AN: This one is a little shorter than the rest. Final part should be up in the next couple of days.
When he gets home Rachel is already back from her audition, she's sitting on the couch looking over another script.
"How'd it go?" Rachel calls not turning around to look at him.
Puck walks over to the couch and takes a seat next to her. He's bursting at the seems with excitement and he really wants to tell her but he knows she had an audition that day too.
"I'll tell you in a minute, how'd the audition go?"
"Very well I think. The casting director seemed to be pretty fond of my voice. I should get a call in a day or two about a second audition," Rachel says and then narrows her eyes to look at him curious, "Why do you look like you've got a secret?"
"Because I do," Puck says, "What are you doing tonight?"
"Looking over the script for another audition. Why?"
"Because you've got new plans now. You're coming to see me perform."
"What? Where?"
"You remember that job interview I went to today?" Rachel nods in response, "Well during the interview, Amy, that's the bar manager, gets a phone call from her house band who I guess has up and quit. I tell her that I can play and the next thing I know I have to put together a set list for tonight."
"Oh my gosh Noah!" Rachel says launching herself at him wrapping her arms around him tightly.
Puck holds Rachel tight against him as she squeals in his ear. When she pulls away Puck keeps a tight grip on her hips so that she's now sitting in his lap. Her hair has fallen so that it sits gently on her face. The two are quiet for a moment. They have been in plenty of situations like this since their evening together but this one is different. This feels different. Puck moves his right hand from her hip to her face to brush some of the stray hair from her face. He can see in her brown eyes that she's wondering what comes next. Honestly, so is he. But he tangles his hand in her hair and pulls her lips until they meet with his. Rachel responds immediately and sinks deeper onto Puck's lap. And if he didn't have the most important opportunity to come along since he's gotten to New York he would have taken her right there on the couch but he pulls away instead.
"I have four hours to put a set list together," Puck says looking up at Rachel who is still in his lap.
"Can I help?" Rachel whispers.
Puck smiles and leans up to kiss her once more, "Absolutely."
Puck shows up at the bar at seven forty five because honestly he couldn't sit at home waiting any longer. Rachel said something about having to stop somewhere first but she promised that she'd be there before he went on stage.
As much as he semi-hated glee in high school, at this time he is thankful because more than half the songs in his set list were songs he'd learned at the hands of Mr. William Shuester. But he feels good about what he's coming in with. Amy welcomes him and shows him a little room that is smaller than the room of Randy's bar where he can put his stuff, which is honestly just his guitar.
He doesn't look out to the crowd before he goes on, he doesn't want it get anymore nervous than he already is. Because as much of a badass as he is, there is a lot riding on this performance, so it needs to go off without any glitches. But he gets a text from Rachel about five minutes before he was set to go on.
Break a leg. I'm proud of you.
He smiles at his phone and as cheesy and girly as it sounds, having Rachel proud of him makes a lot of the nervousness disappear.
Puck does amazing that night. He's got the crowd practically kneeling at his feet the entire night, especially the college girls who seem to have taken a particular interest in him. The stand at the front and cheer really loudly after his performance of 'It's Not Over' originally by Daughtry and he can swear that in between every song he can hear them talk about how hot he is. But despite all the 'fans' he's gaining, Puck goes home with Rachel's arm tightly joined with his.
Later, when they get home, it's her legs that are wrapped tightly around his waist. He wakes up the next morning to the sound of Rachel's phone ringing, some talking, and then her screaming and jumping on the bed. She's gotten a call back.
And she has a few more call backs and one night while they're just sitting around watching their brand new, tiny, television (because Puck's work doesn't pay to bad) Rachel gets the call that she starts on Monday.
Three months later Puck plays every weekend at the bar. And during the week, well he actually convinced Amy that he would still make a good bartender. Rachel is working her crazy hours at the theatre and honestly they don't see much of each other. There is the rare hour or two that they aren't sleeping that their home together but usually he's going over stuff for work and so is she. He was there opening night and he knows that she's wonderful and she's been to the bar once since that first night. But they've been busy and they both know that. Because as much as they don't see each other, they're together, like officially, as high school-ish as that sounds. And even though he's got women throwing himself at him the moment he comes off stage, he doesn't sleep with them. He doesn't want to sleep with any of them. What he wants when he gets off stage is to hurry home and hopefully get a few minutes, and maybe some sex time with his girlfriend.
He begins traveling, usually by train, to other states to play at other bars. He's pretty sure this is what he needs to do because honestly playing for the same one hundred people at Amy's bar won't get him the exposure he needs. So he finds another bar in the city that will let him play during some weeknights when he isn't tending bar. Which works for a while because its new people but eventually even Amy realizes that he's trying to move on and only books him every other weekend. But that doesn't suck entirely because he starts moving around some more, playing different shows around the city. One weekend that he knows Rachel will barely be home, he hops a train to Jersey and goes to a bar he's seen has an open mic. They love him and now every other weekend that he's not at Amy's bar, he's taking the train to Jersey to play at Hal's.
He's been doing that for months but this weekend he's in the city, playing at a new club that he'd managed to get himself onto the bill for. Rachel somehow managed to get the night off and she's sitting in a booth in the back. He watches her while he plays, missing her even though she's there. This is the one time they get to be together and he's up there playing. So he plays Sweet Caroline just for her and watches her face light up like it did that first night at the open mic. As soon as he's finished he runs over to the table grabs her hand and they take a cab back to their apartment, where he shows her how much he misses her, and how much he appreciates her and how much he wants her. And he won't deny that he pulls her a little closer before they fall asleep that night.
And aside from a few stolen days, that becomes their life. And he's sort of okay with it because even though it really sucks that they don't see each other like they want to, they're both doing what they love and he can see the smile on Rachel's face when she talks about her work and he knows that they're both exactly where they need to be. So Puck continues doing the bar/club thing, and as much as he loves it because he can sing, he wants bigger, he wants to cross the finish line. And he gets one step closer one of the weekends he's at Amy's. He's heading out because he got a text from Rachel saying she was going to try to stay up and he wants to get home like now. He's heading towards the door and some jackass steps in front of him and extends his hand.
"Noah, right?" he says.
"Yeah," Puck says extending his hand towards the stranger (points for politeness), "Can I help you?"
"I think the question is can I help you?"
"I'm sorry?"
"My name is Roger Maloney. I work for Columbia Records."
"Oh."
"You seem like you're in a hurry to get out of here so I won't take up much of your time. But I'd like for you to meet with me on Monday."
Roger takes a business card out of his shirt pocket and hands it to Puck who inspects it for a minute until he's at least momentarily convinced it's legit because, this is COLUMIBIA Records and that's a pretty big fucking deal.
"Sure," Puck says like he actually had a choice in the matter, because really when a record company wants to meet with you, you fucking go.
"Great, great. Around noon? We can do lunch."
"Sounds good," Puck says.
Roger extends his hand again and Puck takes it more firmly than he did the first time, more sure.
"All right Noah, I'll let you go. See you then. Call me if you have any questions in the mean time."
"Will do," Puck says and walks passed Roger to exit the bar. And he may or may not have pumped his fist in the air when he was alone on the streets of New York.
When he gets home Rachel has already fallen asleep, but there is not a chance in hell that they aren't celebrating. Even if all he got was a meeting, this was good right? He practically leaps onto the bed and he knows she's going to be pissed when she wakes up. And half asleep with her hair disheveled she's never looked so beautiful.
"Noah, there are less violent ways to wake me up," she says.
"I'm sorry baby but you've got to hear this."
"Hear what?"
"I ran into a guy at the bar tonight. He wants to meet with me on Monday."
"What kind of guy?"
"He said he worked for Columbia Records."
"Columbia Records? Noah that's…that's amazing!" Rachel says suddenly more awake as she moves to a sitting position then wraps her arms around the neck of her boyfriend.
"It's just a meeting," Puck says mostly reminding him not to get his hopes up.
"Yeah maybe but this is a deal step Noah. You've been working so hard, I'm so proud of you," Rachel says planting a huge kiss on his cheek.
Monday afternoon Puck walks out of the office building of Columbia Records onto the streets of New York and immediately heads towards the theatre where he knows Rachel is at rehearsal. The doorman lets him in the lobby and he enters the auditorium from the back and he just stands there because Rachel's singing. He makes a mental note to make sure that he attends another one of her shows soon while he listens and watches. Up on the stage she's so beautiful, so amazing, so enchanting. He waits until she finishes singing and claps loudly from the back of the auditorium as he begins making his way towards the stage. She hops off stage and throws herself into his arms. Puck holds her there and kisses her gently. When he puts her down she grabs him by the hand and drags him back the way he came into the lobby of the theatre.
"So how'd it go?"
"It went well."
"Oh Noah now is not the time to tease me! What happened?"
"Well Roger said he liked what I was doing at the bar. I guess someone told him about me from one of the shows in Jersey. Which is really awesome ya know? And," Puck paused.
"Noah! And what? And what?"
"And they want to sign me to a deal," Puck says smiling.
Coming next, Puck finally learns what he wants is not always what he needs.