don't think i don't think about it
Prompt: "Do you ever think about it?" Left at the meme by sara345
Chapter: 1/1
Warning: None.
Character: Puck/Rachel
Word Count: 3,600
Disclaimer: Don't own.
She's been home a day and a half. A day and a half more than she's been here the past three years. But when one of your first/best/only friends sends you a wedding invitation, you kind of have to show up, whether you want to face the town and the people in it or not.
In a way, Rachel isn't surprised at all that Brittany is the first of the group to get married. They're just barely 21, most of them, but somehow it makes sense. Brittany met Martin her second semester of college. He was her TA, is now a successful writer, and completely adores the blonde. Rachel is happy for her. Of course.
That's not why she didn't want to come. She didn't want to come because three of her four ex boyfriends are going to be hanging around.
That, and the last time she attended a wedding, she did something so ridiculous and out of character that she still finds herself blushing over it, even three years after the fact.
Her whole group of friends is invited for drinks after the rehearsal dinner, since most of them are only in town for a few days before scattering across the country again like they have been since they all left for college.
She's currently talking to Kurt, martinis in their hands as he comments on her tasteful black strapless dress and the shoes she bought at a sample sale in the Meat Packing District last month and forced her to eat ramen noodles in order to pay for. But they are fabulous.
She doesn't mean to stop breathing when Noah walks into the restaurant. It's just her first reaction, and she hates it, but she can't stop it. No one notices the way she looks him up and down as he catches Brittany in his arms after she launches herself at him. He laughs and Rachel feels it in her stomach. He smiles and kisses Brittany's cheek, and it's completely ridiculous, but Rachel feels jealousy ping at her heart.
The girl is getting married to someone else, and Rachel is jealous over a kiss on the cheek.
She has a problem.
She drains her martini quickly, earning her looks from Santana and Matt, who are sitting across from her. She smiles tightly and gets up to go to the bar.
Mike catches her elbow. Dread courses through her veins. "Hey," he says, smiling at her nervously.
"Hi." She hugs him when he hugs her. She wouldn't have otherwise. The broke up two years ago and she's seen him a dozen or so times since. She knows he's choreographing for some local New York music acts. Not bad for someone who was never a trained dancer. "How are you?"
"Good," he says. "Hey, this doesn't have to be weird, right?"
She laughs a little bit and looks over his shoulder. The man she cheated on him with is hugging her very first boyfriend.
Yes, it does have to be weird.
But she's gotten better at lying over the years, so she smiles, shakes her head and picks up her fresh martini. "No," she says, touching his arm with her free hand. "It won't be weird."
She walks back to the table, nearly stumbles on her heels when Noah looks at her. She watches his eyes slide up her legs, over her hips and to her face. She tries to smile but it doesn't work, so she sips her drink instead, sits down next to Mercedes and they start talking about the girl's cosmetology work.
She never told Mike about that night with Noah. He never found out, never suspected anything, and he certainly doesn't need to know now. He doesn't need to know that one of his closest friends was one of the biggest causes of their breakup. Chances are things would have just been even messier, and she can't handle that. She and Mike are on decent terms, and she likes it that way. They don't generally seek one another out, but they can be civil, sometimes more than that, when they do see one another.
It's probably impressive that she's only slept with him twice since they ended things. Considering how lonely she is in New York, she's surprised she doesn't still have him on her speed dial. Sometimes she's surprised she ever ended things at all.
She looks down the table and Noah is staring at her again.
Maybe not that surprised.
... ... ...
She's drunk. She hates it. She hates being drunk, and she really hates the morning after. The last time she was drunk, she called Mike to come take her home from some club in Manhattan, and he'd walked her home and slept in her bed and taken care of her the next morning.
She hates this feeling now, knowing there's no one to help her. Mike left an hour ago, and Brittany before that so she could get her beauty sleep. Quinn and Mercedes went to the Jones house, where they're staying while they're in town, and Kurt and Finn have just announced they're leaving.
Matt and Noah are talking with Santana and Tina, Artie with his keys on the table and silently waiting until Tina decides to get home.
Rachel sits at the other end of the table where she's been speaking with Finn and Kurt for the last while, and when they both stand, Noah smiles at her and crooks his finger. Even if she hadn't wanted to be closer to him all night, she'd probably still get up and walk over, careful on her heels, to sit next to Santana.
They talk for a while, and Rachel is relatively quiet. That's the thing about being drunk, too. You're always afraid to say something stupid. At least she's got the presence of mind to keep her mouth closed rather than just say whatever comes to mind and wake up tomorrow not only hungover, but required to deal with the repercussions of embarrassing herself. So she says as little as possible and drinks from a glass of water, for whatever good that will do.
"How's that show you were writing coming?" Noah asks, and her eyes go wide. She has no idea how he knows she's been writing a musical for the better part of two years. "Mike told me."
"I didn't know you two still talked enough for him to tell you..." Her voice trails and he sips from his beer, eyes locked with hers.
"We share the important stuff."
She very nearly moans. Either he just called her important, or she's far more drunk than she thought.
Possibly both.
They're all looking at her, and she's reminded there was a question posed to her before all that.
"It's finished," she admits. They look far more impressed than they should be. "It's still not any...It's very rough around the edges. It needs a lot of work. I shouldn't even be..."
"It's probably amazing," Santana says, and Rachel looks at her like she has four heads. She can probably count on one hand the amount of nice things that girl has ever said to her.
"I don't know about that," Rachel says quietly, trying to downplay the whole thing. "But thank you."
Noah is still looking at her like he's amused by the situation or the night or her in general, and she almost shouts at him and asks him to stop staring, but she manages to bite her tongue with that, too.
She's trying hard to focus on something, anything, other than his lips, when she decides she really needs to go home and sleep off the stupid amount of alcohol she's had. Before she does something stupid like lean across the table and tell him in no uncertain terms that the shirt he's wearing doesn't do his body any justice at all and he should probably just take the damn thing off. Instead of doing what she really wants, she stands abruptly and hitches her bag up onto her shoulder. She wonders if she would have garnered more or less attention if she hadn't wavered on her heels as she tried to push her chair back.
It's Noah's hand that comes out to steady her. He doesn't touch her at all. Whether that's good or bad, she can't decide. His hand just hovers somewhere around the small of her back, almost close enough for her to feel the heat from his palm.
"You okay?" he asks. Wouldn't her life be simpler if he was still the same self-centered asshole he was when they were younger? He laughs. "Maybe."
Oh, fuck. She said that out loud.
"I'm fine. And I should be going. And why are you smirking at me like that?" And when did they get to the door? Alone. Without their other friends. "Why are you following me?"
"Because you're funny as hell right now, and because I promised Mike I'd get you home okay."
Her heart falls. Mike...Oh, god. What if he knows? Not that it changes anything, but still. And this annoying habit her feet seem to have picked up where they take her places without her thinking about it is getting really annoying. She doesn't realize she's standing next to his truck until he wrenches the door open.
"I am not getting into this deathtrap," she says seriously, crossing her arms. He's had this thing since he was 16, and it was old then.
"You see another way, Princess?"
"Don't call me that," she snaps. He laughs. Asshole.
"What? You gonna walk?" he asks. She watches his eyes slide down her legs again. "Those shoes don't look so comfortable."
She finds herself smiling a little bit, looking at him through her eyelashes. "But they look so good."
He chuckles and pushes her towards the truck. "Better than good," he says, and she grins, laughs a little before trying to get up on the step bar to get into the vehicle. It doesn't work so well. When she feels his hand on her thigh a little too close to her ass (or not close enough, depending how you look at it), she looks at him over her shoulder. "Focus, Rach. Up and in." She starts giggling hard and right before he closes the door, she hears him say, "Jesus, you're fucked."
Of course, the door is closed and he's rounding the front of the truck, so he doesn't hear her when she says, "not in far too long."
This is such a bad idea. She shouldn't have had those last two martinis. And was this seatbelt designed to be some kind of riddle, or...Okay, no, it just clicked.
He's laughing at her.
"Stop that," she hisses.
"I can't," he says, turning the key in the ignition. "You're a hilarious drunk. I've never seen you drunk."
"Whatever," she mumbles, looking out the window.
They're quiet for a few minutes, and she has no idea why he's got Willie Nelson playing in his truck, but the cliché of it being on in the background almost makes her smile. She thinks it's fitting, this country twang she secretly likes coming through the speakers as she sits here with someone who can only be called an old flame. His thumb taps against the wheel. It should be irritating, but it's rather endearing, actually.
"Do you remember the way?" she asks after a few moments.
He smiles and glances at her. "Do you?"
"I'm not that drunk." She almost sounds convincing, but he laughs a bit. "I'm fine. I just wanted to make sure you knew. I don't know how often you come back here."
"I don't," he says.
She chews her bottom lip and remembers how she left him in a hotel room, naked and sleeping in a queen sized bed. "Me neither," she admits. "The last time was...It was Carole's wedding."
He says nothing, just nods.
Her heart shouldn't feel so heavy.
He pulls into her driveway, and she doesn't realize he's cut the engine until she's fishing for her keys with the pavement under her feet and he's suddenly next to her. She looks up at him and he rolls his eyes, grabs her purse and keys, and pushes the door open.
"I don't need your help."
"I don't care," he says, shaking his head.
"Maybe you still are an asshole," she says, and yes, she's being a bitch. It's a self-preservation thing.
"Probably. Take off those damn shoes."
She grins. "Distracting?" she asks coyly, flexing her calf and turning her foot. He cocks his brow. If they're going to challenge one another, this night is going to get messy. And probably a lot more naked. She puts one hand on his shoulder to steady herself as she slips her feet from her shoes. "I feel short now."
"You are short."
"I'm petite," she pouts.
He laughs and stares at her lips a second longer than even she knows he should. "Whatever you say." He points for the stairs. "Go on." She blinks. He rolls his eyes. "I'm not hitting on you. Get up the stairs."
She turns around so he won't see the look on her face. It can probably only be classified as disappointed. And if she's stomping up the stairs a little bit, it's just because she's drunk, not because she's angry. She sets her shoes on top of her suitcase when she gets to her bedroom, and all she wants to do is get out of this dress and...
Well, do things you do out of dresses. Whatever those may be at any given moment.
"Jesus," she hears from behind her. "S'like a time warp in here." She giggles and looks around. "Daddies don't want their girl growing up?"
She shrugs. "Something like that." He nods and waltzes in, drops her purse and keys onto her dresser. "I think I can handle it from here," she tells him.
She doesn't want him to go, but she can't bring herself to ask him to stay.
"Yeah. Right. Fine," he says, nodding as he heads back for the door. "I'll see you tomorrow, I guess." He laughs a bit, says, "drink lots of water, and a Gatorade in the morning."
"I'm not..."
"Not that drunk. Sure."
He winks and walks into the hall. She runs after him, keeps one hand on the door frame. "Wait!" He turns back to her when he's on the top step of the stairs, looking very confused. She chews her lip and pulls her hair off her back. "Do you mind...well, if you could unzip me..."
She's rather flattered by how quickly he's back in her bedroom.
She tries very hard to regulate her breathing when she feels his hand on her waist as the other pulls down the zipper. And surely he doesn't have to do it that slowly. And he most certainly doesn't have to let out a little laugh upon seeing that she's not wearing a bra. She holds her dress tightly to her body and walks away from him. Grabbing her nightgown off the back of the chair in the room, she turns around to face him. He's staring.
"Don't go yet, okay?" she asks, and it doesn't sound as pathetic as it could. "Wait a minute."
She slips into the bathroom, and damn, she has no idea what she's doing, why she's doing this. She doesn't need this right now. She needs sleep and perhaps some kind of light snack. Probably some carbohydrates. But then there's a man in her bedroom who she has history with, and she's asked him to stay, and he's being so nice, and by the time she's got her nightgown on and is realizing it really does nothing to conceal how hard her nipples are right now, she's basically decided that she wants to sleep with him. Again.
The first time was so much fun.
She steps back into the room and he's sitting at the edge of her bed. When he looks at her, his face falls, like she's just taken away his dream or something. She's immediately thinking of what she can pull over her body to cover herself while he inevitably leaves.
"Shit, Rachel," he mumbles, meeting her eyes.
"I'm sorry," she says quietly, embarrassed.
"No. No." He laughs quietly, shaking his head. "No." She turns away from him so she can grab the hair elastic from atop her dresser, then pulls her hair into a ponytail. "Why am I here?"
She could answer that question. You know, if she had an answer.
"Do you ever think about it?" she asks instead, turning around to face him, hands by her hips and bracing herself against the surface of her dresser.
He furrows his brow like he's always done when he's about to tell someone how wrong they are. (And thank god he does it.) "Of course I do," he says seriously. She knows how doubtful she looks. "Best damn night of my life. Shit, half the time I have trouble not thinking about it."
She looks down at her manicured toes, the dark purple looking almost black in this lighting. "Are you just saying that?"
"Do I just say things?" She doesn't want to laugh. She supposes her question was rather stupid. "I fucking hated that you just bailed on me."
"I was with Mike."
"Not that night, you weren't," he mumbles.
"And I still feel guilty," she admits. "I hated...I hate that I became that girl. I'm a faithful girlfriend, Noah. I'm great at it."
He gives her that lopsided smirk and leans back on his hands a bit. "I bet."
"Don't make jokes," she says, scowling. "It's not my fault you danced with me and touched me and said...those things you said."
"You could have said no."
"As if!" she shouts. She laughs and he looks confused. "How many women have ever legitimately said no to you? Oh, god. Don't answer that." She covers her face with her hands and hates herself for this entire night. She doesn't realize he's in front of her until he pries her hands away. "Don't look at me."
"I will if I want to," he says. She shakes her head. How is he so sweet even when she knows he's not even attempting to be? It's hardly fair. "How drunk are you?"
"I'm not that drunk!"
He laughs again, steps back and sits on her bed again. "Okay, look, the thing is...I mean, fuck. That night wasn't just sex. I mean, it was just sex, especially when I woke up and you were fucking gone back to him."
"Noah."
"Naw, look, it's stupid, 'cause you were with him, but you were always with someone, you know?" he asks. She supposes that makes sense. She didn't really ever go without a boyfriend for very long. "And yeah, fuck, maybe I touched you and came onto you, but it's because you let me."
She narrows her eyes and crosses her arms. "Are you implying that I'm some kind of..."
"Jesus. No," he sighs. "You're like this...you're a fuckin' prize, Rachel, and I always wanted you. Goddamn, I sound stupid."
He mumbles the last part. She almost misses it because she's too busy smiling at her feet.
"You think I'm a prize?"
"You don't?"
She doesn't get to answer. She doesn't know how she would. Maybe that question, to him, is rhetorical.
She doesn't get to answer, because suddenly she's in front of him and her hands are running through his hair as he looks up at her. He's got this shy smile on his face, and she wants to memorize the way he looks right now, this expression he's wearing. She'll probably never see it again.
"That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me," she tells him softly.
He laughs. "The really fucked up thing is that I mean it."
She lets out a genuine laugh, tips her head back and everything, and he sets his hands on her hips as she stands there wishing for him to touch her so much more. "Will you stay?" she asks, almost whispering.
"Stupid question."
"I mean in the morning," she clarifies. "You won't leave, will you?"
He smirks, pulls her towards him and parts his legs so she's standing between his knees, as close to him as she can get while they're like this. "I won't if you won't."
She smiles and wets her lips. "I won't."
Chapter: 1/1
Warning: None.
Character: Puck/Rachel
Word Count: 3,600
Disclaimer: Don't own.
She's been home a day and a half. A day and a half more than she's been here the past three years. But when one of your first/best/only friends sends you a wedding invitation, you kind of have to show up, whether you want to face the town and the people in it or not.
In a way, Rachel isn't surprised at all that Brittany is the first of the group to get married. They're just barely 21, most of them, but somehow it makes sense. Brittany met Martin her second semester of college. He was her TA, is now a successful writer, and completely adores the blonde. Rachel is happy for her. Of course.
That's not why she didn't want to come. She didn't want to come because three of her four ex boyfriends are going to be hanging around.
That, and the last time she attended a wedding, she did something so ridiculous and out of character that she still finds herself blushing over it, even three years after the fact.
Her whole group of friends is invited for drinks after the rehearsal dinner, since most of them are only in town for a few days before scattering across the country again like they have been since they all left for college.
She's currently talking to Kurt, martinis in their hands as he comments on her tasteful black strapless dress and the shoes she bought at a sample sale in the Meat Packing District last month and forced her to eat ramen noodles in order to pay for. But they are fabulous.
She doesn't mean to stop breathing when Noah walks into the restaurant. It's just her first reaction, and she hates it, but she can't stop it. No one notices the way she looks him up and down as he catches Brittany in his arms after she launches herself at him. He laughs and Rachel feels it in her stomach. He smiles and kisses Brittany's cheek, and it's completely ridiculous, but Rachel feels jealousy ping at her heart.
The girl is getting married to someone else, and Rachel is jealous over a kiss on the cheek.
She has a problem.
She drains her martini quickly, earning her looks from Santana and Matt, who are sitting across from her. She smiles tightly and gets up to go to the bar.
Mike catches her elbow. Dread courses through her veins. "Hey," he says, smiling at her nervously.
"Hi." She hugs him when he hugs her. She wouldn't have otherwise. The broke up two years ago and she's seen him a dozen or so times since. She knows he's choreographing for some local New York music acts. Not bad for someone who was never a trained dancer. "How are you?"
"Good," he says. "Hey, this doesn't have to be weird, right?"
She laughs a little bit and looks over his shoulder. The man she cheated on him with is hugging her very first boyfriend.
Yes, it does have to be weird.
But she's gotten better at lying over the years, so she smiles, shakes her head and picks up her fresh martini. "No," she says, touching his arm with her free hand. "It won't be weird."
She walks back to the table, nearly stumbles on her heels when Noah looks at her. She watches his eyes slide up her legs, over her hips and to her face. She tries to smile but it doesn't work, so she sips her drink instead, sits down next to Mercedes and they start talking about the girl's cosmetology work.
She never told Mike about that night with Noah. He never found out, never suspected anything, and he certainly doesn't need to know now. He doesn't need to know that one of his closest friends was one of the biggest causes of their breakup. Chances are things would have just been even messier, and she can't handle that. She and Mike are on decent terms, and she likes it that way. They don't generally seek one another out, but they can be civil, sometimes more than that, when they do see one another.
It's probably impressive that she's only slept with him twice since they ended things. Considering how lonely she is in New York, she's surprised she doesn't still have him on her speed dial. Sometimes she's surprised she ever ended things at all.
She looks down the table and Noah is staring at her again.
Maybe not that surprised.
... ... ...
She's drunk. She hates it. She hates being drunk, and she really hates the morning after. The last time she was drunk, she called Mike to come take her home from some club in Manhattan, and he'd walked her home and slept in her bed and taken care of her the next morning.
She hates this feeling now, knowing there's no one to help her. Mike left an hour ago, and Brittany before that so she could get her beauty sleep. Quinn and Mercedes went to the Jones house, where they're staying while they're in town, and Kurt and Finn have just announced they're leaving.
Matt and Noah are talking with Santana and Tina, Artie with his keys on the table and silently waiting until Tina decides to get home.
Rachel sits at the other end of the table where she's been speaking with Finn and Kurt for the last while, and when they both stand, Noah smiles at her and crooks his finger. Even if she hadn't wanted to be closer to him all night, she'd probably still get up and walk over, careful on her heels, to sit next to Santana.
They talk for a while, and Rachel is relatively quiet. That's the thing about being drunk, too. You're always afraid to say something stupid. At least she's got the presence of mind to keep her mouth closed rather than just say whatever comes to mind and wake up tomorrow not only hungover, but required to deal with the repercussions of embarrassing herself. So she says as little as possible and drinks from a glass of water, for whatever good that will do.
"How's that show you were writing coming?" Noah asks, and her eyes go wide. She has no idea how he knows she's been writing a musical for the better part of two years. "Mike told me."
"I didn't know you two still talked enough for him to tell you..." Her voice trails and he sips from his beer, eyes locked with hers.
"We share the important stuff."
She very nearly moans. Either he just called her important, or she's far more drunk than she thought.
Possibly both.
They're all looking at her, and she's reminded there was a question posed to her before all that.
"It's finished," she admits. They look far more impressed than they should be. "It's still not any...It's very rough around the edges. It needs a lot of work. I shouldn't even be..."
"It's probably amazing," Santana says, and Rachel looks at her like she has four heads. She can probably count on one hand the amount of nice things that girl has ever said to her.
"I don't know about that," Rachel says quietly, trying to downplay the whole thing. "But thank you."
Noah is still looking at her like he's amused by the situation or the night or her in general, and she almost shouts at him and asks him to stop staring, but she manages to bite her tongue with that, too.
She's trying hard to focus on something, anything, other than his lips, when she decides she really needs to go home and sleep off the stupid amount of alcohol she's had. Before she does something stupid like lean across the table and tell him in no uncertain terms that the shirt he's wearing doesn't do his body any justice at all and he should probably just take the damn thing off. Instead of doing what she really wants, she stands abruptly and hitches her bag up onto her shoulder. She wonders if she would have garnered more or less attention if she hadn't wavered on her heels as she tried to push her chair back.
It's Noah's hand that comes out to steady her. He doesn't touch her at all. Whether that's good or bad, she can't decide. His hand just hovers somewhere around the small of her back, almost close enough for her to feel the heat from his palm.
"You okay?" he asks. Wouldn't her life be simpler if he was still the same self-centered asshole he was when they were younger? He laughs. "Maybe."
Oh, fuck. She said that out loud.
"I'm fine. And I should be going. And why are you smirking at me like that?" And when did they get to the door? Alone. Without their other friends. "Why are you following me?"
"Because you're funny as hell right now, and because I promised Mike I'd get you home okay."
Her heart falls. Mike...Oh, god. What if he knows? Not that it changes anything, but still. And this annoying habit her feet seem to have picked up where they take her places without her thinking about it is getting really annoying. She doesn't realize she's standing next to his truck until he wrenches the door open.
"I am not getting into this deathtrap," she says seriously, crossing her arms. He's had this thing since he was 16, and it was old then.
"You see another way, Princess?"
"Don't call me that," she snaps. He laughs. Asshole.
"What? You gonna walk?" he asks. She watches his eyes slide down her legs again. "Those shoes don't look so comfortable."
She finds herself smiling a little bit, looking at him through her eyelashes. "But they look so good."
He chuckles and pushes her towards the truck. "Better than good," he says, and she grins, laughs a little before trying to get up on the step bar to get into the vehicle. It doesn't work so well. When she feels his hand on her thigh a little too close to her ass (or not close enough, depending how you look at it), she looks at him over her shoulder. "Focus, Rach. Up and in." She starts giggling hard and right before he closes the door, she hears him say, "Jesus, you're fucked."
Of course, the door is closed and he's rounding the front of the truck, so he doesn't hear her when she says, "not in far too long."
This is such a bad idea. She shouldn't have had those last two martinis. And was this seatbelt designed to be some kind of riddle, or...Okay, no, it just clicked.
He's laughing at her.
"Stop that," she hisses.
"I can't," he says, turning the key in the ignition. "You're a hilarious drunk. I've never seen you drunk."
"Whatever," she mumbles, looking out the window.
They're quiet for a few minutes, and she has no idea why he's got Willie Nelson playing in his truck, but the cliché of it being on in the background almost makes her smile. She thinks it's fitting, this country twang she secretly likes coming through the speakers as she sits here with someone who can only be called an old flame. His thumb taps against the wheel. It should be irritating, but it's rather endearing, actually.
"Do you remember the way?" she asks after a few moments.
He smiles and glances at her. "Do you?"
"I'm not that drunk." She almost sounds convincing, but he laughs a bit. "I'm fine. I just wanted to make sure you knew. I don't know how often you come back here."
"I don't," he says.
She chews her bottom lip and remembers how she left him in a hotel room, naked and sleeping in a queen sized bed. "Me neither," she admits. "The last time was...It was Carole's wedding."
He says nothing, just nods.
Her heart shouldn't feel so heavy.
He pulls into her driveway, and she doesn't realize he's cut the engine until she's fishing for her keys with the pavement under her feet and he's suddenly next to her. She looks up at him and he rolls his eyes, grabs her purse and keys, and pushes the door open.
"I don't need your help."
"I don't care," he says, shaking his head.
"Maybe you still are an asshole," she says, and yes, she's being a bitch. It's a self-preservation thing.
"Probably. Take off those damn shoes."
She grins. "Distracting?" she asks coyly, flexing her calf and turning her foot. He cocks his brow. If they're going to challenge one another, this night is going to get messy. And probably a lot more naked. She puts one hand on his shoulder to steady herself as she slips her feet from her shoes. "I feel short now."
"You are short."
"I'm petite," she pouts.
He laughs and stares at her lips a second longer than even she knows he should. "Whatever you say." He points for the stairs. "Go on." She blinks. He rolls his eyes. "I'm not hitting on you. Get up the stairs."
She turns around so he won't see the look on her face. It can probably only be classified as disappointed. And if she's stomping up the stairs a little bit, it's just because she's drunk, not because she's angry. She sets her shoes on top of her suitcase when she gets to her bedroom, and all she wants to do is get out of this dress and...
Well, do things you do out of dresses. Whatever those may be at any given moment.
"Jesus," she hears from behind her. "S'like a time warp in here." She giggles and looks around. "Daddies don't want their girl growing up?"
She shrugs. "Something like that." He nods and waltzes in, drops her purse and keys onto her dresser. "I think I can handle it from here," she tells him.
She doesn't want him to go, but she can't bring herself to ask him to stay.
"Yeah. Right. Fine," he says, nodding as he heads back for the door. "I'll see you tomorrow, I guess." He laughs a bit, says, "drink lots of water, and a Gatorade in the morning."
"I'm not..."
"Not that drunk. Sure."
He winks and walks into the hall. She runs after him, keeps one hand on the door frame. "Wait!" He turns back to her when he's on the top step of the stairs, looking very confused. She chews her lip and pulls her hair off her back. "Do you mind...well, if you could unzip me..."
She's rather flattered by how quickly he's back in her bedroom.
She tries very hard to regulate her breathing when she feels his hand on her waist as the other pulls down the zipper. And surely he doesn't have to do it that slowly. And he most certainly doesn't have to let out a little laugh upon seeing that she's not wearing a bra. She holds her dress tightly to her body and walks away from him. Grabbing her nightgown off the back of the chair in the room, she turns around to face him. He's staring.
"Don't go yet, okay?" she asks, and it doesn't sound as pathetic as it could. "Wait a minute."
She slips into the bathroom, and damn, she has no idea what she's doing, why she's doing this. She doesn't need this right now. She needs sleep and perhaps some kind of light snack. Probably some carbohydrates. But then there's a man in her bedroom who she has history with, and she's asked him to stay, and he's being so nice, and by the time she's got her nightgown on and is realizing it really does nothing to conceal how hard her nipples are right now, she's basically decided that she wants to sleep with him. Again.
The first time was so much fun.
She steps back into the room and he's sitting at the edge of her bed. When he looks at her, his face falls, like she's just taken away his dream or something. She's immediately thinking of what she can pull over her body to cover herself while he inevitably leaves.
"Shit, Rachel," he mumbles, meeting her eyes.
"I'm sorry," she says quietly, embarrassed.
"No. No." He laughs quietly, shaking his head. "No." She turns away from him so she can grab the hair elastic from atop her dresser, then pulls her hair into a ponytail. "Why am I here?"
She could answer that question. You know, if she had an answer.
"Do you ever think about it?" she asks instead, turning around to face him, hands by her hips and bracing herself against the surface of her dresser.
He furrows his brow like he's always done when he's about to tell someone how wrong they are. (And thank god he does it.) "Of course I do," he says seriously. She knows how doubtful she looks. "Best damn night of my life. Shit, half the time I have trouble not thinking about it."
She looks down at her manicured toes, the dark purple looking almost black in this lighting. "Are you just saying that?"
"Do I just say things?" She doesn't want to laugh. She supposes her question was rather stupid. "I fucking hated that you just bailed on me."
"I was with Mike."
"Not that night, you weren't," he mumbles.
"And I still feel guilty," she admits. "I hated...I hate that I became that girl. I'm a faithful girlfriend, Noah. I'm great at it."
He gives her that lopsided smirk and leans back on his hands a bit. "I bet."
"Don't make jokes," she says, scowling. "It's not my fault you danced with me and touched me and said...those things you said."
"You could have said no."
"As if!" she shouts. She laughs and he looks confused. "How many women have ever legitimately said no to you? Oh, god. Don't answer that." She covers her face with her hands and hates herself for this entire night. She doesn't realize he's in front of her until he pries her hands away. "Don't look at me."
"I will if I want to," he says. She shakes her head. How is he so sweet even when she knows he's not even attempting to be? It's hardly fair. "How drunk are you?"
"I'm not that drunk!"
He laughs again, steps back and sits on her bed again. "Okay, look, the thing is...I mean, fuck. That night wasn't just sex. I mean, it was just sex, especially when I woke up and you were fucking gone back to him."
"Noah."
"Naw, look, it's stupid, 'cause you were with him, but you were always with someone, you know?" he asks. She supposes that makes sense. She didn't really ever go without a boyfriend for very long. "And yeah, fuck, maybe I touched you and came onto you, but it's because you let me."
She narrows her eyes and crosses her arms. "Are you implying that I'm some kind of..."
"Jesus. No," he sighs. "You're like this...you're a fuckin' prize, Rachel, and I always wanted you. Goddamn, I sound stupid."
He mumbles the last part. She almost misses it because she's too busy smiling at her feet.
"You think I'm a prize?"
"You don't?"
She doesn't get to answer. She doesn't know how she would. Maybe that question, to him, is rhetorical.
She doesn't get to answer, because suddenly she's in front of him and her hands are running through his hair as he looks up at her. He's got this shy smile on his face, and she wants to memorize the way he looks right now, this expression he's wearing. She'll probably never see it again.
"That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me," she tells him softly.
He laughs. "The really fucked up thing is that I mean it."
She lets out a genuine laugh, tips her head back and everything, and he sets his hands on her hips as she stands there wishing for him to touch her so much more. "Will you stay?" she asks, almost whispering.
"Stupid question."
"I mean in the morning," she clarifies. "You won't leave, will you?"
He smirks, pulls her towards him and parts his legs so she's standing between his knees, as close to him as she can get while they're like this. "I won't if you won't."
She smiles and wets her lips. "I won't."