima loser." With that she ran off down the hall, dissolving into tears as she ran. He left me standing, looking after her.

I went to class, with her on my mind all day.

We didn't speak after that. Not for a long time. She moved in with Finn when her snooty, pretentious parents threw her out. Finn got all the attention, all the sympathy. He was the father of Quinn's baby as far as everyone knew. I told Mercedes I was the father when we had to duet together in stupid Glee Club. It had been eating me up like hell seeing them together, seeing Finn taking all the responsibility for my child. I couldn't stand it. I wanted to scream the truth to his face, scream it to Quinn, to the whole school. Mercedes told me I was the baby's daddy, but it took more to be a father and Quinn chose Finn. I tried proving it to Quinn that I was serious about being a good father but I screwed it up. We babysat these triplets together and I was sexting Santana the whole time. I then gave her all this crap about being 'a dude' and having 'needs.' Quinn rightly gave up trying to give me a chance and went back to the adoption plan. Quinn was gonna give her away.

Gonna give my daughter away.