Sorry about the wait. Been an annoying week. I also had to take my younger sister into hospital last night, and then we had a power cut due to some construction work that is being done close-by. All of this on top of life's obligations. Grrr!
I feel that this is a bit of a setup chapter. Anywho, thank you for all of the love, as always ;) I apologize for any errors. I've gone over it countless times, but my eyes are knackered.
Sat at one of the back tables in the Sun&Moon Café, Rachel huddled into her shoulders in search of warmth, later upturning her coat's collar. Her palms slid around the steaming mug of Green Tea that stood on the table before her, heat humming throughout her hands, thawing them.
Truthfully, she was still rather shaken up. Ever the drama queen, she'd taken off with the worst possible explanation after hearing about Finn's disappearance.
What if somebody had murdered him, or sold his corpse to McDonald's to be used as meat for the burgers?
It wasn't such an out there notion if recent news was any indication. Moreover, it was a notion that now had the brunette looking over her shoulder a little more vigilantly.
She didn't even want to think about the hell that Finn's mother was going through. Maybe a tray of freshly baked cookies, and a Pueblo Corn pie were in order, if not for anything else but to let Miss Hudson know that everyone's thoughts were with her...
"What's got you thinking so hard? I'm always afraid when you think."
Rachel blinked herself back into the present. She peered up at the newcomer and sagged with relief. "It's about time you showed up. I was beginning to think that you had gone missing too," she sighed, her features lingering in worry.
"Oh," Noelle drawled, nodding comprehensively as she hung her bag over the back of the chair, and then sat down opposite the brunette. "Yeah, I heard that your school may close mid-week if he still hasn't returned. He's only been missing for like a day though, so I doubt that the police will do anything to try to find him just yet. Stupid, I know. You seem pretty worried. Are you alright?"
Rachel sipped her tea with respect for its heat and then placed the mug down on the table. "Though Finn and I were far from close, yes, I'm most definitely worried. But I'm also rather spooked. If Finn can go missing at any given moment, then any of us could. It wouldn't take but two seconds to drag me into the back of a van and cart me off to God knows where – hopefully to New York, so that I can build on my Broadway career early. But there's no guarantee that that is where my abductor would take me..."
"Well," Noelle purred, canting her head to the side in a cutesy fashion, "I'll protect you."
The comment reverberated around her mind, along with images of a sullen Quinn Fabray, the moment that she'd spoken it; evoking the loss of her flirtatious grin. She peered out of the café's large front window, watching strangers go on about their day, whilst she was stuck enduring the awkwardness of her quite obviously unrequited crush.
"Elle," Rachel murmured knowingly.
Apologetically.
Noelle quickly laughed the awkwardness off with a shrug. "I was kidding. I wouldn't want to step on Quinn's toes... too hard at least," she tagged on the end, simply because her tongue couldn't hold it. "Now tell me why you asked me to meet you here."
The shorter girl sighed and prepared herself for the inevitable. "Firstly, I apologize for needlessly inviting you to my house last night. Nothing that you say is going to stop me from reimbursing you the gas money -"
Noelle waved the brunette off, her expression bending into a wry smile. "I don't care about the gas money. Not everybody is as frugal as you, my dear," she teased, adopting a spot-on Dickensian English accent.
Rachel pursed her lips, her forehead sinking with disgruntled lines as she remembered how she'd dissolved with laughter when Quinn had called her a cheapskate yesterday. She hadn't laughed like that in a long time, and with that thought she was forced to admit that the silly memory was sort of close to her heart, despite everything that had followed it. Yet right along with that thought, she was also forced to admit that she didn't necessarily want to have fond memories with Quinn. Truth be told, she still hadn't forgiven the cheerleader for tormenting her mercilessly for all those years.
"Quinn also likes to think that I am frugal," she said, smiling begrudgingly over her cup of tea. "Though I don't know why; I spent fifteen dollars on her once, and I still haven't asked her to pay me back. I want at least fifteen points for that."
"What's that look?"
Rachel looked up. "What look?" she chuckled somewhat self-consciously, though her curiosity was genuinely piqued.
Noelle squinted; focused on reading the brunette. This was the first time that she'd seen Rachel show any kind of fondness for Quinn. That smile, however subdued, said it all.
Upon realizing this, her heart took a hit. She swallowed the sting down, reminding herself that Rachel's happiness was the most important thing in the end, and if the stunning blonde cheerleader with the pissy attitude made Rachel happy then there wasn't much that anybody could do, was there?
Still, the tall violinist was curious...
"I get it – really I do; Quinn's gorgeous. But besides that, what on earth do you see in the girl?" she probed, quickly adding, "not to knock your lady or anything though, because if somebody knocked my man or my woman, Noelle would not be impressed. But I just have to ask in this case."
The question stilled Rachel for more than a few seconds. She recalled the events that had happened after Noelle had left last night; Quinn storming out without so much as a word, and without the dress.
As far as the brunette was concerned the dating ruse was over, and the fact that Finn was now missing had been just another shove in that direction.
If he was missing, the ruse was pointless anyway...
"Quinn is no longer my lady. As a matter of fact, we put an end to our relationship last night," she clarified, before taking another measured sip from her mug.
Noelle's raised her eyebrows, taken aback, though she wasn't sure why because the way that Rachel had been with the blonde, last night, had been pretty telling.
"In fact, I invited you to my house so that I could get your perspective – your advice – on whether or not I should break-up with her. But then she showed up, hence why I had to postpone our talk," Rachel explained, almost feeling her teeth quiver with discomfort as the lies poured through them. "From there we proceeded to argue, and then... then we broke up. I know that this goes without saying, but just to make certain, I would prefer it if you could keep this to yourself."
Really she'd wanted to tell Noelle the whole truth, but putting Quinn and all of her insecurities – as well as her unhealthy desire for power – out there, especially to someone who the blonde felt threatened by, just wasn't acceptable in Rachel's opinion – a betrayal if anything.
Noelle reached across the table, palming Rachel's hand. "Of course; I wont say a thing. How are you holding up, sweets?" she asked, delicate. "And I know how you like to be strong all the time, but you don't have to be that way with me."
"I know that, and I'll be fine. I'm genuinely coping well. It wasn't as if we were together for a long period of time. We gave it a go, and it didn't work," the brunette replied, watching the hand that covered her own. She wasn't sure whether she should address the elephant in the room just yet. But judging by the look on Noelle's face, it was clear that she, herself, wasn't going to be the one to address the elephant first...
"Rach, I don't want to put anything else on you right now, but at the same time I also want to be honest with you," Noelle began, her throat twitching with a small gulp. She slid her hand away from the small tan hand that rested atop the table. "I think that you are gorgeous, and... I think that you are extremely talented, and hilarious, and adorable," she added, now smirking slightly, albeit a little sadly. Then she rolled her eyes. At herself. "Ok, who am I kidding? I have a worryingly sized crush on you, but," she halted her gushing ramble before she could get carried away, "I don't want it to mar our friendship. I just, I had to tell you."
She blew out a quick breath, as if it were a balloon that she'd released into the sky.
Rachel smiled, a quiet blush dusting her cheeks. She'd suspected that her friend liked her, but to hear it like that? "Wow, that was quite the list of attributes. Thank you," she said, tucking some hair behind her ear. She gazed down into the ripples that swam outward on the surface of her tea. "I sort of figured out that you perhaps saw me as more than just a friend, but I wasn't one-hundred percent."
Noelle shrugged a shoulder. "Well you know me; subtle as a chainsaw to the head."
The unspoken request lingered between them, lurking in the averted glances, and in the demure awkward smiles.
"You would make the perfect girlfriend for me, Elle," Rachel finally spoke up. "But -"
"Dang! Always a but."
Rachel chuckled.
"Come on then!" Noelle prompted comedically. "Let's hear your list of reasons as to why you don't want to do the horizontal tango with me."
Rachel scoffed and then winked. "I perhaps would do the horizontal tango with you, but I don't want to lose our friendship. As I am sure that you've observed, I don't have many friends, and I love you – everything about you. I wish not to blur or cheapen that with sexual attraction, which we all know can be ridiculously fickle."
Visibly dejected yet still remaining in high spirits, for Rachel's sake, Noelle nodded to herself and adjusted her beanie hat. "I love you too. Enough to go away and lick my wounds, and then return to your side as your friend – best friend!" she quickly corrected herself with a smirk. "I want that title."
"It is yours." Rachel shrugged, winking. "But only because nobody else wants it at the moment."
"Whatever, cheeky – and I been had that title."
"You sound like one Santana Lopez," Rachel couldn't help but point out, chuckling gently.
"She stole all of her one-liners from me. Don't gets it twisted," Noelle retorted, playing along in the hopes that the humor would displace her disappointment. Or at least mask it a little better.
The aspiring Broadway star sighed, easing into a relaxed smile, though not completely; because she knew that she still had to check in with Quinn to see how she was coping with the current Finn situation.
Regardless of whether or not the blonde ever loved – or even liked – the clumsy boy, his sudden disappearance had to have come as a blow of some sort. Right?
It had for the entire town, and the fact that it had been on the news earlier wasn't doing anything to quell the notion that the situation was perhaps a potentially dire one.
Rachel had decided; she would hang out with Noelle for a little while longer, and then she would go home and consider when the best time to contact Quinn would be, as well as figure out how to approach the blonde, who was bound to still be agitated with her after the previous night's events.
But first she would let loose and be merry with her newly termed best friend.
"How was Mike's party?" she inquired, plucking free a loose eyelash before it could fall into her eye and prove itself to be an unwanted pest.
Making sure to say nothing, Noelle shrugged, like a child who was being asked to own up to a crime that had already been found out.
It was Rachel's turn to ask: "What's that look about?"
Shrugging once more, Noelle grinned.
And once more no words came from her...
Well at this point, Rachel had already dipped the tip of her index finger into her tea. She tucked it in the inside of her thumb; poised to flick at her friend. "Dish, otherwise I shall flick my tea at you," she prompted, sporting a dry yet comedic expression. "Then we will both be agitated and confused, as opposed to just me being agitated and confused."
"Put the gun away, Terminator," Noelle giggled, cupping and lowering the hand that hung inches from her face.
"Well then give me what I want or I'll be back," Rachel teased, making her fingers move as she spoke, like a makeshift mouth.
"Alright," Noelle drawled, as if put out. "Well, I may or may not have made out with Brittany Pierce," she confessed, biting her bottom lip in anticipation of Rachel's reaction.
"You are aware of the fact that there is something, of a romantic kind, going on between her and Santana Lopez, aren't you? However, they do not seem to be exclusive. But knowing how unreasonable Santana can be..."
"You should know that she kissed me."
Rachel's expression remained unchanged by that small detail, simply because she had met Santana, 'Satan,' Lopez.
"Trust me; Santana don't want none of this," Noelle stated, smirking before growing serious. "Brittany seemed upset last night, we gravitated towards each other, and then she pounced. I never had a chance. If anything, I looked after her the entire night. Santana should be grateful."
"I'm happy to hear that you were there to take care of her, although I am wondering why Santana wasn't..."
After a while, Rachel gave up on the riddle, and licked her lips. "Brittany is a pretty girl, and she's a sweetheart most of the time. I must say that I'm quite envious of you, Elle."
"So you have a thing for blondes," Noelle confirmed with herself. "Well if you kiss me, it would be just as good as getting to smooch Britt, since I didn't brush my teeth or wash my face this morning. Just saying," she quipped, pushing it in that Noelle Hutchington-Chang, tongue-in-cheek, way.
Peering at her friend over the rim of her mug, Rachel chuckled. "I don't feel that you would be able to handle me. I'm handsy and I pretend that I'm deaf when told to stop," she husked, before bobbing her tongue out.
Noelle leaned her head towards her shoulder, clasping her hands on top of the table; business-like. "Oh really? Tell me more."
The two girls crumbled into a fit of giggles.
Ultimately it looked as though their friendship was going to be fine, which was what mattered at the end of the day. Moments such as this said so...
"Ooh, I almost forgot; there's a yacht party happening today!" Noelle suddenly exclaimed, as if only just remembering. "Since you flaked on me last night," she scolded playfully, "it is your duty to be my plus one for this party."
"That sounds rather lavish," Rachel mused, imagining pretty cocktails, and clear blue waters below a pink setting sun. "I may just have to take you up on your offer. With all that seems to be happening at the moment, it would be good to unwind a little. May I ask who owns the yacht?"
"Luke Montgomery-Smith-Haven. You know all those rich brats? Wade Massey – Ben Price and them?"
Rachel fingered through the pages of her mind, attempting to place those names. Benjamin Robert Price she already knew, as the arrogant antagonistic boy attended McKinley High, unfortunately. But the others were mere snobbish shadows to her mind's eye. "I know Ben but that's about it, thankfully."
Noelle's entire expression brightened with a dry snort of laughter. "Never change."
"Well, I will try not to let Broadway change me. But I make no promises. I'll most likely be Raymond Berry as opposed to Rachel Berry, by the time I receive my first Tony Award, simply because I've always wanted to be able to pee my name up the side of people's houses – free autographs for my fans, so to speak." Having said that, the brunette grinned widely, fluttering her eyelashes; her dimples prominent and adorable.
"If this table wasn't so wide, I'd reach across and pinch your cheeks; you're way too cute," Noelle giggled. Though for her outward mirth, pangs of sadness twanged her heart, because she now knew that the cutie across the table would never be hers...
Strange.
That was the word that Quinn would have used to describe her mood.
Even as she led Noah Puckerman up to her bedroom, she couldn't shake the feeling, no matter how she smirked and swayed her hips to tempt the boy into giving up his power. She may not have been able to shake it, but she could ignore it – focus on something else, like the cold steel buckle to the belt that held Puck's trousers up around his waist.
Both now stood just inches from her bed, she stroked her fingers over the buckle – back and forth – all whilst peering up at the seemingly hypnotized boy. "Take off your pants," she whispered sensuously.
Puck gulped. He had never seen the blonde look so beautiful; her face completely devoid of make-up, her hair tussled in that casual but oh so sexy way.
The wistfulness in her enigmatic hazel eyes.
He blinked himself out of those thoughts, and rubbed the back of his neck. "W-Where are your folks?"
"At church," Quinn answered, sliding her arms around the tense boy's neck and pulling so that his chest would fall into her own.
"And w-what about Rachel?"
At the mention of the brunette's name, the toxic feeling of rejection swarmed Quinn, returning to her like a frisbee that she'd sent away with all of her might. She gritted her teeth, and then forced herself to relax after a moment or two. "What about her? I don't want to talk about her. I need a big strong man," she purred into Puck's ear, causing his eyes to briefly flutter closed. "Now are you going to fuck me, or not?"
Those words – they cast aside every concern that plagued Puck. His large tan hands tugged at Quinn's ass, strong and aggressive.
Without further ado, he lifted her, walking her backwards until the mattress was rolling beneath their weight.
He peered down into her eyes, noting as much as he could about them.
"We'll need a condom. You got one?" the blonde prompted, mentally preparing herself for the size and girth of Puck's member as she remembered the gasp that she'd expelled the last time. "I-I want to be on top this time too, a-and no kissing," she quickly added.
Above her, Puck fell victim to a deep frown. His throbbing nether regions taunted him, telling him to improve upon the forty seconds that he had thrust out the last time that he'd been in this very situation. But he couldn't get rid of the feeling that something was very wrong here...
"What's taking so long?" Quinn snapped.
"I..." The partially excited boy sighed and sent a small pitiful nod down between their bodies, saying no more.
It took more than a few seconds, all of which hissed with an awkward silence, for the blonde to figure it out – mostly because the idea was so improbable. But when she cottoned on, she did so in a big way. "Are you fucking serious? You can't get it up?"
Puck shook his head mournfully.
"Fuck sake. This is a God damn joke!"
"I think it's 'cause I'm so fucked up about Finn at the moment... I guess. It's stressful, dude."
Dude?
Seriously?
Quinn rolled her eyes and shoved him away, gazing over towards the window as she brought her one knee up to her chin.
What the hell was going on?
Another slam-dunk rejection, and all in less than two days, she internally griped as she glared off into space.
How had she lost her touch? She couldn't even get Puck hard now? A guy that she knew to be both infatuated with her and horny twenty-four-seven?
Well, indeed, if she had lost her touch, she was convinced – and perhaps irrationally – that it was all Rachel's fault.
But then again, everything was Rachel's fault at the moment! The broken ceiling fan downstairs in the kitchen, the mailman's incompetence last week, the fact that there was no alcohol left in the house.
Everything!
"Quinn," Puck began, reaching for her, only to be emphatically shrugged off. "Look, I'd willingly be your play thing, but I aint stupid. You obviously had some type of fight with Berry, and I was the first sucker on your contact list. She loves you. I see the way she looks at you at school."
The Head Cheerleader remained tight-lipped and screw-faced.
She couldn't even muster a bitter scoff at the irony of the boy's remark.
"Quit being a spoiled brat! Finn's missing, man!" Puck stressed, raising his voice. "I thought you called me round so that we could talk about what we were gonna do if the cops showed up asking questions! I-I can't do this to Finn, especially when he could be..." He puffed out a long troubled breath, ruffling his mohawk back and forth, like a man of many woes. "Finn could be dead, layin' in some ditch somewhere, and I have to deal with that! I'm not smashin' his ex-girlfriend too."
"Didn't bother you before," Quinn retorted bitterly. "Now get out of my house, before I call my dad and tell him that you broke in through one of the windows."
"I actually like you! Like, a lot! What I did to Finn was for you! And look what happened!" Puck seethed, getting up and heading for the door. He tugged it open, so hard that it slammed against the inside wall. Loudly. "Think about the fact that people care about you before you use them and toss them to the side! You wanna get off? Get yourself a dildo – I don't care, but you ain't gonna use me!"
"Finn's probably living out in the woods with a gang of bears or something. He's not dead! It just – he can't be! And you're not going to make me feel bad about what you and Santana did! Now, I could have sworn that I just told you to get the fuck out of my house. Did I not?"
"Look around. Finn's nowhere to be found, Santana's pissed at you, Berry ain't around, and I'm about to walk out too! Fix your shit!" Puck shouted, before vanishing out through the door.
Quinn listened to the haste with which his feet thudded down the stairs, and when the front door slammed she flung herself back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling without blinking. She listened to her quickened breathing, listened to her chest wheeze as it rose and fell.
Like that of a self-fulfilling prophecy, a scratchy tickle began to materialize in her throat.
She sighed... wheezily.
The last week or so had drained her something awful – no wonder she had the God damn flu.
No wonder she was being such a bitch!
Stress was like that.
But most stressful of all?
Truth be told, her unimaginable attraction to Rachel, to another girl, hadn't bothered her so much. Who wasn't experimenting with the same sex these days anyway?
No, most stressful of all was the fact that she was in some unthinkable way into Rachel, 'Man Hands,' Berry – the girl that she had tirelessly bullied for everything from her jacked up fashion sense, to her unconventional facial features. The girl that irked the living crap out of her on almost every level! Not only that, but the blonde wasn't exactly sure what was defining the pull either.
Was it strictly sexual?
Was it emotional?
Both?
All options served to jar the cheerleader, that last one over them all...
It wasn't like it even mattered anyway though, because Rachel had more or less told her to get lost, and in every sense, which was a fact that had begun to dangerously eat away at Quinn's already shaky self-esteem – a fact that had had her prodding her face in the mirror in search of any imperfections that could stand to be fixed.
Who the hell did Rachel think she was?
This was all her fault! Everything was her fault!
What-the-hell-ever though. If the Facebook invitation had been accurate, then Luke's luxury yacht party, which was set to commence in three hours time, would be swarming with three deck fulls of handsome rich boys, most of which had hit on her at some point in the past.
Somebody on that boat would want her. They had to...
Having had enough of trying – and unsuccessfully trying at that – to coax her girlfriend into some sweet lady kisses, Santana leaned up, her hands pressing hard into the mattress either side of Brittany's head. "What's up, B?" she asked, concern etching her caramel forehead.
"... Nothing."
A familiar idea swelled within the Latina's mind, bringing with it a sexual smirk. "If you tell me what's up, I'll do that thing you like," she drawled sensuously, whilst unclasping the button that fastened the unusually quiet blonde's jeans.
But when the toned lithe body beneath her tensed, she stopped and huffed a sigh, leaning up completely. "What the hell, Britt? I got enough shit goin' on at the moment, without you keepin' shit from me too. Just tell me what's -"
"I kissed someone else," Brittany blurted, wincing as soon as the troublesome words met with the air.
"What?" Santana muttered, scooting back in a manner that painted her hurt visibly. "You tell me to commit to you a-and only you, I finally agree to that, and then you go out and kiss some asshole first chance you get?"
Brittany groaned, jutting out a dejected bottom lip. She fiddled with her fingers, her clear blue eyes growing moist. "I'm sorry. I was sad, and mad at you for yelling at Lord Tubbington the way that you did... He's still depressed. I think he wants an apology."
"I can't believe this – you stepped out on me over that annoying ball of pocket-lint?"
Sitting up against the head board, Brittany grabbed her pillow and hugged it to her chest. "Santana! He's important to me. Don't call him names!" she scolded.
"No, you know what? You don't get to twist this, Brittany!" The furious Latina countered. "Who was it?" she demanded, getting up off of the bed altogether to pace the room.
Brittany watched the little vein in Santana's forehead – the one that always bulged with blood, becoming prominent, whenever she was deeply hurt as well as angry.
With the sight of it, the blonde bowed her head. "I'm sorry," she again mumbled.
"Who?" Santana persisted, placing her hands on her hips.
"You can't be mad at her, because I was drunk and she took care of me – and I was the one who kissed her," Brittany protested.
"Who?"
The blonde lifted her pale hand, rubbing her one eye like a scolded child who was about to burst into tears. "Noelle Hutchington-Chang," she mumbled. "Don't be mad at her. She doesn't know we're together."
Santana stood there, the tips of her ears burning with all of the emotion that drudged through her. "Everyone knows we're together! They just don't have the balls to say the shit to my face!" she exclaimed, trying to make Brittany understand that the kiss had been a devious and malicious act on Noelle's part.
In the past, she'd always kind of been indifferent to the tall Asian girl's existence. But this?
This meant war...
The last time that Rachel had worn jeans was – well... the brunette couldn't exactly remember. Skirts were so much more her, but as it so happened the day seemed to be just as windy as it was cast in beautiful golden warm sunlight. And she highly doubted that anybody wished to see her skirt blow up around her ears, least of all her.
Her expression conveyed her slight discomfort – a self-conscious fidget, somewhat – as she strode along the Lima Docks, with a well-dressed Noelle at her side.
"Not to reduce our friendship to mundane talk about the weather, but it really is gorgeous today," Noelle pointed out, taking her gaze along the many plush boats that were docked and bobbing atop the shimmering water's ripples. She smiled, seriously content for the moment. This was why she worked to push herself so hard at an academic level; so that one day she might own such lavish things.
Ambition; it was one of the main attributes that she shared with the aspiring Broadway star.
Rachel playfully hip-checked the tall girl beside her, simply because she could. "I must say that I agree. If you were going to host a boat party, it would certainly be today – despite the fact that I was forced, by the rambunctious winds, to wear jeans and deprive my nether regions of the air that it deserves."
"Only you could say that so casually."
"Whatever Elle; you love me. In other words, quit your belly-aching."
Aboard the filled Montgomery-Smith-Haven family yacht, Quinn had just tossed back her fifth vodka shot, drawing many cheers from the cigar-puffing, alcohol guzzling, teenagers that populated the swanky outdoor deck. She would have reached for the idol cigar that slowly smoked between Luke's fingers, as he conversed with other guests, but she thought better of it when a bikini clad girl slid another tray of shots on the table, before hurrying off to tend elsewhere.
"Today has been nothing but shitty, so I'manna do another shot. I deserve it," Quinn slurred, merrily pumping sluggish fists into the air.
"I like a girl who likes her liquor," an already buzzed Wade Massey commented, slowly sliding his pale hand up Quinn's bikini clad outer thigh from where he was lounging topless on a deck chair. He eyed her feminine yet toned physique with great excitement, imagining all of the things that he would do to her if he were to ever get her behind closed doors. With that thought, he glanced towards the double glass doors that led to the interior main deck, where he knew the king-sized bed to be.
Gentle with swishing the fizzy red wine around in his glass, Benjamin Price frowned at the sight before him, recalling the loved-up manner with which Man Hands had kissed the blonde in the hallway at school. "Hey Quinn, what happened with you and Berrylicious?" he just had to probe.
Wade's hand stilled its journey along the swaying Head Cheerleader's thigh. He sent his meddlesome friend a droopy-eyed glare.
In response Benjamin simply shrugged his muscular shoulders, flashing his perfect white teeth over the rim of his glass in an attempt to further antagonize his unamused friend.
Even with the five shots that were coloring her senses, Quinn struggled to hold her smile at the mention of Rachel's name. It was like this sore topic that was determined to throb, no matter how gently the wind might blow.
She stumbled a small distance on heavy feet, dropping down onto Wade's lap; casual with combing her fingers through his curly dark blonde hair. "Not that Berrylicious, actually – and I kicked her ass to the curb," she begrudgingly slurred after a while, managing a convincing enough shrug, "because she's a loser."
In that moment, Benjamin's gaze just happened to skate over Quinn's shoulder. What he saw, or rather who he saw, caused him to smirk cunningly. He quickly returned his emerald green eyes to the inebriated cheerleader, so as not to alert her to the fuckery that she was about to walk into. "I just want to know one thing. What's Berry's cat taste like?"
"If I told you, I'd have to kill you."
The juvenile laughter that poured from all those that were listening suddenly tapered off with the arrival of two newcomers, reduced to hush whispers, conspiratorial glances, and quiet sniggers over cocktail glasses.
Sensing that Noelle was getting ready to scold Benjamin for his crude and unsightly words, Rachel placed a calming hand to the disgruntled girl's arm, and commanded her eyes to zero in on the boy that apparently fancied himself a clown. "Well Benjamin," she began with sardonic cheer, "I think that it's safe to say that my cat tastes a lot better than your mother's. That's for sure. Tell her to eat more greens. That should clear that right up!" She smiled cloyingly at the now blushing boy, bidding him a small nod of the head, as if to thank him for listening and suggest that he was welcome to come back for more any time that he wished.
Quinn almost knocked over the shot that she'd been reaching for in her haste to whip her head around. Everybody else may have been convulsing with laughter, but she wasn't.
Couldn't.
Her eyes misted over like murky golden waters over sharp rocks, as she carefully eyed Rachel, who was pointedly eyeing her back.
In that moment, both girls knew that this party was most likely going to be anything but fun...