The summer after their sophomore year went by quickly. Finn ended up getting a job at the pizza place down the street from his school and had managed to save up enough money to meet his mother for a car by mid-July. The three months that the school gave them as a vacation sped by and Finn was slightly surprised when September rolled around again.

When he wasn't working during the summer, Finn spent most of his free time with Quinn. He was surprised by all of the new freedom he acquired upon getting a car to drive, and spent most nights driving over to Quinn's to pick her up and then continue to take her to a movie or something else that would mean they would be able to get out of the house.

After his incident with Rachel, Finn didn't spend much time talking to her or thinking about her. Rachel turned into one of those people that you quickly forgot about after the school year was over, and then remembered vaguely when September returned and noticed that their hair had gotten longer or they had gotten their braces taken off.

For some reason, he knew that Rachel wouldn't be the same. He had Quinn, and that was all that mattered. Besides, he didn't want Rachel after his last impression of her. Finn had no interest in having to handle Rachel if she acted like that all of the time.

Maybe he would just have to see her in the halls and pray that he didn't have any classes with her when school started back up again. Finn figured that the less time he spent with and around Rachel, the better not only for him, but for her as well.

:.:.:

Every year right before school started there was always a convention of sorts held in the cafeteria of the school. Each after-school activity and sports team had their own tri-fold board and presentation presented by the upperclassmen to the incoming freshmen who had interest in the activities for the following years.

When Finn had been asked if he wanted to talk to the incoming freshmen about the football team with Puck, he had agreed to it. He was going to captain the team his junior year, and he was excited for the season to finally start.

Of course, he would have said no if he had known that Rachel would have been manning the drama club's own presentation next to him.

Rachel and Puck had broken up sometime around the fourth of July. Finn never asked Puck why, but he knew that it was because she wasn't willing to sleep with him. Finn never really said anything, but it didn't really matter to him anymore. He had lost interest in Rachel and what she was to him. She was no longer the girl that he thought was funny and beautiful and cute and wanted to see walk down the hallway when he was making his way from class to class. Now he worried about whether or not Rachel would have a class with him or not, or whether or not she would want to talk to him about something inane like she always wanted to.

Finn never thought that the day would come, but there came a point when he didn't care that much about Rachel anymore.

She looked nice when she walked up to her own tri-fold board; one that Finn could tell Rachel had decorated herself. Gold stars brimmed from the corners and pictures of her in productions from years past seemed to be the highlight of the content on the board.

He caught a glimpse of her in the corner of his eye as she started talking to a freshman with braces who had come up to her booth and almost had to do a double take.

Rachel had gotten a lot prettier over the summer. Her figure filled out (in the good way) and her hair lightened in the sun, and Finn swore that she had gotten taller since the last time he had seen her. The more he milled it over in his head, the more sense it made that Puck would have gotten upset with her for not wanting to sleep with him.

"Dude, I've got to take a leak," Puck told Finn about halfway through the night. Finn really hadn't been paying much attention to what was going on at the actual activity fair and instead spent his time watching Rachel out of the corner of his eye; listening in on her conversations with prospective students who wanted to join the drama club. "I'll be back soon."

Finn shoved his hands in his pockets and watched for more students to come to talk to him, but there weren't as many as he would have expected. With a losing football team, it probably wasn't very likely that tons of students would want to play for the school team.

Rachel's booth, however, seemed to be buzzing with students.

"You, um… you look pretty busy."

Rachel tipped her head up from the table she was bent over in front of and looked at Finn, making his throat start to go dry. She wiped her hands off on the skirt of her dress and turned to him, smiling slightly.

"Yeah," she said, not seeming nervous in the slightest. "I guess last year's production of Bye Bye Birdie really made people get to talking about our theatre department… no matter how abysmal it may be." She turned her head back to look at a picture of her from the winter musical on the board she had assembled, Finn looking at it with her.

"Yeah, um, I was gonna see that one, I just…"

"You just ran out of time, I get it."

He sighed, feeling her words stepping over his own and crushing him with it. Rachel had never been so quick before. It reminded Finn of Santana and how snarky she could be if she wanted to.

There was a long pause between them, and Rachel looked like she wanted to start calling people over to her booth just so she could avoid speaking to Finn for a moment longer.

He decided to break the silence, however, just to see what her reaction would be. It couldn't have been that bad, after all. It was only Rachel he was dealing with.

"So, um, how was your summer?"

"Fine," she responded curtly, crossing her arms over her chest. "I got a job at the frozen yogurt place at the mall." Finn nodded along with what she said, wondering why he had never seen her working there. He had gone to the mall with Quinn a few times over break, but not many. He was sure that Quinn and Santana and Brittany all went to the mall together and tormented Rachel on their own while they were there.

"And I was in the community theatre production of Grease," she said, smiling slightly. "I was Sandy."

Finn pulled his eyes up away from Rachel's chest and tried to find her eyes instead, watching her face screw into a frown upon realizing where he had been staring at her the entire time. "Oh, um, yeah," he stammered, trying to shift his attention back to the conversation he had been having with her. "I've seen that movie a couple of times. She's the one that wears like, the cat suit at the end, right?"

He watched her as she rolled her eyes at his comment, clearly not wanting to talk. Finn never would have guessed that there would be a point in time where Rachel didn't want to talk incessantly, but apparently, there was.

Finn shifted around in front of his presentation board and turned to face Rachel sympathetically.

"Hey, I'm sorry about whatever happened between you and Puck," he said, shrugging slightly. For the first time all night, Rachel started to smile at him.

"Oh, thanks," she muttered, beginning to play with her hair. "But, um, I've moved on. Over the summer I found that it was important for me to find a boyfriend who matched me… artistically." He looked at her, confused.

"What?"

"While I was in Grease, I met someone."

"Oh, that's pretty cool," Finn said, trying to sound casual. "Does he go here?"

"No," she said, smiling brightly. "He's, um, a freshman at Boston Conservatory this year."

Finn felt his stomach feel like it was going to fall out through his feet. Of course, Rachel had moved on to dating college guys. She was much more mature than guys her age and was wise beyond her ears. It only made sense that she dated guys who were older than her.

"We're basically inseparable," she gloated, fanning out the brochures that had been left over from the bulk of the students coming in for the activity fair. "He understands me and I understand him and we're just the best things that have ever happened for each other." Finn looked at her and could tell that she was trying to impress him by talking about her brand new college boyfriend, but he thought that she could do enough just by bringing up the fact that she was dating someone in college. College guys were different than the guys in high school. College guys brought their dates out to bars and bought them drinks and then brought them back to their apartments so they could have sex with them. Finn couldn't so much as bring Quinn home because of having to worry about his mother catching them.

"That sounds great," he said, trying his best not to seem like he didn't care. "I'm sure you're really happy together."

"Oh, we are," Rachel said, turning back to Finn again. "Actually, he's taking me to this karaoke bar on Friday night. He's driving back home for the weekend."

Finn smiled and looked at her, laughing slightly. "Well, hopefully you don't get super drunk again, huh?"

Rachel narrowed her eyes and folded her arms across her chest.

"It looks like Puck's back from the bathroom," she said, tipping her head slightly. "Nice talking to you, Finn."

:.:.:

"A karaoke bar?"

"Yeah," Finn said, locking the door to his car with the little remote on his keychain. He walked up to Quinn and grabbed her hand with his free one, looking down at her with a slight smile. "C'mon, Quinn. It'll be fun."

The blonde rolled her eyes and Finn nudged her in the side. "It'll be just like watching all of the stupid drama kids singing their show tunes like they do every day after school in the auditorium. No thank you."

He felt a tug in his gut after Quinn finished speaking, wondering if he had made the right decision. Maybe Rachel had been lying to him the entire time and his punishment would be sitting alone at the karaoke bar with Quinn and listening to her complain about how horrible the singers were.

That, and Rachel was probably going to kill him once she saw him there.

He didn't know why he cared so much about her anymore. Just the other day he thought that he had told himself about how he didn't want to worry so much about Rachel Berry and her life, but after she had told him about her planned date with her new boyfriend, Finn knew where she would be and planned to be there himself as well.

Bringing Quinn seemed to work as both his cover-up as well as his downfall.

"No, it won't," he said, rubbing her shoulder. "Just… be nice, okay? I mean, what if we see someone from school?"

Quinn sneered and started laughing to herself. "Then I'll just laugh at them."

He sighed, squeezing her hand tightly. "Quinn. Come on. That's just mean."

Quinn sighed and rested her head against Finn's shoulder. "Fine," she said, spitting the word out like it was poison. "I've never been around this part of town before, though."

Finn looked at the bar ahead of them, squeezing Quinn's hand nervously. Maybe if he kept her away from Rachel, things wouldn't be that bad.

The two of them walked in and Finn pulled Quinn along behind him, hoping he would be able to find a table or a booth close to whichever one Rachel was sitting at. The bar was dimly lit and loud music pumped from the speakers that lined the walls. Finn could have sworn that he could hear Quinn saying something to him from behind, but he couldn't tell what it was. He was too busy trying to find Rachel's face in the sea of people at the bar already.

"Oh my God, Finn, what the hell?" Quinn piped from behind him, concern in her voice. He felt her pull him back and the two stopped in the middle of the bar, Quinn holding onto his wrists. "God, just find a table and sit down. It's like you're looking for someone or something."

They ended up finding a a booth towards the back of the bar, far enough behind all of the tables of people that they were just able to see the small platform of a stage pushed up towards the back wall of the bar. There was some drunk woman in her twenties singing a Madonna song at the moment; most of the crowd laughing at her expense or her small table of friends cheering her on as she continued, spending more time giggling into the microphone than actually reading the words on the screen and signing.

"I'm going to get something to drink," Quinn said, standing up and brushing her dress off. "Do you want anything?"

"Water's fine," Finn said, not really paying attention to her. Quinn crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at him with a scowl on her face.

"Finn, what are you doing?" She asked, furrowing her brow. "Ever since we got here it's like you've been looking for someone."

He could have told her the truth in that moment and felt a lot better about himself, because he would have at least been telling the truth. Finn didn't know why Rachel made him feel the way he did about her. One day he would tell himself that he didn't care about her or how she looked or spoke or laughed, and the next he would see her in the hallway and make a mental note to dedicating his life to knowing everything about her- which, in retrospect, made him sound like some kind of stalker. He wasn't supposed to like Rachel. He had a girlfriend and didn't have to worry about losing her.

Besides, Rachel had her college boyfriend, whoever he was. She was probably more than happy about being with him.

"I'm not," he told Quinn, lying through his teeth. "I'm just looking around at all of the stuff on the walls and stuff. I've never been here before."

Quinn's eyes widened and she scoffed, shifting her weight. "Well, I'm getting something to drink," she said, her voice making her sound like she was worried about him. "I'll be back."

Finn watched as Quinn walked away from their booth and towards the bar, silently wishing she would take longer than she needed to. He knew that Rachel was in the bar somewhere.

Either that or she had already made a stop with her boyfriend (or whatever she was calling him) and they were already gone, doing whatever it was that she wanted to.

There was a smattering of applause for the drunken girl that had just wrapped up her rendition of Madonna's Holiday, and she greeted her audience with a curtsy before practically falling off of the stage. The employee at the bar who must have run the karaoke aspect of it began to usher her off of the stage and Finn suppressed a laugh as he continued to walk her to the edge of the stage and back out into the area where the tables were.

Maybe Rachel had already left. Or maybe she had never shown up to begin with.

The lights dimmed slightly and the announcer for the bar began to speak, although Finn had started to tune it out upon noticing Quinn walking back towards him, two cups in her hands.

"You wanted a water, right?" She asked him, sipping on her lemonade as she sat down. Finn nodded and took the glass from her, setting it down in front of him. He smiled at her and she rolled her eyes, looking at him knowingly.

"You better not make me sing while we're here," she quipped, sounding like she was ready to wag a finger at him. "I don't sing."

Finn laughed, looking at Quinn with a smile.

"Why not? It's not like you can't sing or anything." He wasn't lying, anyway. Finn had heard Quinn sing along to the radio from time to time any every once and a while she would hum something when she was bored. She wasn't a pop star by any means, but Quinn's voice was still pretty.

She sighed and laughed slightly. "Because I don't need to be the center of attention all of the time." She looked at him, taking another sip of lemonade. "Like…" she paused, swallowing thickly and setting her glass down.

Finn looked at her, surprised. "What?"

Quinn started to laugh and pointed up towards the small stage at the head of the bar. "Like her."

Finn looked up towards where Quinn was pointing towards, almost choking on his water. There was Rachel, grabbing onto the microphone stand and lowering it down to her height as she stood in front of everyone. She had a sheepish smile stuck to her face and looked like she was dressed up for the night.

It would only make sense that she was – she was on a date, after all. Her hair had been curled and she wore a navy blue dress that hugged her tighter than the other dresses she normally wore to school. She was on a date with someone from college, after all. She was probably doing everything in her power not to look like she was sixteen.

"That's that one girl that got drunk at Puck's party, isn't it?" Quinn asked, taking another sip of her drink. "She looks… well, not drunk, that's for sure." The blonde laughed to herself and Finn looked at her scornfully. "She goes to school with us, right? I forget her name. It's like…"

"Rachel," Finn corrected her.

"Whatever," Quinn said, rolling her eyes. "She's obnoxious. Last year, she had some giant fit during a lunch period about how more people should consider becoming vegetarians or whatever because it hurts the feelings of animals or whatever." Quinn scoffed and rolled her eyes. "She's weird."

He sighed, looking back up towards Rachel, who was still situating herself at the microphone. "She has a really pretty voice," he said nervously.

There was a tap against the microphone that filled the bar, the chatter subsiding slightly. "Hi," Rachel said, smiling as she stood up on her toes slightly. It didn't seem like she could lower the microphone enough to completely make up for her lack of height. "Um, my name is Rachel Berry, and I'm going to be singing a song from one of my favorite musicals tonight," she continued, beaming.

"Great," Quinn said, rolling her eyes. The songs up until Rachel's performances had all been drunken renditions of REO Speedwagon songs or a cover of a Blondie song. Rachel's was the first show tune.

She nodded at the person operating the board and her song started up, the speakers playing through the bar. Finn didn't recognize the song, but he paid attention nonetheless. Rachel had a beautiful voice, no matter what anyone said.

"She sounds really good," he said to Quinn as Rachel continued to sing. Quinn looked at Finn and rolled her eyes, crossing her legs over one another.

"Whatever," she sneered. "I still think she's weird."

Her song continued, the audience members in the bar becoming quieter and quieter as Rachel's voice got louder and louder. It was like they all became mesmerized by the way she sang the expression in her voice, Finn included. As Quinn pulled her phone out of her purse and went through her texts, Finn continued to watch Rachel as she sang, wondering if she knew he was there. She was probably used to having hundreds of people watch her sing and think she was really good.

Finn didn't even know what she was singing, but it sounded good. Like she was some kind of Broadway star, or whatever. It made him wonder if that was what she wanted to do with her life. Finn knew that she liked performing, but he didn't know if that was actually what she wanted to do when she graduated from high school.

She belted out the final note of her song, met with a deafening amount of applause from the audience who had suddenly started to pay attention to what was happening on the stage. Finn started clapping, smiling up at her as she smiled from ear to ear.

"That was really good," Finn said to Quinn, who still didn't seem to care. The blonde looked up from her phone and stared up at the stage, noticing Rachel smiling and taking a curtsy before walking off of the stage.

"Yeah," she said, not much emotion in her voice. "Really great."

:.:.:

Finn spent the rest of the night thinking that he wouldn't have the opportunity to run into Rachel while he was there. The more he thought about it, the better it was. Finn knew that if he ran into Rachel, she wouldn't have been happy to see him and he would probably have to see her with her boyfriend, whoever he was.

That, and Quinn wouldn't have been very happy to see him talking to Rachel in the first place.

He didn't mind, the more he thought about it. Rachel didn't like him to begin with. She probably thought he was a giant asshole for not treating her like an actual person when Quinn started saying rude things about her right in front of him. In her eyes, he was probably supposed to be her friend – or at least be nice to her. They had never been friends before, but they had never been enemies before, either. It didn't make sense for him not to like her out of the blue.

There came a point in the evening where less people wanted to go up and sing their own renditions of their favorite songs (mainly because all of the drunk people had gone home), and Quinn excused herself to use the bathroom, leaving Finn by himself.

There wasn't much trouble he could get into sitting at a table by himself, the more he thought of it. Finn grabbed one of the salt shakers at the table and started pushing it around the table monotonously, tired. It was late, and Quinn was clearly bored.

He felt like setting his head down at the table and falling asleep – and he would have, if it weren't for the voice that he heard behind him.

"Hi Finn."

He sat up from the table and turned around, recognizing the feminine voice immediately. It wasn't heavy and bored like Quinn's. It wouldn't have been Quinn, anyway.

Rachel stood behind him, hand clasped with the hand of some guy standing next to her. Finn only assumed that it was her new boyfriend.

"Oh," he said, clearing his throat and standing up quickly. "Um, hey, Rachel."

She blushed and pushed her hair out of her eyes with her free hand. "I never would have expected you to be here." She laughed slightly, leaning into the guy she was standing next to. "Somehow, karaoke bars don't seem like a place you would frequent."

He stifled a laugh, trying to turn it into something that sounded like a cough. "Yeah, um… I'm here with Quinn, actually." He watched Rachel's face fall the moment he mentioned her. "She's in the bathroom."

"Oh," was all Rachel could say, swinging her occupied hand. There was a beat of silence and she turned to her boyfriend, who had cleared his throat. "Oh, um, Finn, this is Jesse," she said, smiling. "He's my… my boyfriend."

"Oh," Finn said, feeling somewhat defeated. "Nice to meet you."

Jesse smiled and looked down at Rachel, not paying much attention to Finn or the fact that he was right there. "Do you guys go to school together or something, Rach?"

Rachel looked up at him and Finn felt like he was looking in on something he shouldn't have been.

"Yeah," she said, tipping her head up to look at him. "He's, um… on the football team."

"Oh," he said, smiling slightly. "Well, that's nice, isn't it?" Rachel looked back at Finn, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

"I saw you singing earlier," Finn said, looking at Rachel. "You're amazing, Rachel."

She blushed, looking down at her feet for a moment before looking back up at Finn.

"Um, thanks, Finn. That… that means a lot."

"We were actually just leaving," Jesse told Finn, his arm wrapping around her waist and pulling her closer. She shifted awkwardly in his arms and tried her best to bear a smile.

"I'll see you at school, Finn."

She smiled sheepishly as they turned around and walked away; leaving as if they were one cohesive unit that never separated.

Quinn walked back over to the table, wiping her hands off on her dress as she looked at Finn. "Well, I'm ready to go," she began, pausing to look at him. "Just let me get my purse and we can-" She stopped, watching him as his eyes followed Rachel as she walked out the front door.

"Finn."

He turned his head back and noticed her standing behind him, somewhat in shock. "What?"

"Were you just talking to Rachel Berry?"

He walked back over to the table and sat down, trying to act nonchalant.

"No – well, yeah, but I just wanted to tell her that she did a good job singing tonight." He decided not to tell her anything about her new boyfriend with the smile that belonged in toothpaste commercials and spoke to him like he was some kind of condescending asshole.

"Whatever," Quinn said, rolling her eyes and grabbing her purse. "She's just… such a loser."