Thank you so much for the reviews! I'm going to try to make the chapters a bit longer than the first one was from now on.
"Think about how great this leadership role will look on our college applications!" Rachel squealed as she, Noah, and Mrs. Puckerman walked out of the building. Noah was saved from having to reply by the sounds of "Bella Note"coming from Rachel's bag. Puck came very close to snorting. She had changed her ring tone from "Defying Gravity" to that after Finn and her had gotten back together. She had gushed over how romantic it, and the whole New York City mega date idea had been during the entire last week of school. Puck hadn't wanted to burst her bubble by telling her that both the date and the song choice had been his idea, not her super sensitive boyfriend's.
"How are you feeling, daddy?" Rachel answered the phone. Puck was glad it wasn't Finn calling. He wasn't quite ready for the green monster to come out at him for spending time with his girlfriend. Speaking of, he should probably text Lauren and ask how her wrestling match was…
"See you soon, Mrs. Puckerman, Noah!" Rachel called to them, as she walked off to her car, spouting about the proper liquids to ensure a speedy recovery into her telephone.
He heard her before he saw her next. He was dozing with his head on the desk in English. It was actually normally his favorite class. Can't write the next great rock song if you can't write, dude, He had tried to explain to Finn once when Finn came into his room to play Halo and was surprised to see Puck actually doing his English homework. Unfortunately, they were currently on the Shakespeare unit, and other than laughing once at an obvious dirty joke involving a wood innuendo, he didn't get the dude at all. Luckily, before his dozing turned into a full on snooze and snorefest, an always loud, high-pitched voice from the front of the room cut through his slumber.
"Mrs. Baker, I am offended by the fact we are currently reading from a play with such obvious anti-Semitic undertones!" He heard a few kids around him groan at Rachel's protest. That was the typical reaction every time she opened her mouth in this class, but now that Puck knew her, he thought her passion was kind of hot. His bed had seen it's fair share of hot nights, and he knew that passion outside the bedroom normally indicated passion inside the bedroom as well. Keep those kind of thoughts about Rachel in line, Puckerman. He warned himself. It wasn't like he was into her or anything, but now and then those kind of thoughts would creep into his head because he was a guy who had needs, damnit. Needs my girlfriend isn't too fond of fulfilling. He thought bitterly. Those thoughts didn't scare him as much as the one where he had actually thought her animal sweater of the day looked cute on her or the one where he decided he really loved her laugh. Those kind of thoughts sent him running to see either his girlfriend or his running shoes to escape them.
As Rachel and Mrs. Baker finished debating the impact of The Merchant of Venice, the bell rang, and Noah jumped up, hoping to grab some kind of action from Lauren in the four minutes before their next class. As he neared the door, he saw Rachel waiting for him by her desk. This wasn't typical behavior and he figured it had something to do with their new temple crap, but he knew Lauren was waiting.
"Hello Noah." Rachel smiled up at him as he stopped, fidgeting in front of her.
"Hey, um I kind of got to go, far next class and stuff, uh what's up?" He tried to avoid eye contact with her, afraid for some reason he was offending her, and the sad eyes of an offended Rachel were worse than his mother for guilt. Luckily, she didn't seem offput.
"Oh that's fine! We'll just discuss it in Glee!" She chirped, before heading towards the door.
"Uh, I don't-" He started, but she was already gone. Fuck! Discussing it in Glee meant there was no way Finn and Lauren weren't going to find out something was up now.
Luckily, by the time Puck got there (late from waiting on line at the vending machine for chips), Mr. Shuester had already started. Puck sat next to Lauren and figured he might just be in the clear for the day.
"Thank you for joining us, Puck." Mr. Shuester threw at him before continuing his speech. "As I was saying, for sectionals, we need a number that the judges won't be expecting. Therefore, this week, I want a number from each of you that I'M not expecting. Whoever surprises me the most, gets to pick one of the songs for sectionals, and I cannot object to their choice at all." Everyone looked pleased at the new challenge, and of course, Rachel's hand was the first one in the air with a question. "Yes, Rachel?" Their teacher kindly acknowledged her.
"I just wanted to run some ideas by you. Can you stay for a minute after the club concludes?" She smiled before hastily adding, "I wouldn't want to waste anyone else's time of course." Puck bit his lip to keep from smiling at that. He knew he wasn't the only one that noticed, but he couldn't help being kind of proud of how much the princess had grown up in the past two years. Sophomore year's version of Rachel didn't care about anyone else's time.
"Then, stop making us listen to you sing so often," was Santana's biting reply, but after a moment, she smiled and stuck out her tongue, to let Rachel (and a protective Finn) know she was kidding. Santana wouldn't stop being Santana, but Puck knew now it was all just for show, and Rachel knew that too.
"That would be great Rachel, but…" Mr. Shuester started, before Rachel could think of a retort back. "Unfortunately, I was just about to end Glee practice early because I have to be somewhere soon." He blushed.
"Hot mama! Does Mr. Shue have a date?" Mercedes called out, and Mr. Shuester just grinned down at his sweater vest. The room was filled with catcalls until he raised a hand to silence them. He chuckled.
"Alright kids, settle down." He said, neither confirming or denying Mercedes' idea. "I'll see you all tomorrow, and hopefully you'll have something shocking to show me!" He yelled over the scraping of chairs as kids got up to leave.
"I gotta show some scared little boys who's boss, Puckerman." Lauren told him, cracking her knuckles to prepare for wrestling practice. "Be at my house to pick me up at 7:30am tomorrow, or else. Got it?" He nodded before she kissed him quickly, but heatedly and thundered off. He grabbed his bag, and was about to head towards the door, when Finchel blocked his path. He grunted as a greeting towards both of them, purposely trying to avoid looking at Finn. Rachel frowned at this, obviously noticing the awkward between them, and touched Finn's arm lightly.
"Finn, I'm just going to talk to Puck quickly about that temple idea I was telling you about, and then run to my locker." She cooed softly up at him, her soft brown eyes seemed to be pleading with him to play nice. "Why don't I just meet you at your car?"
"Ok babe." Finn's gaze was still hardened, but his lips bent down to meet Rachel's lightly before he walked out of the room, and that was when Puck noticed everyone else had cleared out as well. He stuck his hands in his pocket and looked out the window, silently reminding himself what a badass he was. If he could deal with Lauren, he could deal with Rachel and Finn.
"Is everything ok?" Rachel touched his arm, similarly to the way she had just touched Finn's. It was a comforting touch, so unlike the way Lauren normally handled him, but his instinct was still to pull away. She noticed this and sighed. "Look, Noah, please relax. I've explained everything to Finn. He's not thrilled, but he'll get over it. He's not planning to throw you in a dumpster." She smirked as she said the last part, to show him she was trying to make a joke. Puck relaxed a little and figured that was a good start at least.
"Look Berry," He growled, trying to keep his Puck armor on, because if he treated her the same way he treated everyone else, he could pretend the awkward "I-helped-you-cheat-on-your-boyfriend-and-now-he-gets-jealous-so-we-can't-be-friends" wall didn't stand between them all the time. "I just don't want Finn to beat me up 'cause I hurt his girlfriend's feelings by saying her idea was lame." He shrugged. They both knew that she knew that wasn't really what was bugging him, but she nodded as if she accepted the answer. Puck figured he wasn't off the hook forever, but the fact that her boyfriend was waiting for her at his car meant she wasn't going to linger on it now.
"I actually have really exciting news!" She brightened, changing the subject. "I called our sister temple in Shawnee, and it turns out they already have a teen board in place, and I asked to talk to the head, and they loved my idea of a dual-temple mixer!" She finished, out of breath from her quick ramble. "Isn't that great?"
Puck's first thought was about all the hot new Jewish tail that would be bringing in. Girlfriend! Girlfriend! He quickly reminded himself. Later, he would have to do that thing where he sat down and reminded himself what made Lauren so great that he was committed to her, and only her. Lately, it had been getting harder and harder, but she was still a badass, and he liked spending time with her, so he figured it was cool for the moment. "Noah?" Rachel's voice brought him out of the internal debate he was having with himself.
"That's actually cool, I guess. Dudes will like that." He told her honestly, since he knew all the guys who went to their temples first reaction would be the same as his. He was impressed that Rachel's first thought had been to do something normal teenagers would like, rather than like, a staged reading of the Passover story.
"Great!" She beamed, obviously pleased with herself. "Now I was hoping we could incorporate Karaoke…" There's the Rachel I know. Puck thought. "I have a whole list of possibilities, so I was hoping as my co-chair you could give me feedback. What time do you finish dinner?"
"Huh?" Puck responded, confused at the quick change of subject.
"What time does your family typically finish eating?" She repeated slowly. Puck still didn't understand, but decided to just let the Rachel Berry train head where it was going.
"My sister has soccer practice tonight, so we eat at five, so she can properly digest or some shit." He told her.
"Great! Then, you should definitely be done within the hour. I'll come by at six?" Puck now understood the reason behind her questioning, and he knew she wasn't asking permission, so much as telling him. Wait, at my house. He quickly realized. The one my bed is in, and my mother and sister will be gone from for at least two hours. RED ALERT! He knew the little Puck in his pants was already excited at the idea of having a hot Jew in his empty house, and Little Puck tended to not be controllable once his mind was made up, so Puck knew he had to quickly divert this plan.
"What's wrong with your house?" He asked, and when she looked at him quizzically, quickly added. "You keep all that organization crap in your room." She considered this.
"Hmm well it would be easier to not have to move my white board." She agreed. "Ok! My house at six." She smiled. As she turned to end the conversation, he realized there might be a flaw in his plan.
"Will your Dads be home?" He asked, not realizing how that sounded until it came out. Oh shit, she was looking at him like she thought he was asking hoping for a "no". Shit. Shit. Shit.
"Yes, they will Noah." Phew. "But I assure you whether or not they would be there would not affect what we would be doing. We simply have work we need to do together." Shit. Yeah, she definitely thought what he didn't want her to. Although, he did make a dirty joke in his mind about "work they could do together", but thought it best to keep it to himself.
"I just meant…umm…" He searched his brain quickly, "that I haven't met your fathers, so if they were going to be there, I'd want to be, ya know, presentable." It was a lame excuse, and they both knew it. If she had said her dads wouldn't be home, would he have gone over and forgotten to put pants on or something? However, she just looked at him oddly before seeming to give him the benefit of the doubt.
"Don't be silly, Noah. They've seen you in all the Glee performances." She explained. "They actually think you're quite talented." Puck let that sink in a moment. It was cool. Parents typically didn't like him.
"Cool." He vocalized.
"Well, I'll see you tonight Noah." She waved to him, and headed for the door, and right before she opened she turned around. "Try and look…presentable." She giggled at him, and walked out into the hall. He smirked. Yeah, he was an idiot.
As she walked to her locker, Rachel tried not to let her thoughts linger too much on the weird parts of the conversation she just had. Since the one week they had dated, and he had stopped slushie-ing her, she had always had kind of a soft spot for Puck. She knew he was more than he let on, and although she should have hated him for hurting the boy she loved during babygate, she respected the fact that he wanted to step up for the baby, and had wanted to tell Finn the truth all along. She knew he only hadn't because he didn't want to hurt Quinn.
Since then, she had enjoyed their unconventional, but fun friendship. They had never hung out by themselves outside of school (save for the embarrassing "Run, Joey Run" incident), but last year, they had math together, and when he wasn't asleep in the nurse's office, he had started to sit with her, and she had noticed that when he was there, he actually wasn't all that bad at Algebra. She got used to his dirty jokes about moving the x to the side y was on so that they could "get it on", and occasionally, they even made her laugh. During Glee, he would occasionally side with her, and she needed that, especially during the time periods when she wasn't with Finn.
However, whatever semblance of a friendship they had disappeared as soon as she got back together with Finn after Nationals. The first summer Glee party in Kurt and Finn's backyard, when she had gone up to chat with Puck about his pool-cleaning business, and he had only grunted in reply, looking uncomfortable, she had gone back to Finn upset and confused. He had begrudgingly explained Puck's promise after "Need You Now" to stay away from Finn's girlfriends, and Rachel understood where they were both coming from, but she was still upset. However, she forgot about it for the time being when, shortly after, Kurt and Mercedes threw her in the pool, and Finn jumped in right after to splash her and plant wet kisses everywhere on her face.
She smiled at the memory, and tried to ignore the sadness that her Noah seemed to have turned back into just Puck around her. She probably could have decided on ideas for this mixer herself, and had considered it when Finn got visibly angry at the fact that she and Puck would be co-chairing the committee together, but she was hoping to use this as an excuse to get a tiny bit of her Noah back. She knew it was selfish, to want to be Finn's girlfriend, and still keep Noah as a friend, after how she had betrayed Finn with him, but she couldn't help it. She felt tied to Noah. Maybe it was the religion thing, but it had really started to bug her lately that they weren't friends, for whatever reason. As she got to her locker, she determined that she would discuss more than just mixer ideas with him tonight.