I apologize to those of you that I told this chapter would have drugged up/loopy Cedes in it... As it turns out, that was gonna make the chapter too long, so that'll be next chapter.

Suds and Secrets

On her way to meet up with Sam for a bit of food, Mercedes called Jacob to let him know that she had no intention of returning for the rest of her shift and it didn't hurt her feelings one bit. "I'm hurt and I'm not coming back, not today, at least." She told him.

"Well, get better," he said.

"You too!" She replied and hung up on him. He probably was going to harp on her commnet for the rest of the day and she hoped that he gave himself hives wondering what she meant by telling him to get better. Let him chew on that – allowing himself to navigate within the domain of MY business! He better do better.

Almost as soon as she got off the the phone and was getting into her car, she got a call from Quinn. "Hey, Q!" She cheered and threw her purse into the passenger's seat. "I can guess what you're calling about," she sang, with a hint of 'Don't even go there' in her voice.

"I know what Puck did to you today and trust me, he's going to have hell to pay when I see him," Quinn promised.

"I mean, who does he think he is. Now, Quinn, you love a love you like a sister, but I don't know your man like that for him to A. be up in my business and B. to SPREAD my business. Did he think this was funny?" Mercedes ranted, starting the car up.

"That's just it. More often than not, that idiot doesn't think. He's got it coming to him for this one, though. He was already in the doghouse. He's about to be underneath it." Quinn sighed, bit her lip and hesitantly asked, "So, are you okay?"

Mercedes thought about the question for a moment. Quinn was her sister. It had been years, but ever since they lived together in high school, Mercedes had Quinn had always retained the feeling of sisterhood and love that grew between them. So, Mercedes honestly answered, "No. I'm in a lot of pain and I can barely walk. I feel like something beat the living hell out of me. Is that normal?"

Quinn sighed as Mercedes indirectly confirmed her actions with Sam and told her, "It's different for different people. For me, my vagina hurt for a day or so and my thighs were sore a couple of days. But, it wasn't obvious. No one could tell. I did my kicks, splits and flips, up until it was found that that I was pregnant." They both were quiet.

"Well, Sam's going to get me something to soak in, to help with the soreness. Hopefully, it will make everything go away. Today has been hell and I hate that my first time yielded this mess."

Quinn said, "My first time was enough to hate, in and of itself. I was pressured and I was guilty. I was cheating and I was sinning, so literally the entire time, along with how uncomfortable it was, I was distracted from even the pleasant parts of it, by regret."

Mercedes told her, "I was mostly distracted by physical pain."

"Well, Sam is pretty big," Quinn commented, then quickly said, "Puck went through this weird phase of pantsing people at random times. One random time, while Sam was in a pair of sweat shorts, commando..." Quinn laughed and shook her head, "So, anyway – with him being sizeable and you being new, I'm not surprised that it would hurt, even if he was moving slowly and carefully."

Mercedes smiled to herself and said, "After the initial pain of it, there were more good things than bad. I'm kinda conflicted, Quinn. I think that I actually like Sam, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do with a guy."

"Do what feels right. I mean, the worse that could happen is you could be wrong. But, at least if you're wrong, you don't end up wondering why the hell you stayed with Noah Puckerman," Quinn said, angrily.

"You love Puck," Mercedes said.

"Against my better judgment," Quinn laughed. "You'll understand when you fall in love. You can love and hate the same person, at the same time, sometimes," Quinn said.

"Uh, yeah – because I definitely have 'falling in love' on my to-do list," Mercedes said, and pulled into a parking spot. She climbed out of her car and saw Sam and immediately forgot what she was saying. Her heart fluttered in her chest, something fluttered in her stomach and her knees sort of gave out, for a moment. Fortunately, she caught herself on the car. Then she broke into Quinn's speech about love finding you or something else she hadn't actually been listening to and told her, "Gotta go, Quinn. Love ya." She hung up and walked over to meet up with Sam.

Sam and Mercedes ended up back at Mercedes' apartment, after they had lunch. He felt horrible when he saw how hurt she appeared to be, but she kept assuring him that she would be fine. Lunch had gone pretty well. When she approached, the first thing she said was, "I'm sorry that I didn't get back to you when you texted me. I was going to do it after I got ready for work, but I ended up taking longer to do EVERYTHING than usual today, and by the time I got to work, I put my phone in my purse."

"I understand," he told her. "Next time, hopefully, you'll have a chance to respond," he said, smiling. They sat, ate, talked, then she headed home and he followed, having already gotten her supplies that he promised her.

She opened her cabinet in the bathroom to see if she had anything other than the pills she took earlier, as Sam drew some bath water for her. He heard her gasp and he looked up at her as she snatched a bottle of prescription pills from behind the mirror. "I still have muscle relaxers from when I fell and hurt my wrist a while back!"

Sam got up as she dropped a couple of them into her palm and put the bottle down. When she reached for the glass that she generally used to rince her mouth in the morning, Sam examined the bottle. "Are these safe? They're expired."

"Expired?" She repeated. "Safe? Sam, pills – not milk. I'm taking two and I should be fine by tomorrow." She poured herself a cup of water.

Sam wasn't done. "You need two? You were a lightweight with alcohol. Do you have a high tolerance for medicine?"

"No... nor do I have a high threshold for pain. So, two it is," she said and threw the pills in her mouth and drank the water. Sam folded his arms, not that happy about her taking possible bad medication.

"Is there anything that you need me to get?" he asked.

"If you don't mind, there's a kimono in my third top drawer," she said, with a smile as she began to undress for her bath. Sam watched her, for a moment, until she looked at him and shyly smiled. "What?"

"You're just... really beautiful," he admitted, then set off to find her robe for her. When he went into the drawer, he saw it on top and picked it up. With it came a few other articles of clothes and he dropped several pairs of panties on her carpet. He sighed and retrieved them. When he was about to replace them, he saw a framed contract for a record deal. He squinted at it and placed the panties aside to see it better. It was from the year that Mercedes graduated. "Hmm," he said and left the room. "Hey, I accidentally spilled some of your panties and I saw that you were signed to a label?" He asked, with a wide smile.

Her entire countenance fell. She was already in the tub, and with all of the bubbles, he couldn't really see her body, but she looked like she tensed up when he mentioned it. "Uh, yeah – I had a short deal with a company as a backup singer. It's nothing to write home about. I did it for a spell while I was in California, after graduation. It didn't work out. I got a job until I could save up enough to move back home and here I am." She shrugged.

"Why didn't it work out?" He wondered as he sat down on the fluffy, purple covered toilet seat. "I mean, your voice is fantastic, so it couldn't have been a lack of talent. Were there simply few opportunities?"

"Well, I was singing back up, so much of the time, people weren't checking for me, anyway, but then there's also that I was in a group in which the front woman was designed to look like "the next Beyonce," even thought to me, she was like Lauren London with blond hair, and the other two backup singers looked like Tika Sumpter and Kelly Rowland."

"Um... I know who Beyonce is," he said.

"Basically, all the rest of the group were these thin, shapely, really hot ladies and I was... me." She shrugged her shoulders and said, "I had never been so self-conscious about the way that I looked before. They told me all the time that I was beautiful and just as hot and I'd thought that at first, but the fans could be harsh. We weren't even famous! When we did photo shoots and appearances, our promoters always tried to get me to wear something that covered up more of me than the others or put me in the back and cover me up with the other three. I got sick of it and I left... then I wasn't able to get my own footing in the industry. I thought that I was doing something good for myself by walking away, but it was a mistake and I blew my dream. What was worse – I actually came back here." She rested her head against the back of the tub and asked, "Can you grab me something to drink from the fridge?" He heard tears in her voice and he nodded and went.

Mercedes had left after a big argument with management and producers. She had just as much talent as the other ladies (more, if she would have been honest), but because she didn't look a certain way, she had to be thrown in the back and cast aside, at every turn? The other background singers begged her not to do this, assuring her that if she just stuck it out and paid her dues that she would get her props, eventually. "I'll get my props and pay my dues somewhere else," she said, before storming out, sealing her fate.

When he came back, toting a bottle of V8, she frowned, but accepted it. She made the mistake of going grocery shopping with her mother a few days ago and was forced to come home with an abundance of things that she would never purchase nor masticate on her own. However, seeing as how her mother bought so much stuff, she didn't feel right not consuming it. "Thanks," she said and took a sip with a grimace. He watched her confused, "My mom says that I'm not healthy enough, so she filled up my kitchen with a bunch of things that she found acceptable." He smiled and resumed his seat on the toilet.

"I think that I'll hang around a while, in case you need a gofer or in case your bad machine causes a not good reaction," Sam said.

"It's just medicine. I'm sure it's fine."

"It has to have an expiration date for a reason," he said.

"I guess so, but taking expired medicine never hurt me before," she said, "I just forgot that I had those. Are you sure that you want to be a gofer? That job sucks. I was one for over a year before I got back to Lima. Well, they called it personal assistant, but it was some gofer ass shit," she said, a little bit breathily. Sam smirked. The medicine must have been kicking in on her.

"You were a personal assistant? Anybody famous?" He asked.

"Yeah – well... to you. This guy named Jeremiah Stapp," she said.

Sam's eyes widened. "Jeremiah Stapp? THE Jeremiah Stapp, the youngest comic book creator currently at Marvel?" He asked.

"Yep. After I left the group, Treasure, I was doing small singing gigs here and there at nightclubs and stuff. He came in with some other guys from Marvel and his current assistant and him had a big ass argument and she ran off. I jumped in and asked if he needed to fill the position. That's how I know about all this nerd stuff. I gotta admit, at first, I'd sideeye the hell out of him, but we ended up having all these sci-fi and cartoon marathons and stuff, and I ended up as big a nerd as him!" She laughed and said, "You two would get along really great. Maybe one day, I can introduce you."

"Are you kidding me, right now? You're still in communication with him?" He asked.

"Well, we follow each other on Twitter. I keep up with his career and stuff and sometimes, he sends me direct messages to complain about something or thank me on something. I get retweeted by him a lot," she said.

"How could you not tell me that you know a successful comic book creator?" He wondered.

"That didn't come up, like at all," she said. "Anyway, I try not to talk about that too much, because I don't want all those folks at the shop trying to get me to introduce them to people or something. I still have my old pass that I used to get in and out of Marvel," she said, making Sam wave his hands all around and flail a bit. "I'll show it to you, later."

"Thank you! That's really cool of you. I've been wanting to work for Marvel for years!"

"You could totally make it. Your work is far better than any of Jeremiah's," she commented. "But, what other work do you do? You said you had to 'go to work,' last night, and I guess it just occurred to me that you can't possibly make all your money by selling your comics in the shop."

"Oh... I ... work at a bar," he said and nodded his head.

"Really? You serve drinks?" She ask.

"No. Actually, I dance. Um, I strip," he said, making the decision to just say it. She burst out laughing. "Why is that funny?"

"Because you're a virgin, comic book nerd boy who strips!" He didn't know how to feel about her reaction. It might have been because she was drugged up, but she really seemed giddy about it, when most women, especially women like her who easily fell into the "good girl" category looked down on him for it and generally ran in the other direction. "Do you dress like a storm trooper and take off your uniform?"

"No... but that sounds very interesting," he told her with a smile.

Her face straightened out and her eyes widened. "Sam-Monkey!" He was alarmed by the way that she sat up and looked at him, "You TOTALLY have to do that for me, one day!" She said, then fell back laughing and began splashing around, damned near drowning herself before he rushed to rescue her. It only seemed to make her laugh more and she added, "And I want you to dance to Space Jam, by the Quad City DJ's!"

Sam chuckled and helped her settle in the tub again.

He watched her turn into a medicated mess. He'd been thinking about her confession about her failed dream and it hurt his feelings, a bit. When he wondered why she had lost her confidence, she blamed her breakup with her ex. Maybe that had been the beginning of it, but he believed that the real reason she had shrank so much in her boldness was because of what happened in L.A. It made sense now. It wasn't easy to be confident after a small failure, but to feel like you screwed up your chances at living out your dreams? He smiled at her as she ran her little feet up and down the shower wall.

By the time he helped her get dry and into her kimono, her hair was up in the clip still, but wet. He dried her hair for her and brushed it down, over her shoulders, while they both watched the mirror... though she watched it with heavy eyelids. "It... does it really not bother you that I'm a stripper?" He asked. "Usually, it bothers women."

"It's just a job. Santana did it through college and it never affected her relationship with Brittany, so I just assume it's nothing to worry about... but you bringing it back up makes me worry, though," she said, her eyes hardly able to remain open.

"You have nothing to worry about, Mermaid. I won't lie and tell you that I've been totally innocent on the job, but I'll tell you that right now, I wouldn't do anything that would hurt you."

She turned around and looked at him, "You've messed around with the clients?"

"They aren't clients, they're patrons and sometimes I can get more cash in the VIP rooms, if I'm extra friendly to them. But, I'm telling you right now that nothing like that is happening while we're..." he stared at her. She could hardly focus and he didn't even know if she would remember this tomorrow. "How about we discuss this when you're clear headed, k?" She nodded and let him help her to her bedroom.

It was nice to lie down with her again, just holding her, but he was stressed out. He didn't know how his confession might affect them tomorrow. He didn't want her to turn on him, but it was never meant to be a secret... not with anyone he was involved with, and even though they still weren't labeling anything, they were definitely involved.