win some, lose some - part two: july (1/2)
Glee. 11,897 words. Noah Puckerman; Puck/Rachel. The summer after Puck's junior year, told in three parts. In this month: Fourth of July barbeque, Mandatory Band Bonding Day, and Puck & Rachel being...Puck & Rachel. Also, analogies. (For part one, click here: JUNE)
Rated R (I guess?) for language and allusions to secksitime. Oh and I made soundtracks for both July and June! Since I hit my character limit for this chapter, I had to post them after the end of Part Two. HOWEVER, if you're crazy (awesome) and want to nab the July mix and listen as you read, you can do so here.
A/N: There aren't enough exclamation points in all the world to express my gratitude to une_fille for existing. Thanks bro for being the Creative Director on this and my life and shooting the shit with me about this four man wolf-pack for hours on end. T-Bone: I love you so much it's stupid. AND OH MY GOD, hariboo_smirks. I LOVE YOU SO HARD. Your beta e-mail made my night! Thanks a million for turning this over so fast, and with such lovely and constructive feedback.
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WIN SOME, LOSE SOME
july
(1/2)
---
can i call you mine?
can i call you mine?
can i call you mine?
can i call you mine?
- laura veirs
---
The first time they hook up, they’re in his truck, eighty miles from home. He’s thinking about the rush of playing for a club full of people, and she’s completely forgotten that they’re even in Toledo, let alone with his band. All she sees is his summer tan and swirling green eyes with specks of hazel.
To be honest, she’s been thinking about this for the past week now, so when he kisses her yet again, she smiles against his lips.
The air around them feels sticky as the humid summer night seeps through the windows and bugs buzz in and out. Puck swats a moth away then sits up and pulls his shirt over his head. He stares down at her for a long moment - all long brown hair and big brown eyes - and before he can even formulate a thought, let alone act, Rachel reaches up for his torso and pulls him back down to her.
-
When she doesn’t come to the garage during her lunch hour on Monday, he tells himself it has nothing to do with that night. It’s not like they had sex anyway-yeah they kind of rounded third, but that’s totally different than sealing the deal. Plus, it’s not like it was something new to either of them. Neither saw or did anything they didn’t see or do those nights in her bedroom back in October. Or rather, were close to seeing or doing. And whatever, it’s obvious that if anyone should be avoiding anyone else, he should be avoiding her. So what if hanging out this summer hasn’t been that bad, at the end of the day, regardless of the chick’s tight little bod, she’s definitely the one who’s verging on psychotic and probably not worth the trouble.
But the problem is this: he can’t stop fucking thinking about her. About the way she grinned like a little Pussycat Doll before nipping at his neck, the way she pushed him down and clambered on top of him. Hell, even the way she smelled-a strange mix of apples, bubblegum and second-hand smoke. He’s not thinking about her because he misses her, it’s just that…She’s usually always there. He never has to ask or anything, she just shows up. If this were a few months ago, he’d just write it off and move on to the next warm body, but things are different now, and not just because he has no fucking friends.
As much as he hates to admit it, given everything she’s done for him and the band the past few weeks, a part of him is pretty convinced the ticket out of Lima he’s so desperate for…That it actually is Rachel Berry.
-
When he bursts through the door of the guys’ apartment, Bam-Bam is sprawled out over the couch sporting an xBox headset and a bag of Doritos.
“Man, I think I fucked up. Bad.” Puck steps between the TV and the coffee table to block the game, and crosses his arms.
“I told you, dude wasn’t messing around: never touch the Jesus Hot Pocket.” Bam-Bam tosses his controller aside and brushes the crumbs off his chest. “Bleek’s been saving that crap since last year. When he finds out you ate it, he’s gonna lose his shit.”
“What? No-Listen, you know Berry, right?”
“The girl who single-handedly put our band on the map?” He laughs to himself as he flings the headset off and leans forward on the couch. “Yeah, I think I’ve heard of her.”
“We hooked up after the show on Saturday.”
“Wait-You what?”
Puck starts pacing around the room, running a nervous hand through his hair as Bam-Bam sits shell-shocked on the couch, his eyes wide and jaw agape. “Yeah and before, she used to buzz around the garage every lunch break and we’d hang and she’d give me hell about all the shit I needed to do for you guys, but today she didn’t come and-”
“Wait. What exactly do you mean by hook up?”
“-And now, dude, I’m pretty sure if she goes all chick on my ass or things get weird and she stops booking us gigs, Ethan and Bleek are gonna fucking kill me.”
“But-I thought you guys weren’t into each other-”
“-We’re not.”
“But-you’re both always at each other’s fucking throats-”
“-I know.”
“But-she’s always calling you an uncivilized heathen-”
“-I know, okay? Just tell me what to fucking do!”
Puck raises his hands expectantly and stares at his dazed drummer. Finally, Bam-Bam shakes his head and stands up, rubbing his face in exasperation. When he looks down and strokes his dark, scraggly stubble, he nods to himself then turns around and takes a seat on the arm of their loveseat.
“Okay, did you at least call her and see how she’s doing?”
“What? Fuck no.”
He hangs his head and takes a deep breath before looking back up at Puck again. “Listen, man. Rachel…She’s of a dying breed.”
Puck rolls his eyes and sighs before sitting on the coffee table across from Bam-Bam.
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
His friend leans forward and rests elbows on his knees. “It means she wears plaid skirts unapologetically. She appreciates the immortal genius of Bob Fosse and can debate the merits of Tennessee Williams for hours. She’s a girl with Bill Gates’ business savvy and the creative spirit of Nico.”
When Puck just stares back at him blankly, his expression a cross between intense confusion and a brain dead daze, Bam-Bam rolls his eyes and leans forward.
“Okay, think of it this way: there are two types of women in this world. They’re like…Guitars and harps.” Puck furrows his brow and nods his head, so Bam-Bam continues. “Now some guys - badasses like yourself, for instance-” Puck grins and puckers his lips, nodding in approval at, well, himself. “-some guys are born to play the guitar. Acoustic, electric, Spanish, you name it. There are literally endless possibilities and dudes like you have got that game down.” Clearly immersed in his elaborate analogy, Bam-Bam stands and starts walking around the room, gesturing back to Puck with his hands. “Now if I stuck some majestic, glorious harp in your face and was like, ‘yo Puckerman, play this shit,’ what would you do?”
Puck looks over at him, clearly confused. “How the fuck am I supposed to know?”
Bam-Bam claps his hands together and spins around. “Exactly.” He spreads his arms wide, triumphant. “You wouldn't know where to fucking begin, right?” Puck nods and looks back up at his new confidant, clearly skeptical. “Your fingers would be so calloused and rough from all your years plucking at guitar strings, you wouldn’t be able to deal with it. But being the dude that you are, you’d try to play it anyway, and for the first couple seconds maybe things feel good, but then a few more seconds pass and one string goes, then the next string goes, and then another…Until finally you’re standing there with all these fucking harp strings tangled in your fingers because you just pulled them all out. You'd destroy that fucking harp, man."
He stares at Puck, waiting for a reaction, but Puck just sits there, clearly baffled. Bam-Bam sighs and places a comforting hand on his young bro’s shoulder.
“All I’m saying, man, is don’t destroy that fucking harp.” Puck nods faintly, still clearly confused, and Bam-Bam thumps him on the back. “You get what I mean?”
-
Puck didn’t get what he meant. At all.
But as he merges onto the highway, he’s sure of two things: that Rachel is hot and that the band can’t afford to have her walk away because he can’t keep his dick in his pants. After little contemplation, he decides the only way to deal with this shit storm is to come up with a win-win plan for everyone involved: for him to get in Berry’s panties, and for her to get in the band’s pocket.
Isn’t that really just one endgame? He thinks to himself. From his experience, bagging a chick is basically a free pass to get anything you want out of them.
There’s one problem though: Bam-Bam is right. Berry really isn’t like other girls. He doesn’t doubt that once he gets her where he wants her, all the manager shit will fall into place, but what he is nervous about is that getting her there will be way more difficult than it should be. Berry isn’t the kind of chick whose panties melt with a well-timed eyebrow raise; he knows he’s going to have to work for it. But how exactly?
From seeing her on a pretty regular basis for Glee Club, he knows what her M.O. is: girl digs lovey dovey bullshit, plain and simple. She likes to swoon; to be swept off her feet. She lives for serenades and heart-shaped boxes of chocolate truffles. Now, Puck is no Romeo, but he’s not an idiot either. He’s had enough doe-eyed, lovesick freshmen girls to know how to crank up the romance and give ‘em what they want. And inevitably, get what he wants.
Using girls is familiar territory for Puck, so he knows he can pull it off. What he doesn’t quite understand though is that nagging feeling he has in the back of his head telling him that all this is a shit-awful idea. He’s not used to feeling guilty about running his game, but it’s different this time because usually it’s not on girls he’s actually friends with. Hell, he’s never even really had friends who were girls.
Weirdly enough, he does consider Berry to be a friend. A high-strung, batshit lunatic, but a friend nonetheless. And he's pretty sure she feels the same way.
(When he asked her the night of the show why she was doing all this for them, she just looked down at her pink tone nails, her hair falling over her face. He couldn’t tell if she was smiling or not, but he could swear he heard it. Consider this my community service for the summer.)
When Puck gets home, he decides exactly what he’s going to do. He knows he’s a fucking wreck when it comes to this chick flick shit, but Santana dragged him to enough of them to give him an idea of how to bring the charm. Basically, his plan simple: he’ll show up at Rachel’s house around quarter to eleven. He’ll grab a handful of pebbles and toss them up at her window, and when she comes over, he’ll shove his hands in his pockets and shrug up at her, all big eyes and pouty lips. When she sneaks him up to her bedroom, he’ll cut her off before she can get a word in.
“Shh-” He practices it in front of the mirror: the most intense look of impending sex he can muster plastered on his ridiculous face.
When he places his fingers on her lips, she’ll stare up into his first rate panty-droppers, his sex eyes will overwhelm her and bam. Done. No ifs, ands or buts about it.
He’s feeling pretty good about his plan when he shows up at her house that night. When Rachel hears the tap of pebbles hitting her window, she comes over and draws her curtains aside. He shrugs up at her, she opens it and gestures for him to come up.
As he falls through the window and onto the plush off-white carpet of her bedroom, he almost breaks his neck, and one of her dads calls out to her.
“Honey, is everything alright up there?”
“Everything’s fine, Daddy! Just knocked over some books!” She shouts back, but not before smacking Puck upside the head.
He stands and brushes off his arms. “Listen, Berry-” He reaches out and stops her in her tracks, ready to launch into his whole long spiel. But she’s staring up at him with warm eyes, the bright pink of her toes matching the bright pink elephants on her purple pajamas. Before he realizes it, he can’t even remember what his plan is let alone what he’s supposed to do next. So he does something entirely foreign to him in situations of dire circumstance: he tells the truth. “I know you didn’t come to the garage today because of what went down Saturday night.”
“And what exactly do you think went down?”
“Um, you on me, obviously.”
She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms, clearly not amused.
“Okay, I know blow jobs and boobies can make shit weird for chicks, but I talked this over with Bam-Bam and he said-”
“You did what?”
“Yeah, it was weird, he kept going on about what a high maintenance harpy you are, which even I think is kinda harsh-”
“Noah, if you have a point, it would be wise for you to get to it now.”
“I just…” He doesn’t know why he suddenly feels so fucking nervous. Unconsciously, he runs an anxious hand through his hair and takes a deep breath. “I don’t want shit to be weird because we-”
When she quiets him with a kiss, he’s too dumbfounded to play it cool, so he just stands there in shocked silence as she runs her hands over the front of his T-shirt and blathers away. He’s pretty sure he’s dreaming when she says the words no strings attached and sexual release in the same sentence.
“So what are you saying exactly?”
“I’m saying it makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“Um, who are you and what did you do with Rachel Berry?”
She sighs and spins around in a flourish.
“We all need an outlet, and despite your atrocious personality, there are actually moments when you’re not a scourge to society.”
“…Thanks?”
She turns around and shrugs, looking up at him.
“Plus, it’s not like this is anything real. Just a meaningless little summer fling!” She sweeps her arms up in a flourish and Puck half expects to blink and for her to be naked because he’s had about a million wet dreams in the course of his teenage life that have started exactly like this.
When she reaches for his wrist and pulls him to her, he can’t help but laugh.
---
It’s strange, summers in Lima always move slower than the rest of the world, and Puck’s pretty sure that’s how it felt last month, but since July hit, things suddenly feel like they’re moving at breakneck speed. The next day is the fourth, and even though he’s stuck pulling an early shift at Vinnie’s, he gets texts from the guys all morning about Wolf Hunter’s Second Annual Independence Day Barbeque Extravaganza.
Bam 07:02:34 AM: O SAY CAN YOU SEE BY THE DAWN’S EARLY LIGHT
07:13:52 AM: new song? sounds gay.
Bam 07:15:28 AM: BLASPHEMER. don’t forget the tobasco sauce. JALEPENO. if i see original…patriotic wedgie son.
Bleeker 08:43:10 AM: You get out at noon right?
08:50:12 AM: nope, out now. @ ur house. bonin ur mom
Bleeker 08:51:24 AM: Fuck you, asshole.
Bleeker 08:52:01 AM: Don’t forget the sunchips.
Bam 09:32:23 AM: FOR PURPLE MOUNTAIN MAJESTIES ABOVE THE FRUITED PLAIN!
Bleeker 10:12:03 AM: I swear to god, Puckerman, if you get the styrofoam plates instead of the biodegradables, I will fucking kill you. DESTROYING THE ENVIRONMENT ISN’T FUNNY.
10:13:42 AM: ok captain planet
Ethan 11:04:43 AM: Hey guy, Bleek says styrofoam takes 900 years to decompose in a landfill.
Bam 11:10:32 AM: You can’t hear me but I’m humming the 1812 overture as we speak.
Bam 11:11:12 AM: OR CAN YOU, YOU SLY SON OF A BITCH?
Puck ignores most of the guys' bullshit messages, but when Bam-Bam asks him if Rachel's coming, he stares at his phone for a beat before hitting COMPOSE NEW SMS. He doesn’t respond to Bam, and instead drops a quick line to Berry: bbq with the guys. pick u up @ 4? When he hits send, he tosses his phone aside and pretends like he doesn’t hear it as it buzzes with her reply.
-
When he pulls in front of her house that afternoon, his truck full of drinks, various condiments and of course, styrofoam plates, he tries not to think about how this feels alarmingly like a first date.
He’s squirming in his seat and fiddling with the radio, anything to distract his attention away from the obvious. And then he hears the passenger side door open and sees Berry climb in wearing a red and white striped tank top, a pair of cutoff jeans, and a navy blue headband with white stars on her head; he nearly busts his gut in laughter.
“Oh my God, I’m pretty sure when Uncle Sam hocks a loogie, this-” he gestures to Rachel with both hands, still laughing, “is what comes out.”
She crosses her arms and stares him down before rolling her eyes and straightening her tank top.
“For your information, Suri Cruise was photographed wearing an outfit almost identical to mine this morning.”
“What crew?”
“Suri…Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ daughter…?” She stares at him expectantly for a couple seconds before he bursts into laughter yet again.
“Berry, you’re a fucking trip, I swear.”
“Oh please, because it’s such a crime to get in the spirit.”
“Are you wearing American flag panties, too? Don’t lie, you can tell me.”
“I’m ignoring you, Puck.”
-
As they scramble to the picnic area by the lake, their arms are full of loot and they’re too distracted to really pay attention to what’s going on. When they finally turn to the party, Puck looks around and realizes how fucking out of place he feels. Their grassy little area is full of guys and girls in skinny jeans and vintage-looking sunglasses, laughing and joking. He looks down at his T-shirt and cargo shorts and frowns, then looks back towards everyone. It’s not even the black sheep feeling that makes him feel weird with all this, it’s more the fact that they all look so fucking…Intellectual and shit. Puck’s never been one to be intimidated by smart kids (usually they were the ones intimidated by him) but it’s different here, and as much as he hates to admit it, he kind of feels like a fish out of water.
He’s lost in his own thoughts until he feels Rachel’s hand on his forearm. “So, do you know anyone here?”
He scans the crowd for Bam-Bam, and when he finds him surrounded by three girls, he throws him a head nod and a grin as he squints against the sun. When Puck turns back to Rachel, he shrugs. “Nah, just the guys. All these tools must be their friends from school.”
Before they know it, Bam-Bam’s jogging towards them, his FUCK YOU, KING GEORGE! T-shirt clinging closely to his paunch as his bright yellow apron (stamped PETA: People for the Eating of Tasty Animals) flaps behind him. He grins like a loon and punches Puck’s shoulder.
“Fuck man, why aren’t you wearing the Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free shirt I gave you?”
When he turns to Rachel and sees her look of outrage and disgust, his smile quickly fades.
“I’ll have you know, Robert, that those of us who actually are card carrying members of PETA find that sorry excuse of an apron to be abhorrent.”
Bam-Bam quickly mumbles an apology, pulls it over his head and tosses it to the side. Before he gets a chance to say anything to Rachel, she puts her hand on Puck’s. Bam-Bam’s eyebrows rise slightly as she tells him she’s going to get a drink and to say hello to the other boys. When he nods distractedly and she moves off, Bam-Bam shakes the conclusions he’s clearly jumped to out of his mind. With a goofy smile, he pulls their new guitarist along to meet some of his friends.
-
As the evening comes and people get a few drinks in them, everyone starts loosening up and Puck feels less hyper aware of all the pretentious pricks around him. He meets all of the guys’ closest friends and some of them are cool, but most of them are total douchebag posers, but he doesn’t really give a fuck, just laughs obnoxiously at them whenever they try to make a serious point or sound smart. After a while, Bleek shoos him away and Puck wanders back to the cooler to grab a beer. When he catches sight of Rachel sitting alone on a blanket by the water, fiddling with her phone, he thinks for a second before grabbing a second Heineken and heading over to her.
When he plops down on the blanket next to her, she jumps a little, then breathes a sigh of relief. “You know, people who actually have manners usually announce their presence before launching themselves onto someone’s blanket.”
“Good thing I don’t have manners,” he says, handing her a beer. She takes the bottle and laughs lightly, shaking her head before looking up at him. “So how is it?”
“How is what?” He asks before taking a sip and staring out across the lake.
“The barbeque, obviously.”
“Fuck Berry, you’re here aren’t you? Just look around.”
“It seems like everyone’s having a nice time.”
Puck takes another swig of beer and looks over at her. “Then why are you sitting here all alone like a kid who lost her parents in the mall?”
“Well, I have to admit, the girls I was chatting with before weren’t exactly the nicest people I’ve ever met. Extremely pretentious and-”
“Bitchy? You can say it, they’re bitches aren’t they?”
“-Basically.”
When Rachel mumbles something about forgetting to bring extra sunscreen and shields her eyes from the sun, Puck pulls his Indians cap off and dumps it on her head. For a split second, she thinks about giving him a mouthful for putting his sweaty hat over her pristine hair, but the gesture is kind (a rarity for him) and she really can’t afford to get this much sun.
“Listen, Berry," he says. His fingers dance lightly around her bare foot; she looks away to hide her smile. “We’re playing tag football in five and something tells me those little legs of yours have got some serious speed.” When he stands up, he reaches down for her hands and pulls her to her feet. “You’re on my team.”
-
When Rachel screws up five consecutive plays, they vote on whether they should kick her off the team. When the tiebreaker comes down to Puck, she crosses her arms and scowls at him, knowing full well what he’s going to vote for.
“Sorry, babe,” he says before nudging her away with a bare foot. “We’re in it to win it and you’re fucking awful. Go hang with Bam or something.”
She throws Puck a disgusted look (what gives him the right to be so condescending?) before turning on her heel, kicking the grass and trouncing away. She would have sat on the side lines and rooted her team on, but given her unceremonious departure, they clearly don’t deserve it. She doesn’t want to give Puck the satisfaction of doing what he suggested, but when she scans the area, the evening’s grillmaster the only friendly face she sees, so she begrudgingly heads over to him.
As she approaches Bam-Bam, she tries to hold back her gag reflex as the smell of charcoal and meat overwhelms her senses. He looks up at her with a smile then down at the chicken.
“Mon amie! What’s crackin’?” When he looks back towards her, he’s taken aback the intensity of the stink eye she’s sending his way.
“You know, Robert, it was highly irresponsible for you to have no vegetarian options at this debauched gathering.”
Bam-Bam eyes her suspiciously. “Well then, Miss Berry, you’ll be glad to see that I actually made a point to bring some tofu burgers-”
When Puck glances up at Rachel and Bam-Bam bonding over frozen tofu patties, he doesn’t think much of it. But then Bam starts tugging on her hair and she starts laughing and swatting his hand away. When he says something funny and pretends to smack her as she doubles over in laughter, a strange pang hits Puck. He probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it if she wasn’t laughing so hard and Bam-Bam wasn’t starting to get that puppy dog Finn look in his eyes, but he can’t help it. He just doesn’t get what the fuck they could be talking about for so long.
He tries to put it out of his head, so he tells himself, whatever, Bam’s got his choice of tail, he probably just feels bad for Berry.
After all, it’s not like he had any claim over her anyway, right?
-
When the sun starts its slow descent towards the horizon, streaks of orange and pink stretch across the sky and the grassy area around them starts filling up with people setting lawn chairs and blankets out for the fireworks. Puck’s standing with two of Bam-Bam’s physics major friends and they’re talking about some subatomic particle something or another, but Puck’s not paying attention because his eyes keep doing that thing where they drag themselves away from what he doesn’t give two shits about and towards what he’s actually interested in. When his gaze settles on Rachel, he smiles at his Indians hat two sizes two big for her and the way her striped tank top is perfectly snug against the curve of her waist. She’s sitting by the bonfire chatting with a group of girls; every few minutes, her eyes flutter up and meet his. He shoots her a lewd grin and nods subtly in her direction. Like clockwork, she bites her lip and looks down, her cheeks pink.
Puck’s mind is too clouded with alcohol and copious amounts of red meat for him to focus on anything, let alone the two math dweebs standing in front of him, so when Bam comes up to them and thumps him on the back and says, “Man, your thoughts on the haldron collider, go.” Puck just looks at him like he’s crazy.
Before he even has a chance to respond, Bam’s laughing at some awful physics joke one of his friends just made. “Seriously though,” he runs a hand over his forehead and wipes the sweat on his shorts before turning back to Puck, “you should really give this shit a chance-you’d make a dope particle physicist.”
As the two girls sitting with Rachel stand up and head down towards the water, Puck’s attention is immediately diverted back to her. She brushes some crumbs from her cutoffs and fumbles with the glass of lemonade in her hand, looking down at it, over at the water, then down at it again. When Bam-Bam makes a loud clap, Puck’s head jolts back to him.
“Really dude, all physics boils down to is the fundamental principle of opposites attract. Kinda like you joining the band-”
His eyes drift back to Berry as his friend’s words slur together in his mind. Puck looks back at him, and nods vigorously, feigning interest. “Yeah, yeah.” He pats him on the shoulder. “Yeah, listen Bammer, I think I gotta go check in on-” Puck doesn’t even finish his sentence as he excuses himself from the conversation and crosses the picnic area over to the bonfire.
“Yo, Lady Liberty.”
Rachel turns around and looks up at him; the trace hint of a smile betraying her narrow eyes.
“I’ll have you know-” He ignores her and reaches down, grabbing both of her hands to pull her to her feet. “-Excuse me-”
He tilts his head and stares down at her as she stares back stubbornly. “Why do I have to be the one who gets up? What if I’m comfortable here? If you’re always gonna be such a brute about-”
Puck throws his head back and sighs dramatically. Usually when she gets like this, he wants to kick himself in the balls, but now, he feels a smile on his lips (god, since when has he smiled this much? Hanging out with the guys was seriously turning him into a pussy) and when he looks back down, she’s smiling too. He tries guilting her to her feet with the best fake frown he can muster. She rolls her eyes and finally stands, looking into his eyes for a beat, their hands still clasped.
“Don’t consider this a victory,” she says finally letting go to brush the grass from her bottom. Puck doesn’t answer, just slings his arm over her shoulders and starts leading her away. “I saw you chatting with Robert’s college friends. How were they?”
As if on their own volition, her hands move to his abdomen and his eyebrows rise.
"Aight, I guess. Talked about space and shit." He doesn't even bother pretending like he cares, and instead burrows his face in her hair and whispers: “Baby, the only planet I wanna explore is Ura-”
She pushes him away and smacks his chest. “-Don’t even say it!”
He laughs to himself as he pulls her hips to his and peers down at her through heavy lids, a sloppy grin on his face. Her eyes are sparkling and he’s kind of trashed but it doesn’t make him any less aware of the fact that they’re still navigating this weird space between kinda friends and something so much better than that, and he’s been with her all day and hasn’t once-
He doesn’t think as he leans down and kisses her, long and lazily. She tastes like lemons and spearmint gum and as her skinny little arms snake around his neck he locks his around her waist and picks her up. She giggles against his lips and pulls away slightly, her feet dangling above the ground. He blinks up at her as her hair cascades around his face.
“Fuck man, can we skip the awkward shit? I’ve wanted to do that all fucking day.”
She laughs and wraps her arms around his neck again, pressing her lips to his.
-
The evening is a blur of spiked lemonade, melted ice cream, and sloppy kisses. Both are too drunk to care (or notice) when Bleek rolls his eyes and mutters “I fucking knew they were boning,” under his breath, or when Ethan pulls them apart to ask Puck if he brought his guitar. When Puck mumbles, “Yeah, in my truck,” fishes the keys out of his pocket and hands them over, Ethan nudges their heads back together and offers a disinterested, “as you were.” As they all sit around the bonfire, Rachel nestled comfortably on Puck’s lap, Bam-Bam meets Puck’s eyes, shakes his head and mouths an ominous warning: “Disaster.”
(All Puck will remember the next day are colorful swirls in the sky and his hat brim hitting him in the forehead over and over until he finally spins it around and kisses her proper. She consumed her fair share of alcohol, yes, but she’ll remember everything: his hand at the base of her back, steadying her against him, the feeling of intense belonging that rushes over her as she sings Tiny Dancer around the fire with a group of people she barely knows.)
When the night winds down, their pitch is cleaned up and they’re ready to head out, Rachel’s leaning heavily against his side and her hand is tangled with his when she snatches his keys away.
“Noah, you’re not driving me home, you’re clearly inebereeted-Inebreeted-Inebri-” She shakes her head drunkenly. His fingers start dancing around her wrist, distracting her. “What’s that word you always use?”
“Crunk.” Ethan calls out from across the way. “I think the word you’re looking for is crunk.”
“Yes!”
“What? No.” Puck laughs to himself then turns to Bam-Bam stupidly. “That ten year-old kid totally wanted me to moon him.”
“It wasn’t a him, man, it was a her, and I’m pretty sure that was verging on sexual predation.”
“She did cry really hard, Noah. I wouldn’t be surprised if the family brought charges against you.”
“Whatever man, the sun shines out of my ass. I did her a favor.”
Bam-Bam tosses the last beer bottle into the recycle bin before snatching the keys from Rachel.
“Listen, neither of you are in any condition to drive, and I’m not letting the Puckmobile get wrapped around a tree.” He crosses his arm and sighs as Rachel beams up at him and Puck mumbles something indecipherable under his breath. Bam motions to the car with his head. “Come, come, children.”
The second Bam buckles his seatbelt and Puck calls out from the back, “Yo Bambino, pump up the jams,” he knows the ride home is gonna be a complete and utter shit show. In reality, he probably should have known when he opened the passenger side door for Rachel and she clambered into the backseat.
When he turns the radio on and switches it to some calm classical music on public radio, he hears a gruff grunt from the backseat before Puck reaches forward, hits station four and a deep bass thumps through the car. As Ludacris’ voice fills the space between them and Puck let’s out a hearty, “yeah, boy,” Bam can’t help but laugh.
-
Half-way to her house, Rachel begs them to make a pit stop at the convenience store on Walnut Street and when she ambles out, Bam reaches back and puts his hand on Puck’s chest, trapping him in the car.
“Dude.”
“What the shit, man? I want a Slushee!”
“Shut the fuck up, Casanova,” he pulls the keys out of the engine and turns in his seat, incredulous. “Did you not listen to a word I said about Rachel?!”
Puck leans back and laughs, “Yeah, I plucked her strings real good.” When he sees that Bam-Bam’s not at all amused, he shrugs defensively. “Listen, I don’t speak college, okay?!”
“Man, you don’t realize this, because you’re fucking Puckerman, but Rachel-” he looks back towards the convenience store and watches her scan through the magazine rack before reaching for Cat Fancy. “I’ve known chicks like her, they can’t handle douchebags.”
“Thanks for the advice, Bambi, but-”
“-Not that you’re an actual douchebag-”
Bam-Bam blathers on to himself until the words tumble out of Puck’s mouth.
“Why the fuck do you even care?”
He’s quiet for a second, then shakes his head lamely. “I’m just looking out for you, bro.”
Puck’s too drunk to realize that makes no sense at all, instead just rolls his neck back and rests his head on the seat. “Dude, she’s the one that suggested it, okay? I know you think Rachel’s some special little snowflake, but we’ve got a history, so chill. It’s cool.”
Bam watches his friend through the rear view mirror and when their eyes meet, Puck speaks up.
“Can I get my Slushee now?”
Bam sighs. “Fine.”
“…Do you have five bucks I can borrow?”
---
GO TO PART 2
Rated R (I guess?) for language and allusions to secksitime. Oh and I made soundtracks for both July and June! Since I hit my character limit for this chapter, I had to post them after the end of Part Two. HOWEVER, if you're crazy (awesome) and want to nab the July mix and listen as you read, you can do so here.
A/N: There aren't enough exclamation points in all the world to express my gratitude to une_fille for existing. Thanks bro for being the Creative Director on this and my life and shooting the shit with me about this four man wolf-pack for hours on end. T-Bone: I love you so much it's stupid. AND OH MY GOD, hariboo_smirks. I LOVE YOU SO HARD. Your beta e-mail made my night! Thanks a million for turning this over so fast, and with such lovely and constructive feedback.
---
WIN SOME, LOSE SOME
july
(1/2)
---
can i call you mine?
can i call you mine?
can i call you mine?
can i call you mine?
- laura veirs
---
The first time they hook up, they’re in his truck, eighty miles from home. He’s thinking about the rush of playing for a club full of people, and she’s completely forgotten that they’re even in Toledo, let alone with his band. All she sees is his summer tan and swirling green eyes with specks of hazel.
To be honest, she’s been thinking about this for the past week now, so when he kisses her yet again, she smiles against his lips.
The air around them feels sticky as the humid summer night seeps through the windows and bugs buzz in and out. Puck swats a moth away then sits up and pulls his shirt over his head. He stares down at her for a long moment - all long brown hair and big brown eyes - and before he can even formulate a thought, let alone act, Rachel reaches up for his torso and pulls him back down to her.
-
When she doesn’t come to the garage during her lunch hour on Monday, he tells himself it has nothing to do with that night. It’s not like they had sex anyway-yeah they kind of rounded third, but that’s totally different than sealing the deal. Plus, it’s not like it was something new to either of them. Neither saw or did anything they didn’t see or do those nights in her bedroom back in October. Or rather, were close to seeing or doing. And whatever, it’s obvious that if anyone should be avoiding anyone else, he should be avoiding her. So what if hanging out this summer hasn’t been that bad, at the end of the day, regardless of the chick’s tight little bod, she’s definitely the one who’s verging on psychotic and probably not worth the trouble.
But the problem is this: he can’t stop fucking thinking about her. About the way she grinned like a little Pussycat Doll before nipping at his neck, the way she pushed him down and clambered on top of him. Hell, even the way she smelled-a strange mix of apples, bubblegum and second-hand smoke. He’s not thinking about her because he misses her, it’s just that…She’s usually always there. He never has to ask or anything, she just shows up. If this were a few months ago, he’d just write it off and move on to the next warm body, but things are different now, and not just because he has no fucking friends.
As much as he hates to admit it, given everything she’s done for him and the band the past few weeks, a part of him is pretty convinced the ticket out of Lima he’s so desperate for…That it actually is Rachel Berry.
-
When he bursts through the door of the guys’ apartment, Bam-Bam is sprawled out over the couch sporting an xBox headset and a bag of Doritos.
“Man, I think I fucked up. Bad.” Puck steps between the TV and the coffee table to block the game, and crosses his arms.
“I told you, dude wasn’t messing around: never touch the Jesus Hot Pocket.” Bam-Bam tosses his controller aside and brushes the crumbs off his chest. “Bleek’s been saving that crap since last year. When he finds out you ate it, he’s gonna lose his shit.”
“What? No-Listen, you know Berry, right?”
“The girl who single-handedly put our band on the map?” He laughs to himself as he flings the headset off and leans forward on the couch. “Yeah, I think I’ve heard of her.”
“We hooked up after the show on Saturday.”
“Wait-You what?”
Puck starts pacing around the room, running a nervous hand through his hair as Bam-Bam sits shell-shocked on the couch, his eyes wide and jaw agape. “Yeah and before, she used to buzz around the garage every lunch break and we’d hang and she’d give me hell about all the shit I needed to do for you guys, but today she didn’t come and-”
“Wait. What exactly do you mean by hook up?”
“-And now, dude, I’m pretty sure if she goes all chick on my ass or things get weird and she stops booking us gigs, Ethan and Bleek are gonna fucking kill me.”
“But-I thought you guys weren’t into each other-”
“-We’re not.”
“But-you’re both always at each other’s fucking throats-”
“-I know.”
“But-she’s always calling you an uncivilized heathen-”
“-I know, okay? Just tell me what to fucking do!”
Puck raises his hands expectantly and stares at his dazed drummer. Finally, Bam-Bam shakes his head and stands up, rubbing his face in exasperation. When he looks down and strokes his dark, scraggly stubble, he nods to himself then turns around and takes a seat on the arm of their loveseat.
“Okay, did you at least call her and see how she’s doing?”
“What? Fuck no.”
He hangs his head and takes a deep breath before looking back up at Puck again. “Listen, man. Rachel…She’s of a dying breed.”
Puck rolls his eyes and sighs before sitting on the coffee table across from Bam-Bam.
“What the fuck does that even mean?”
His friend leans forward and rests elbows on his knees. “It means she wears plaid skirts unapologetically. She appreciates the immortal genius of Bob Fosse and can debate the merits of Tennessee Williams for hours. She’s a girl with Bill Gates’ business savvy and the creative spirit of Nico.”
When Puck just stares back at him blankly, his expression a cross between intense confusion and a brain dead daze, Bam-Bam rolls his eyes and leans forward.
“Okay, think of it this way: there are two types of women in this world. They’re like…Guitars and harps.” Puck furrows his brow and nods his head, so Bam-Bam continues. “Now some guys - badasses like yourself, for instance-” Puck grins and puckers his lips, nodding in approval at, well, himself. “-some guys are born to play the guitar. Acoustic, electric, Spanish, you name it. There are literally endless possibilities and dudes like you have got that game down.” Clearly immersed in his elaborate analogy, Bam-Bam stands and starts walking around the room, gesturing back to Puck with his hands. “Now if I stuck some majestic, glorious harp in your face and was like, ‘yo Puckerman, play this shit,’ what would you do?”
Puck looks over at him, clearly confused. “How the fuck am I supposed to know?”
Bam-Bam claps his hands together and spins around. “Exactly.” He spreads his arms wide, triumphant. “You wouldn't know where to fucking begin, right?” Puck nods and looks back up at his new confidant, clearly skeptical. “Your fingers would be so calloused and rough from all your years plucking at guitar strings, you wouldn’t be able to deal with it. But being the dude that you are, you’d try to play it anyway, and for the first couple seconds maybe things feel good, but then a few more seconds pass and one string goes, then the next string goes, and then another…Until finally you’re standing there with all these fucking harp strings tangled in your fingers because you just pulled them all out. You'd destroy that fucking harp, man."
He stares at Puck, waiting for a reaction, but Puck just sits there, clearly baffled. Bam-Bam sighs and places a comforting hand on his young bro’s shoulder.
“All I’m saying, man, is don’t destroy that fucking harp.” Puck nods faintly, still clearly confused, and Bam-Bam thumps him on the back. “You get what I mean?”
-
Puck didn’t get what he meant. At all.
But as he merges onto the highway, he’s sure of two things: that Rachel is hot and that the band can’t afford to have her walk away because he can’t keep his dick in his pants. After little contemplation, he decides the only way to deal with this shit storm is to come up with a win-win plan for everyone involved: for him to get in Berry’s panties, and for her to get in the band’s pocket.
Isn’t that really just one endgame? He thinks to himself. From his experience, bagging a chick is basically a free pass to get anything you want out of them.
There’s one problem though: Bam-Bam is right. Berry really isn’t like other girls. He doesn’t doubt that once he gets her where he wants her, all the manager shit will fall into place, but what he is nervous about is that getting her there will be way more difficult than it should be. Berry isn’t the kind of chick whose panties melt with a well-timed eyebrow raise; he knows he’s going to have to work for it. But how exactly?
From seeing her on a pretty regular basis for Glee Club, he knows what her M.O. is: girl digs lovey dovey bullshit, plain and simple. She likes to swoon; to be swept off her feet. She lives for serenades and heart-shaped boxes of chocolate truffles. Now, Puck is no Romeo, but he’s not an idiot either. He’s had enough doe-eyed, lovesick freshmen girls to know how to crank up the romance and give ‘em what they want. And inevitably, get what he wants.
Using girls is familiar territory for Puck, so he knows he can pull it off. What he doesn’t quite understand though is that nagging feeling he has in the back of his head telling him that all this is a shit-awful idea. He’s not used to feeling guilty about running his game, but it’s different this time because usually it’s not on girls he’s actually friends with. Hell, he’s never even really had friends who were girls.
Weirdly enough, he does consider Berry to be a friend. A high-strung, batshit lunatic, but a friend nonetheless. And he's pretty sure she feels the same way.
(When he asked her the night of the show why she was doing all this for them, she just looked down at her pink tone nails, her hair falling over her face. He couldn’t tell if she was smiling or not, but he could swear he heard it. Consider this my community service for the summer.)
When Puck gets home, he decides exactly what he’s going to do. He knows he’s a fucking wreck when it comes to this chick flick shit, but Santana dragged him to enough of them to give him an idea of how to bring the charm. Basically, his plan simple: he’ll show up at Rachel’s house around quarter to eleven. He’ll grab a handful of pebbles and toss them up at her window, and when she comes over, he’ll shove his hands in his pockets and shrug up at her, all big eyes and pouty lips. When she sneaks him up to her bedroom, he’ll cut her off before she can get a word in.
“Shh-” He practices it in front of the mirror: the most intense look of impending sex he can muster plastered on his ridiculous face.
When he places his fingers on her lips, she’ll stare up into his first rate panty-droppers, his sex eyes will overwhelm her and bam. Done. No ifs, ands or buts about it.
He’s feeling pretty good about his plan when he shows up at her house that night. When Rachel hears the tap of pebbles hitting her window, she comes over and draws her curtains aside. He shrugs up at her, she opens it and gestures for him to come up.
As he falls through the window and onto the plush off-white carpet of her bedroom, he almost breaks his neck, and one of her dads calls out to her.
“Honey, is everything alright up there?”
“Everything’s fine, Daddy! Just knocked over some books!” She shouts back, but not before smacking Puck upside the head.
He stands and brushes off his arms. “Listen, Berry-” He reaches out and stops her in her tracks, ready to launch into his whole long spiel. But she’s staring up at him with warm eyes, the bright pink of her toes matching the bright pink elephants on her purple pajamas. Before he realizes it, he can’t even remember what his plan is let alone what he’s supposed to do next. So he does something entirely foreign to him in situations of dire circumstance: he tells the truth. “I know you didn’t come to the garage today because of what went down Saturday night.”
“And what exactly do you think went down?”
“Um, you on me, obviously.”
She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms, clearly not amused.
“Okay, I know blow jobs and boobies can make shit weird for chicks, but I talked this over with Bam-Bam and he said-”
“You did what?”
“Yeah, it was weird, he kept going on about what a high maintenance harpy you are, which even I think is kinda harsh-”
“Noah, if you have a point, it would be wise for you to get to it now.”
“I just…” He doesn’t know why he suddenly feels so fucking nervous. Unconsciously, he runs an anxious hand through his hair and takes a deep breath. “I don’t want shit to be weird because we-”
When she quiets him with a kiss, he’s too dumbfounded to play it cool, so he just stands there in shocked silence as she runs her hands over the front of his T-shirt and blathers away. He’s pretty sure he’s dreaming when she says the words no strings attached and sexual release in the same sentence.
“So what are you saying exactly?”
“I’m saying it makes sense, doesn’t it?”
“Um, who are you and what did you do with Rachel Berry?”
She sighs and spins around in a flourish.
“We all need an outlet, and despite your atrocious personality, there are actually moments when you’re not a scourge to society.”
“…Thanks?”
She turns around and shrugs, looking up at him.
“Plus, it’s not like this is anything real. Just a meaningless little summer fling!” She sweeps her arms up in a flourish and Puck half expects to blink and for her to be naked because he’s had about a million wet dreams in the course of his teenage life that have started exactly like this.
When she reaches for his wrist and pulls him to her, he can’t help but laugh.
---
It’s strange, summers in Lima always move slower than the rest of the world, and Puck’s pretty sure that’s how it felt last month, but since July hit, things suddenly feel like they’re moving at breakneck speed. The next day is the fourth, and even though he’s stuck pulling an early shift at Vinnie’s, he gets texts from the guys all morning about Wolf Hunter’s Second Annual Independence Day Barbeque Extravaganza.
Bam 07:02:34 AM: O SAY CAN YOU SEE BY THE DAWN’S EARLY LIGHT
07:13:52 AM: new song? sounds gay.
Bam 07:15:28 AM: BLASPHEMER. don’t forget the tobasco sauce. JALEPENO. if i see original…patriotic wedgie son.
Bleeker 08:43:10 AM: You get out at noon right?
08:50:12 AM: nope, out now. @ ur house. bonin ur mom
Bleeker 08:51:24 AM: Fuck you, asshole.
Bleeker 08:52:01 AM: Don’t forget the sunchips.
Bam 09:32:23 AM: FOR PURPLE MOUNTAIN MAJESTIES ABOVE THE FRUITED PLAIN!
Bleeker 10:12:03 AM: I swear to god, Puckerman, if you get the styrofoam plates instead of the biodegradables, I will fucking kill you. DESTROYING THE ENVIRONMENT ISN’T FUNNY.
10:13:42 AM: ok captain planet
Ethan 11:04:43 AM: Hey guy, Bleek says styrofoam takes 900 years to decompose in a landfill.
Bam 11:10:32 AM: You can’t hear me but I’m humming the 1812 overture as we speak.
Bam 11:11:12 AM: OR CAN YOU, YOU SLY SON OF A BITCH?
Puck ignores most of the guys' bullshit messages, but when Bam-Bam asks him if Rachel's coming, he stares at his phone for a beat before hitting COMPOSE NEW SMS. He doesn’t respond to Bam, and instead drops a quick line to Berry: bbq with the guys. pick u up @ 4? When he hits send, he tosses his phone aside and pretends like he doesn’t hear it as it buzzes with her reply.
-
When he pulls in front of her house that afternoon, his truck full of drinks, various condiments and of course, styrofoam plates, he tries not to think about how this feels alarmingly like a first date.
He’s squirming in his seat and fiddling with the radio, anything to distract his attention away from the obvious. And then he hears the passenger side door open and sees Berry climb in wearing a red and white striped tank top, a pair of cutoff jeans, and a navy blue headband with white stars on her head; he nearly busts his gut in laughter.
“Oh my God, I’m pretty sure when Uncle Sam hocks a loogie, this-” he gestures to Rachel with both hands, still laughing, “is what comes out.”
She crosses her arms and stares him down before rolling her eyes and straightening her tank top.
“For your information, Suri Cruise was photographed wearing an outfit almost identical to mine this morning.”
“What crew?”
“Suri…Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ daughter…?” She stares at him expectantly for a couple seconds before he bursts into laughter yet again.
“Berry, you’re a fucking trip, I swear.”
“Oh please, because it’s such a crime to get in the spirit.”
“Are you wearing American flag panties, too? Don’t lie, you can tell me.”
“I’m ignoring you, Puck.”
-
As they scramble to the picnic area by the lake, their arms are full of loot and they’re too distracted to really pay attention to what’s going on. When they finally turn to the party, Puck looks around and realizes how fucking out of place he feels. Their grassy little area is full of guys and girls in skinny jeans and vintage-looking sunglasses, laughing and joking. He looks down at his T-shirt and cargo shorts and frowns, then looks back towards everyone. It’s not even the black sheep feeling that makes him feel weird with all this, it’s more the fact that they all look so fucking…Intellectual and shit. Puck’s never been one to be intimidated by smart kids (usually they were the ones intimidated by him) but it’s different here, and as much as he hates to admit it, he kind of feels like a fish out of water.
He’s lost in his own thoughts until he feels Rachel’s hand on his forearm. “So, do you know anyone here?”
He scans the crowd for Bam-Bam, and when he finds him surrounded by three girls, he throws him a head nod and a grin as he squints against the sun. When Puck turns back to Rachel, he shrugs. “Nah, just the guys. All these tools must be their friends from school.”
Before they know it, Bam-Bam’s jogging towards them, his FUCK YOU, KING GEORGE! T-shirt clinging closely to his paunch as his bright yellow apron (stamped PETA: People for the Eating of Tasty Animals) flaps behind him. He grins like a loon and punches Puck’s shoulder.
“Fuck man, why aren’t you wearing the Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free shirt I gave you?”
When he turns to Rachel and sees her look of outrage and disgust, his smile quickly fades.
“I’ll have you know, Robert, that those of us who actually are card carrying members of PETA find that sorry excuse of an apron to be abhorrent.”
Bam-Bam quickly mumbles an apology, pulls it over his head and tosses it to the side. Before he gets a chance to say anything to Rachel, she puts her hand on Puck’s. Bam-Bam’s eyebrows rise slightly as she tells him she’s going to get a drink and to say hello to the other boys. When he nods distractedly and she moves off, Bam-Bam shakes the conclusions he’s clearly jumped to out of his mind. With a goofy smile, he pulls their new guitarist along to meet some of his friends.
-
As the evening comes and people get a few drinks in them, everyone starts loosening up and Puck feels less hyper aware of all the pretentious pricks around him. He meets all of the guys’ closest friends and some of them are cool, but most of them are total douchebag posers, but he doesn’t really give a fuck, just laughs obnoxiously at them whenever they try to make a serious point or sound smart. After a while, Bleek shoos him away and Puck wanders back to the cooler to grab a beer. When he catches sight of Rachel sitting alone on a blanket by the water, fiddling with her phone, he thinks for a second before grabbing a second Heineken and heading over to her.
When he plops down on the blanket next to her, she jumps a little, then breathes a sigh of relief. “You know, people who actually have manners usually announce their presence before launching themselves onto someone’s blanket.”
“Good thing I don’t have manners,” he says, handing her a beer. She takes the bottle and laughs lightly, shaking her head before looking up at him. “So how is it?”
“How is what?” He asks before taking a sip and staring out across the lake.
“The barbeque, obviously.”
“Fuck Berry, you’re here aren’t you? Just look around.”
“It seems like everyone’s having a nice time.”
Puck takes another swig of beer and looks over at her. “Then why are you sitting here all alone like a kid who lost her parents in the mall?”
“Well, I have to admit, the girls I was chatting with before weren’t exactly the nicest people I’ve ever met. Extremely pretentious and-”
“Bitchy? You can say it, they’re bitches aren’t they?”
“-Basically.”
When Rachel mumbles something about forgetting to bring extra sunscreen and shields her eyes from the sun, Puck pulls his Indians cap off and dumps it on her head. For a split second, she thinks about giving him a mouthful for putting his sweaty hat over her pristine hair, but the gesture is kind (a rarity for him) and she really can’t afford to get this much sun.
“Listen, Berry," he says. His fingers dance lightly around her bare foot; she looks away to hide her smile. “We’re playing tag football in five and something tells me those little legs of yours have got some serious speed.” When he stands up, he reaches down for her hands and pulls her to her feet. “You’re on my team.”
-
When Rachel screws up five consecutive plays, they vote on whether they should kick her off the team. When the tiebreaker comes down to Puck, she crosses her arms and scowls at him, knowing full well what he’s going to vote for.
“Sorry, babe,” he says before nudging her away with a bare foot. “We’re in it to win it and you’re fucking awful. Go hang with Bam or something.”
She throws Puck a disgusted look (what gives him the right to be so condescending?) before turning on her heel, kicking the grass and trouncing away. She would have sat on the side lines and rooted her team on, but given her unceremonious departure, they clearly don’t deserve it. She doesn’t want to give Puck the satisfaction of doing what he suggested, but when she scans the area, the evening’s grillmaster the only friendly face she sees, so she begrudgingly heads over to him.
As she approaches Bam-Bam, she tries to hold back her gag reflex as the smell of charcoal and meat overwhelms her senses. He looks up at her with a smile then down at the chicken.
“Mon amie! What’s crackin’?” When he looks back towards her, he’s taken aback the intensity of the stink eye she’s sending his way.
“You know, Robert, it was highly irresponsible for you to have no vegetarian options at this debauched gathering.”
Bam-Bam eyes her suspiciously. “Well then, Miss Berry, you’ll be glad to see that I actually made a point to bring some tofu burgers-”
When Puck glances up at Rachel and Bam-Bam bonding over frozen tofu patties, he doesn’t think much of it. But then Bam starts tugging on her hair and she starts laughing and swatting his hand away. When he says something funny and pretends to smack her as she doubles over in laughter, a strange pang hits Puck. He probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it if she wasn’t laughing so hard and Bam-Bam wasn’t starting to get that puppy dog Finn look in his eyes, but he can’t help it. He just doesn’t get what the fuck they could be talking about for so long.
He tries to put it out of his head, so he tells himself, whatever, Bam’s got his choice of tail, he probably just feels bad for Berry.
After all, it’s not like he had any claim over her anyway, right?
-
When the sun starts its slow descent towards the horizon, streaks of orange and pink stretch across the sky and the grassy area around them starts filling up with people setting lawn chairs and blankets out for the fireworks. Puck’s standing with two of Bam-Bam’s physics major friends and they’re talking about some subatomic particle something or another, but Puck’s not paying attention because his eyes keep doing that thing where they drag themselves away from what he doesn’t give two shits about and towards what he’s actually interested in. When his gaze settles on Rachel, he smiles at his Indians hat two sizes two big for her and the way her striped tank top is perfectly snug against the curve of her waist. She’s sitting by the bonfire chatting with a group of girls; every few minutes, her eyes flutter up and meet his. He shoots her a lewd grin and nods subtly in her direction. Like clockwork, she bites her lip and looks down, her cheeks pink.
Puck’s mind is too clouded with alcohol and copious amounts of red meat for him to focus on anything, let alone the two math dweebs standing in front of him, so when Bam comes up to them and thumps him on the back and says, “Man, your thoughts on the haldron collider, go.” Puck just looks at him like he’s crazy.
Before he even has a chance to respond, Bam’s laughing at some awful physics joke one of his friends just made. “Seriously though,” he runs a hand over his forehead and wipes the sweat on his shorts before turning back to Puck, “you should really give this shit a chance-you’d make a dope particle physicist.”
As the two girls sitting with Rachel stand up and head down towards the water, Puck’s attention is immediately diverted back to her. She brushes some crumbs from her cutoffs and fumbles with the glass of lemonade in her hand, looking down at it, over at the water, then down at it again. When Bam-Bam makes a loud clap, Puck’s head jolts back to him.
“Really dude, all physics boils down to is the fundamental principle of opposites attract. Kinda like you joining the band-”
His eyes drift back to Berry as his friend’s words slur together in his mind. Puck looks back at him, and nods vigorously, feigning interest. “Yeah, yeah.” He pats him on the shoulder. “Yeah, listen Bammer, I think I gotta go check in on-” Puck doesn’t even finish his sentence as he excuses himself from the conversation and crosses the picnic area over to the bonfire.
“Yo, Lady Liberty.”
Rachel turns around and looks up at him; the trace hint of a smile betraying her narrow eyes.
“I’ll have you know-” He ignores her and reaches down, grabbing both of her hands to pull her to her feet. “-Excuse me-”
He tilts his head and stares down at her as she stares back stubbornly. “Why do I have to be the one who gets up? What if I’m comfortable here? If you’re always gonna be such a brute about-”
Puck throws his head back and sighs dramatically. Usually when she gets like this, he wants to kick himself in the balls, but now, he feels a smile on his lips (god, since when has he smiled this much? Hanging out with the guys was seriously turning him into a pussy) and when he looks back down, she’s smiling too. He tries guilting her to her feet with the best fake frown he can muster. She rolls her eyes and finally stands, looking into his eyes for a beat, their hands still clasped.
“Don’t consider this a victory,” she says finally letting go to brush the grass from her bottom. Puck doesn’t answer, just slings his arm over her shoulders and starts leading her away. “I saw you chatting with Robert’s college friends. How were they?”
As if on their own volition, her hands move to his abdomen and his eyebrows rise.
"Aight, I guess. Talked about space and shit." He doesn't even bother pretending like he cares, and instead burrows his face in her hair and whispers: “Baby, the only planet I wanna explore is Ura-”
She pushes him away and smacks his chest. “-Don’t even say it!”
He laughs to himself as he pulls her hips to his and peers down at her through heavy lids, a sloppy grin on his face. Her eyes are sparkling and he’s kind of trashed but it doesn’t make him any less aware of the fact that they’re still navigating this weird space between kinda friends and something so much better than that, and he’s been with her all day and hasn’t once-
He doesn’t think as he leans down and kisses her, long and lazily. She tastes like lemons and spearmint gum and as her skinny little arms snake around his neck he locks his around her waist and picks her up. She giggles against his lips and pulls away slightly, her feet dangling above the ground. He blinks up at her as her hair cascades around his face.
“Fuck man, can we skip the awkward shit? I’ve wanted to do that all fucking day.”
She laughs and wraps her arms around his neck again, pressing her lips to his.
-
The evening is a blur of spiked lemonade, melted ice cream, and sloppy kisses. Both are too drunk to care (or notice) when Bleek rolls his eyes and mutters “I fucking knew they were boning,” under his breath, or when Ethan pulls them apart to ask Puck if he brought his guitar. When Puck mumbles, “Yeah, in my truck,” fishes the keys out of his pocket and hands them over, Ethan nudges their heads back together and offers a disinterested, “as you were.” As they all sit around the bonfire, Rachel nestled comfortably on Puck’s lap, Bam-Bam meets Puck’s eyes, shakes his head and mouths an ominous warning: “Disaster.”
(All Puck will remember the next day are colorful swirls in the sky and his hat brim hitting him in the forehead over and over until he finally spins it around and kisses her proper. She consumed her fair share of alcohol, yes, but she’ll remember everything: his hand at the base of her back, steadying her against him, the feeling of intense belonging that rushes over her as she sings Tiny Dancer around the fire with a group of people she barely knows.)
When the night winds down, their pitch is cleaned up and they’re ready to head out, Rachel’s leaning heavily against his side and her hand is tangled with his when she snatches his keys away.
“Noah, you’re not driving me home, you’re clearly inebereeted-Inebreeted-Inebri-” She shakes her head drunkenly. His fingers start dancing around her wrist, distracting her. “What’s that word you always use?”
“Crunk.” Ethan calls out from across the way. “I think the word you’re looking for is crunk.”
“Yes!”
“What? No.” Puck laughs to himself then turns to Bam-Bam stupidly. “That ten year-old kid totally wanted me to moon him.”
“It wasn’t a him, man, it was a her, and I’m pretty sure that was verging on sexual predation.”
“She did cry really hard, Noah. I wouldn’t be surprised if the family brought charges against you.”
“Whatever man, the sun shines out of my ass. I did her a favor.”
Bam-Bam tosses the last beer bottle into the recycle bin before snatching the keys from Rachel.
“Listen, neither of you are in any condition to drive, and I’m not letting the Puckmobile get wrapped around a tree.” He crosses his arm and sighs as Rachel beams up at him and Puck mumbles something indecipherable under his breath. Bam motions to the car with his head. “Come, come, children.”
The second Bam buckles his seatbelt and Puck calls out from the back, “Yo Bambino, pump up the jams,” he knows the ride home is gonna be a complete and utter shit show. In reality, he probably should have known when he opened the passenger side door for Rachel and she clambered into the backseat.
When he turns the radio on and switches it to some calm classical music on public radio, he hears a gruff grunt from the backseat before Puck reaches forward, hits station four and a deep bass thumps through the car. As Ludacris’ voice fills the space between them and Puck let’s out a hearty, “yeah, boy,” Bam can’t help but laugh.
-
Half-way to her house, Rachel begs them to make a pit stop at the convenience store on Walnut Street and when she ambles out, Bam reaches back and puts his hand on Puck’s chest, trapping him in the car.
“Dude.”
“What the shit, man? I want a Slushee!”
“Shut the fuck up, Casanova,” he pulls the keys out of the engine and turns in his seat, incredulous. “Did you not listen to a word I said about Rachel?!”
Puck leans back and laughs, “Yeah, I plucked her strings real good.” When he sees that Bam-Bam’s not at all amused, he shrugs defensively. “Listen, I don’t speak college, okay?!”
“Man, you don’t realize this, because you’re fucking Puckerman, but Rachel-” he looks back towards the convenience store and watches her scan through the magazine rack before reaching for Cat Fancy. “I’ve known chicks like her, they can’t handle douchebags.”
“Thanks for the advice, Bambi, but-”
“-Not that you’re an actual douchebag-”
Bam-Bam blathers on to himself until the words tumble out of Puck’s mouth.
“Why the fuck do you even care?”
He’s quiet for a second, then shakes his head lamely. “I’m just looking out for you, bro.”
Puck’s too drunk to realize that makes no sense at all, instead just rolls his neck back and rests his head on the seat. “Dude, she’s the one that suggested it, okay? I know you think Rachel’s some special little snowflake, but we’ve got a history, so chill. It’s cool.”
Bam watches his friend through the rear view mirror and when their eyes meet, Puck speaks up.
“Can I get my Slushee now?”
Bam sighs. “Fine.”
“…Do you have five bucks I can borrow?”
---
GO TO PART 2