So, this chapter is shorter but the next one will be long, I promise! Thank you again for reviews :)

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Jesse St James smiles, that smile, and stands up, "you look shocked to see me Rachel. I've only been on tour for the past few months." He takes a step toward her, "I've missed you."

"As have I," she says carefully, unable to look at him. This is the man who has to ability to make her do anything that he wants with just a single word. She used to be so hopelessly in love with him that she'd jump off of a bridge if he'd asked her to and maybe there's still a little part of her still in love with the curly haired star. "You should have called," she tries to sound casual, ignoring the wild beating of her excited heart, "I'm quite shocked to see you back."

His eyes stare at the jersey for longer that she likes but he shakes his head lightly and forces out a bright smile, true to his nature. "I wanted to surprise you," he produces something from behind him and she gasps at the small bundle of flowers.

Nearing him, she beams, "Jesse, they're wonderful. Thank you!"

"It's my pleasure," he says smugly, "with all the success of my original play – the St James dilemma – I've had more money to spend on my heart's desires."

She nods enthusiastically, "I've read the reviews. They're wonderful! I must see the show before it closes."

"You will?" he asks eagerly.

"Oh yes!"

She doesn't realize that she sounds like an obedient child, agreeing with his every word as if she doesn't have a choice. Maybe she doesn't with Jesse – maybe she never will. Holding the pink roses in her hand, she smiles to herself. It's not like every girl receives flowers from Jesse, so that must mean that she's special, right? Rachel becomes excited at the thought, resisting the urge to bounce up and down on the spot, and she instead takes a deep breath.

Jesse is already heading into the kitchen, talking about getting a drink and she quickly follows. As she finds a vase for the flowers, she begins to speak once more, "how long are you planning on staying in town?"

He does have an apartment nearby, but every few months or so he's off touring with his shows, or promoting his solo career. He's just released an album, you see, and he's doing everything in his path to make sure that he makes millions from it, not that he needs to try hard at that. She actually has his album and listens to it more than she'd like to admit to.

"For as long as I need to be," he states, staring at her Jersey again and then raising his eyebrow.

"Oh, this is Finn's," she says, before realizing that he may not know about the whole situation. "He's –"

Rudely, he cuts her off, "your boyfriend, yes." The word boyfriend is uttered with much distain and Rachel's forehead creases quickly, her eyes narrowing.

"Jesse?" she questions, her voice quivering as she says his name.

Her friend spins around to meet her, "what are you thinking Rachel? You're better than Finn Hudson."

Rachel tries to speak, she really does. "I-I.."

"He's the lowest of the low – someone who should never be affiliated with folk such as us. We're good people," he holds her shoulders, staring into her deep brown eyes, "and we stay in our group Rachel. You and me, we belong at the top while people like Finn belong in the dirt. He's a no-good crack head who's going to ruin you." He shakes his head, "no, I won't have it. You need to break up with him before any more damage can be done."

"What do you mean damage?" she frowns, "what makes you think that he's so bad?"

"Are you serious?" he scoffs, "remember when we dated?" Of course! "And we'd discuss the likes of Finn Hudson and his lowlife cronies? We'd laugh at them Rachel, because they'll never have what we have."

She wants to tell him that he's wrong, that Finn isn't that bad, but this is Jesse and she can't do anything but agree with him. "I remember," she whispers, eyes wide.

"Good," he gives a sigh of relief, "so you'll dump him and forget about that man?"

Her mouth drops open in shock. Maybe she could tell him the plan because then he'll understand, he'll see why she can't listen to him for once, yet she knows that it's stupid and risky to do so. It stays between her, Finn and their agents. And Jesse… he can't know, no matter how much her head is telling her to.

Taking a small step back, she begins to shake her head as she can't seem to form words.

A flash of anger sparks across his perfect face, "You won't?"

"I can't," she looks down.

"Is this because of that kiss?"

Her head snaps up and she knows that he's seen the picture, that stupid picture, and she wants nothing more than the hide away from him at that moment. But she doesn't move. "I don't want to break up with him," she confirms, "he's my boyfriend and he's staying as my boyfriend."

Jesse stares blankly, "but I'm your friend. Surely I'm more important that some guy that you've barely known." He frowns, "and my opinion should mean something to you."

"It does," she nods, "and I've considered your opinion, but I don't agree with you. Finn – he's different that we thought and I like him, okay?"

"I don't underst – "

"You don't need to," she snaps, "because you should be happy for me Jesse." Why isn't he glad about this? She's telling him that she's in a good relationship. Surely that should be good news for her friend.

His jaw tenses for a moment before he practically forces himself to relax. "Okay. I won't hunt him down."

Rachel smiles brightly, "that's all I'm asking for." She steps forward to hug her friend, resting her chin on his shoulder while he gently rubs her back. "Thank you."

Between them, his phone begins to ring and they jump apart so that he can answer it. He clears his throat, "I just…need to take this in private." Though a little confused as to why he can't talk in front of her, but nods and allows him to leave the room. As she waits, she toys with the idea of him knowing. If Quinn agrees, then surely it'll be okay.

And it'll be so much easier with Jesse to confide in. He's her best friend after all. With a smile, she finishes with the flowers, spreading them in the vase equally and then placing it on the table as a centerpiece. The woman grins proudly before spinning on her heels and coming face to face with a suddenly tired looking Jesse.

"Are you alright?" she asks, her hands on his chest.

He takes hold of them, rubbing his thumbs over her hands gently, "I have to go, my dear."

She pouts, "can you not stay for a little longer? You've just got back."

"It's important," he tells her, "but I'll be back. Don't worry. And hey, maybe I could meet Finn."

His sudden interest sparks suspicion in her for a moment before she convinces herself that maybe he is just being friendly. "Of course," she says, "I'll call him."

Jesse looks mightily pleased with himself, "fantastic!" He kisses her forehead, "I'll see you later, Rachel." And just like that he's gone. He does that a lot, just leaves when he wants. It takes a lot of convincing on her part for him to stay longer and usually she is unsuccessful.

With a sigh, she decides to go for a long soak in the bath. She needs some time to think.

Before she does, she notices a message on her phone and smiles when she sees that it's from Finn. Just realized that you still have my Jersey. You better take good care of it dollface, or you'll regret it ;)

She doesn't realize that she's grinning the entire time that she replies back.


A few days later, Finn finds himself at Puckerman's latest party, being the life and soul of the party, as usual. He finishes his fourth round of beer pong before he catches up with Mike.

"Hey man!" he shouts loudly, throwing his arm around him and pulling his sunglasses in front of his bloodshot eyes, despite it being quite dark in the room, "what's up, dude?"

Mike grins, trying to keep the two drinks in his hands away from the clumsy man, "I'm good. Just, you know, getting some stuff for me and Tina. She's on juice right now." He doesn't notice how Mike is chuckling as he's barely able to stand up properly. He's had more than just the beer, of course, but exactly what and how much slipped his mind hours ago.

He grins, "Tina's your girlfriend!"

"I know," his friend replies happily, "you might wanna sit down man."

He shakes his head, "nah, I'm having too much fun!" He decides to cheer randomly, causing a roar of whoops and calls in response, "parties rock!" He suddenly deflates, "man, I wish Rachel was here."

"You should have invited her," Mike tells him in earnest, "it would have been nice to get to know her, seeing as you two are going so good, right?"

"We're awesome," he slurs, "awesome, awesome, awesome." He takes another swig of his drink, "I'm gonna write a song about how awesome we are." He grins, "I'm such a good actor – nobody knows."

"Nobody knows what?" Mike frowns in confusion.

Finn tries to place a finger to his lips, but misses by a large margin and instead places it on Mike's lips, which are closer, "shh, it's a secret. You can't know." He rolls his eyes, "I can't believe that you tricked me into almost telling you."

Mike clearly is lost and so slides Finn's arm off of him and returns to his girlfriend, leaving Finn to his own devices – which just so happens to be his mobile.


Rachel smiles as her and Quinn settle down to watch a movie, both with a glass of wine in their hands as they relax from the exhausting day of rehearsal and promotional work. Not to mention a couple of hours at the studio for her newest album.

So, when her mobile begins to ring, she groans and considers ignoring it, but eventually succumbs to the need to answer.

"Hello," she says tiredly into the bedazzled phone.

Quinn mumbles something inaudible while Rachel strains to hear a voice over the loud music coming from the other end. "Hello?"

"Rachel!"

"Finn?" she frowns and Quinn sits upright in her seat, raising a questioning eyebrow at Rachel, who shrugs at her. "Finn, why are you calling me?"

She doesn't get an answer though because he's…singing. Wait, is he singing?

"Baby, baby, baby, oh," his voice is loud in her ear and she thinks that maybe she's dreaming because this cannot be happening, can it? "Like, baby, baby, baby, no." She'd laugh if she could get over her own shock. Who knew that Finn Hudson was a closeted Bieber fan when drunk?

"Quinn, listen," she forces the phone to her friend's ear, watching as a sly smirk appears on her face.

"He's good," Quinn comments, "maybe not so much on the higher notes, but you could teach him a thing or two." She grins, listening for more, when Rachel snatches her hand back.

"Really? That's what you're focusing on," she can still hear him singing, "he's clearly drunk." Into the phone, she says, "Finn, where are you? Please, just tell me." He may be a pain in the ass sometimes, but if he's this out of it then she needs to help him.

Finn apparently doesn't want to listen though, "isn't Justin Bieber cool? I mean, he gets loads of crap from some people but he's smart, Rach. He's one smart guy, right? 'Cause chicks dig him and stuff."

She rolls her eyes. "Finn, whose party are you at?" She feels a large amount of worry for him, having seen that most of the parties he goes to end up being broken up by the cops. Finn's better than that. "Talk to me Finn! No, stop singing."

"Do you not like it?" he sounds hurt, like a child.

"No, no, I love it," she agrees, "but I want to come and meet you in person so that I can hear it better."

She can almost imagine his grin, "oh right? 'Cause I'm awesome. You bring you little hot body down to Puck's and I'll show you how talented I can be." Rachel resists the urge to scoff and focuses on getting her coat on, ignoring Quinn's pointed stare.

"Just…stay there. I'm coming to get you, okay?"

"Whatever you say, dollface," he slurs, "I'll be waiting for you."

God, why is he so infuriating? She turns to Quinn, staring expectantly at the woman and tapping her foot impatiently.

"Yes?"

"We need to go!" she points to the door, "now."

"Finn's a big boy," Quinn announces, "and he can take care of himself."

She shakes her head defiantly, "no, you heard him. He's in no condition to be alone right now and I can't just leave him like this!"

"Since when did you care so much?"

This leaves Rachel stumbling over her words, wondering what to say. It's just normal, isn't it, to look after fellow man? What kind of person would she be if she just left Finn by himself when he's clearly beyond intoxicated? "H-he could slip up and tell everybody the plan," she exclaims, wondering if that'll get Quinn to take more interest. It totally works and the blond shoots from her seat and grabs her bag.

She's out of the door in an instant, "let's get this idiot back before he screws everything up."

Twenty minutes later, they're walking into the out of control party, dodging the drunks with much urgency and scanning for Finn.

"How can we not see him?" Rachel panics, "he's the tallest one in here!" She waits for a reply from Quinn and, when she doesn't get one, turns to find herself alone. "Quinn…Quinn!" She sighs, folding her arms across her chest, "this is just great. I'm all alone at a stupid party and I can't find Finn."

And not to mention that it's a little overwhelming. Anyone can tell that she's out of place in this party, and she just wants to leave right this instant, but first she needs to find Finn because he needs her help too. "Chug, chug, chug!" she follows the sound of chanting where a loud crowd of guys are gathered around some drunk fool…wait, she knows that drunk fool.

"Finn!" she breathes a sigh a relief, barging through a group of girls to get to him.

He looks around at the sound of her voice, his glazed eyes finally falling onto her. "You came!" he looks like a kid on Christmas, standing up and stumbling over towards her. She catches him before he falls completely, struggling under his huge frame, "I knew that you couldn't resist the power of Justin Bieber."

She laughs at how corny his words are and tries to get him to stand up by himself. Definitely not working.

"Do you wanna go home?" she asks eagerly.

"No!" he shouts, "I wanna get more drunker."

Rachel frowns at the man, wondering whether she would have agreed to this stupid idea if she'd know that it would entail this. "Finn, you need to go to sleep." He's still slumping onto her and he stinks of alcohol, so much that she's trying to hold her breath around him. "Where the hell is Quinn?" she mutters under her breath, staring around for her.

"Sam!" Finn shouts beside her, startling the woman. "I told you that she's coming," he points to Rachel, "she came, and she wants to hear me sing."

Sam offers Rachel a sympathetic smile, "sorry about this. He doesn't usually get this bad so early. I was going to call Kurt."

She shakes her head, "its' fine. I'll get him back safely. I'm sure that his headache will be more than enough torture in the morning." She peers up at Finn, who is completely out of it. Perhaps she should leave sooner rather than later and Quinn can just deal with it – she did leave them after all. "You haven't seen a blond woman, have you?" she questions, "she has short hair, wearing a red dress."

"She just went with Puck into his room," he smirks, "I don't think that you'll be seeing her for the rest of the night." Rachel nods, beginning to lead Finn away when Sam catches her arm, "go easy on him. He's been talking about how great you are all night."

Rachel stares in disbelief. Finn Hudson? No, he can't have been saying nice things about her. He's not the nice guy. He's the… the complete opposite. Finn groans against her and she mumbles a sorry to Sam, before leading the tall man to the car where she straps him into the back seat after about ten minutes of struggling.

He watches her as she climbs into the front and turns on the engine. Before she knows it, Finn is leaning forward and grabbing hold of her shoulder. "I wanna go back," he protests.

"No," Rachel sighs, "I'm taking you somewhere safe Finn Hudson because I'll never forgive myself if you end up in hospital from drinking excessively." His hand is slipping down her front, the limb a dead weight on her body until she feels him grab her breast and she screams loudly. "Get off of me!"

"But I don't want to," he complains, "I can't help it if you're hot."

Through a blush, she tries to scold his behavior, "that's not very gentlemen like of you, Finn. Remember that talk that we had, about being nice to each other?" he nods, "well, this applies too. No touching inappropriately."

"Will you let me touch your ass? It's, like, the best that I've ever seen."

"No!" she gasps, "now just, be quiet and stay out of trouble. But don't fall to sleep either because there's no way that I can carry you up the stairs at all." In the rear-view mirror, she sees Finn smirk and then bite his lip, before letting his head lull to the side.

She is definitely not doing this again!


"Where are we going?" he mumbles into her shoulder as she practically drags him down the hall, "where's my house? What've you done with it? You thief!"

"Shh," she silences him before taking out her key and opening the door. Finn almost falls inside, but she manages to catch his shirt before that happens and leads him over to the couch. "Let me get you a drink."

His body drops onto the couch loudly with the support of her and, when she returns with the water, his long limbs are sprawled messily across her it. "Here," she says softly, not being able to find it in her heart to be mad at him anymore. Sam's words are rolling over in her mind, making her consider exactly what Finn had to say about her.

He smiles, "you're nicer than I thought, you know." She raises her eyebrow to show that she's listening, "I mean, you sometimes seem really stuck up and stuff on TV, and I guess that you were and I used to say that you were probably a bitch to everyone." Rachel gasps quietly, wondering how exactly she gives off that vibe, "but you're not. You care about people and stuff – like your fans. I'm one of your fans." He smiles widely, as though he knows a secret that she doesn't, "'cause your voice is really pretty, but don't tell any of that guys that I said that."

Rachel grins, "I won't. Promise." Her heart is beating quickly as Finn speaks, hearing the wonderful things that he has to say.

"And you came to the party," he repeats, "man, I loved that party." Finn suddenly sits up excitedly, "let's go back!"

"No," she pushes him back down, "you're staying right here."

Finn glances around curiously, "where are we?"

"My apartment," she smiles.

"Can we have our own party here?" he wiggles his eyebrows seductively. Of course, even drunk Finn wants to sleep with her.

Ever there to disappoint him, she scrunches up her face and shakes her head, "sorry, but you're on strict order to go to sleep."

"By who?"

"By me," she grins, "now goodnight Finn."

She goes to get up, but is immediately dragged back down by Finn's strong arms, ending up in his lap. When she turns to face him, in order to demand why he did that, his lips hungrily attack hers in a sloppy, drunk kiss. Her eyes widen in surprise yet, again, she doesn't move. A second later, her hand comes up to hold his cheek gently as his tongue begs for entrance.

No, wait. What's she doing? Finn is drunk, way beyond drunk actually and she is supposed to be looking after him. Not this.

Rachel pulls back in shock, more so at her own actions, but Finn only smirks at her. "You totally kissed back that time."

She jumps from his tight grasp and straightens out her clothes. With what little dignity she has left, she turns on her heel. "Goodnight Finn." Hopefully this won't be brought up in the morning, or ever again for that matter.


So, there's going to be trouble in the morning...

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