Quickstep: A tango in near misses - part two
He caught up with her on Wednesday on her way to homeroom, she was clutching several books against her chest and walking ridiculously quickly like she always did. Seriously, if she wasn’t such a midget he’d find it hard to keep up with her coz she was practically sprinting and it was only 8:40. But him being a total giant compared to her he managed to maintain a semi-speedy stroll and make it look like he wasn’t trying to get to class on time or whatever.
“Hey, so what about Friday night?”
Rachel glanced at him quickly, she didn’t want to walk into something, but she just wanted a quick look at his face. He was smirking, go figure. But he was also kind of blushing, just a little bit, and he had one hand extended out behind her back. Not touching her or anything, but just kind of there, like he wanted to be touching her, and he was looking down at her with this hope in his eyes. He was really quite beautiful sometimes.
“What about Friday night?”
He rolled his eyes at her, like she was really that clueless, but she giggled at him and he guessed she kind of just wanted to hear him say it. And he figured he owed her that, so he swallowed his sarcasm and just kind of nudged her a bit.
“You know, you and me, and Judy of course.” He grinned down at her a little bit and waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“Noah Puckerman, I don’t know who this Judy person is, or who exactly you think I am, but if you imagine that you’re going to get me to engage in some kind of sordid menage a trois before we’ve even had a proper date then you are seriously-”
“Alright, alright.” He was laughing at her, and yeah she was cute as all giddy-up with her indignation but she was getting steadily louder and people were starting to look so he decided to cut her off before she ended up causing a scene. “You can relax, babe, Judy’s my truck.”
She looked up at him from underneath her lashes, the heat from her cheeks slowly fading after her tirade, “You named your truck?”
Her eyebrows raised, not in her usual challenging arch, but in a kind of quiet curiosity that he thought maybe he could get used to. It was like, she was this one person, loud and irritating and really fucking insane, and then once in a while she would forget who she thought she was supposed to be and just chill for a fraction of a second. That’s the Rachel he liked, that he thought he could get on board with. That’s the chick he kind of just couldn’t help grinning at when she looked at him like she thought he was ridiculous for giving an inanimate vehicle a name.
“Yeah, ‘course. She’s my woman. You’d hate it if I never called you anything but ‘human’ wouldn’t you?”
“I suppose so yes, but it’s not really the same.” She was smiling that soft smile, like the one from Friday night, like something he’d done had made her happy. He needed more of that smile.
“What’s different about it?” He inclined his head slightly closer to hers, he kind of just had to be closer to her, in any way, and he couldn’t help the way his hand sort of twitched in her direction, going almost to her hip and then stopping there, in mid-air. They weren’t there yet, touching in public was still a bit too far outside of what they were supposed to be, but his body just wouldn’t listen to reason when it came to her.
“Well, several things really, but first and foremost I suppose is that I have feelings.”
“You saying Judy doesn’t have feelings?” He does his best to try and look offended, and he thinks maybe it worked, except he doesn’t get the apology hug he was angling for, instead he gets an incredulous laugh and a matter of fact smile, damn.
“No Noah, your truck most definitely does not have feelings, and now we’re at my homeroom and I don’t want to be late, so was there something you wanted to discuss with me before I go inside?”
She’s stopped and turned to face him, looking up at him with this smug little look on her face, with these big doe eyes like she has no idea what he’s going to ask her, only he knows she knows coz he’s pretty much already asked her and damn, girl was getting kind of cocky. She was actually just gonna keep making him say stuff all the time, for her own amusement.
Well screw that, if she wanted to play games, she was gonna have to learn a few of the rules first. Rule number one, never try and play someone who’s better at it than you. He’s having this revelation and all the while she’s just gazing up at him, like, waiting for him to pussy up and ask her out for like the sixtieth time, and yeah, he likes her, but he’s still a stud, so that shit’s just not gonna fly. So he just smiles down at her, his most charming (according to his mom) and sexy (according to like, all females ever) smile and runs a hand down the side of her face.
“Nope.” He says, and then raises his hand in a kind of haphazard wave and lopes off to homeroom, leaving her gaping at his back like some kind of fish. No doubt about it, he’s still got it.
Rachel ended up being late for homeroom. Which was really just annoying. She was never late for anything until he became a feature in her life and this was the third class she’d been late for in just under two weeks, all of which were his fault. She was really going to have to talk to him about this because she really did hate to be late.
On top of being late there was Finn, who she caught a glimpse of at the other end of the hallway as Noah walked away, looking right at her. He looked kind of annoyed for a minute, and then he smiled and gave a little wave before heading into his own classroom. That’s when she’d remembered, for the first time since Friday, why it was she’d broken up with Noah in the first place.
She thought about it all through homeroom and through first period, about Noah and Finn and her and Quinn and the big whole mess that she’d pretty much forced herself into the middle of. It was clear that she and Noah shared something. Chemistry if nothing else, and quite possibly more if the way her heart beat just a little faster when her skin touched his and the way his smile generated an automatic smile from her had anything to say about it. And the fact that she hasn’t thought about Finn since Noah picked her up Friday night probably says something about her feelings for him as well.
But then she thinks that that was the original problem. This thing she had with Noah, it was just so distracting. In a perfectly lovely way, obviously, she wasn’t complaining. But she ought to be. She broke up with him so she could figure everything out, and letting herself get distracted again wasn’t going to help her do that. Because her breath still caught in her throat when she saw Finn, and her heart still constricted ever so slightly whenever she noticed he and Quinn together and she couldn’t just write that off as nothing simply because Noah was actually interested in her now. That wouldn’t be fair to either of them, to any of them.
And now she was sighing again. It was back. The serial sighing syndrome that had seemed to develop when she was around boys. She was sure it couldn’t be good for her diaphragm control, all this sudden exhaling she was doing, she was going to have to get a handle on it. On the whole situation really. She would have to talk to Finn, and once she and Noah had gone out on a proper date where she wasn’t acting like a stupid little girl instead of the self-assured woman she had trained herself to be, then she would have to sit down with herself and just make a decision and be done with it.
But it was just so much easier, and so much more fun, to let Noah distract her, the way she knew he wanted to.
When she walked into Glee that afternoon, Quinn was the only person in the choir room. She was sat on a chair in the front row, nibbling on a carrot stick and flipping through her sheet music. She looked up when Rachel came in and smiled a little, then looked back to her music.
“Hello Quinn, how are you today?” Rachel asked as she sat a couple of chairs over, smoothing her skirt over her knee.
“I’m ok, my ankles hurt.” Was all Quinn managed to offer in reply, but Rachel wasn’t about to complain, a week ago she wouldn’t have gotten a reply, a month ago she would have gotten a scornful look and some kind of rude and completely uncalled for name thrown at her. They were slowly building something here, and as long as it meant that eventually she’d be able to walk into the girl’s bathroom on the second floor without fearing the new graffiti she would find on the walls, Rachel was happy for it to go as slowly as she’d like.
Noah was the third person to walk in, and she smiled at him as he strolled over to her and slumped down into the seat beside her, tugging on her hair a little bit as he did so.
“Good afternoon Noah, did you have a nice day?” She asked as she swatted his hand away. He shrugged and slumped down further in his seat.
“Was ok I guess.” He offered and scrubbed a hand over the back of his head.
“Well I’m glad to hear that. My day was very pleasant. I got an 86 on my French quiz which, while not up to my usual standards, was certainly an acceptable mark. I had an excellent conversation with Artie at lunch about his intention to ‘bring back’ suspenders, and I haven’t been slushied once. All in all it’s been a very satisfactory day.”
“Cool.” Was Noah’s response. Which was better than the ‘shut up Rachel’ she would have gotten a few weeks ago, so once again, she was pleased with their progress. She knew he probably wasn’t listening to her, but he was at least pretending to now, and that was positive.
Everyone else was slowly filing in, and when Finn wandered in and made a beeline for Quinn, giving her a kiss and laying a hand over her stomach, Rachel happened to catch a glimpse of Noah’s face, and the mixture of anger and jealousy and sadness she saw there ran right through her. But when he looked back at her it was gone, his face a mask of confidence and swagger.
She was just about to ask him what was going on when Mr. Schuester came in and begun rehearsals. She couldn’t concentrate at all. She felt like such an idiot. It had never occurred to her, she had never even considered the possibility since he had asked her out, even when she’d been trying to come to terms with her feelings for the two boys in her life, that Noah might still have feelings for Quinn.
Part three (1/2)