I planned on posting this yesterday/this morning at 2 a.m. before going out for Black Friday, but I never got around to it. And then I fell asleep for like 6 hours, so here is the chapter. Finally.
Thank you again to everyone who reviewed! My mood is so brightened every time I see that I have a new e-mail from one of you lovely people! Hopefully you like this chapter just as much as the others.
3. Cracking the Nut
They got back to Rachel's house within five minutes, and it was kind of awesome that her dads weren't home because that meant Puck had free reign to explore the place. There were these pictures of her all over the walls and bookcases (why would anyone need so many bookcases?), looking totally obnoxious and annoying but also sort of adorable. He'd seen them for like two seconds when he'd been to the house during their whole dating thing, but it was cool to actually see them up close. He quickly chose a favorite (it just happened. It wasn't like he put thought into it or anything): Rachel smiling wide over a birthday cake, sandwiched between her gay dads. She had three teeth missing in the front and he couldn't stop smiling at how stupid she looked.
He wasn't afraid to admit that he was totally jealous of her dads. She had two, and he didn't even have one. Of course, she didn't have a mom, but he thought that two gays dads were better than his one mom, anyway, since she was always angry at him or crying about his stupid deadbeat dad. His stupid deadbeat dad caused so many problems and he wasn't even around anymore.
When she was about to step into the shower, Rachel called down to tell him that he was welcome to wait for her in her room, or by the front door, or on the stairs, or even outside the bathroom door if he wanted. Puck was no master of recognizing emotions or anything, but he totally got that Rachel was scared and wanted him to be in a place where he had, like, the tactical advantage over any potential intruders. Which made him feel really weird because he started wondering if Rachel had ever been that scared of him. Although he was kind of embarrassed to admit it, he used to egg her house and shit. And he knew that her dads were out of town a lot because they were both really successful and important gay dudes. Did she ever think that he would take a prank too far?
And for a second he wondered if he would have ever done something like that. Because if one of the guys had ever suggested intentionally scaring the ever-loving shit out of her by lurking around outside her house or something, back before he was forced to start thinking of Rachel Berry as a person and not just some freak who posted on myspace too much and was basically a person-sized version of that book that tells you bigger words for things, he probably would have said yes without thinking about the scared girl hiding inside and…shit.
He used to be a really terrible person.
He walked up the stairs and sat on her bed and thought about how cool he'd felt when she had let him make out with her. At first he'd had this idea in his head like, she's probably so happy she gets to make out with me. Then he'd realized that he was the one who should be stoked. Very few people had cracked the nut that was Rachel Berry. Which was mostly because she was annoying, but still. It seriously highlighted his badassness that he was able to withstand that kind of torture to get under her polos and sweater vests and starched skirts.
He knew that he wasn't the first one to plant his flag in Berry's mouth. Finn had kissed her, twice, and Puck knew about both because he had mentioned it to Puck after the first time and then the second time he had whined for-fucking-ever about what a bad person he was for kissing her when Quinn was pregnant. And after that second time, Puck was thinking: dude, you had to kiss Man Hands to save Glee. That totally sucks for you. But only a few weeks later and he was thinking: Finn, why does no one else realize you're a complete ass?
Because Puck knew how much she liked the kid (she had dumped him, of all people, for Finn after all), and Finn was using that so that he could save the club and maybe get a scholarship so he could get a good job for the unborn fetus child that was really Puck's.
It was so not fair.
Her unrequited and totally stupid feelings for Finn aside, Noah Puckerman (through no skeezy tactics other than his pure awesomeness) had been allowed to make out with Rachel Berry on her bed. She was no president of the celibacy club, but she was still kind of prudy, and he had been on her bed. He had touched her ass. Groped it, even. Finn hadn't even been to her house!
Yeah, Puck was the man.
Rachel knew how important it was for a young starlet such as herself to take care of her skin, because if it started to look weathered at too early an age, she was never going to get the parts she wanted on Broadway and instead would be forced to take supporting roles or understudy positions. Which was not acceptable because she truly did not desire to be forced to murder each of the leads until she was given her fair shot in the spotlight, but the things she would do to become successful were limitless.
So due to Noah Puckerman's weekly routine of dousing her with an absurdly large cup of cheap generic brand flavored ice, Rachel had developed the perfect skincare regimen in order to keep from breaking out. Less easy to deal with was the fact that sometimes the ice would leave miniscule and painful scratches on her face, which were unfortunate but easily covered up with the right products. And so far none of them had scarred. Not even a little. Her fathers would have been proud of her attention to detail if she had ever informed them of the situation.
But, no, they didn't need to worry about her. Soon she would be leaving Lima and all of its ungrateful inhabitants behind, and when interviewers asked her about her hometown she would describe it as a disgusting little hovel filled with people who would never go anywhere. Of course, Finn would be on her arm and he would have to agree with her because…well…because Finn wasn't very bright. It would take a lot of pre-Red Carpet instruction to keep him from revealing anything potentially embarrassing (such as how he dumped his hideously rude pregnant girlfriend after he realized that…no, not even in her fantasies would he do anything like that).
She sighed and pushed that thought to the back of her mind, and instead turned to working on her hair. Fortunately, she had discovered early on that the regular slushy rinses actually seemed to add a shine and a volume, but there was still no reason to go around smelling like cherry.
She heard Noah down the hallway getting settled onto her bed, and she could only hear it because she had left the door open a tiny sliver.
Did she want Noah to notice that the door was open? No. Did she want him to look at her in the shower? Absolutely not. Did she remember what Mr. Schuester had told her about a boy who would eventually like all the parts of her that she didn't? Yes. Yes, she did. And she had realized very quickly afterwards that if she was going to sit around waiting for someone who liked what she could not stand (she was an excellent judge of herself, she thought), she wasn't going to get any of the requisite first experiences that she hoped to have by the time she graduated high school. And if she wasn't going to have any of those experiences, she would not be able to answer many of the pivotal questions that top magazines asked performers. The first kiss, she had handled. The first boyfriend could be romanticized, a bit, and she would certainly tweak the timeline so that Noah's gallant actions in the ladies' bathroom were a result of his deep feelings for her and not merely…not merely whatever it was that had made him help her.
What she was most worried about was a first sexual experience. The more high-end magazines generally didn't ask such questions, but it was important to keep all options open, and she was not above interviews with magazines geared towards young women if it meant expanding her fanbase and teaching young girls that it was all right to be yourself even if you got slushies thrown in your face and had pornographic pictures of you drawn on the bathroom stalls in your high school. She certainly already had an inspirational message to deliver considering her relationship with Noah, the boy who had tormented her, but she needed to be able to tell those magazines about the loss of her virginity (and, in the current social climate, a post-high school virgin was practically considered a leper by the general public). She was not entirely sure what kind of experience she wanted it to be. Did she want it to feel like a mistake? Did she want it to be a romantic and loving endeavor? With the changing times, was romantic even really an option if she wanted to make it as relatable as possible? She would have to give her story some serious thought, but first…first came research.
So if Noah Puckerman saw the way the door was open a little, and if he could see her blurred and mysterious outline as she showered off beyond the curtain and through the veil of mist, then so be it. Did she have a very graphic fantasy that involved him joining her in the shower?
Perhaps.
Rachel had never been one to push the boundaries of social situations because generally she was chastised as soon as she made some sort of faux pas that her peers were more than happy to point out so that they could taunt her for it. But Noah was a certain breed of gentleman that didn't normally involve being very gentle at all, and she was a certain breed of curious.
So when she walked into her bedroom, she was wearing only a small towel around her body.
Yes, she had bigger towels. Ones that would have reached her knees at least.
She was wearing underwear beneath the towel, of course, but she had no intention of informing Noah of that.
And she certainly did not intend to sleep with him (at least not at this particular moment in time), or let him even touch her when she was wearing the towel. She just wanted to see the look on his face.
That was all.
She traipsed down the hallway, Mr. Schuester's words ringing in her ears. When he had mentioned her hypothetical soul mate, he had obviously been referring to Finn because their romantic chemistry was extremely evident in the way in which they sang to one another, but she had a feeling that Noah wasn't so adverse to her company as she had originally believed. He wanted to be friends. She was fairly certain based on her extensive viewing of teen television dramas and careful readings of the relationship advice columns in Cosmo magazine that friends of the opposite sex were routinely allowed to parade around one another in scant amounts of clothing, generally when they needed a confidence boost and were unable to attain it from a romantic interest. Sometimes such actions could lead to a mutually beneficial agreement in which the two friends would engage in unromantic intercourse, which was perfect for Rachel's intentions. On television, it rarely worked. But Rachel and Noah were not characters in a television show. They were both mature young adults (he may have lacked a certain finesse, but she was developed enough for the both of them), and they could certainly handle the arrangement. Once, of course, she figured out how to actually approach the topic.
And she had to admit that when she walked into the room and saw him on her bed in the exact same position he had been in when she had so aggressively straddled him and kissed him before she decided that she should not give herself to anyone who wasn't Finn (the fact that he had a girlfriend was irrelevant and hopefully very temporary), she was filled with a flush of excitement.
His eyes got wide, his pouty lips twitched into a smirk, and she was once again floored by how utterly physically appealing he was.
"Thank you for waiting, Noah," she said in what she hoped was a very casual tone. "I admit that my fear is childish as it is highly unlikely that anyone will seek me out at my house, but…well, I am home alone a lot, and it does not help my natural tendency to be overcautious and fearful of nearly everything."
Noah sat up and didn't try to avert his eyes from her legs, which Rachel took as a very good sign of her own judgment of herself because Rachel had always believed that her legs were her best asset other than her voice and her hair and her determination to succeed no matter the obstacles.
Finally, Noah pried his eyes away and got to his feet awkwardly.
"I'll go downstairs, or…"
"No need, Noah. I'll get dressed in my closet."
He sat back down on the bed quickly, eyes returning to what was apparently their new favorite resting place. Rachel quickly grabbed a fresh set of underwear from her drawer, making sure that he saw so that he would believe that she was not wearing any.
And why was she doing this? She was supposed to be good, to be pure, to be someone who wouldn't have any skeletons in her closet once she became famous. She was not a girl who made guys want her intentionally even if she didn't necessarily want them back.
In a more-than-physical way, of course. She abhorred hypocrisy in all its forms, and she was willing to admit for the sake of avoiding said hypocrisy that physically she very much wanted to be attached to Noah Puckerman in every way and position. But her heart belonged to Finn, and that wasn't going to change. Though could she truly deny that sparks that were running through her body when she closed the closet door and dropped her towel on the ground? Could she deny the thrill she felt when she realized that there was nothing between her naked body and his strong arms but that wooden door? And if he turned that doorknob, could she deny that she would let him have her?
She could deny it. She could. But that didn't necessarily make it true.
Not for the first time that day, she wondered what kind of woman she was becoming.
