That the Moon Elbowed the Stars 12/17
Title: That the Moon Elbowed the Stars
Chapter: 12/17
Rating: R
Pairing: Puck/Rachel
Word Count: 8,360
Summary: And maybe it's an awful thing to think, but he wonders what's worse for her, losing New York or losing her dad.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Rachel is sitting on the couch when Noah gets home from work on Friday afternoon, doing some reading for her Stagecraft course. (Which is, in her opinion, far too superficial since her professor doesn't seem to be taking the summer semester very seriously.) He flops down beside her, toeing off his shoes and pushing them under the coffee table with his feet. She finishes the paragraph she's reading and looks over at him. "We're going out tonight."
Puck's fucking exhausted from running around all day - all week - and he thinks that takeout and beer and chilling on the couch sounds fucking stellar. But it's his first Friday night in the city, and Rachel obviously has some sort of plans, so he nods and figures that he'll just run down to the convenience store on the corner and pound a Red Bull. If college has prepared him for anything, it's partying when he's half-asleep on his feet.
Rachel really just wants to introduce him to some of her friends and have a low-key night, so they go to this little dive bar that she loves and meet up with Christina and Charlotte and Mike's roommate Mark and a few other people. It's fairly obvious after less than an hour that her friends all love Noah, not that she's surprised. He's always been more likable than she is, and he's so naturally charming that he can sometimes even manage to convince people who'd normally hate him that he's incredible.
(Sometimes, when she thinks about it, she wonders if that's how they ended up dating all those year ago, when their entire 'relationship' was his guitar and her short skirts and the two of them making out in her room after school before her dads got home from work.)
"He's cute," Christina whispers to Rachel when they're both watching Charlotte flirt with him. The girl has no shame, apparently, given the way she's leaning close and touching Noah's arm, but Rachel can tell that he isn't interested.
"He is," she agrees neutrally, taking a little sip of her beer.
"And he's sleeping on your couch?" Rachel nods. "I would drag him to my bed and not let him out."
Rachel just snickers and shakes her head. She isn't going to tell Christina anything about it, but she won't go down that road again with Noah, not after how humiliated she was when she tried last summer. God, it was nearly a year ago that she threw herself at him, and they didn't really talk for months after. He's her best friend and he's living on her couch for the next five weeks; she isn't going to do something that she knows is just going to make things uncomfortable between them.
Puck's pretty glad to see that Rachel has some real friends here in the city other than Chang. He knows she can take care of herself, but high school was hard for her and she spent a lot of time alone when she was in Columbus (for mostly good reasons, he knows). She would have been alone a lot more at OSU if it hadn't been for the fact that they were all right there, and yeah, he worried that maybe she was gonna go all hermit once she got here.
He doesn't hate any of these people, but he doesn't like them enough to pretend that he isn't fucking exhausted, so after a couple of hours, he slips into the chair next to Rachel and leans in close. "D'you think we could head out soon?"
"Are you okay?" His eyebrows knit together. "The only time I ever saw you voluntarily leave a party early, you had a sinus infection and couldn't breathe through your nose, and even then you'd been doing Irish car bombs."
He grimaces. Fuck, he doesn't actually remember that night, but he remembers the next day, and mixing a hangover with a sinus infection is fucking awful. "It's been a long week, and I kinda just want to be at home."
"Sure," Rachel agrees easily. "Whenever you're ready."
Charlotte looks particularly put out when they announce that they're leaving. "Let me give you my number," she tells Noah, holding out her hand like she expects him to hand her his phone.
"Oh, I'll just get it from Rachel if I need it," he says casually, and Rachel has to bite down on the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling at his brush off.
"She wants you, Noah," she points out when they're walking down the sidewalk back towards her apartment.
"Whatever," he dismisses, looking at the dark storefront that they're walking past. He doesn't know what this store is supposed to be, but there's a ton of crazy shit in the window.
Rachel goes into her room when they get home, and Puck lets out a sigh before moving the coffee table and pulling out his bed. He's not gonna say anything about it, because he does have some manners and he's grateful, but he hates the whole process of fucking with this bed twice a day. It's a huge fucking pain in the ass, and he'd really like to just leave it the way it is, but he's already taking over her living room and not paying a dime for it. The least he can do is make sure it looks normal when he isn't sleeping in it.
She comes out of her bedroom in these tiny little shorts and a tank top with skinny straps and raises her eyebrows when she sees him in bed flipping channels. "I thought you were tired." He shrugs and watches her walk over to the door to check the locks like she does every single night even though she locks them behind herself every time she comes in.
"Stay here with me," he says when she turns to go back into her room. "We can hang out."
She shakes her head, but she still crawls into bed beside him, pulling the blankets up to her waist and looking at the television. "What is this?" she asks after a minute.
"Robot Chicken."
"It's kind of stupid," she says thoughtfully, reaching for the remote where it's lying on the comforter between them. He glares. "It's my TV."
He doesn't say anything when she finds a Friends rerun because he doesn't hate the show, and he's pretty sure he's going to be asleep before the episode ends. Instead, he just sinks down into the bed a little more and catches himself grinning when she giggles at the show.
*
By the beginning of his third week at the firm (Helmsley and Monroe is its real name, but Santana started calling it Hell to the No the first time she heard it and singing that song Mercedes wrote junior year, and it kind of stuck), one of the partners has decided that she likes Puck's attitude.
Rachel starts laughing when he gets home and tells her that while they're waiting for the Indian they ordered to get there. "Has anyone ever said that you have a good attitude?"
No. "Shut up." She shoots him a disapproving glance. "I was playing messenger boy for one of the junior partners, and her secretary wasn't there, so I walked into her office to give her the file. She asked me why I wanted to be an architect, and I guess she liked my answer."
Rachel smiles. "I like your answer, too," she tells him. She thinks it's sweet that his mother's thoughts about her dream home inspired him to want to build houses for other people.
Puck doesn't really know what to say to that, but the buzzer goes off and saves him from having to figure anything out when Rachel jumps up to answer it.
*
They spend an entire Saturday doing a bunch of the really touristy things in lower Manhattan. They go to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and have lunch in Chinatown. They visit the 9/11 memorial, which is a little surreal. They were in second grade when all of that happened, and neither of them remembers much about that day, even though it's such an important piece of American history. Really, all Puck remembers is that he couldn't watch SpongeBob for like, a week and all the adults spent a lot more time whispering to each other than usual.
Rachel takes him to the Empire State Building because it's one of the things that she hasn't done yet, and when he isn't paying attention, she closes her eyes and has a little romantic comedy fantasy in her head. She's mostly moved beyond feeling the need for such gestures, but that doesn't mean that she can't entertain the thought now and again.
When they're on the way back down to the street, they get shoved to the back of the elevator by a bunch of fat mid-westerners. (Puck's a midwesterner; he's allowed to say it.) He wraps his hand around Rachel's wrist and pulls her a little closer when he sees how she's standing, all stiff with her head turned to the side in an effort to avoid getting elbowed in the nose by the tall dude in front of her. She smiles up at him, slipping her fingers between his and rubbing her thumb along the side of his hand.
She's still holding his hand when they're back on the street. "Now where?" Puck asks.
"Is there anything else you're dying to see?"
"Uh, the inside of my eyelids?" She laughs a little. "You woke me up really fuckin' early, baby."
She squeezes his hand gently and starts walking in the direction of her apartment. "It's payback," she teases, giving him a wink when he scowls down at her. "You can take a nap when we get home."
They're both pretty quiet on the walk back to her place, and he thinks she's probably more tired than she's letting on. Her summer semester of classes just ended, so her new project is to use all of Puck's free time showing him her favorite things about the city. (And, apparently, dragging him to do things she hasn't been able to do yet under the guise of letting him be a tourist. He knows how she operates.)
It feels like fucking forever before he starts seeing things that he recognizes, landmarks that let him know that they're finally in her neighborhood and close to her apartment. He doesn't even realize that they're still holding hands until she lets go of his to unlock the door, and he really thinks he's going to fall asleep when they're in the elevator on the way up. It kind of makes him feel like a baby in a car, lulled by the motion or whatever.
Rachel steps out of her shoes as soon as she's in the apartment, flexing her toes and wishing that she had carpeting instead of hardwood when she walks into the kitchen for a glass of water.
Noah is moving the coffee table when she steps back into the living room. "Quit it," she tells him quietly, holding out her water glass so he can have a drink. Re-hydrating is important.
"Fuck off," he says mildly, taking the glass and draining half of it in one drink. She watches with some fascination; she's never understood how boys can do that.
"No, come sleep with me," she offers, taking the glass back. She shrugs at the expression on his face, like he's not sure she's serious. "We've slept together before, and I'm sure folding out your bed is a pain."
He doesn't even think about it before he agrees and follows her to her room. As much as loves her and the fact that she's letting him stay here, he fucking hates that sofabed, and being able to sleep without fucking around with it sounds perfect.
Rachel pushes her little denim skirt down off her hips, leaving her in just her plain gray tank top and yellow cotton panties (yeah, he notices), so Puck follows suit and steps out of his jeans before crawling into bed beside her.
She's alarmed when he lets out a long, low groan. "Are you okay?"
"Your bed is so much more fucking comfortable than that one," he tells her seriously, stretching out his back and setting one hand on his stomach.
She could be offended, but she knows he doesn't mean it that way, so she doesn't say anything. She smiles a tiny bit, turns onto her side, and tugs the duvet up a bit.
She must move more in her sleep than she realized, because when she wakes up an hour later, she's curled into his side.
*
Noah's birthday falls on a Wednesday, and Rachel plays it pretty low-key. Since he has to be at work by nine and she doesn't have to be anywhere all day, she gets up a bit early and makes him breakfast (pancakes from scratch, and she takes a moment to mourn the chickens and be thankful for the cow). It's too hot to bake anything, so she walks to a little bakery a few blocks from her place to get him a little something, and after considering the items in the case, she chooses a little two-serving yellow cake with chocolate frosting because she knows he likes traditional things. They go to a little hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant that has the best marinara sauce she's ever had, and she insists that he has to blow out twenty-two candles on his cake before he can eat it.
If he's disappointed that she doesn't give him a proper gift, he keeps it to himself.
(Puck isn't disappointed at all, though he thinks it's a little weird. Rachel's kind of nutty about giving 'perfect' gifts, and it isn't really like her not to give him anything.)
Rachel has a very firm belief that experiences are more valuable than things, and that's what she wants to give Noah for his New York birthday.
Waking up Saturday morning with a girl all pressed up against him and murmuring in his ear? It's been awhile, so that doesn't suck. It takes a minute for him to wake up enough to realize that it's Rachel and she's telling him to get up and get dressed because they have somewhere to be.
"The fuck're you talkin' 'bout?" he mumbles. He's not awake at all.
She smiles brightly when he finally opens his eyes and looks at her. "We have baseball tickets, and we have to get all the way to the Bronx." He blinks at her. "The Indians are playing the Yankees, Noah."
"I fuckin' hate the Yankees," he says. It's like a reflex, and it makes her giggle, which is pretty cute even if she did just wake him up. "You bought baseball tickets?" he asks when that detail finally clicks. Rachel isn't really a sports girl, and he's heard her talk about how boring baseball is, so he's a little confused.
Her smile widens and she leans close to kiss his cheek. "Happy birthday!"
Their seats aren't great, and Rachel doesn't know a lot about baseball, but she's enthusiastic - of course she is - without annoying him with questions or whatever. And really, when the Indians beat the Yankees in their own stadium, Puck could give a fuck where he's sitting or that the person he's with doesn't care about baseball.
He just likes seeing the fucking Yankees lose.
Noah convinces her to let him cook her dinner as a thank you when they get home from the game, which she's only a tiny bit nervous about. He understands her diet now, she thinks, and she knows he's a good cook, but sometimes you don't even think about exactly what you're using when you cook; you just put things in a pan or a bowl because you know they're delicious. Normally, she wouldn't even have things like eggs or butter or cheese in her fridge, but with Noah here, she's made some concessions, and she's a little concerned about what could make its way onto her plate.
It doesn't matter that he rolls his eyes when she mentions it, she's still quite relieved when he tells her to relax because he's making a veggie stir-fry and rice.
(Puck's known her for years and has been living with her for weeks, but he basically has no idea what the hell she's eating most of the time. Straight-up vegetables it is.)
She sits on the counter beside where he's working, sipping a summer wheat beer and watching him chop vegetables.
"So you liked your present?" she asks after a while.
Puck doesn't look up from the cutting board. She's fishing, he knows, because he's told her more than once today how much he liked her gift. He finishes slicing the scallions, then sets his knife down and shuffles over so he's standing in front of where she's sitting on the counter. "I really liked it, baby."
The back of his hand grazes the outside of her thigh when he reaches past her for his beer, a tiny little touch that makes her heart beat just a little faster. It catches her off guard, though it really shouldn't. It isn't as if it's a secret that she not only finds him attractive but is attracted to him, however much she's tried to ignore it. It was almost a year ago that she kissed him and did her best to destroy their friendship, and they've really only just gotten it back to where it was before. These last few weeks, having him in her city, have been wonderful. She feels like she's gotten to know him again.
Which, of course, just means that she's falling for him again.
But she isn't going to jeopardize their friendship again. She isn't sure that they could survive that, and she doesn't want to find out. Few things in her life involving men have hurt as much as Noah telling her that he didn't want to sleep with her, and she isn't at all interested in revisiting that feeling.
"Hurry up and cook my dinner," she tells him with a smile, giggling when he raises an eyebrow. It's mostly to get him to step away from her, to give her some distance so she can stop thinking inappropriate thoughts about her best friend.
*
Puck knows that Rachel probably thinks she has the market cornered on surprises. She's wrong, and honestly, it's almost too easy to go online and get tickets to a show he knows she hasn't seen yet. (He does listen when she talks.) Like, if they were dating and he was trying to impress her for real, this wouldn't even qualify, but she's still gonna go nuts.
He waits until Saturday morning to tell her, when she's drinking coffee and watching him fold up his bed. "I thought maybe today we could go out to Brooklyn to the farmers' market. There are all sorts of things there."
"Yeah, not into vegetables, Rach." He ignores her scowl and pushes the cushions back onto the sofa. "And we already have plans for this afternoon."
"What are you talking about?" she asks. She doesn't remember making plans, and that isn't the sort of thing she'd forget.
He's not really paying attention to her, apparently concentrating too hard on folding his comforter to answer her question. "We have tickets to the matinee of A Chorus Line," he finally says, snagging the pillows he left on the floor beside the couch and stepping down the hall to put them in the linen closet.
"What?" He's grinning at her when he comes back into the living room and sees her standing there with wide eyes.
"You heard me."
She lets out little squeal and launches herself into his arms so fast that he's worried that she's going to spill her coffee down his back.
Rachel has been following the progress of this show online since the revival was first announced two years ago. She and Mike had discussed going when it opened, though the idea fell by the wayside when he was hired for the tour. She's had a vague idea that she and Dad might go when he next came to visit her in the city, but no specific plans other than the fact that she will absolutely see it before it closes.
Apparently, she's going to see it today.
It's worth the money he spent on the tickets to see how cute she is about the whole thing. Puck sits on the couch and watches the Twins smoke the Yankees (they're having a bad year; awesome) while Rachel gets ready, talking to her dad on the phone in the bathroom while she curls her hair and puts on makeup and stuff. She reappears in a mermaid-green dress that ties behind her neck and sort of floats down to her knees. Her hair is wavy, pinned back behind one ear with this fancy gold barrette, and the black heels she's wearing make her legs look amazing.
"It's a little too fancy for a matinee," she admits, brushing self-consciously at the fabric at the front of her thigh, "but I don't care."
"You look beautiful," Puck tells her, standing up from the couch. He doesn't even think about it before he says it; it's just true.
Rachel manages to hold his gaze even though she feels her cheeks go warm. "Thank you."
Puck read just a little bit about the show when he bought the tickets, and he wasn't totally sure that he was going to like it. But he recognizes some of the songs (even if a girl is singing the part he thought was a guy) and the story doesn't suck. By the end of it, he's as engrossed as anyone else, and he's on his feet and clapping right along with them.
He grabs Rachel's hand in the lobby after some guy walks over her feet and nearly knocks her down. It's crowded and she's small enough that people either don't see her or think it's okay to run her over. He wants to make sure they don't get separated or she doesn't get squished.
It's a little strange to walk out onto the bright street; it feels like it should be nighttime. Rachel waits until the crowd thins enough to walk next to him to say anything to Noah. "Thank you so much." She squeezes his hand gently. "You know you didn't have to do this."
"Uh, yeah, I did," he tells her, looking at her like she's crazy. "You let me like, take over your apartment for basically the whole summer. I totally owe you."
She shakes her head and looks down at the sidewalk for a moment. "You don't owe me anything, Noah."
He nudges her with his shoulder, so she looks up at him and catches his grin. "Where are we going?" she asks when he tugs her past the subway entrance.
His grin turns into a smirk. "Dinner." One of the junior partners at work is vegan, so Puck asked him for a restaurant recommendation. The guy gave him a list of places, so Puck chose the one closest to the theater and is hoping for the best. This is basically the least he can do after everything she's done for him this summer.
Her feet ache by the time they get home, but Rachel barely notices. Between the show and dinner at a restaurant that Noah never would have chosen for himself in a million years (though she thinks he enjoyed his meal more than he wants to admit), she's so happy that...well, she can't remember the last time she was this happy. She wants to thank him again, but she knows that he won't accept it, so she doesn't say anything, though she does take his hand again when they're in the elevator, offering him a little smile when he looks at her. "Today was...amazing."
He loves the little smile she's wearing. "I'm glad you liked it."
"I loved it," she corrects softly, brushing her thumb over the back of his hand.
He watches her step out of her shoes as soon as they're in the apartment, flexing her feet a little and rolling her ankles. "I'm going to change," she tells him before disappearing down the hall. They talked about it on the way back, how they were going to spend their evening, and even though they have the entire city there waiting for them, Puck kind of digs just hanging out with her. Like, staying at her apartment and sitting on the couch, watching movies and teaching her how to play the first-person shooter games that she claims to hate even though she's awesome at them. (Puck's convinced that Jews are naturally better at killing virtual Nazis, and Rachel's just reinforcing that belief.) She's really the only girl he's ever been able to hang out with like this. Maybe that's why he likes it so much.
She finds him standing in the kitchen, his tie hanging loose around his neck, a bottle of wine on the counter, and a corkscrew in his hand. "Oh, that is such a go--"
He catches her completely off guard when he presses his lips to hers, the corkscrew clattering on the counter when his arm comes around her waist to pull her against his chest. She lets out a little squeak of surprise, but then his tongue slides across her bottom lip and all she can do is kiss him back, her fingertips grasping at his arms.
She tears her mouth from his with a gasp when he tries to draw her tongue into his mouth. "Noah. I don't--what is this?"she manages. She tries to arch away from him, but he slides his hand up her back to sit between her shoulder blades and keeps her close.
Fuck, it isn't like he thought about it. They just had this fucking perfect day together, and she keeps giving him these fucking perfect looks. Then she walked into the kitchen in a plain white tee shirt and a pair of cotton shorts, her feet bare and her hair loose around her shoulders, and he realized that she looks just as good like this as she did in that green dress, and he just wants her.
He's staring down at her like he's never seen her before, one hand gripping her hip hard enough that it almost hurts, and all she can think is that it's happening all over. One of them has taken it too far, and things are going to change, and she just doesn't know if their friendship can handle something like this again.
"Fuck," he mutters, staring at her intently. "Rachel, I--fuck, I want you."
He knows it's wrong before he even says it. Rachel sets her hands flat on his chest and pushes, stepping backwards away from him and shaking her head with her eyes all huge.
"That isn't--I'm like, fal--"
"Stop," she interrupts, speaking too loudly. "I can't. Not again." She bites down hard on the inside of her cheek to distract herself from the lump in her throat when she turns to leave the kitchen, and she manages to make it all the way to her bedroom before the tears fall.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
It's been a long time since Puck has felt like everything he touches turns to shit, but that's exactly what he's getting right now, standing barefoot in Rachel's kitchen. The entire time that he's been here in the city, things have been great. With his internship, with Rachel -- it's all been pretty close to perfect. Today was just supposed to be him doing a nice thing for his best friend, to pay her back for letting him crash and because he loves her. Except when she walked into the kitchen, he realized that he doesn't just love her because she's his friend. He's like, falling for her. And no, he isn't in love with her, but he knows that the way he feels about her isn't just platonic.
He doesn't know what she's thinking, but he's pretty sure that she didn't hear the part where he was trying to tell her that he was falling for her. And this isn't just a sex thing. Yeah, when she first walked into the kitchen, that's where his head (his dick) went, but that's not all this is.
She needs to know that.
Rachel scowls when her bedroom door opens slowly. "I should've known you'd pick the lock," she mutters, brushing angrily at the tears on her cheek. Why would Noah respect that she wants to be left alone?
"You have to listen to me," he says seriously. He stands at the foot of the bed and looks at her, sitting with her back against the headboard, her knees pulled up to her chest. "That wasn't what you think it was."
She sighs. "What was it, Noah?"
"It wasn't just about sex." He ignores her scoff. This feels really fucking stupid, like he's sixteen all over again, but he doesn't know how else to say it. "When I said I want you, I mean I want you."
She thinks her heart is beating too fast.
"I don't know when it happened, Rach, but...fuck, I like you," he says seriously. She doesn't know what to make of the fact that he looks incredibly frustrated right now. "Could you say something?" he says after a moment. "This silence shit feels weird on you."
"I don't know what you want me to say, Noah." She presses her lips together. He's her best friend, and she doesn't want to lose that, not to mention the fact that he's going to be here, living in her apartment, for another two weeks.
But he's her best friend. She knows him. Things have been different between them this summer, just a little at first and, now that she's thinking about it, more and more as time went on. Today? This was a date. A big, elaborate, personal date, and the only thing missing was the kiss at the end.
Except she kind of got that, didn't she?
"You like me?" she finally whispers, watching him carefully. She's biting her lip and looking at him like he's going to tell her it's all a joke, that he was just kidding and he didn't just try to ruin their friendship and their summer and make an ass of himself.
He walks around to her side of the bed and sits next to her hip. "I'm like, totally falling for you," he admits, taking her hand and rubbing a circle into her palm with his thumb. "But shit doesn't have to change if you don't want it to."
Rachel wants to laugh. Instead, she leans over and kisses him gently, leaning her forehead against his and letting out a little breath. "Now what?"
He'd like to have her naked and find out what she looks like when she comes, but he's pretty sure that telling her he wants her on her back isn't a good idea.
"You wanna pretend to watch a movie and make out?"
*
Rachel's waiting for him outside work on Wednesday afternoon in this little white sun dress that he wants to tear off her basically the second he sees her.
Saturday night, when they were watching some movie (legit, he doesn't even know what she put on) and Puck tried to push his hand down past the waistband of her shorts, she stopped him and said that she wanted to 'take things slow.' And that was fine. He can work with slow.
Except it's Wednesday now, and he knows what she looks like when she comes around his fingers and what she tastes like when she comes on his tongue. And now he wants to know what it feels like when she comes on his cock. And even though he knows, logically, that they're not moving slow at all, it feels like fucking torture not to be able to have all of her.
He's not going to say anything though. Most everything is still the same, even if Rachel curls up next to him when they sit on her couch together, and he held her hand when they walked back from dinner the other night. But shit, they're still sleeping in separate beds. It's not like they've talked about what they're doing, and he doesn't have any idea what they're going to do when he goes back to Ohio in a week and a half, but for now, he's just going to go with it.
She lays this tiny little kiss on his lips when he walks up to her, and she just keeps talking about the restaurant they're going to when he takes her hand.
*
Rachel is awake not two minutes after Noah starts his shower on Thursday morning, though she thinks now that it's more a habit than actually being disturbed by the noise. It's like her body knows exactly what time he's going to be in the shower every morning and wakes her up so she can go make coffee.
(It's funny, having him here is turning her into an actual coffee drinker. Before, it was something she craved every once in a while, mostly when it was cold and she was tired, but now she's drinking it nearly every morning. Something about the power of suggestion, she supposes.)
She doesn't know exactly what's happening between them. He's her best friend, and she loves him for that, but since Saturday, something is different, and not just the fact that her self-control keeps slipping further and further every time he puts his hands on her. There's something different about their conversations that she can't quite put her finger on, and she thinks they might be touching one another more, like they need the physical contact.
God, she feels like she's in high school all over again.
She tries to push the thoughts aside when she hears the shower stop running, getting out of bed and going into the kitchen so she can start the coffee and find something to have for breakfast.
The fact that Noah leans down to kiss her before he leaves for work, his hand sliding up the back of her tank top to press against her bare skin for just a moment before he heads out the door, doesn't make things any more clear.
It's been driving her crazy all week, and she thinks that maybe she needs to talk about it. It's been years since she's been in a situation like this, a potentially messy and complicated relationship-type thing. Gosh, she hasn't done this since high school and Finn, because she hasn't really let herself be with anyone since then. But that just makes it harder to talk to someone, because who is she going to talk to? She thinks that Santana would listen, but she doesn't know how helpful the girl would be. They don't have these sorts of conversations, not really. Their relationship is a bit more superficial, but not in a bad way. They just tend to stick to lighter subjects when they talk. She thinks that Mike would absolutely listen to do his best to give her good advice, but it's more than a little awkward to discuss her relationship with Noah with the last man that she slept with, even if he is her dear friend and they were on the same page with their relationship.
When she manages to forget half of her shopping list at the market and has to go back, she decides that enough is enough, and even though it's two in the afternoon, she dials Dad's work number.
"Are you too busy to talk for a few minutes?" she asks when he answers.
"Not at all, angelfish. How are you?"
"I'm fine. Well, no, I'm confused," she corrects. "It's Noah."
She tells him the whole story, going back to last year, though she does change and omit a few details, not because she's ashamed or trying to make things look different than they are, but because she doesn't really need her father thinking about her taking her clothes off for anyone. (Of course, her fathers knew that she'd had sex, and she's sure Dad assumes that she's still having sex, but she still doesn't have to talk about it.)
"I'm afraid that if we try to be in a relationship, or whatever it might turn into, it's going to crash and burn, and I'm going to lose my best friend," she finishes. "I don't even know what Noah wants."
"Rachel, sweetheart, you can't be afraid," Dad tells her gently.
"Of course I can be afraid."
"You can't be so afraid that you don't let yourself try something that could be great," he corrects. He sighs quietly. "Honey, I think that boy really cares about you, and when you have a chance to be with someone who cares about you as much as you care about them, you have to take it."
"What if it doesn't work and we end up hating each other?" she asks, almost whispering. That's what she's really afraid of.
"What if you fall in love with each other and are together forever?" he counters, making her laugh a little, even as something twists in her stomach. "You'll never know if you don't try." She wishes that he was here so she could hug him; this conversation would be infinitely better with a hug. "Just think about it."
Spending more time thinking about this wasn't exactly what she had in mind when she called Dad; she wanted him to tell her what to do so she could stop thinking about it. It's good, sensible advice though, and she owes it to herself to make the best decision she can here.
*
"Wake up, baby."
Noah's lips are skimming over the back of her shoulder when she wakes up, his hand pushing up the front of the tank top she's wearing to rest flat against her stomach. "Mmm."
She doesn't remember falling asleep, but the book she was reading is lying on the bed beside her (without a bookmark) and Noah is in bed with her.
Rachel blinks up at him blearily when she turns onto her back. "Hi." She takes a deep breath and brings her hand up to graze along his jaw. "How was work?"
"Fine." He leans down to kiss her, sipping at her lips and grazing the underside of her breast with his thumb. "I thought about you," he murmurs against her lips before up across her cheek to her ear. "About last night. Your mouth, baby."
Her laugh is a little breathless when he nips at her earlobe. Last night, she went down on him for the first time. Performing oral sex isn't her favorite thing to do in the bedroom, but she certainly doesn't hate it, and thanks to quite a lot of time spent doing exactly that with Finn and her lack of gag reflex, she's rather good at it. It's a bit of a power trip, making a man fall apart like that, and it's an excellent way to begin to discover what makes him crazy.
And she isn't ashamed to admit that she quite liked the way it felt to have Noah's hands threaded through her hair and the way he groaned her name right before he let go.
"Stop thinking so much," he tells her, grazing his teeth over her collarbone.
Her hand slips into the back of his hair. "I was thinking about last night, too," she admits. She makes a surprised little noise when he bites at her shoulder maybe a little harder than he should, but Jesus. She can't say shit like that and not expect him to react.
He pushes her shirt up over her head when she starts slipping the buttons of his through the holes, then takes a second to appreciate the way her red bra looks against her skin before leaning down to kiss along the swell of her breast just above the satin. He's still working on finding all of the spots that make her crazy, but he knows that if he runs his fingertips from the hollow of her throat down to the valley of her breasts, her lips will part and her back will arch a tiny bit. He smirks up at her when she does just that and takes the opportunity to slip his hand behind her back and unclasp her bra, tugging the straps carefully down her arms so he can toss the garment on the floor.
She slides her hands over his shoulders, taking his shirt with them. She loves the way his skin feels under her hands, the play of the muscles when he fits himself between her thighs, his hand palming one breast when he pulls the nipple of the other past his lips. "Noah."
Her self-control with him is slipping, and the way he's pressing himself between her legs isn't helping. She wants him, so badly, but she's terrified of losing their friendship, and she thinks--
Oh, god, she can't think at all when he's moving down her body, kissing down her stomach and pulling her shorts down off her hips.
She makes the sexiest noise ever when he puts his mouth against her, and her nails dig into his scalp just a little when she pushes her hand into his hair. Fuck, he hasn't even slept with her (yet), and he's pretty sure she's the sexiest woman he's ever been with. She drapes her right leg over her back when she lets go, her back arching up off the bed and his name falling from her lips.
He moves back up her body slowly, kissing the swell of her breast before resting his head against her chest, giving her a moment to catch her breath, she thinks. "You're so fucking beautiful, Rachel." She can feel his lips moving against her skin, and something about the way that he says her name makes her lose her mind a little. She can't explain it, but it's different than he's ever said it before, different than she's ever heard anyone say her name.
She can feel how hard he is against the inside of her thigh, and even though she just came, she wants him. God, she wants him so badly, and all of the reasons - and they're good reasons, really - that she shouldn't sleep with him are all jumbled up in her mind.
"Noah, I want--god," she breathes when he rocks his hips against her, his lips hovering over the hollow of her throat. "Noah, I want you," she manages the second time she tries.
Puck pulls back a bit to look down at her, trying to figure out if she means what he hopes she means or if she's just talking nonsense. Her hair is a mess, from sleeping and from what they just did, and her eyes are super dark, her pupils huge and her eyelashes all fluttery. He presses his hips against hers, testing, and lets out a groan when her eyes fall closed and her neck arches a little. "Are you serious, baby?" She murmurs something, but it gets lost in her moan when he brings his hand up to cup her breast again, his fingers just grazing her nipple. "Rachel."
He's staring at her intently when she opens her eyes, her back arching in an attempt to coax him into touching her more. "Yes. Please, Noah, I can't--"
He cuts her off with a kiss, hard and right on the edge of harsh, nipping at her lips and burying his hand in her hair to tilt her head the way he wants it. He nips at her bottom lip with his teeth when she reaches between them to unbuckle his belt, letting out a groan before pushing himself away from her to stand next to the bed, finishing the job she started with his belt before pushing his pants and boxers down off his hips.
"Noah."
Fuck, the way she says his name, all breathless and needy. He's a dude, so he's spent years (the entire time he's known her, really) thinking about what it would be like to sleep with her. She's destroyed all his expectations, and he hasn't even been inside her yet.
She means to watch his eyes when he pushes into her for the first time, but she can't keep hers open wide enough to do it.
*
"What are we doing?"
Even though she's just barely whispering, she scares the shit out of Puck. He thought she was asleep, which would have made sense since he woke her up for...well, not for this, specifically, but this is what happened, and he's pretty sure he wore her out. Fuck, he wore himself out.
But she isn't asleep. She's lying there on her stomach, her hand tucked beneath her pillow and the sheet bunched at her waist so he can see the expanse of her bare back, looking at him with those big brown eyes.
"What do you mean?" he asks dumbly. They're just laying here.
"Noah." She takes a breath. "Our...relationship, or whatever this is," she says quietly, watching his eyes. "What are we doing?"
She didn't mean to sleep with him before they had this conversation. God, she didn't mean to sleep with him at all, because as much as she cares about him and as much as she wants him, she's here, and he's going back ot Ohio in a week, and even if Noah could do long distance (which she isn't convinced he could), she doesn't know that she can. She likes being able to see her boyfriend, to touch him and look at his eyes when she talks to him, to fall asleep with him when they're watching movies. Rachel doesn't know how people maintain relationships with only the telephone and text messages to sustain them and the promise of visits that are weeks or months in the future.
But she did sleep with him, and now he's naked in her bed and reaching over to tuck her hair behind her ear.
"I don't know," he admits, shaking his head a little. "But I like what we've been doing this week."
"What is it, though?"
"I don't know," he repeats, because he doesn't. "I don't wanna stop."
"You're leaving in a week."
"A week and three days," he corrects with a smirk. There's a lot he can do in three days if she wants to let him. "Just don't worry about it, baby."
"I'm a worrier," she reminds him. She's already worrying about it. She's been worrying about it.
Puck leans over to kiss her, pushing at her shoulder until she takes the hint and turns onto her side. "Lemme distract you," he murmurs against her lips. He slides his hand down her side and over her hip, slipping it between her thighs and kissing her hard when she whimpers. "Rachel."
He doesn't actually give her a chance to answer, just pushes her onto her back and fits himself between her thighs again, kissing her so good that her head is swimming and she couldn't manage to form coherent words even if she wanted to.
She knows they're only delaying the inevitable.
Chapter: 12/17
Rating: R
Pairing: Puck/Rachel
Word Count: 8,360
Summary: And maybe it's an awful thing to think, but he wonders what's worse for her, losing New York or losing her dad.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Rachel is sitting on the couch when Noah gets home from work on Friday afternoon, doing some reading for her Stagecraft course. (Which is, in her opinion, far too superficial since her professor doesn't seem to be taking the summer semester very seriously.) He flops down beside her, toeing off his shoes and pushing them under the coffee table with his feet. She finishes the paragraph she's reading and looks over at him. "We're going out tonight."
Puck's fucking exhausted from running around all day - all week - and he thinks that takeout and beer and chilling on the couch sounds fucking stellar. But it's his first Friday night in the city, and Rachel obviously has some sort of plans, so he nods and figures that he'll just run down to the convenience store on the corner and pound a Red Bull. If college has prepared him for anything, it's partying when he's half-asleep on his feet.
Rachel really just wants to introduce him to some of her friends and have a low-key night, so they go to this little dive bar that she loves and meet up with Christina and Charlotte and Mike's roommate Mark and a few other people. It's fairly obvious after less than an hour that her friends all love Noah, not that she's surprised. He's always been more likable than she is, and he's so naturally charming that he can sometimes even manage to convince people who'd normally hate him that he's incredible.
(Sometimes, when she thinks about it, she wonders if that's how they ended up dating all those year ago, when their entire 'relationship' was his guitar and her short skirts and the two of them making out in her room after school before her dads got home from work.)
"He's cute," Christina whispers to Rachel when they're both watching Charlotte flirt with him. The girl has no shame, apparently, given the way she's leaning close and touching Noah's arm, but Rachel can tell that he isn't interested.
"He is," she agrees neutrally, taking a little sip of her beer.
"And he's sleeping on your couch?" Rachel nods. "I would drag him to my bed and not let him out."
Rachel just snickers and shakes her head. She isn't going to tell Christina anything about it, but she won't go down that road again with Noah, not after how humiliated she was when she tried last summer. God, it was nearly a year ago that she threw herself at him, and they didn't really talk for months after. He's her best friend and he's living on her couch for the next five weeks; she isn't going to do something that she knows is just going to make things uncomfortable between them.
Puck's pretty glad to see that Rachel has some real friends here in the city other than Chang. He knows she can take care of herself, but high school was hard for her and she spent a lot of time alone when she was in Columbus (for mostly good reasons, he knows). She would have been alone a lot more at OSU if it hadn't been for the fact that they were all right there, and yeah, he worried that maybe she was gonna go all hermit once she got here.
He doesn't hate any of these people, but he doesn't like them enough to pretend that he isn't fucking exhausted, so after a couple of hours, he slips into the chair next to Rachel and leans in close. "D'you think we could head out soon?"
"Are you okay?" His eyebrows knit together. "The only time I ever saw you voluntarily leave a party early, you had a sinus infection and couldn't breathe through your nose, and even then you'd been doing Irish car bombs."
He grimaces. Fuck, he doesn't actually remember that night, but he remembers the next day, and mixing a hangover with a sinus infection is fucking awful. "It's been a long week, and I kinda just want to be at home."
"Sure," Rachel agrees easily. "Whenever you're ready."
Charlotte looks particularly put out when they announce that they're leaving. "Let me give you my number," she tells Noah, holding out her hand like she expects him to hand her his phone.
"Oh, I'll just get it from Rachel if I need it," he says casually, and Rachel has to bite down on the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling at his brush off.
"She wants you, Noah," she points out when they're walking down the sidewalk back towards her apartment.
"Whatever," he dismisses, looking at the dark storefront that they're walking past. He doesn't know what this store is supposed to be, but there's a ton of crazy shit in the window.
Rachel goes into her room when they get home, and Puck lets out a sigh before moving the coffee table and pulling out his bed. He's not gonna say anything about it, because he does have some manners and he's grateful, but he hates the whole process of fucking with this bed twice a day. It's a huge fucking pain in the ass, and he'd really like to just leave it the way it is, but he's already taking over her living room and not paying a dime for it. The least he can do is make sure it looks normal when he isn't sleeping in it.
She comes out of her bedroom in these tiny little shorts and a tank top with skinny straps and raises her eyebrows when she sees him in bed flipping channels. "I thought you were tired." He shrugs and watches her walk over to the door to check the locks like she does every single night even though she locks them behind herself every time she comes in.
"Stay here with me," he says when she turns to go back into her room. "We can hang out."
She shakes her head, but she still crawls into bed beside him, pulling the blankets up to her waist and looking at the television. "What is this?" she asks after a minute.
"Robot Chicken."
"It's kind of stupid," she says thoughtfully, reaching for the remote where it's lying on the comforter between them. He glares. "It's my TV."
He doesn't say anything when she finds a Friends rerun because he doesn't hate the show, and he's pretty sure he's going to be asleep before the episode ends. Instead, he just sinks down into the bed a little more and catches himself grinning when she giggles at the show.
*
By the beginning of his third week at the firm (Helmsley and Monroe is its real name, but Santana started calling it Hell to the No the first time she heard it and singing that song Mercedes wrote junior year, and it kind of stuck), one of the partners has decided that she likes Puck's attitude.
Rachel starts laughing when he gets home and tells her that while they're waiting for the Indian they ordered to get there. "Has anyone ever said that you have a good attitude?"
No. "Shut up." She shoots him a disapproving glance. "I was playing messenger boy for one of the junior partners, and her secretary wasn't there, so I walked into her office to give her the file. She asked me why I wanted to be an architect, and I guess she liked my answer."
Rachel smiles. "I like your answer, too," she tells him. She thinks it's sweet that his mother's thoughts about her dream home inspired him to want to build houses for other people.
Puck doesn't really know what to say to that, but the buzzer goes off and saves him from having to figure anything out when Rachel jumps up to answer it.
*
They spend an entire Saturday doing a bunch of the really touristy things in lower Manhattan. They go to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and have lunch in Chinatown. They visit the 9/11 memorial, which is a little surreal. They were in second grade when all of that happened, and neither of them remembers much about that day, even though it's such an important piece of American history. Really, all Puck remembers is that he couldn't watch SpongeBob for like, a week and all the adults spent a lot more time whispering to each other than usual.
Rachel takes him to the Empire State Building because it's one of the things that she hasn't done yet, and when he isn't paying attention, she closes her eyes and has a little romantic comedy fantasy in her head. She's mostly moved beyond feeling the need for such gestures, but that doesn't mean that she can't entertain the thought now and again.
When they're on the way back down to the street, they get shoved to the back of the elevator by a bunch of fat mid-westerners. (Puck's a midwesterner; he's allowed to say it.) He wraps his hand around Rachel's wrist and pulls her a little closer when he sees how she's standing, all stiff with her head turned to the side in an effort to avoid getting elbowed in the nose by the tall dude in front of her. She smiles up at him, slipping her fingers between his and rubbing her thumb along the side of his hand.
She's still holding his hand when they're back on the street. "Now where?" Puck asks.
"Is there anything else you're dying to see?"
"Uh, the inside of my eyelids?" She laughs a little. "You woke me up really fuckin' early, baby."
She squeezes his hand gently and starts walking in the direction of her apartment. "It's payback," she teases, giving him a wink when he scowls down at her. "You can take a nap when we get home."
They're both pretty quiet on the walk back to her place, and he thinks she's probably more tired than she's letting on. Her summer semester of classes just ended, so her new project is to use all of Puck's free time showing him her favorite things about the city. (And, apparently, dragging him to do things she hasn't been able to do yet under the guise of letting him be a tourist. He knows how she operates.)
It feels like fucking forever before he starts seeing things that he recognizes, landmarks that let him know that they're finally in her neighborhood and close to her apartment. He doesn't even realize that they're still holding hands until she lets go of his to unlock the door, and he really thinks he's going to fall asleep when they're in the elevator on the way up. It kind of makes him feel like a baby in a car, lulled by the motion or whatever.
Rachel steps out of her shoes as soon as she's in the apartment, flexing her toes and wishing that she had carpeting instead of hardwood when she walks into the kitchen for a glass of water.
Noah is moving the coffee table when she steps back into the living room. "Quit it," she tells him quietly, holding out her water glass so he can have a drink. Re-hydrating is important.
"Fuck off," he says mildly, taking the glass and draining half of it in one drink. She watches with some fascination; she's never understood how boys can do that.
"No, come sleep with me," she offers, taking the glass back. She shrugs at the expression on his face, like he's not sure she's serious. "We've slept together before, and I'm sure folding out your bed is a pain."
He doesn't even think about it before he agrees and follows her to her room. As much as loves her and the fact that she's letting him stay here, he fucking hates that sofabed, and being able to sleep without fucking around with it sounds perfect.
Rachel pushes her little denim skirt down off her hips, leaving her in just her plain gray tank top and yellow cotton panties (yeah, he notices), so Puck follows suit and steps out of his jeans before crawling into bed beside her.
She's alarmed when he lets out a long, low groan. "Are you okay?"
"Your bed is so much more fucking comfortable than that one," he tells her seriously, stretching out his back and setting one hand on his stomach.
She could be offended, but she knows he doesn't mean it that way, so she doesn't say anything. She smiles a tiny bit, turns onto her side, and tugs the duvet up a bit.
She must move more in her sleep than she realized, because when she wakes up an hour later, she's curled into his side.
*
Noah's birthday falls on a Wednesday, and Rachel plays it pretty low-key. Since he has to be at work by nine and she doesn't have to be anywhere all day, she gets up a bit early and makes him breakfast (pancakes from scratch, and she takes a moment to mourn the chickens and be thankful for the cow). It's too hot to bake anything, so she walks to a little bakery a few blocks from her place to get him a little something, and after considering the items in the case, she chooses a little two-serving yellow cake with chocolate frosting because she knows he likes traditional things. They go to a little hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant that has the best marinara sauce she's ever had, and she insists that he has to blow out twenty-two candles on his cake before he can eat it.
If he's disappointed that she doesn't give him a proper gift, he keeps it to himself.
(Puck isn't disappointed at all, though he thinks it's a little weird. Rachel's kind of nutty about giving 'perfect' gifts, and it isn't really like her not to give him anything.)
Rachel has a very firm belief that experiences are more valuable than things, and that's what she wants to give Noah for his New York birthday.
Waking up Saturday morning with a girl all pressed up against him and murmuring in his ear? It's been awhile, so that doesn't suck. It takes a minute for him to wake up enough to realize that it's Rachel and she's telling him to get up and get dressed because they have somewhere to be.
"The fuck're you talkin' 'bout?" he mumbles. He's not awake at all.
She smiles brightly when he finally opens his eyes and looks at her. "We have baseball tickets, and we have to get all the way to the Bronx." He blinks at her. "The Indians are playing the Yankees, Noah."
"I fuckin' hate the Yankees," he says. It's like a reflex, and it makes her giggle, which is pretty cute even if she did just wake him up. "You bought baseball tickets?" he asks when that detail finally clicks. Rachel isn't really a sports girl, and he's heard her talk about how boring baseball is, so he's a little confused.
Her smile widens and she leans close to kiss his cheek. "Happy birthday!"
Their seats aren't great, and Rachel doesn't know a lot about baseball, but she's enthusiastic - of course she is - without annoying him with questions or whatever. And really, when the Indians beat the Yankees in their own stadium, Puck could give a fuck where he's sitting or that the person he's with doesn't care about baseball.
He just likes seeing the fucking Yankees lose.
Noah convinces her to let him cook her dinner as a thank you when they get home from the game, which she's only a tiny bit nervous about. He understands her diet now, she thinks, and she knows he's a good cook, but sometimes you don't even think about exactly what you're using when you cook; you just put things in a pan or a bowl because you know they're delicious. Normally, she wouldn't even have things like eggs or butter or cheese in her fridge, but with Noah here, she's made some concessions, and she's a little concerned about what could make its way onto her plate.
It doesn't matter that he rolls his eyes when she mentions it, she's still quite relieved when he tells her to relax because he's making a veggie stir-fry and rice.
(Puck's known her for years and has been living with her for weeks, but he basically has no idea what the hell she's eating most of the time. Straight-up vegetables it is.)
She sits on the counter beside where he's working, sipping a summer wheat beer and watching him chop vegetables.
"So you liked your present?" she asks after a while.
Puck doesn't look up from the cutting board. She's fishing, he knows, because he's told her more than once today how much he liked her gift. He finishes slicing the scallions, then sets his knife down and shuffles over so he's standing in front of where she's sitting on the counter. "I really liked it, baby."
The back of his hand grazes the outside of her thigh when he reaches past her for his beer, a tiny little touch that makes her heart beat just a little faster. It catches her off guard, though it really shouldn't. It isn't as if it's a secret that she not only finds him attractive but is attracted to him, however much she's tried to ignore it. It was almost a year ago that she kissed him and did her best to destroy their friendship, and they've really only just gotten it back to where it was before. These last few weeks, having him in her city, have been wonderful. She feels like she's gotten to know him again.
Which, of course, just means that she's falling for him again.
But she isn't going to jeopardize their friendship again. She isn't sure that they could survive that, and she doesn't want to find out. Few things in her life involving men have hurt as much as Noah telling her that he didn't want to sleep with her, and she isn't at all interested in revisiting that feeling.
"Hurry up and cook my dinner," she tells him with a smile, giggling when he raises an eyebrow. It's mostly to get him to step away from her, to give her some distance so she can stop thinking inappropriate thoughts about her best friend.
*
Puck knows that Rachel probably thinks she has the market cornered on surprises. She's wrong, and honestly, it's almost too easy to go online and get tickets to a show he knows she hasn't seen yet. (He does listen when she talks.) Like, if they were dating and he was trying to impress her for real, this wouldn't even qualify, but she's still gonna go nuts.
He waits until Saturday morning to tell her, when she's drinking coffee and watching him fold up his bed. "I thought maybe today we could go out to Brooklyn to the farmers' market. There are all sorts of things there."
"Yeah, not into vegetables, Rach." He ignores her scowl and pushes the cushions back onto the sofa. "And we already have plans for this afternoon."
"What are you talking about?" she asks. She doesn't remember making plans, and that isn't the sort of thing she'd forget.
He's not really paying attention to her, apparently concentrating too hard on folding his comforter to answer her question. "We have tickets to the matinee of A Chorus Line," he finally says, snagging the pillows he left on the floor beside the couch and stepping down the hall to put them in the linen closet.
"What?" He's grinning at her when he comes back into the living room and sees her standing there with wide eyes.
"You heard me."
She lets out little squeal and launches herself into his arms so fast that he's worried that she's going to spill her coffee down his back.
Rachel has been following the progress of this show online since the revival was first announced two years ago. She and Mike had discussed going when it opened, though the idea fell by the wayside when he was hired for the tour. She's had a vague idea that she and Dad might go when he next came to visit her in the city, but no specific plans other than the fact that she will absolutely see it before it closes.
Apparently, she's going to see it today.
It's worth the money he spent on the tickets to see how cute she is about the whole thing. Puck sits on the couch and watches the Twins smoke the Yankees (they're having a bad year; awesome) while Rachel gets ready, talking to her dad on the phone in the bathroom while she curls her hair and puts on makeup and stuff. She reappears in a mermaid-green dress that ties behind her neck and sort of floats down to her knees. Her hair is wavy, pinned back behind one ear with this fancy gold barrette, and the black heels she's wearing make her legs look amazing.
"It's a little too fancy for a matinee," she admits, brushing self-consciously at the fabric at the front of her thigh, "but I don't care."
"You look beautiful," Puck tells her, standing up from the couch. He doesn't even think about it before he says it; it's just true.
Rachel manages to hold his gaze even though she feels her cheeks go warm. "Thank you."
Puck read just a little bit about the show when he bought the tickets, and he wasn't totally sure that he was going to like it. But he recognizes some of the songs (even if a girl is singing the part he thought was a guy) and the story doesn't suck. By the end of it, he's as engrossed as anyone else, and he's on his feet and clapping right along with them.
He grabs Rachel's hand in the lobby after some guy walks over her feet and nearly knocks her down. It's crowded and she's small enough that people either don't see her or think it's okay to run her over. He wants to make sure they don't get separated or she doesn't get squished.
It's a little strange to walk out onto the bright street; it feels like it should be nighttime. Rachel waits until the crowd thins enough to walk next to him to say anything to Noah. "Thank you so much." She squeezes his hand gently. "You know you didn't have to do this."
"Uh, yeah, I did," he tells her, looking at her like she's crazy. "You let me like, take over your apartment for basically the whole summer. I totally owe you."
She shakes her head and looks down at the sidewalk for a moment. "You don't owe me anything, Noah."
He nudges her with his shoulder, so she looks up at him and catches his grin. "Where are we going?" she asks when he tugs her past the subway entrance.
His grin turns into a smirk. "Dinner." One of the junior partners at work is vegan, so Puck asked him for a restaurant recommendation. The guy gave him a list of places, so Puck chose the one closest to the theater and is hoping for the best. This is basically the least he can do after everything she's done for him this summer.
Her feet ache by the time they get home, but Rachel barely notices. Between the show and dinner at a restaurant that Noah never would have chosen for himself in a million years (though she thinks he enjoyed his meal more than he wants to admit), she's so happy that...well, she can't remember the last time she was this happy. She wants to thank him again, but she knows that he won't accept it, so she doesn't say anything, though she does take his hand again when they're in the elevator, offering him a little smile when he looks at her. "Today was...amazing."
He loves the little smile she's wearing. "I'm glad you liked it."
"I loved it," she corrects softly, brushing her thumb over the back of his hand.
He watches her step out of her shoes as soon as they're in the apartment, flexing her feet a little and rolling her ankles. "I'm going to change," she tells him before disappearing down the hall. They talked about it on the way back, how they were going to spend their evening, and even though they have the entire city there waiting for them, Puck kind of digs just hanging out with her. Like, staying at her apartment and sitting on the couch, watching movies and teaching her how to play the first-person shooter games that she claims to hate even though she's awesome at them. (Puck's convinced that Jews are naturally better at killing virtual Nazis, and Rachel's just reinforcing that belief.) She's really the only girl he's ever been able to hang out with like this. Maybe that's why he likes it so much.
She finds him standing in the kitchen, his tie hanging loose around his neck, a bottle of wine on the counter, and a corkscrew in his hand. "Oh, that is such a go--"
He catches her completely off guard when he presses his lips to hers, the corkscrew clattering on the counter when his arm comes around her waist to pull her against his chest. She lets out a little squeak of surprise, but then his tongue slides across her bottom lip and all she can do is kiss him back, her fingertips grasping at his arms.
She tears her mouth from his with a gasp when he tries to draw her tongue into his mouth. "Noah. I don't--what is this?"she manages. She tries to arch away from him, but he slides his hand up her back to sit between her shoulder blades and keeps her close.
Fuck, it isn't like he thought about it. They just had this fucking perfect day together, and she keeps giving him these fucking perfect looks. Then she walked into the kitchen in a plain white tee shirt and a pair of cotton shorts, her feet bare and her hair loose around her shoulders, and he realized that she looks just as good like this as she did in that green dress, and he just wants her.
He's staring down at her like he's never seen her before, one hand gripping her hip hard enough that it almost hurts, and all she can think is that it's happening all over. One of them has taken it too far, and things are going to change, and she just doesn't know if their friendship can handle something like this again.
"Fuck," he mutters, staring at her intently. "Rachel, I--fuck, I want you."
He knows it's wrong before he even says it. Rachel sets her hands flat on his chest and pushes, stepping backwards away from him and shaking her head with her eyes all huge.
"That isn't--I'm like, fal--"
"Stop," she interrupts, speaking too loudly. "I can't. Not again." She bites down hard on the inside of her cheek to distract herself from the lump in her throat when she turns to leave the kitchen, and she manages to make it all the way to her bedroom before the tears fall.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
It's been a long time since Puck has felt like everything he touches turns to shit, but that's exactly what he's getting right now, standing barefoot in Rachel's kitchen. The entire time that he's been here in the city, things have been great. With his internship, with Rachel -- it's all been pretty close to perfect. Today was just supposed to be him doing a nice thing for his best friend, to pay her back for letting him crash and because he loves her. Except when she walked into the kitchen, he realized that he doesn't just love her because she's his friend. He's like, falling for her. And no, he isn't in love with her, but he knows that the way he feels about her isn't just platonic.
He doesn't know what she's thinking, but he's pretty sure that she didn't hear the part where he was trying to tell her that he was falling for her. And this isn't just a sex thing. Yeah, when she first walked into the kitchen, that's where his head (his dick) went, but that's not all this is.
She needs to know that.
Rachel scowls when her bedroom door opens slowly. "I should've known you'd pick the lock," she mutters, brushing angrily at the tears on her cheek. Why would Noah respect that she wants to be left alone?
"You have to listen to me," he says seriously. He stands at the foot of the bed and looks at her, sitting with her back against the headboard, her knees pulled up to her chest. "That wasn't what you think it was."
She sighs. "What was it, Noah?"
"It wasn't just about sex." He ignores her scoff. This feels really fucking stupid, like he's sixteen all over again, but he doesn't know how else to say it. "When I said I want you, I mean I want you."
She thinks her heart is beating too fast.
"I don't know when it happened, Rach, but...fuck, I like you," he says seriously. She doesn't know what to make of the fact that he looks incredibly frustrated right now. "Could you say something?" he says after a moment. "This silence shit feels weird on you."
"I don't know what you want me to say, Noah." She presses her lips together. He's her best friend, and she doesn't want to lose that, not to mention the fact that he's going to be here, living in her apartment, for another two weeks.
But he's her best friend. She knows him. Things have been different between them this summer, just a little at first and, now that she's thinking about it, more and more as time went on. Today? This was a date. A big, elaborate, personal date, and the only thing missing was the kiss at the end.
Except she kind of got that, didn't she?
"You like me?" she finally whispers, watching him carefully. She's biting her lip and looking at him like he's going to tell her it's all a joke, that he was just kidding and he didn't just try to ruin their friendship and their summer and make an ass of himself.
He walks around to her side of the bed and sits next to her hip. "I'm like, totally falling for you," he admits, taking her hand and rubbing a circle into her palm with his thumb. "But shit doesn't have to change if you don't want it to."
Rachel wants to laugh. Instead, she leans over and kisses him gently, leaning her forehead against his and letting out a little breath. "Now what?"
He'd like to have her naked and find out what she looks like when she comes, but he's pretty sure that telling her he wants her on her back isn't a good idea.
"You wanna pretend to watch a movie and make out?"
*
Rachel's waiting for him outside work on Wednesday afternoon in this little white sun dress that he wants to tear off her basically the second he sees her.
Saturday night, when they were watching some movie (legit, he doesn't even know what she put on) and Puck tried to push his hand down past the waistband of her shorts, she stopped him and said that she wanted to 'take things slow.' And that was fine. He can work with slow.
Except it's Wednesday now, and he knows what she looks like when she comes around his fingers and what she tastes like when she comes on his tongue. And now he wants to know what it feels like when she comes on his cock. And even though he knows, logically, that they're not moving slow at all, it feels like fucking torture not to be able to have all of her.
He's not going to say anything though. Most everything is still the same, even if Rachel curls up next to him when they sit on her couch together, and he held her hand when they walked back from dinner the other night. But shit, they're still sleeping in separate beds. It's not like they've talked about what they're doing, and he doesn't have any idea what they're going to do when he goes back to Ohio in a week and a half, but for now, he's just going to go with it.
She lays this tiny little kiss on his lips when he walks up to her, and she just keeps talking about the restaurant they're going to when he takes her hand.
*
Rachel is awake not two minutes after Noah starts his shower on Thursday morning, though she thinks now that it's more a habit than actually being disturbed by the noise. It's like her body knows exactly what time he's going to be in the shower every morning and wakes her up so she can go make coffee.
(It's funny, having him here is turning her into an actual coffee drinker. Before, it was something she craved every once in a while, mostly when it was cold and she was tired, but now she's drinking it nearly every morning. Something about the power of suggestion, she supposes.)
She doesn't know exactly what's happening between them. He's her best friend, and she loves him for that, but since Saturday, something is different, and not just the fact that her self-control keeps slipping further and further every time he puts his hands on her. There's something different about their conversations that she can't quite put her finger on, and she thinks they might be touching one another more, like they need the physical contact.
God, she feels like she's in high school all over again.
She tries to push the thoughts aside when she hears the shower stop running, getting out of bed and going into the kitchen so she can start the coffee and find something to have for breakfast.
The fact that Noah leans down to kiss her before he leaves for work, his hand sliding up the back of her tank top to press against her bare skin for just a moment before he heads out the door, doesn't make things any more clear.
It's been driving her crazy all week, and she thinks that maybe she needs to talk about it. It's been years since she's been in a situation like this, a potentially messy and complicated relationship-type thing. Gosh, she hasn't done this since high school and Finn, because she hasn't really let herself be with anyone since then. But that just makes it harder to talk to someone, because who is she going to talk to? She thinks that Santana would listen, but she doesn't know how helpful the girl would be. They don't have these sorts of conversations, not really. Their relationship is a bit more superficial, but not in a bad way. They just tend to stick to lighter subjects when they talk. She thinks that Mike would absolutely listen to do his best to give her good advice, but it's more than a little awkward to discuss her relationship with Noah with the last man that she slept with, even if he is her dear friend and they were on the same page with their relationship.
When she manages to forget half of her shopping list at the market and has to go back, she decides that enough is enough, and even though it's two in the afternoon, she dials Dad's work number.
"Are you too busy to talk for a few minutes?" she asks when he answers.
"Not at all, angelfish. How are you?"
"I'm fine. Well, no, I'm confused," she corrects. "It's Noah."
She tells him the whole story, going back to last year, though she does change and omit a few details, not because she's ashamed or trying to make things look different than they are, but because she doesn't really need her father thinking about her taking her clothes off for anyone. (Of course, her fathers knew that she'd had sex, and she's sure Dad assumes that she's still having sex, but she still doesn't have to talk about it.)
"I'm afraid that if we try to be in a relationship, or whatever it might turn into, it's going to crash and burn, and I'm going to lose my best friend," she finishes. "I don't even know what Noah wants."
"Rachel, sweetheart, you can't be afraid," Dad tells her gently.
"Of course I can be afraid."
"You can't be so afraid that you don't let yourself try something that could be great," he corrects. He sighs quietly. "Honey, I think that boy really cares about you, and when you have a chance to be with someone who cares about you as much as you care about them, you have to take it."
"What if it doesn't work and we end up hating each other?" she asks, almost whispering. That's what she's really afraid of.
"What if you fall in love with each other and are together forever?" he counters, making her laugh a little, even as something twists in her stomach. "You'll never know if you don't try." She wishes that he was here so she could hug him; this conversation would be infinitely better with a hug. "Just think about it."
Spending more time thinking about this wasn't exactly what she had in mind when she called Dad; she wanted him to tell her what to do so she could stop thinking about it. It's good, sensible advice though, and she owes it to herself to make the best decision she can here.
*
"Wake up, baby."
Noah's lips are skimming over the back of her shoulder when she wakes up, his hand pushing up the front of the tank top she's wearing to rest flat against her stomach. "Mmm."
She doesn't remember falling asleep, but the book she was reading is lying on the bed beside her (without a bookmark) and Noah is in bed with her.
Rachel blinks up at him blearily when she turns onto her back. "Hi." She takes a deep breath and brings her hand up to graze along his jaw. "How was work?"
"Fine." He leans down to kiss her, sipping at her lips and grazing the underside of her breast with his thumb. "I thought about you," he murmurs against her lips before up across her cheek to her ear. "About last night. Your mouth, baby."
Her laugh is a little breathless when he nips at her earlobe. Last night, she went down on him for the first time. Performing oral sex isn't her favorite thing to do in the bedroom, but she certainly doesn't hate it, and thanks to quite a lot of time spent doing exactly that with Finn and her lack of gag reflex, she's rather good at it. It's a bit of a power trip, making a man fall apart like that, and it's an excellent way to begin to discover what makes him crazy.
And she isn't ashamed to admit that she quite liked the way it felt to have Noah's hands threaded through her hair and the way he groaned her name right before he let go.
"Stop thinking so much," he tells her, grazing his teeth over her collarbone.
Her hand slips into the back of his hair. "I was thinking about last night, too," she admits. She makes a surprised little noise when he bites at her shoulder maybe a little harder than he should, but Jesus. She can't say shit like that and not expect him to react.
He pushes her shirt up over her head when she starts slipping the buttons of his through the holes, then takes a second to appreciate the way her red bra looks against her skin before leaning down to kiss along the swell of her breast just above the satin. He's still working on finding all of the spots that make her crazy, but he knows that if he runs his fingertips from the hollow of her throat down to the valley of her breasts, her lips will part and her back will arch a tiny bit. He smirks up at her when she does just that and takes the opportunity to slip his hand behind her back and unclasp her bra, tugging the straps carefully down her arms so he can toss the garment on the floor.
She slides her hands over his shoulders, taking his shirt with them. She loves the way his skin feels under her hands, the play of the muscles when he fits himself between her thighs, his hand palming one breast when he pulls the nipple of the other past his lips. "Noah."
Her self-control with him is slipping, and the way he's pressing himself between her legs isn't helping. She wants him, so badly, but she's terrified of losing their friendship, and she thinks--
Oh, god, she can't think at all when he's moving down her body, kissing down her stomach and pulling her shorts down off her hips.
She makes the sexiest noise ever when he puts his mouth against her, and her nails dig into his scalp just a little when she pushes her hand into his hair. Fuck, he hasn't even slept with her (yet), and he's pretty sure she's the sexiest woman he's ever been with. She drapes her right leg over her back when she lets go, her back arching up off the bed and his name falling from her lips.
He moves back up her body slowly, kissing the swell of her breast before resting his head against her chest, giving her a moment to catch her breath, she thinks. "You're so fucking beautiful, Rachel." She can feel his lips moving against her skin, and something about the way that he says her name makes her lose her mind a little. She can't explain it, but it's different than he's ever said it before, different than she's ever heard anyone say her name.
She can feel how hard he is against the inside of her thigh, and even though she just came, she wants him. God, she wants him so badly, and all of the reasons - and they're good reasons, really - that she shouldn't sleep with him are all jumbled up in her mind.
"Noah, I want--god," she breathes when he rocks his hips against her, his lips hovering over the hollow of her throat. "Noah, I want you," she manages the second time she tries.
Puck pulls back a bit to look down at her, trying to figure out if she means what he hopes she means or if she's just talking nonsense. Her hair is a mess, from sleeping and from what they just did, and her eyes are super dark, her pupils huge and her eyelashes all fluttery. He presses his hips against hers, testing, and lets out a groan when her eyes fall closed and her neck arches a little. "Are you serious, baby?" She murmurs something, but it gets lost in her moan when he brings his hand up to cup her breast again, his fingers just grazing her nipple. "Rachel."
He's staring at her intently when she opens her eyes, her back arching in an attempt to coax him into touching her more. "Yes. Please, Noah, I can't--"
He cuts her off with a kiss, hard and right on the edge of harsh, nipping at her lips and burying his hand in her hair to tilt her head the way he wants it. He nips at her bottom lip with his teeth when she reaches between them to unbuckle his belt, letting out a groan before pushing himself away from her to stand next to the bed, finishing the job she started with his belt before pushing his pants and boxers down off his hips.
"Noah."
Fuck, the way she says his name, all breathless and needy. He's a dude, so he's spent years (the entire time he's known her, really) thinking about what it would be like to sleep with her. She's destroyed all his expectations, and he hasn't even been inside her yet.
She means to watch his eyes when he pushes into her for the first time, but she can't keep hers open wide enough to do it.
*
"What are we doing?"
Even though she's just barely whispering, she scares the shit out of Puck. He thought she was asleep, which would have made sense since he woke her up for...well, not for this, specifically, but this is what happened, and he's pretty sure he wore her out. Fuck, he wore himself out.
But she isn't asleep. She's lying there on her stomach, her hand tucked beneath her pillow and the sheet bunched at her waist so he can see the expanse of her bare back, looking at him with those big brown eyes.
"What do you mean?" he asks dumbly. They're just laying here.
"Noah." She takes a breath. "Our...relationship, or whatever this is," she says quietly, watching his eyes. "What are we doing?"
She didn't mean to sleep with him before they had this conversation. God, she didn't mean to sleep with him at all, because as much as she cares about him and as much as she wants him, she's here, and he's going back ot Ohio in a week, and even if Noah could do long distance (which she isn't convinced he could), she doesn't know that she can. She likes being able to see her boyfriend, to touch him and look at his eyes when she talks to him, to fall asleep with him when they're watching movies. Rachel doesn't know how people maintain relationships with only the telephone and text messages to sustain them and the promise of visits that are weeks or months in the future.
But she did sleep with him, and now he's naked in her bed and reaching over to tuck her hair behind her ear.
"I don't know," he admits, shaking his head a little. "But I like what we've been doing this week."
"What is it, though?"
"I don't know," he repeats, because he doesn't. "I don't wanna stop."
"You're leaving in a week."
"A week and three days," he corrects with a smirk. There's a lot he can do in three days if she wants to let him. "Just don't worry about it, baby."
"I'm a worrier," she reminds him. She's already worrying about it. She's been worrying about it.
Puck leans over to kiss her, pushing at her shoulder until she takes the hint and turns onto her side. "Lemme distract you," he murmurs against her lips. He slides his hand down her side and over her hip, slipping it between her thighs and kissing her hard when she whimpers. "Rachel."
He doesn't actually give her a chance to answer, just pushes her onto her back and fits himself between her thighs again, kissing her so good that her head is swimming and she couldn't manage to form coherent words even if she wanted to.
She knows they're only delaying the inevitable.