Santana looked around to see where the voice came from and saw Rachel sitting at the table with another girl. When Quinn didn't respond, Santana nudged her, "Don't be rude."
"Rach, why don't you come eat with us." Quinn offered, ignoring the girl.
"That sounds great," Rachel said, starting to stand.
Santana was having an internal war, it was clear that both girls were stressed by the situation, but it felt like they were also both being rude, and she didn't love that. "Is your food order already in?" Santana asked Rachel.
"Yeah." Rachel said, thrown by the question.
"Then don't move, that's rude to your server, we will join you. Come on Quinn." The table already had four chairs, so they sat in the empty two. Santana stuck out her hand to shake before sitting down. "Santana."
"Amy." The girl responded.
"Amy," Santana repeated softly. Santana's mind raced with all of the things that she wanted to say to this girl.
"How did this little meeting happen?" Quinn asked. Santana glared at her, but she ignored her, eyes fixed on Rach.
"I thought you said you weren't avoiding me." Amy said with a self-satisfied look.
Quinn turned sharply, "Of course she's avoiding you, that's the first step to dealing with homewreckers."
"Quinn!" Santana barked. She was upset too, but what the hell.
"What's step two?" Amy asked silkily, leaning in closer to Quinn.
Quinn's hazel eyes flashed, looking more green than usual, not a good sign. "Want me to show you?" Quinn whispered. The controlled rage audible.
"We were running, come wash your hands with me, Q." Santana said standing.
Quinn wanted to ignore Santana, but they had just agreed to the new rules, and she knew that Santana would feel disrespected by that. So she stood up and walked towards the bathroom.
It was a single bathroom, so Santana, ignoring the raised eyebrow from the waitress, followed Quinn in and locked the door. "If we stay, what are the chances you are going to hit this girl?"
"35%" Quinn said without hesitation.
"I'm not liking that number, Fabray."
"Can we please leave then?" Quinn begged.
A big part of Santana wanted to say of course they could leave, but she didn't want to abandon Rachel to this mess, and if they left getting Quinn to eat would be a nightmare. Besides, maybe it would be a growth opportunity for Quinn. She pulled Quinn in and kissed her lips gently. "You really don't think you can control yourself?"
Quinn leaned into Santana, "I don't want to."
Santana patted her bottom, Quinn tensed even more at that. "We are going to stay for lunch. I'm going to tell you right now what my expectations are, are you listening closely?"
"Yes Ma'am."
"Good girl." Santana cooed. Quinn's body melted at the praise. "I expect you to eat half of what you order. I expect you to be civil. Answer if Amy is talking to you, but otherwise if you cannot be nice, your mouth is closed. You will keep your hands and feet to yourself. Am I understood?"
"Yes ma'am." Quinn agreed.
"If I tell you that you need to back down, what do you need to do?"
"Back down."
"I'm not asking for you to have respect for Amy, I'm asking you to have it for me."
"I understand, San. Really." Quinn said, pulling away slightly.
"I feel like your behavior so far has earned you a spanking, but if it can be good from here on out, I will reconsider that." Santana told her.
"I will try my hardest to behave." Quinn assured her.
"I'm not going to nag you about the food on your plate, but if half of it isn't gone by the time I go to pay the bill, then you will not be working out the rest of this fall break." Santana told her. Quinn gasped at the harshness of the sentence, that was 10 days. "Am I understood?"
"Yes ma'am."
"If you continue to pretend that you don't know what manners are, then when we get home, I will wash that disrespect right out of your mouth, and then give you 10 with the cutting board."
After a moment pause, Quinn realized that Santana was waiting for her to agree. This was new, but Quinn was finding some comfort in the clear layout of expectations and consequences. "Yes ma'am."
"Good job, Baby. One last thing, and we will go out there: If you put your hands on that girl, you will beg for me to spank you with that cutting board, that is how bad that spanking will be." Santana told her.
Quinn tugged on Santana's jacket nervously. "No Lima Heights Adjacent?"
Santana wanted to smirk at that, but she needed Quinn to know that she was deadly serious. She turned her girl slightly to the side and gave her a swat. She knew it didn't hurt over her jeans, but she hoped that her message was clear.
"Yes ma'am. I will keep my hands to myself." Quinn told her.
"All of your body to yourself." Santana amended, seeing the obvious loophole.
"All of my body." She agreed.
Santana leaned in and kissed her nose, "Such a good girl."
"San?" Quinn asked as Santana turned to leave.
"Yeah Baby?"
"Can we have like a tap out code, in case that 35% grows?" Quinn asked.
"Why don't you just excuse yourself to the bathroom and take a minute to collect yourself?" Santana suggested.
"Yes ma'am, sounds good." Quinn agreed.
"But try, Baby. Oh, and we do need to wash our hands." They both washed their hands and went back out.
"I ordered your drinks; I hope that's okay." Rachel said.
Quinn smiled warmly at Rachel, "It's perfect, thank you." She tapped her glass of lemon water against Rachels.
Santana sipped her diet coke, "Yeah, thanks Rach."
"You guys were gone a while…" Amy said, "Doing more than washing your hands?"
Quinn's eyes flashed as she turned to look at Amy, an insult on the tip of her tongue. "Just got caught up talking," Santana said smoothly, as she looked through the menu. "What did you guys get?" At this point she felt like their best way to win this was to not let Amy know that she was getting to them.
Quinn swallowed the anger she had felt, if San could be chill then she could be chill. She vowed to keep a cool head, it was easy in most situations, but she already felt all sorts of out of whack and this girl just added to it. "Yeah, I've never eaten here before."
"It looks like you don't eat at many places," Amy said, clearly going for the low blow after not getting the previous rise out of Quinn.
The situation snapped into focus for Santana. She totally believed that this girl had started off with her sights on Rachel, but they had clearly moved to Quinn. She watched Quinn and Rachel both wince at that comment. "Rach?"
"I got a cheese quesadilla." Rachel said.
"I got a chicken salad." Amy put in. She was smirking, it was clear the dig had had an effect.
Santana leaned over and rubbed Quinn's back, "What looks good, Baby?"
Quinn resisted the urge in rolling her eyes. She too had noticed the shift in Amy's focus, and she felt calmer in it. She was unsure about what Rachel would do with Amy, but Amy couldn't have her. That was a nonstarter. "I was thinking of getting a steak salad."
"Rach, it's your night to cook dinner, do you know what that's going to be?" San asked. Trying to do the calorie math in her own head for the day.
"I was thinking of making homemade pizza." Rachel said, "Quinn said she had tried them on rice cakes and I wanted to try it…" She trailed off at the mixed facial expressions of everyone at the table.
"Of course, that's how she eats pizza." Amy said.
"That wasn't a great thing for me to pass on to you, Rach." Quinn said, cringing as she felt Santana's back rub turn more forceful.
"I think we should just do normal pizza." Santana said, straightening back up, her tone was light but both girls knew it was an order.
"Sounds good, I will pick up some stuff me need on the way home." Rachel agreed quickly, already knowing she probably wasn't in Santana's good graces with the current situation.
"Thanks." Santana said smiling warmly.
The waitress appeared and sat down Amy and Rachel's food, "Hey, are y'all ready to order?"
"Yes Ma'am, sorry for joining their table, I'm sure that kind of stuff drives you guys crazy." Santana said kindly.
The lady looked taken off guard, but then smiled kindly back, "It's not problem, honey."
"I appreciate it. Can I have a chicken club, and she will have a steak salad, can you make sure there are no onions in it, please?" Santana asked.
"Sorry to be a pain." Quinn added.
"It's not a problem honey, anything else?"
"I think we are good, thanks!" Santana told her.
As the waitress walked away Amy leaned into Quinn's space, "She think you're too dumb to order for yourself, Ivy League?"
Santana bristled at that, but Quinn just smiled smoothly at the girl and leaned back into Amy's space, "Yup, that must be it." Now that both girls had a clearer understanding of the situation their positions had totally flipped.
"Let me be clear here…." Santana started to say.
"Hey, S, can you find your chill?" Quinn asked, leaning back toward the safety of her girl.
Santana instantly knew that Quinn was throwing a song lyric her way. She wasn't sure why the Sabrina Carpenter obsession had started, but Quinn listened to her nonstop and in her unwavering show of support Santana had listened to all the songs and watched all the videos dutifully, even now followed the girl on Instagram and TikTok, incase Quinn stole her phone and wanted to look. "I think I must have lost it." She smirked at the girl, relaxing at Quinn's mood shift.
Rachel too relaxed at the interaction. She too of course had sat and listened to many a Sabrina Carpenter song. Quinn had started swapping them for listening to Rachel sing.
Amy's nose wrinkled at the obvious inside joke. "So sweet," she said sarcastically.
"You guys should eat, Rach, you have class in like an hour and a half and still need to get back to school." Santana instructed.
"Good point." Rachel said, turning to her food to dig in.
Amy took a bite of her food, "Are you their mother? Seem to have real close tabs on them both."
"Surprised by what genuine love and concern looks like?" Quinn asked back.
The waitress walked up on the obvious tension and set the plates down. "I had the kitchen rush them, everything okay?"
Santana's glare quickly melted into warmth, "Yes, everything is perfect, we really appreciate you." The lady quickly walked away. Quinn looked down at the huge plate of food that had been set in front of her, "Want to switch?" San asked. She had purposely ordered something she knew Quinn liked in case she didn't want what she had ordered.
Quinn looked over at Santana's plate, and Santana and Rach watched her doing the math in her head of half of each thing. "No thanks."
Santana nodded, remembering her vow not to nag the girl about this. "So you go to school with Rach?"
"Yeah, we have a couple classes together." Amy said, taking another bite of her salad.
"What are you thinking you want to do after you graduate, got big dreams of Broadway like our little star?" San asked. Both her and Quinn smiled at Rach, who clearly was elated with the praise.
"My mom owns a dance studio in Pennsylvania, I will probably go back and teach there, until I can own it one day."
"Why NYADA then?" Santana asked. Hopefully if she kept her talking then she would keep the snark down.
"I wanted to see the world." She said simply.
"You danced in high school?" Quinn asked.
"I've danced my whole life. I teach a couple classes at the gym, Rachel signed up for one, and then dropped out." Amy said looking up at Rachel.
"Yeah, I needed to make some choices for my relationship." Rachel said. Santana was proud of the girl for speaking up.
"What day's do you teach?" San asked.
"Friday and Sundays." Amy seemed a little taken off guard by Santana's questioning.
"I think you might need some real friends so that you learn to be a friend." Santana told the girl directly. Quinn choked on her water at S's forthcoming statement. "Easy, Q."
"Yeah, I'm the problem." Quinn said sarcastically, as she gasped for breath.
"Maybe we can all four come to your classes on Sundays?" Santana suggested. She felt comfortable with Rachel around the girl now that Amy seemed set on Quinn, and while that thought alone made her want to sock Amy, she knew that Quinn would never cheat.
"Uh, yeah that sounds cool." Amy said.
The girls chatted amicably for half an hour longer. "Rach, you didn't say how you two ran into each other." Quinn said after Amy had left, and Santana was paying the bill.
"I came here to do my list, because I knew I still had to make dinner tonight, and she just walked in." Rachel said, hoping that Quinn believed her.
"I can make dinner tonight so that you have time to do your list." Quinn offered.
Rachel's face lit up at that. "That would be great."
"No problem, San and I can stop by the store on the way home." Quinn told her.
"Thank you!" Rachel called before dashing out the door.
"What is she thanking you for?" Santana asked.
"I told her I would make dinner tonight. She came here to make her list, and that didn't happen." Quinn told her. "Can we stop by the store?"
"Yeah, Baby, are you ready?" San asked.
"Yes Ma'am." Quinn said. They started walking towards the store. "Soooo?"
"So what?" Santana asked, smirking over at her girl.
"Did I redeem myself?" Quinn asked.
"It was touch and go for a second." Santana told her.
"But in the end?"
Santana laughed, and pulled Quinn in close, kissing the side of her face. "In the end, you did good, Baby."
"Do we have to go to Amy's class?" Quinn asked.
"I think she needs a friend." Santana told her.
"So yes." Quinn said.
"Yes, I mean if feels you up, let me know, but yeah, I want you to suck this one up for me." Santana told her.
"Ah so you picked up on that vibe too." Quinn said laughing.
"Oh it was obvious, Baby, she had her sights on you."
"You are normally upset about stuff like that." Quinn said.
"I'm more secure in us now." Santana told her. "And honestly, I'm just glad that her sights aren't set on Rachel."
Quinn thought about that, as she leaned into Santana, "Are you upset about the pizza thing?" She asked switching gears.
"Well I'm unimpressed with you knowing anorexia 'life hacks' but less impressed with you passing it on to Rachel, miss." Santana told her.
"I know not my greatest moment." Quinn agreed.
"You are making real people pizza tonight though?" Santana asked.
"Yes ma'am." Quinn said.
"Then I think we can leave that in the past. Speaking of food…" Santana started.
Quinn bit her lip, she felt like she had eaten more than half of her plate, in fact she felt like she had eaten at least two-thirds of it. "Yes…?"
"You did really great eating your salad, and I enjoyed not nagging." Santana told her.
"I enjoyed how you laid out what exactly you wanted from me, and the consequences for not obeying." Quinn said.
"Its hard knowing what is too heavy handed sometimes." Santana told her honestly.
"I liked it. I think that made it easier to submit."
"Noted." Santana told her. "Things are looking up, baby."