Author's Note: The following is based on actual events...okay, not really but my phone does stuff like this all the time...so annoying! And sometimes it's not even in my pocket! Enough of this author's note, please read and review!

Part Six: Pocked Dial

The call was accidental, an occurrence that happened often with Artie's touch screen phone. He had just placed the phone in his pocket when, the next thing he knew, he heard a small tinny voice saying, "Hello? Artie?" Retrieving it, he put it to his ear.

"Quinn?" Slightly embarrassed at the mistake his phone had made, he closed his eyes and pressed his lips together.

"What's going on? Is something wrong?"

He couldn't help but smile at the concern in her voice. "No, I'm fine That was a…pocket dial."

"Pocket dial?" When she laughed, it sounded as if she was in the room with him. "My phone doesn't do that because it locks."

"So does mine!" he cried. "But somehow, it manages to pocket dial anyway. Progress and technology deserve an ugh sometimes..."

Still laughing, harder even, she didn't say anything in return.

Frowning, he thought of something he could change the topic to. "Uh…oh! You ever going to tell me what you were doing in the office the other day?"

Immediately, her laughter ceased. "I wasn't planning on it, no," she told him, her voice quiet. "It's not a big deal."

Arching an eyebrow, he debated on arguing with her before deciding against it. "Okay, whatever you say."

"That's right, whatever I say. You should remember that."

Rolling his eyes, he said, "Wipe that smirk off your face."

"How do you know I'm smirking?" she queried, trying and failing to sound one hundred percent sincere.

"Because," he replied, cradling the phone against this shoulder as he maneuvered himself onto his bed. "If I said that, I'd be smirking."

"Well, just because you -" Her voice was cut off by loud blaring music. Holding the phone away from his ear, and wincing, he waited until the volume on the music was turned down. "Sorry," Quinn muttered. "I guess I had the volume pretty high when I was listening to that earlier."

"I'll say," he grumbled, feigning annoyance. "Almost made me go deaf."

"Oh stop, you're such a bad liar."

"Um, there's a difference between faking and lying." Settling his back against the wall, he grabbed his remote, flipping through the channels. "Was that…Tears for Fears?"

"It was. I love Tears for Fears. Do you?"

She sounded so excited he had to grin. "They're cool. I tend to like 80s things."

The sound of mattress springs alerted him to the fact that she was on her bed, possibly adjusting herself. "Me too. Music, movies, TV shows…"

Smiling, he decided to leave the channel on a Seinfeld repeat, while scanning his brain for his favorite 80s…whatever, when Quinn spoke up.

"Can I ask you something?"

The question made him wince. The last time someone had posed it to him had been about a month earlier, when Brittany had asked him about his feelings for Tina. The time before that, it had been issued out of the mouth of a glaring Tina, who wanted to know why he preferred a "stupid video game" to her. Then she had dumped him. Due to his past experiences with those five words, he responded warily. "Um, sure…"

She exhaled into her mouthpiece, her breath an impression of a whooshing wind on his end. "I don't get you and Brittany. Why are you two even dating? Or, I mean, not dating but kind of - you know what I mean."

For a moment, he couldn't even think then the implications of what she meant, what he thought she meant, hit him. Blinking and attempting to swallow the lump in his throat, he snapped, "Hard to imagine that a loser like me could end up with one of the most popular girls in school? Well, you know, we're actually…she likes me! And -"

"No, Artie!" she interrupted, clearly upset. "I don't think any of that! You and Brittany don't make sense to me because…you're such an amazing guy. Not that I'm saying Brittany's not but…I can't imagine that you can talk to her about stuff or that she'd ever get you on a deeper level or laugh at your jokes or…yeah, like that."

Amused by Quinn's spewing of word vomit, a quality he would have never guessed she possessed, he said, while holding back his laughter, "Oh, okay. Took that the wrong way. And…I don't know. I like Brittany. She likes me. And after what happened with Tina…I just never wanted that to happen again. I vowed that I would be the best boyfriend ever to Brittany and I think I've been…maybe not the best but at least I tried. I really wanted this to work. I admit that part of the reason I was looking forward to prom was because I would be going with her, proving to everyone that I could date and stay with someone like Brittany, someone popular and, you know, hot. No one would have expected that I would ever date her. But you're right, she doesn't understand a lot about me or things I talk about. I don't know if that matters though. We're just in high school, after all. I haven't deluded myself into thinking it'll be forever or anything like that." Once he was done, he bit his tongue, just in case it betrayed him and he blurted out more personal details about himself. He had not intended to go for that long and he could only wonder what was going through her mind.

It seemed forever until she said anything. "Well," she murmured at last. "All of that makes sense."

Shifting uncomfortably, he stared at the TV screen, not feeling any desire to laugh when the Soup Nazi kicked Elaine out of his restaurant. "Yeah. So…what about you and Sam? You two seem to be more superficial than anything else." Realizing that the comment was rather judgmental, he amended himself. "All I mean is that you two are -"

"I guess we are a little." He imagined her picking at the comforter on her bed, not knowing that that was exactly what she was doing. "It was in the back of my mind that him and I would make the picture perfect couple and going to prom was kind of about the prom King and Queen going together. But it's more than that, really. Sam is so devoted to me. I never had that with any other boyfriend. Finn liked Rachel, Puck liked...girls, any and all. With Sam, it's...it's nice. And…I've never shared that with anyone before."

Now he pictured her chewing on her bottom lip, which she really was doing, while feeling very insecure. "You just want to be happy."

"Yeah…"

"Me too."

A silence stretched out between them, and a new episode of Seinfeld began, before Quinn whispered, "But what if there's more out there and I'm missing out on it? I know we're just in high school but sometimes…I can't really explain it, Artie."

Resting his head against the top of the headboard, he stared at the ceiling. "I know what you mean. I think that sometimes too. Like it's good to be happy with Brittany but my…my whoever, the one I'll be more than just moderately happy with, is closer than I realize."

"I, um, yeah…you get it." Her voice was a low hum and he had to strain to hear her. "I'm getting kind of tired, Artie. I'll talk to you later?"

Wishing he knew her thoughts on the entire conversation, he shrugged, even though she couldn't see him do so. "Okay. Yeah. At school tomorrow."

"And…" There was the briefest of hesitations before she continued. "I'm really glad you pocket dialed me. Bye!"

She didn't even give him a chance to say a goodbye himself, hanging up first. Half grinning, Artie slid down into a laying position. If he could've responded, he would have told her he was really glad he had pocket dialed her too.