Sam Evans paced around his office, staring out the window from the tenth floor. He looked down at the people walking along the beach, almost mocking him in their happiness. It had been three days since he met the chocolate goddess at Celebrities, and she hadn't been able to leave his thoughts. He knew her name was Mercedes, that's all he had. The last words she said to him kept echoing in his head, "I believe in fate, Sam. If you want me, come find me."
He stalked back over to his desk and booted up his laptop. His phone rang and he quickly picked it up, hoping fate would throw him a bone and Mercedes was on the other end of this phone. "Hello?" Sam said into the phone, a little too eagerly.
"Were you sitting on your phone dude?" Puck's voice rang out on the other end of the cellular airwaves. Sam sat down in his plush desk chair, feeling slightly dejected, although he knew that Mercedes wouldn't be calling him.
"No, just happened to be at my desk," he said, leaning back and putting his feet on the top of the desk. "Unsuccessfully getting work done. I need to have these stills done for Schuester by the end of the day. I don't see it happening. Every time I go to draw something it ends up looking like Mercedes."
"She was pretty banging dude, I can't lie," Puck said. "Did you find her?"
"Fuck no," Sam said, logging into the laptop and pulling up his social media sites. "I only have her first name. I don't even know where to start."
"There's Google, Bing, Facebook. I could go on," Puck advised. "Think man!"
"What do I put in the search engine? Mercedes, banging black chick from the bar that could be the mother of my children? Something tells me I'm going to get more than what I really need to see."
He could hear Puck laughing through the phone lines. "Is that right? You been holding out?"
"No," Sam sighed heavily. "Wishful thinking. I can only im-" Sam was interrupted by the knock at his office door. "Come in!" he yelled.
His partner Mike came in through the door and put a stack of papers at his desk. "Puck, let me talk to you later. Mike just came in," he said.
"Alright dude," Puck said. "Tell that fucker he owes me a drink as much as I spent in his bar last weekend."
"Will do," Sam said, disconnecting the call and turning his attention to Mike. "What's up buddy?" he said, holding out his hand for a fist bump. "Puck said you owe him a drink."
"Hey Sam," Mike said, sitting on the edge of the desk. "Here are the contracts from Quinn," he said, pointing to the stack. "She said she put little tabs on everything that you needed to sign. Nice to see she's still taking care of you."
"Well, she should take care of me," Sam laughed. "It's our New Directions Fine Arts Academy that put her through school," Sam explained. "It makes it easier that Quinn's an attorney," he said, flipping through the paperwork. Everything seemed in order with getting the accreditation to start offering classes to elementary students. He started signing and initialing in the sections Quinn had marked for him. He was pretty excited about being able to offer singing and dancing classes to eight year olds. His love of music started early in his life when he picked up his first guitar at the age of five.
Mike laughed and nodded his head. "Who knew she'd actually make good on her promise to be an attorney and help us get our school up and running?"
"I was worried when she went through that smoking and pink hair phase," Sam shook his head at that memory of Quinn walking through the high school halls with pink hair.
Mike stood up and straightened his suit. "I'm meeting Tina for lunch. She says we don't have enough time for us since the baby." Mike brushed off imaginary lint from his shoulder. "And in regards to Puck, tell that freeloader to buy his own booze," he said through a laugh. "He's already on the door list permanently."
He's already on the door list permanently. That last sentence echoed in Sam's brain. "Wait – do you keep a list of everyone on the VIP list of your club?"
Mike looked a little confused at Sam's sudden interest in the VIP list. "Well, since I'm just Artie's silent partner, I don't have much to do with it, but I'm sure he does. What's up?"
Sam went into the story of his encounter with Mercedes and how she left him. Mike smiled at Sam's excitement. It had been a while since he'd been this excited over a woman. "She actually said 'If you want me, come find me'?"
"Yes, brother," Sam nodded his head. "I don't even know where to start. Maybe her name is on Artie's VIP records." He started drafting an email to Artie – that was his first lead with finding his Chocolate Goddess. Artie, I need for VIP record for last Saturday. I'm looking for the beautiful woman that rocked my world. Thanks, Sam.
Mike strode over to Sam's office door and turned back to hm. "I want to meet this woman when you find her. If she's got you on the ropes, I have to meet this hottie."
"You'll be invited to the wedding," Sam laughed, his heart pounding a little faster as the new mail icon appeared in the corner of his screen. He could hear Mike laughing down the hall.
Sam my boy! Here's an attachment for the list you so desire. Hope your little sweet thang is on here. – Artie.
He pulled up the PDF file of the list for Saturday and looked through it. There wasn't any form of Mercedes' name on the list. He looked over it again, at each female name that might trigger something. He got to the bottom, and there it was: Santana Lopez. There couldn't be that many people named Santana Lopez in Nevada.
He pulled up his Facebook account and typed in her name. He had to scroll through more than Santana Lopezes than the thought, but he had a pretty good idea of what she looked like. Sam resisted the urge to click the Add Friend link, but instead clicked on the Friends link instead. All of her 765 friends appeared and Sam typed in "Mercedes" in the search field.
The 10 seconds it took for the page to load with search results felt like it took years. There were only two results: Mercedes-Benz USA and Mercedes Jones. Sam's hands shook slightly as he pulled up her profile.
His future started back at him, the beautiful picture of one Mercedes Jones….He wanted her, and now he found her. He needed to find a way to tip fate's hand. He went back to his email and replied to Artie's email: I found who I was looking for and I need a favor…