A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing.
Sorry for the delay, I wish I had a good excuse for not getting this out earlier, but my Lost marathon took up a lot of time and then I found myself lacking in motivation due to the mediocre episodes of Glee that we've been getting. Don't worry, I will finish this story, eventually.
Also, let's just imagine that the Hudmels didn't move into a new house and stayed at the one Burt and Kurt were in.
The ticking clock that hung from the living room wall held all of Finn Hudson's attention as he mindlessly shoveled another spoonful of cereal into his mouth. As he mechanically chewed his breakfast, he figured he'd give her five more minutes before he marched up upstairs and woke her up with her own damn rape whistle. Or maybe he'd pour a bucket of water all over her face. Or maybe she also had mace in her purse. Choices, choices.
He really hoped she had mace.
Another spoonful of cereal was shoveled into his mouth just as he heard shuffling footsteps come from the stairs. He looked over and almost spat out the cereal and milk that was in his mouth. She was wearing one of the dress shirts he had left up in his old room. Well, wearing wasn't quite the right word. It was more like the light blue shirt was draped over her body, as it ended up halfway to her knees and the rolled-up sleeves looked more like pant legs as they hung so loosely from her arms.
He couldn't help but stare at button area near her neck and couldn't decide if it showed way too much skin or way too little for this early in the morning because only a few buttons in the middle were actually buttoned. His gaze shifted downward as she slowly lifted her arms and arched her back as she lazily yawned. The shirt kept going up and up and Finn expected to eventually see a pair of shorts or something. There was no way she was only wearing his shirt. She had to be wearing something else underneath it. The shirt continued to creep upwards towards the top of her thighs and still nothing appeared except more and more of her smooth, olive toned skin.
The shirt dropped quickly back to its original position just as Finn unconsciously licked his lips.
"Coffee. Now." She mumbled out.
He coughed twice and pointed towards at the kitchen before he returned to shoveling cereal into his mouth.
She walked past him, making sure to bump into his chair with her swaying hips, and made her way to a fresh pot of much needed coffee. Men were all alike, flash them a little skin and they started to drool. She would bet the Neanderthal's brain grinded to a halt when she went through her fake yawn routine. At the very least, she could make a game out of teasing the Neanderthal to death as a way to entertain herself here.
Coffee was poured into the largest mug she could find. A splash of milk and three cubes of sugar were added before she made her way back to the dining table. She took a seat across from him, completely intending to continue her game, but found herself with a spoon pointed at her instead.
"Why are you wearing that?'
She brought her shoulders up, tucked her chin down, and gave him a seductive smile. "Why? Do you like it?"
He looked at her for a moment then barked out a laugh before he said, "Do you just go through people's things the first day you've met them?"
"Oh, but I haven't met Kurt yet." She brought the coffee up to her nose and smiled as she savored the aroma before she took a sip, "But, from what I've seen, I'm sure he won't mind me borrowing his shirt."
"What? That's not-"
Oh. Right. She thought she was in Kurt's room.
He jabbed the spoon at her confused face. "You're right. He totally won't mind at all. You're just his type."
"Too bad he's off being a sports star this summer. I would have loved to meet him."
The spoon resumed its original job. "Uh huh. Sports. Kurt. Right."
"I saw the letterman jacket and football jersey in his closet. I bet he looks handsome in them." She lifted the shirt around her nose and inhaled deeply, "And I bet he smells wonderful too, just like his shirt."
She smiled into the shirt when he went into a coughing fit. This was just too easy.
"You still haven't answered my question: Why are you wearing that?" He asked after he recovered.
All of a sudden, she was very interested in her coffee. "I, uh, wanted something comfortable to sleep in."
"So," He scratched his head, "You only packed uncomfortable clothes on this trip?"
"No. I just didn't have anything to wear."
"You didn't pack anything to wear to sleep in that giant suitcase?"
She drank from her mug, then again, and then three more times before Finn lost his patience.
"Well?"
"No, that suitcase contains no clothing."
"What do you have in that suitcase? And where are your clothes if they aren't in there?"
"The airline lost my other suitcase that had my clothes in it."
"That sucks." He paused for a moment, "Sorry."
She looked up and smiled softly. "There's no need for you to apologize. It's not as if you were the one who lost it."
"I know. I just feel, uh, bad for you."
"Oh. Your sympathy is greatly appreciated. Thankfully, the airline found the bag and will pay to have it delivered here in a few days."
Finn nodded. "That's cool. So what's in the suitcase you have?"
"Shoes."
"Shoes." He parroted.
"Yes, shoes."
"Shoes?"
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, the things you wear on your feet."
"I know that. Why do you have an entire suitcase full of shoes?"
"Properly packed footwear requires a great deal of space."
"Properly packed? You couldn't just throw them in?"
She looked at him like he was crazy. "And risk damaging my shoes? Of course not, they're very valuable."
He shook his head slowly. "Wait. What kind of shoes do you have in there?"
"They're mostly Louboutins," She looked down and examined her nails for a moment, "A few Choos and Blahniks here and there as well."
He blinked a few times. "I have no idea what you just said."
She rolled her eyes. "They're shoe designers."
He blinked a few more times. "Uh, what kind of shoes are they?"
"Mostly high heels, but I do have a few pairs of flats."
"So you didn't pack work boots?"
She narrowed her eyes. "Why would I need work boots?"
"Because you're going to be working at an auto repair shop?"
She groaned into her coffee mug.
He polished off his cereal. "How long is it going to take you to get ready? We're going to have to swing by a shop to get you some boots now."
She shrugged. "About two hours."
His eyebrows shot up. "Two hours?" His right hand sliced through the air in front of him before it pointed at her, "No way. You have fifteen minutes."
"I need more time than that to get ready."
He pointed at her. "You'd have more time if you didn't get up so late."
"8:30 is not late. It's practically the crack of dawn!"
He threw his hands up. "Whatever." He pointed at her again, "You still only have fifteen minutes."
She pursed her lips and then cracked a smile. "You can't leave without me, an hour and a half."
His eyes shot open. "30 minutes, unless you want to be stuck in your room with no cell phone all day."
She tapped her lips with her left index finger a few times before responding. "Now what would your mom say if she found out you didn't give me enough time to get ready? An hour and a half, no less."
He sneered. "The same thing she'd say if she found out you woke up late and made us two hours late for work. Forty-five minutes, no more."
"I need at least an hour."
They stared at each other for a few long moments.
"Fine, an hour and no more."
Rachel chugged the rest of her coffee and smiled brightly at Finn before she ran back upstairs to her room.
Truth be told, she didn't actually need two hours to get ready. She was well practiced at quickly changing and applying makeup from her time in musical theatre. It was her hair that took up the majority of the time when she was getting ready and it wasn't as if she needed to be at her best in this town. But, there was no need for the Neanderthal to know that. What she really wanted the extra time for was to hunt for one of her most valued possessions.
The combination of a lack of sleep and sleeping pills had forced her to dump out her carry-on bag and purse out onto the desk to find her iPhone charger. During that process she had lost a small, white - well, it used to be white, it was kind of grayish now - monkey that never left her side from the moment she got it. Not that she or her daddies could remember that moment. They always said it just appeared one day and she had carried it with her every day until she was almost a teenager. It still came with her on important outings and this trip definitely counted as important.
In any case, why it was important to her didn't matter because, honestly, she couldn't quite put her finger on it. What was important at that moment was finding it, even if it meant crawling around on her hands and knees.
"Ah ha!" She finally spotted the monkey hiding under the bed next to a box.
With a little wriggling she was able to reach the monkey, but not before partially knocking the cover off the box. Rachel had never been one to deny her curiosity, so after a slight moment of hesitation she snatched the box out from under the bed as well.
The monkey was safely tucked under her left arm as she opened the box which revealed a small stack of CDs in jewel cases. Shuffling through the CDs told her that they were all from 2010-2012 or at least they were labeled as if they were. Too bad she hadn't brought her laptop so she couldn't continue her investigation into Kurt's life at this moment. She'd have to find a computer or laptop to borrow so she could find out what was on the CDs.
As she stepped into the bathroom to finally start getting ready for the day, Rachel thought that the Neanderthal wouldn't even know what a computer was, right as Finn was sitting in the basement in front of two of the MacBook Pros he owned.
He glanced at the laptop to his left and tapped a few keys before returning his attention to the laptop on his right. He knew it was an awful idea for him to be playing on two accounts while he was so wound up from his chat with the cheerleader but he had nothing better to do. It was a good thing he had limited himself to small stakes limit games as he watched himself lose yet another hand of poker. A glance at the clock told him that she only had 15 minutes left before she had to be ready and he didn't really feel like losing any more money so he closed both of his laptops and headed back upstairs to wait.
Surprisingly, she came down with five minutes to spare. Also surprising was the fact that she had a different outfit on from what she had the day before.
"What's with the jeans? I thought you lost all your clothing?"
"I have an extra set for emergencies in my carry-on bag." She said absently as she drank another cup of coffee.
"So wait, you used an entire bag just for one set of clothes?'
"Of course not, I needed room for my health and beauty products."
He chuckled. "Of course you did. Let's go get you some new shoes."
Unsurprisingly, she never stopped complaining about the unfashionable boots she had to buy at the shoe store. Well, the boots that Finn had bought her since apparently, she had no way to buy anything. They finally made it to the shop an hour and a half later than he usually arrived.
He had a pile of work over from yesterday and plenty of things to do today, first things first though. He poked his head into the office.
"Hey dad, we're here. What'd you want her to do?"
Burt looked up from his paperwork.
"Nice try Finn," Burt chuckled, "My body may not work so well anymore, but my brain works just fine. So have fun spending the day with her."
Finn shrugged. "It was worth a shot."
He walked back out into the work area and found her stomping around in her new boots. He cracked a smile since she looked pretty cute as she wriggled her feet around while she walked, trying to get used to the new boots.
"Having fun?"
She stopped her stomping and gave him a glare that wasn't quite as cute.
"I still don't see why I need them. I would have been fine in my heels."
He waved his arms around. "The shop is a dangerous place. You can't be running around in heels, something might crush your foot and then we'd have to cut it off." He grinned, "On second thought, you're right; you definitely would be fine in your heels."
She narrowed her eyes. "I'm surprised you have the wit to even make a joke like that."
"Huh? What does wit mean?" He said with a cocked head and a confused expression.
"Hilarious," she said with rolling eyes.
He cracked a crooked grin that she found entirely awkward looking.
"Thanks, I'll be here all week." He looked her over before asking, "You mind getting those clothes dirty?"
She looked outraged. "Of course I mind! I'm wearing a Dolce & Gabbana shirt! And these are Parasuco jeans! I can't get these dirty!"
He gave her a funny look. "They're jeans. They're supposed to get dirty."
She glared back. "I'm not getting my jeans dirty."
"Fine, come with me."
He led her over to an old cabinet and gave her a spare set of coveralls meant for Kurt that she looked over.
"Kurt must have looked so cute in this when he was a boy." She said with a big grin.
He glanced over at her. "Yea, sure when he was a boy."
She looked over the coveralls again. "What do you want me to do with this?"
"Uh, wear it? You said you didn't want to get your clothes dirty and I'm pretty sure that'll fit you."
She waved a hand in front the uniform. "Look at how ugly it is! I can't wear it!"
He exhaled loudly. "Look, I don't like it and you don't like it, but you have to work here and if you do work here, your clothes will get dirty. So, you can either wear them or not wear them. It's up to you."
They glared at each other for a few seconds before he pointed her towards the restroom.
"The restroom is over there. You can put them on in there, if you don't feel like doing it here."
She glared at him for a few more moments before marching off to the restroom. She came back with the coveralls on with the sleeves and legs rolled up as he was pulling tools out of a tool chest he needed for his first job.
"Now what?" She said with her arms crossed.
"I'm going to assume you don't know anything about fixing cars." He pulled out a few more tools and held them up, "So, how well do you know your tools?"
She shrugged and said, "I know the difference between a hammer and a screwdriver?"
He let out a loud breath, named the tools he had already pulled out and named the tools as he pulled them out.
After the fifth time she only nodded at the name of a tool he had to ask, "Do you need me to write this stuff down?"
She looked affronted. "My memory is flawless, whether the information is written or spoken."
He shrugged. "If you say so," He held up a tool and pointed at the top, "This is a socket wrench. The number on the side of the attachment here is the size of the socket."
He went on for a few more minutes and when he finished, he let out another deep breath.
"So, I figure that the easiest thing for the both of us would be for you to hand me the tools when I need them and then you can help me clean up when the day is over."
She looked up at him, surprised. "That is… surprisingly reasonable."
He looked down and met her eyes. "What'd you think I was going to do? Make your scrub toilets or something?"
She looked back down at the tools. "I thought you would have given me some awful job to do after our less than amicable interactions."
He nudged her arm with his elbow. "Don't worry, that's coming next week after we start being nice to each other." She rolled her eyes at him, "Now come on, we've got some work to do."
Incredibly, the morning passed by without a hitch. He would have bet everything he owned on the fact that she would have bitched about something, anything, while he worked, but she handed him the tools without a word of complaint. He even found that he could get through jobs faster now that he didn't have to pull himself out from underneath the cars to grab a tool he had forgot.
Of course, that wasn't to say that things were perfect. Apparently, her mouth didn't have an off switch and she babbled about things Finn had never even heard of the entire morning. She'd start off about the deplorable state of some poor animals then bounce over to the terrible music that posed as pop, then jump to something about fancy clothing, and so on and so on. She would not shut up, even when he asked for another tool, she just talked right over him and handed him the right one. It was as if her mouth ran wild and her brain had no control over it.
"What they did to Rent when they adapted it for film was a travesty. The sheer number of songs they had to-"
"Yo, Hudson, where were you last night?"
Finn pulled himself out from under the car he was working on and looked up to see Puck entering the work area, probably for their daily lunch.
"Sorry man. Something came up and I forgot about it."
Rachel shot Puck an indignant look. "As I was saying, the number of songs they had to cut-"
The look was ignored. "Something came up? The fuck?"
She tried again with a louder voice. "Excuse me, I was talk-"
So were her words. "You haven't seen these people in a year and you can't drag your ass to the bar to see them?" He looked over at Rachel sitting on a stool glaring at him, "Who's the angry babe?"
"I'm Rach-"
"That's the something."
Puck looked back down at Finn. "Oh shit. Are you finally back in the game?"
Rachel glared at Finn and raised her voice even more. "Excuse me, I have a name and it is definitely not 'something.'"
Puck shot Finn a grin. "You always did have a thing for the bossy ones."
Finn pointed his wrench at Rachel. "Puck, this is Rachel." The wrench was pointed at Puck, "Rachel, meet Puck."
Rachel looked at Puck curiously. "What's your real name?"
"Why the hell don't you think Puck is my real name?"
"No mother would give her child such a moronic name. While I recognize the Shakespearean connection, I highly doubt any mother would want her son to have the qualities that his character portrays."
Puck shot Finn another grin. "Damn, bossy and bitchy. She's a tiny, brunette version of Quinn. No wonder you like her."
Finn stood up. "Uh, definitely don't like her and I'm stuck with her while she stays at my place."
Rachel placed her fists on her hips as her eyes darted between the two. "You two Neanderthals do realize that I am standing right here and can hear everything you say, right? And I definitely don't like you either."
"Nope, our small Neanderthal brains didn't realize that." Her eyes narrowed at Finn as he grinned at her, "Sorry, there's that wit again."
"Hey asshole," Puck punched Finn in the arm, "Stop flirting with the babe so we can go get lunch."
"Yea, yea. Let's go." He turned to look at Rachel, "Is deli food okay?"
Rachel nodded and Finn's long strides led the way to the deli as the other two trailed behind him.
"So, what is your name?"
"Puck."
"What's your real name?"
"Why the fuck do you what to know?"
"I refuse to refer to you using that terrible nickname when I know you have a real name."
"Bite me midget."
Small, furious footsteps made their way up to the right of Finn. "Is your friend always so rude?"
"Yea, pretty much. You get used to it though."
Her face scrunched up. "I'd be horrified if I ever spent enough time here to become accustomed to his rudeness."
"Yea, hopefully you're gone way before that can happen."
"I hope so too."
Finn never really liked the silences that happened during conversations, probably because his friends always filled them, but for some reason he felt relief when their conversation hit a lull. Listening to her talk took way more energy than Finn wanted to use. Sadly, it didn't last very long.
"What's his real name?"
"Don't fucking tell her Hudson!"
He stared at her for a moment. "You're never going to call him 'Puck' are you? And you're going to keep asking for his real name aren't you?"
"I can be quite stubborn."
They took a few more steps side by side.
"His name is Noah."
Rachel turned her head to look at Noah. "You see how easy that was Noah? And Noah is a perfectly acceptable name. I don't know why you insist on calling yourself 'Puck.'"
"You're a fucking pussy Hudson."
"Whatever. I don't want to hear her complain about you all day long like she does everything else."
"I don't complain about everything!"
"You could've fooled me this morning."
A glare was shot at Finn. "I was just critiquing certain things that I find problematic with popular culture."
"You say critique and I say complain."
Rachel whipped her head forward and stormed away.
After a few moments, Finn shook his head and called out, "Hey, you just walked past the deli!"
Rachel pulled up and turned around to find Finn and Noah chuckling at her. Well, Finn was chuckling and Noah was laughing much too hard for such a simple mistake.
"What is so funny to you two Neanderthals?"
Noah quickly stopped laughing and almost looked sorry but Finn continued to chuckle.
"What can I say? You're a funny girl."
As Finn held open the door to the deli for the other two, he was amazed that the only response she had to his last comment was the slightly stunned expression on her face because from what he had seen in the short time he had spent with her he didn't think there was anything that could get her to shut up. Of course, once she heard what he and Puck ordered, the talking started right back up. This time it was about the horrors of the meat industry and how much healthier a vegan or vegetarian diet would be for the both of them. Puck got her to shut up when he shoved his roast beef sandwich in her face.
At least the chick at the deli still gave him an extra pickle and bag of chips.
They made their way back to the shop and took seats at the table out front. Thankfully, Rachel and Puck spent the time sniping at each other while they ate, so Finn could zone out and unwind a bit before he had to hit the work he planned to do in the afternoon. Of course, nice things like that never lasted too long for Finn.
"Finn, Noah asked you a question."
He turned to look at Rachel sitting beside him. "Huh?"
She rolled her eyes at him and loudly and slowly said, "Noah," she pointed at the person across from them, "asked you," she pointed at him and drew a question sign in the air, "a question."
"I'm not deaf." A bite of his Reuben was taken, chewed, and swallowed, "I heard you the first time."
"Well, apparently you didn't hear him the first three times he asked you."
"Whatever," He turned his head to look at Puck, "What'd you wanna know?"
"Fuck that other question. Right now, I wanna know when you turned into a fucking douche bag."
"It looked like you two were having fun with each other so I was minding my own business. Plus, it was nice to just zone out."
"Hey Finnessa, is it that time of month for you again? And Puckzilla was definitely not having fun listening to her bitch about shit."
"Well-"
"Wait, did he actually refer to himself as 'Puckzilla.'" Rachel burst out laughing when Finn nodded and when she recovered, "That name is even more moronic than Puck. I can't believe he uses that at his age."
"Hey, the ladies love Puckzilla."
Rachel gave him a skeptical look. "I'm sure they do. And what exactly is it that you do? It's obvious with your clothing you're wearing don't have a normal job."
Puck plastered on a self-satisfied grin. "I'm a bartender."
"Figures I'd be stuck with a mechanic and a bartender."
"Figures I'd be stuck with a bitch." Puck shot back.
Finn quickly ate the rest of his food as he could see where this was going to lead and he'd had enough of it.
"Figures I'd be-" Rachel started to respond.
But Finn cut her off. "Alright, enough. Time to go back to work."
"Whoa, there's no way you took an hour for lunch."
"Yea, and there's no way I'm going to spend the next 20 minutes listening to you two bitch at each other like 12 year-olds." He looked over at Rachel as he stood up, "You have the next 20 minutes off to finish your lunch and do whatever you want. I'll see you back inside."
"Wait! You're just going to leave me alone with this imbecile?"
"Uh, yep. Sure am." He said as he walked away.
Exactly 20 minutes later Rachel strode into the work area with her head buried in her iPhone texting away. Her focus wasn't broken until she slammed into something extremely sturdy causing her phone to hit her square in the face.
She looked up while rubbing her nose to find Finn standing in front of her.
"No cell phones on the floor. Especially if you can't pay attention to the crap going on around you."
"But this is my only lifeline to the outside world! You can't take it away from me!"
"I'm not taking it away from you and I think you can live without it for a third of the day. Plus, like I keep telling you the shop is a pretty dangerous place so you need to be paying attention to what you're doing."
"Paying attention? I'm handing you tools, there's nothing dangerous about that. So, how much attention can I possibly need to do that?"
"Whatever. Just don't use your cell phone on the floor."
As Finn made his way under the next car, Rachel handed him the tool he requested and pulled out her phone to resume her conversation with a few cast mates, after all she had to be kept in the loop as to the gossip making its way around the production. As the afternoon went along, she kept handing Finn the required tools and spoke about whatever was on her mind as she continued to text on her phone. She wasn't surprised to find that the Neanderthal didn't realize she was still using her phone because her multitasking skills were excellent.
After a few hours, her bladder began to urgently signal her brain requesting relief. So, she told Finn where she was going and headed towards the restroom, with her head still buried in her phone. She automatically retraced the route she took in the morning when she used the restroom as if it was just another piece of choreography she needed to run through for a production, until her foot was caught on something that she knew wasn't there this morning.
Her attention was pulled away from her phone as glanced down at her foot to see it caught on a hose of some sort before it gave way. She stumbled to her right and shrieked as she tripped over the metal base of the hydraulic lift in the shop causing her to fall face first towards the ground. Luckily, she caught herself with her hands before her face could do it. Of course, she had to drop her phone to catch herself and as she looked around for it, that was when she heard a strange hissing sound right before heavy, hurried footfalls came rushing towards her.
A pair of strong hands wrapped themselves around her waist and pulled her into a roll towards her right. She noticed that it was Finn who had pulled her away from her previous position and was about to give him an earful regarding this rough treatment until she noticed the car that was on the lift rapidly falling right past their heads as they rolled away from underneath it. It wasn't until she finally came to a stop on top of him that she also noticed they had been rolling around in some sort of disgusting liquid which had covered their clothing and, even worse, was in her hair. She stared at her fingers as she rubbed some of the liquid in-between them and found it was-
"What the fuck were you doing?" Finn yelled from his position underneath her, "Didn't you see the fucking sign I put up telling you not to walk that way?"
She looked down and mumbled, "I was uh, looking at my phone…"
"Even though I just told you not to use it?"
She continued to mumble. "I didn't think it would matter."
"Of course, because you know exactly what goes on in a place like this. Instead of, I don't know, paying attention to the person who actually works here!"
Tears pricked at her eyes as she looked up at him. Real tears, she was much too emotional right now to fake them.
"I'm sorry."
She saw the anger melt off his face as tears began to fall before she closed her eyes and let out a few sobs. She heard him sigh and gently pull her closer into a hug.
"You okay?" He said into her ear.
She replied after a few moments. "I'm fine, just a little shocked. Are you okay?"
He let out a laugh. "Yea, I'm-"
"Hey, what the hell happened? Are you two hurt? Do I need to call 911?"
Rachel opened her eyes and saw Burt rushing over with a concerned look on his face as he stared at them lying on the ground.
"No, we're fine dad. Just a little accident."
"Sure, little."His eyes darted around before returning to them, "So what happened?"
Rachel cut Finn off before he could reply.
"This was entirely my fault. I wasn't paying attention to there I was going and tripped over a hose. Finn rescued me from being crushed by that car."
"Okay, let's get you cleaned up as best we can here then you can head on home. Finn and I will clean up this mess."
She made her way to her feet and said, "No, I cannot possibly allow you two clean up my mess without me. Just tell me what needs to be done and I'll help you."
Finn only shrugged when Burt looked towards him.
"Okay, first things first, let's get you two out of those coveralls ASAP. Don't want that stuff soaking through to your clothes underneath."
Rachel came back out onto the floor after wrapping her hair in a towel and carefully changing into a fresh pair of coveralls, making sure not to get any of the liquid on her clothes, but even with her best efforts her jeans now sported multiple stains from the liquid. She saw that Finn and Burt had already begun the cleanup process and hurried over to help them. Finn forced Burt to leave early for some crazy reason and it took them a few hours to finish what they could do that day and she left the shop with Finn, an aching back, and sore shoulders. Her phone was obviously ruined but she would worry about that later. Right now, all she wanted was to get back to the house and soak her aching muscles in the bathtub.
And the bathtub was exactly where she was 45 minutes later.
Meanwhile, Finn needed to blow off some steam so he went for a run as soon as he got home. When that didn't do anything to calm him down, he spent an hour sitting on the couch shooting zombies which did the trick. He checked the clock and noticed it already pretty late since they had to stay behind so long to finish the cleanup. It was only the first full day that the damn cheerleader had been staying with them and she'd already royally screwed up. There was no telling what else she could mess up if she stayed here for any real length of time.
He thought about ways to get rid of her as soon as possible as he made his way up to the second floor bathroom. He figured after a day like today he deserved to be able to sit in the tub for a little bit, instead of using the shower in the basement that made him bend over just to rinse his hair. His mind wandered away from crazy plans to the time right after the incident and focused on the moment when it looked like she broke down under his barrage of words. It was as if for that moment he saw who she actually was. From what he had seen of her, he never would have guessed she would break down and cry during that. She actually looked and behaved as if she was sorry for what she had did. Maybe he had been too rough, he should probably apologize to her in the morning.
It didn't even occur to Finn that someone might be in the bathroom, even though the door was closed since it was so late, so when he threw open the door his jaw dropped when he saw Rachel sitting in the bathtub covered only in soapsuds.
"Can I help you?" She said with an arched eyebrow.
"Uh, want to use the tub." He said after he pulled his jaw up.
"Well, as you can see, it's currently in use." She grinned, "Unless that is, you want to join me?" His jaw dropped again, "I mean, it's the least I could do since you saved my life today."
"Uh, no I'm good. I think I'll just wait until you're finished." He said after he pulled his jaw up again.
He swallowed and couldn't tear his eyes away from the rising soap as she slowly sat up.
"Oh, well then I shall finish as fast as I can. I wouldn't want to keep my hero waiting for too long."
"Mounds good."
She arched her eyebrow again and grinned. "Pardon?"
"Mounds- I mean, sounds good." Finn said before he turned around and quickly made his way out of the bathroom and down to the basement.
Rachel Berry was going to be the death of him.
A/N2: Once again, there will be a longish delay for the next chapter since I'm on vacation for a week and a half. I might be able to write a little, but I doubt it. Sorry about that folks.
On that note, I'm now posting progress updates on my profile page. You can check that out if you've run out of patience with me.
Also, thanks to a certain Fildo for constantly nagging me about writing.
If you have the time, please leave a review.