Like Passing Notes in Secrecy 11/13
Title: Like Passing Notes in Secrecy
Chapter: 11/13
Rating: R
Character: Puck/Rachel
Summary: He's never really missed a girl before. He never cared enough, really, to miss anyone.
Word Count: 5,100
Disclaimer: Don't own.
Her coworker Steven plays guitar. He's not as good as Noah, but he's capable, and when she gives him a list of songs and asks if he'd be interested in playing with her, he gives her a list right back and tells her he's got a gig booked and they could use a co-lead singer to take some of the strain off their untrained vocalist. She thinks it over for about a minute, then asks him when and where and what the dress code is. He tells her to wear something hot and that they rehearse in this warehouse/rehearsal space. She feels very confident that she's going to need no more than a couple hours' practice with the band.
"I don't like this guy," Noah says when she tells him everything. "Sounds sketch."
"I'm doing what you suggested I do."
"No, I suggested you go to a fucking coffee shop and sing some fuckin' Lisa Loeb or whatever. You're playing in some Brooklyn bar with this hipster and his flannel wearing friends."
"You wear flannel all the time," she points out.
"Not the point!" She laughs and she hears him let out a breath. "Just be careful, okay? 'Cause I...Just be careful."
"I kind of love it when you get jealous, you know."
"I'm not jealous."
"Noah, this is me being sexy over the phone. Please try and keep up," she says, voice terse. He laughs and she smiles, despite her being annoyed with him for being slow on the uptake. You'd think the man would have phone sex down to an art by this point.
"Yeah, I'm kinda at Hannah's school 'cause they have this art show or something and one of her drawings is being gawked at or some shit."
"Noah!" she cries. She's not even embarrassed that she totally just admitted she wants him right now. "Why didn't you tell me her work is being displayed?"
"Dunno. Forgot," he says. "Jesus. Some of this stuff is straight up garbage. Like, I don't really get Picasso and shit, but it's not like it makes me physically want to puke, you know?"
"You're terrible!" she laughs. "They're children, Noah. You have to encourage their artistic talents or they'll fall by the wayside."
"Sometimes there's just no talent at all."
She laughs again and tries to picture him there, walking around the Lima Middle School gym or library, looking at paintings he has no interest in.
"You're wonderful for supporting her," she says after a moment. "I know she appreciates it."
"Yeah, well, she's actually not bad at the art thing," he says. "Jesus Christ. This one's so bad, Rach. I swear I've seen better shit than this floating in the sewer."
She giggles and leans back against her pillows again. "You spend a lot of time looking at things floating in sewers?"
"Shut up," he mumbles. "I gotta go, okay? I'm gonna call you later. Then you can be as...You can..."
"I love that you're censoring yourself for your surroundings," she says. She smiles and shifts her hips. She's wondering how late 'later' is. "If you don't call me soon, I'll have to start without you."
"Don't you fucking dare," he says lowly.
She laughs and says she loves him.
She wasn't entirely joking, though.
He calls her later that night. She tells him she loves him after, and he tells her he wishes he was there with her. He only ever really says things like that post-orgasm, when he can blame it on the endorphins and pretend he doesn't mean it as much as he does.
... ... ...
He keeps Hannah home from school when he wakes up and hears her crying in her bedroom. He doesn't even talk to her, just calls the school and tells him she won't be there and she'll catch up on her work on Monday.
He gets a few phone calls. Mostly it's relatives and close friends. Carole calls and talks, and Finn calls. Rachel's dads stop by with coffee and pastries and sit with him and talk a little bit about his mom and how amazing she was.
Hannah won't come out of her room. He's starting to get a little worried about it, actually. And he's coping. He's dealing with today. It sucks, yeah, knowing it's been exactly a year since their mom died, but he can't help her through it if she won't open her bedroom door and talk to him.
Santana calls him, then Quinn, and he really appreciates that, but he'd like it if everyone would just stop for a minute and give him a chance to talk to Rachel again. She called him first thing and sounded really sad herself, which he totally understands, because he knows she loved his mom. It's just that she's amazing with Hannah, and she'll know what to do or say or whatever.
She sounds like she's crying when he gets her on the phone. She tries to make it sound like she's not, and he wants to call her on it, but he doesn't.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
She's crying and she asks him if he's okay.
He wants to be honest with her, even if it sucks to admit this and she already knows without him saying a word. "I wish you were here."
"Me too," she whispers.
"You're...I dunno. You're upset, but Hannah's...I can't get her to talk," he says. Saying it out loud makes him feel like he's really no good at any of this. "I don't know if she'll talk to you."
"She will," Rachel says confidently.
She sounds so sure of it that he doesn't really have any choice but to believe her. He heads upstairs and taps gently on Hannah's door again, tells her Rachel wants to talk to her. She opens the door a crack and he hands her the phone before she shuts it again.
He doesn't know what the hell Rachel says to her - neither girl will tell him - but Hannah has a shower and comes downstairs for lunch and then they sit in her room for the rest of the day and watch movies. They unplug the phone and ignore the people that come to the door. Only his cell is on, and he has it set to vibrate, and that's just in case Rachel calls.
"I love her," Hannah says when he shows her a text from New York. He laughs a little and doesn't say anything. "She's, like, the best sister."
"She's alright." He can't say it with a straight face, and Hannah laughs.
She doesn't tell him not to mess it up, or ask any questions about anything. He likes that it's just a given that he and Rachel are going to be together for...
He doesn't know about forever, but it doesn't really sound all that bad to him. His mom told him to marry Rachel, and it's hard to pretend he doesn't want to.
... ... ...
She's having lunch with one of the few coworkers she can tolerate, other than Steven. She and Madeline are close enough at the office, but they haven't exactly spent a ton of time outside of work. Rachel isn't opposed to having more friends, so they sit at a little salad bar and bond over their failed veganism, successful vegetarianism, and men.
Madeline is engaged to a man she met in the waiting room at her gynecologist's office, and that story is hilarious and so random that Rachel can't help but laugh. Everyone knows Rachel has a long distance boyfriend, but no one really knows much more than that about her relationship with Noah, and she's not terribly upset by that. This thing between them has generally always been 'between them'. Even their friends don't know nearly all the details. She likes it that way, but Madeline asks, so Rachel starts telling bits and pieces of the story.
"Oh, my god. That's, like, a Nicholas Sparks novel," Madeline says as she dabs at her lips with her napkin. Rachel smiles and nods a little bit, tucks her hair behind her ear. Madeline leans on her elbows on the table and looks like she's fishing for gossip. "So what happens next?"
Rachel isn't sure.
"Things are perfect the way they are," Rachel answers.
It's not true. They aren't perfect, and she doesn't think they will be until they're in the same place at the same time. But they're young and there's time for all that.
She doesn't necessarily want to take it, though.
She's got two auditions coming up. They'll be the fourth and fifth this month, and she honestly thinks that if nothing comes of them...
She just wants to be closer to him, and she wants to be successful, too. There has to be a way she can have both.
... ... ...
He's always thought her dads were awesome. Like, they've always been good to him and never treated him like he's a dick or a delinquent or anything. They gave him the benefit of the doubt that first summer when he still had a mohawk and they both had to know he and Rachel weren't going to be some epic love story or some shit.
Well, no one thought at the time they would be.
But when they offer to keep Hannah over her March break so he can go visit Rachel, he's almost positive he'd kiss both of them if it wasn't creepy and wrong.
Okay, probably not. He hugs them, though, and tells them he appreciates it.
He just doesn't have the money for both he and Hannah to go, and she wants to, but it's not as vital. After he tells her he might go without her, she just shrugs her shoulder and tells him to go for it. Then she calls him a pussy for being 'so into' Rachel. He puts her in a headlock and contemplates telling her to watch her mouth, but whatever. He'd be kind of a hypocrite if he did that.
So Rachel's dad picks them up at home and drives him straight to the airport, then takes Hannah back to the Berry house with him. It's cool, too, because now he doesn't have to worry about who he's leaving Hannah with.
The flight seems really short, which is awesome, and Rachel looks incredible standing at the arrivals gate, chewing her thumbnail as she waits for him. There's no big, dramatic moment where she runs towards him or something lame like that, thank god, but she smiles really widely and puts her arms around his neck and they kiss for a while. He doesn't really give a fuck if anyone's around and watching him, because he hasn't seen her in a couple months.
They barely make it into her apartment before he's pulling clothes from her body. It wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't whispered in his ear in the cab and told him she's not wearing any panties under her jeans. It's not like he can control himself at the best of times, so he doesn't know why the fuck she'd tell him that, but he's not about to complain.
She has a show with 'her band' that first night. He's known this all along, but now that he's here with her he doesn't really want to leave her apartment or room or bed. Clothing should be optional. Nakedness should be encouraged. But after they eat Chinese in their underwear on her bed and shower together, she's pulling on a pair of jeans and telling him he'll have to wear more than just a towel to this bar.
He hasn't seen her perform in years.
Fuck, he's missed it.
He's not crazy about these guys she's playing with, but three of them are married and the other one has a girlfriend. The drummer is single, but he looks like Russel Brand on a bad day, so he knows Rachel'll never be into that loser. But they're good. She's good. She's incredible. She sings songs he never would have thought she'd do, and the crowd fucking loves her. He loves her. He wishes he could be up there playing guitar with her.
Everyone tells her how amazing she is. She only blushes when he says it.
They go out to another bar for beers with her bandmates and their wives or whatever, and Rachel keeps her hand on the inside of his thigh basically the whole time. He has his arm around her, and it's nice to just act like a young guy again. He doesn't have to worry about school or work for a whole week, and he knows Hannah's fine. He can just hang out and be a regular guy and be with Rachel. He didn't realize how much he needed this.
They walk home after, and she's tired and a little tipsy, so she loops her arm through his and he feels fucking 17 again. Honestly, part of him wonders what would have happened if she and Finn had stayed broken up and he'd been able to date her when they were young and stupid and naive enough to make it work through college.
"Noah?" she says as they lay in her bed in the dark. She's right up against him and he really doesn't mind. "I love that you're here."
He really doesn't know what to say to that, and conversations like this usually start fights, which he really, really doesn't want, so he just kisses her temple and tells her to get some sleep.
She's taken the week off work, too, which is amazing because it means he doesn't have to entertain himself at all or watch her leave for work in the mornings.
They basically don't leave her bed for the first day, which he isn't complaining about at all. He doesn't hear her protesting it either. They turn their phones off and don't bother getting dressed, and they watch crappy television when they're not busy doing other things.
She seems a little different the next day, though. It's like she's pulling away or trying to hide something or...He doesn't know what's going on, but he doesn't like it.
"Hey," he says, reaching for her when she's in the kitchen making dinner. He's put up with this shit all day and he can't handle it anymore. She actually flinches when he touches her, and for a second he worries something's happened to her when he wasn't around to stop it. Then he remembers that if that were the case she probably wouldn't have just spent a day and a half with him inside her. "Rachel, what the fuck is going on in your head right now?"
"Nothing!" she shouts, dropping the spoon she was holding onto the counter. It rattles and falls to the floor, and he holds her tighter so she can't bend down and pick it up. "A lot. Everything."
"Tell me," he says, voice hoarse. He doesn't like secrets, especially not when she's the one keeping them. "What?"
She takes a deep breath and walks over to sit down at the table. He follows, but he doesn't want to. He's not a fan of sit-down conversations because they're usually the bad kind. He figures if she was breaking up with him, she wouldn't have wanted him here, or she'd at least have the decency to do it at the end of the week or something.
"I'm so confused. I don't know what to do, Noah," she admits. There are already tears in her eyes and she's gonna have to give him a little more to go on. Like, anything would be good. "I went on an audition a couple weeks ago, and then I got a callback. They wanted me to sing three songs, and then after that I went to the dance audition."
His chest puffs up a little bit with pride, because this is his girl and this is the best she's ever done here, the furthest she's gotten in the process. He fucking loves that she's not giving up. But he's still not getting why this is confusing for her.
"That's great, baby," he says. He pushes the hair off her face and it forces her to look at him, which is what he was going for.
"I got the part." She looks up at him and he totally doesn't get the tears. They're obviously not happy ones, but she got the part so what the fuck is the problem here? He smiles at her and moves closer, but she puts her hand on his leg and he stops. "It's in London."
Oh.
Fuck.
"What?"
She closes her eyes, more tears falling, and shakes her head a little bit. "It's in London. It's basically the equivalent of Off-Broadway, but in London."
She needs to stop saying London, unless her doing it will make that place a hell of a lot closer.
The only thing he can really think is that she can't go. She can't go even further away, across a fucking ocean. He doesn't know how long this shit would last, but if it was a month, that'd be a month too long. New York is hard enough. London, with the time difference and her crazy schedule and everything; he doesn't know how they'd even make that work. But he doesn't want to be a dick or she'll be pissed, and if he doesn't support her he's the biggest asshole in the world. If she wants to go do this, he guesses there's really nothing he can do but hate it.
"You're not saying anything," she says, wiping her eyes on the cuff of her sleeve. "You're mad."
"No," he says quickly. "No, I'm not mad. I'd never be fucking mad at you for doing something awesome." She laughs quietly but he can tell she doesn't really mean it. "Are you gonna do it?"
She hesitates.
Fuck.
"I don't know," she admits quietly. "The company would pay for my housing and everything, and it'd be a start, Noah. I'd have a credit to my name."
He sighs. "Yeah."
She pulls her hands away from him. "You don't want me to do it," she says, and she sounds angry, which isn't really fair. This has been a conversation for less than five minutes. It hasn't really even sunk in.
"I don't want you to go that far away, but if you wanna do it...I mean, fuck, Rachel. I'm not gonna stop you." She starts crying even harder, and he grabs her wrist and pulls her towards him until she gets up and sits across his lap. "Baby."
"I'm scared that if I go, everything will change." He nods. He gets that, and it's kind of what he's afraid of, too. "But that if I don't go, nothing will. I can't...Noah, I'm...this is killing me." He doesn't know what to do with that. She pulls away and looks at him. "Sometimes I feel like you're the only good thing I have, and I don't want to leave you."
"Well, you're not leaving me. You'd be working." Fuck. Wait. Is she saying...? "You wouldn't break up with me, right?"
"No!" she says urgently, shaking her head. She puts his hand on his cheek and he smiles at that at least. "London is really far, and I don't know anyone there. I'd be there for at least a year, and...I just always wonder when our life gets to start, you know? And now I'm thinking of going even further away, and it's not...I don't know what to do."
"I can't really tell you," he says. It's true. It's all up to her. It's her life and her choice, and he loves that she's thinking about him as she makes it, but she can up and leave to London for a year or however long, and he basically has no say in it. Well, maybe a little say. "I don't want you to."
He says it because it's true. Yeah, he said it already, but it's basically the only thing he can say without sounding like a total asshole. She nods her head and kisses him, and he doesn't know what any of that means, but she knows he'll support her whatever she decides to do, even if he hates that decision.
They've had plenty of chances to break up before, and they're not going to start taking them now.
... ... ...
She wakes up and he's sleeping on his stomach in her bed, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. His hair is a mess and there's a line on his face, a crease from the pillow, from however he was laying before. He's got his one arm up under the pillow and the other just resting between their bodies. His lips are just slightly parted and she's watching his torso rise and fall with every breath he takes.
And she decides she's not going to London.
It may be the only role she's been offered, but he's so much more important than that, and being with him is better than any paycheck or standing ovation. She's not about to let him start believing otherwise. The distance is difficult enough as it is, and they don't need anything else between them, anything else to make it harder on them.
She wants to marry this man, and she has to be in at least the same country as him in order for that to happen. Maybe other stars can make it work, but she and Puck are not them. They're not Idina and Taye, who have all the money in the world to travel back and forth and see one another. And even Idina moved to L.A. to be with him while he worked after her show wrapped in New York.
And it wouldn't be fair to him. She thinks that if he left and went halfway across the world in the name of a job, she'd be heartbroken, even if she did 'understand'. He'll support her whatever she decides, and she knows that, and that's what makes her want to do something that makes more sense for the both of them. If he was telling her not to go, she'd be mad at him for it. He's just saying he doesn't want her to, and there's a huge difference. He loves her and he wants to be close to her, and she loves him for that.
Sometimes it's still hard to believe that this man is the same boy she went to high school with, even though she knows exactly how much he's changed over the years. She was there for all of it, after all.
She spins the ring on her pinkie finger and watches him sleep, and when her thumb brushes against her ring finger, her heart races, thinking he's going to put a ring there someday, too. They haven't talked about it, but she knows he will.
When he blinks his eyes open and gives this gorgeous, tiny, little smile, she knows she needs to tell him what she's decided.
"I'm not going to London."
He lets out a hum, then, "Good." Then his eyes open all the way and he reaches for her. "Really?" he asks. She nods and slides her hand up his back, then smoothes out his hair. It really is a disaster. "You sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure," she says, and she's never meant anything more. "I just love you, and I don't want..."
He kisses her before she can finish, pushes her onto her back. She parts her legs for him because it's the most natural thing in the world for her to do, and he murmurs that he loves her against her neck, and that, "London is stupid and I'm better," and she thinks he's saying it a little too smugly, but it's so adorable that she doesn't really care.
She doesn't necessarily disagree, either.
... ... ...
She gets a call for another audition when they're out shopping one day, and he thinks she should be excited or something. She explains that it's always the same thing and usually nothing comes of it anyway.
"Well, when you have that kind of attitude it's no wonder," he says. He regrets it immediately because she stops walking, but when he turns around to face her, she's actually smiling.
"Do you have any idea how much you just sounded like me?" she asks, giggling. He rolls his eyes. "And I always give 100%. Do you really think I wouldn't?"
"That's not what I said. Don't pick a fight."
She laughs again and slips her arm through his. "I'm not picking a fight. I'm just saying it's difficult to have a positive attitude when you know you're one of hundreds of people all doing the same thing."
"So do something different," he says, shrugging his shoulder.
"That easy?" she laughs.
He doesn't see why not. "I'll help you."
She smiles up at him and doesn't call him on the fact that he really has no fucking clue what he's doing.
But then they get to her apartment and she hands him his guitar, and she's totally serious about this. When he suggests she ditch one of the stupid Broadway songs she usually does and sing something totally different, she looks skeptical, then asks what he has in mind. Shit, he doesn't know. He just thinks if she'd just fucking loosen up a little bit and do something new, she'd have more fun and show off some of her personality or whatever.
So he plays guitar and helps her arrange a cover of some pop song until it doesn't make him want to jam a pen in his ear.
She thanks him for it by stripping her clothes off in her living room to some Janet Jackson song or something. She tells him he can't touch her until she says so. But he's never been good with taking orders, and as soon as his hands are on her she's changing her mind and begging him for more anyway.
God, he can't wait until they live together.
... ... ...
She's really happy he scheduled his flight in the evening so the last day he's there, they really do have a full day to spend together. They get about an inch of snow, which is really nothing, albeit strange for March, and use it as an excuse to stay inside all day and keep one another warm. They say it like that, as though they wouldn't have found some other reason to stay in her bed under the covers all day.
He's currently eating from a bag of Doritos and sipping a beer, and she's holding a glass of wine and accepting the few chips he holds against her lips until she opens her mouth. She doesn't make a habit of eating junk food, but it's hard not to when it's being fed to you by the naked man currently taking up residence in your bed.
It's 2:00 in the afternoon and this is his idea of 'sustenance'. He says he needs it before he can...
Even after being with him for so long, she still blushes sometimes when she thinks of the way he says things, the things he wants to do to her.
"What's with the face?" he asks, laughing as she takes a sip of her wine. "You're blushing."
"Nothing!"
"Liar. What?"
He already knows what she's thinking about. She can tell, and he's just being a jerk about it.
And sometimes she likes to surprise him.
So she somehow gets the courage to tell him exactly what she wants to do to him for a change, and he nearly chokes on his beer when the words slip past her lips. Apparently he's nourished enough now, because he's pulling her onto his lap and telling her to make good on that promise.
She does. Then he makes good on his.
"I don't want you to go," she says as they both watch the clock. They have a half hour before he has to leave to catch his flight on time.
He doesn't say anything to that, but he kisses her gently and nods. She just wants to keep him here with her and she's already trying to figure out how it might work if she could. She doesn't mention that, though, just kisses him at the security checkpoint at the airport and pretends it doesn't break her heart every time they do this. He knows anyway, but she likes to put on a brave face. He always does it for her.
Chapter: 11/13
Rating: R
Character: Puck/Rachel
Summary: He's never really missed a girl before. He never cared enough, really, to miss anyone.
Word Count: 5,100
Disclaimer: Don't own.
Her coworker Steven plays guitar. He's not as good as Noah, but he's capable, and when she gives him a list of songs and asks if he'd be interested in playing with her, he gives her a list right back and tells her he's got a gig booked and they could use a co-lead singer to take some of the strain off their untrained vocalist. She thinks it over for about a minute, then asks him when and where and what the dress code is. He tells her to wear something hot and that they rehearse in this warehouse/rehearsal space. She feels very confident that she's going to need no more than a couple hours' practice with the band.
"I don't like this guy," Noah says when she tells him everything. "Sounds sketch."
"I'm doing what you suggested I do."
"No, I suggested you go to a fucking coffee shop and sing some fuckin' Lisa Loeb or whatever. You're playing in some Brooklyn bar with this hipster and his flannel wearing friends."
"You wear flannel all the time," she points out.
"Not the point!" She laughs and she hears him let out a breath. "Just be careful, okay? 'Cause I...Just be careful."
"I kind of love it when you get jealous, you know."
"I'm not jealous."
"Noah, this is me being sexy over the phone. Please try and keep up," she says, voice terse. He laughs and she smiles, despite her being annoyed with him for being slow on the uptake. You'd think the man would have phone sex down to an art by this point.
"Yeah, I'm kinda at Hannah's school 'cause they have this art show or something and one of her drawings is being gawked at or some shit."
"Noah!" she cries. She's not even embarrassed that she totally just admitted she wants him right now. "Why didn't you tell me her work is being displayed?"
"Dunno. Forgot," he says. "Jesus. Some of this stuff is straight up garbage. Like, I don't really get Picasso and shit, but it's not like it makes me physically want to puke, you know?"
"You're terrible!" she laughs. "They're children, Noah. You have to encourage their artistic talents or they'll fall by the wayside."
"Sometimes there's just no talent at all."
She laughs again and tries to picture him there, walking around the Lima Middle School gym or library, looking at paintings he has no interest in.
"You're wonderful for supporting her," she says after a moment. "I know she appreciates it."
"Yeah, well, she's actually not bad at the art thing," he says. "Jesus Christ. This one's so bad, Rach. I swear I've seen better shit than this floating in the sewer."
She giggles and leans back against her pillows again. "You spend a lot of time looking at things floating in sewers?"
"Shut up," he mumbles. "I gotta go, okay? I'm gonna call you later. Then you can be as...You can..."
"I love that you're censoring yourself for your surroundings," she says. She smiles and shifts her hips. She's wondering how late 'later' is. "If you don't call me soon, I'll have to start without you."
"Don't you fucking dare," he says lowly.
She laughs and says she loves him.
She wasn't entirely joking, though.
He calls her later that night. She tells him she loves him after, and he tells her he wishes he was there with her. He only ever really says things like that post-orgasm, when he can blame it on the endorphins and pretend he doesn't mean it as much as he does.
... ... ...
He keeps Hannah home from school when he wakes up and hears her crying in her bedroom. He doesn't even talk to her, just calls the school and tells him she won't be there and she'll catch up on her work on Monday.
He gets a few phone calls. Mostly it's relatives and close friends. Carole calls and talks, and Finn calls. Rachel's dads stop by with coffee and pastries and sit with him and talk a little bit about his mom and how amazing she was.
Hannah won't come out of her room. He's starting to get a little worried about it, actually. And he's coping. He's dealing with today. It sucks, yeah, knowing it's been exactly a year since their mom died, but he can't help her through it if she won't open her bedroom door and talk to him.
Santana calls him, then Quinn, and he really appreciates that, but he'd like it if everyone would just stop for a minute and give him a chance to talk to Rachel again. She called him first thing and sounded really sad herself, which he totally understands, because he knows she loved his mom. It's just that she's amazing with Hannah, and she'll know what to do or say or whatever.
She sounds like she's crying when he gets her on the phone. She tries to make it sound like she's not, and he wants to call her on it, but he doesn't.
"Are you okay?" she asks.
She's crying and she asks him if he's okay.
He wants to be honest with her, even if it sucks to admit this and she already knows without him saying a word. "I wish you were here."
"Me too," she whispers.
"You're...I dunno. You're upset, but Hannah's...I can't get her to talk," he says. Saying it out loud makes him feel like he's really no good at any of this. "I don't know if she'll talk to you."
"She will," Rachel says confidently.
She sounds so sure of it that he doesn't really have any choice but to believe her. He heads upstairs and taps gently on Hannah's door again, tells her Rachel wants to talk to her. She opens the door a crack and he hands her the phone before she shuts it again.
He doesn't know what the hell Rachel says to her - neither girl will tell him - but Hannah has a shower and comes downstairs for lunch and then they sit in her room for the rest of the day and watch movies. They unplug the phone and ignore the people that come to the door. Only his cell is on, and he has it set to vibrate, and that's just in case Rachel calls.
"I love her," Hannah says when he shows her a text from New York. He laughs a little and doesn't say anything. "She's, like, the best sister."
"She's alright." He can't say it with a straight face, and Hannah laughs.
She doesn't tell him not to mess it up, or ask any questions about anything. He likes that it's just a given that he and Rachel are going to be together for...
He doesn't know about forever, but it doesn't really sound all that bad to him. His mom told him to marry Rachel, and it's hard to pretend he doesn't want to.
... ... ...
She's having lunch with one of the few coworkers she can tolerate, other than Steven. She and Madeline are close enough at the office, but they haven't exactly spent a ton of time outside of work. Rachel isn't opposed to having more friends, so they sit at a little salad bar and bond over their failed veganism, successful vegetarianism, and men.
Madeline is engaged to a man she met in the waiting room at her gynecologist's office, and that story is hilarious and so random that Rachel can't help but laugh. Everyone knows Rachel has a long distance boyfriend, but no one really knows much more than that about her relationship with Noah, and she's not terribly upset by that. This thing between them has generally always been 'between them'. Even their friends don't know nearly all the details. She likes it that way, but Madeline asks, so Rachel starts telling bits and pieces of the story.
"Oh, my god. That's, like, a Nicholas Sparks novel," Madeline says as she dabs at her lips with her napkin. Rachel smiles and nods a little bit, tucks her hair behind her ear. Madeline leans on her elbows on the table and looks like she's fishing for gossip. "So what happens next?"
Rachel isn't sure.
"Things are perfect the way they are," Rachel answers.
It's not true. They aren't perfect, and she doesn't think they will be until they're in the same place at the same time. But they're young and there's time for all that.
She doesn't necessarily want to take it, though.
She's got two auditions coming up. They'll be the fourth and fifth this month, and she honestly thinks that if nothing comes of them...
She just wants to be closer to him, and she wants to be successful, too. There has to be a way she can have both.
... ... ...
He's always thought her dads were awesome. Like, they've always been good to him and never treated him like he's a dick or a delinquent or anything. They gave him the benefit of the doubt that first summer when he still had a mohawk and they both had to know he and Rachel weren't going to be some epic love story or some shit.
Well, no one thought at the time they would be.
But when they offer to keep Hannah over her March break so he can go visit Rachel, he's almost positive he'd kiss both of them if it wasn't creepy and wrong.
Okay, probably not. He hugs them, though, and tells them he appreciates it.
He just doesn't have the money for both he and Hannah to go, and she wants to, but it's not as vital. After he tells her he might go without her, she just shrugs her shoulder and tells him to go for it. Then she calls him a pussy for being 'so into' Rachel. He puts her in a headlock and contemplates telling her to watch her mouth, but whatever. He'd be kind of a hypocrite if he did that.
So Rachel's dad picks them up at home and drives him straight to the airport, then takes Hannah back to the Berry house with him. It's cool, too, because now he doesn't have to worry about who he's leaving Hannah with.
The flight seems really short, which is awesome, and Rachel looks incredible standing at the arrivals gate, chewing her thumbnail as she waits for him. There's no big, dramatic moment where she runs towards him or something lame like that, thank god, but she smiles really widely and puts her arms around his neck and they kiss for a while. He doesn't really give a fuck if anyone's around and watching him, because he hasn't seen her in a couple months.
They barely make it into her apartment before he's pulling clothes from her body. It wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't whispered in his ear in the cab and told him she's not wearing any panties under her jeans. It's not like he can control himself at the best of times, so he doesn't know why the fuck she'd tell him that, but he's not about to complain.
She has a show with 'her band' that first night. He's known this all along, but now that he's here with her he doesn't really want to leave her apartment or room or bed. Clothing should be optional. Nakedness should be encouraged. But after they eat Chinese in their underwear on her bed and shower together, she's pulling on a pair of jeans and telling him he'll have to wear more than just a towel to this bar.
He hasn't seen her perform in years.
Fuck, he's missed it.
He's not crazy about these guys she's playing with, but three of them are married and the other one has a girlfriend. The drummer is single, but he looks like Russel Brand on a bad day, so he knows Rachel'll never be into that loser. But they're good. She's good. She's incredible. She sings songs he never would have thought she'd do, and the crowd fucking loves her. He loves her. He wishes he could be up there playing guitar with her.
Everyone tells her how amazing she is. She only blushes when he says it.
They go out to another bar for beers with her bandmates and their wives or whatever, and Rachel keeps her hand on the inside of his thigh basically the whole time. He has his arm around her, and it's nice to just act like a young guy again. He doesn't have to worry about school or work for a whole week, and he knows Hannah's fine. He can just hang out and be a regular guy and be with Rachel. He didn't realize how much he needed this.
They walk home after, and she's tired and a little tipsy, so she loops her arm through his and he feels fucking 17 again. Honestly, part of him wonders what would have happened if she and Finn had stayed broken up and he'd been able to date her when they were young and stupid and naive enough to make it work through college.
"Noah?" she says as they lay in her bed in the dark. She's right up against him and he really doesn't mind. "I love that you're here."
He really doesn't know what to say to that, and conversations like this usually start fights, which he really, really doesn't want, so he just kisses her temple and tells her to get some sleep.
She's taken the week off work, too, which is amazing because it means he doesn't have to entertain himself at all or watch her leave for work in the mornings.
They basically don't leave her bed for the first day, which he isn't complaining about at all. He doesn't hear her protesting it either. They turn their phones off and don't bother getting dressed, and they watch crappy television when they're not busy doing other things.
She seems a little different the next day, though. It's like she's pulling away or trying to hide something or...He doesn't know what's going on, but he doesn't like it.
"Hey," he says, reaching for her when she's in the kitchen making dinner. He's put up with this shit all day and he can't handle it anymore. She actually flinches when he touches her, and for a second he worries something's happened to her when he wasn't around to stop it. Then he remembers that if that were the case she probably wouldn't have just spent a day and a half with him inside her. "Rachel, what the fuck is going on in your head right now?"
"Nothing!" she shouts, dropping the spoon she was holding onto the counter. It rattles and falls to the floor, and he holds her tighter so she can't bend down and pick it up. "A lot. Everything."
"Tell me," he says, voice hoarse. He doesn't like secrets, especially not when she's the one keeping them. "What?"
She takes a deep breath and walks over to sit down at the table. He follows, but he doesn't want to. He's not a fan of sit-down conversations because they're usually the bad kind. He figures if she was breaking up with him, she wouldn't have wanted him here, or she'd at least have the decency to do it at the end of the week or something.
"I'm so confused. I don't know what to do, Noah," she admits. There are already tears in her eyes and she's gonna have to give him a little more to go on. Like, anything would be good. "I went on an audition a couple weeks ago, and then I got a callback. They wanted me to sing three songs, and then after that I went to the dance audition."
His chest puffs up a little bit with pride, because this is his girl and this is the best she's ever done here, the furthest she's gotten in the process. He fucking loves that she's not giving up. But he's still not getting why this is confusing for her.
"That's great, baby," he says. He pushes the hair off her face and it forces her to look at him, which is what he was going for.
"I got the part." She looks up at him and he totally doesn't get the tears. They're obviously not happy ones, but she got the part so what the fuck is the problem here? He smiles at her and moves closer, but she puts her hand on his leg and he stops. "It's in London."
Oh.
Fuck.
"What?"
She closes her eyes, more tears falling, and shakes her head a little bit. "It's in London. It's basically the equivalent of Off-Broadway, but in London."
She needs to stop saying London, unless her doing it will make that place a hell of a lot closer.
The only thing he can really think is that she can't go. She can't go even further away, across a fucking ocean. He doesn't know how long this shit would last, but if it was a month, that'd be a month too long. New York is hard enough. London, with the time difference and her crazy schedule and everything; he doesn't know how they'd even make that work. But he doesn't want to be a dick or she'll be pissed, and if he doesn't support her he's the biggest asshole in the world. If she wants to go do this, he guesses there's really nothing he can do but hate it.
"You're not saying anything," she says, wiping her eyes on the cuff of her sleeve. "You're mad."
"No," he says quickly. "No, I'm not mad. I'd never be fucking mad at you for doing something awesome." She laughs quietly but he can tell she doesn't really mean it. "Are you gonna do it?"
She hesitates.
Fuck.
"I don't know," she admits quietly. "The company would pay for my housing and everything, and it'd be a start, Noah. I'd have a credit to my name."
He sighs. "Yeah."
She pulls her hands away from him. "You don't want me to do it," she says, and she sounds angry, which isn't really fair. This has been a conversation for less than five minutes. It hasn't really even sunk in.
"I don't want you to go that far away, but if you wanna do it...I mean, fuck, Rachel. I'm not gonna stop you." She starts crying even harder, and he grabs her wrist and pulls her towards him until she gets up and sits across his lap. "Baby."
"I'm scared that if I go, everything will change." He nods. He gets that, and it's kind of what he's afraid of, too. "But that if I don't go, nothing will. I can't...Noah, I'm...this is killing me." He doesn't know what to do with that. She pulls away and looks at him. "Sometimes I feel like you're the only good thing I have, and I don't want to leave you."
"Well, you're not leaving me. You'd be working." Fuck. Wait. Is she saying...? "You wouldn't break up with me, right?"
"No!" she says urgently, shaking her head. She puts his hand on his cheek and he smiles at that at least. "London is really far, and I don't know anyone there. I'd be there for at least a year, and...I just always wonder when our life gets to start, you know? And now I'm thinking of going even further away, and it's not...I don't know what to do."
"I can't really tell you," he says. It's true. It's all up to her. It's her life and her choice, and he loves that she's thinking about him as she makes it, but she can up and leave to London for a year or however long, and he basically has no say in it. Well, maybe a little say. "I don't want you to."
He says it because it's true. Yeah, he said it already, but it's basically the only thing he can say without sounding like a total asshole. She nods her head and kisses him, and he doesn't know what any of that means, but she knows he'll support her whatever she decides to do, even if he hates that decision.
They've had plenty of chances to break up before, and they're not going to start taking them now.
... ... ...
She wakes up and he's sleeping on his stomach in her bed, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers. His hair is a mess and there's a line on his face, a crease from the pillow, from however he was laying before. He's got his one arm up under the pillow and the other just resting between their bodies. His lips are just slightly parted and she's watching his torso rise and fall with every breath he takes.
And she decides she's not going to London.
It may be the only role she's been offered, but he's so much more important than that, and being with him is better than any paycheck or standing ovation. She's not about to let him start believing otherwise. The distance is difficult enough as it is, and they don't need anything else between them, anything else to make it harder on them.
She wants to marry this man, and she has to be in at least the same country as him in order for that to happen. Maybe other stars can make it work, but she and Puck are not them. They're not Idina and Taye, who have all the money in the world to travel back and forth and see one another. And even Idina moved to L.A. to be with him while he worked after her show wrapped in New York.
And it wouldn't be fair to him. She thinks that if he left and went halfway across the world in the name of a job, she'd be heartbroken, even if she did 'understand'. He'll support her whatever she decides, and she knows that, and that's what makes her want to do something that makes more sense for the both of them. If he was telling her not to go, she'd be mad at him for it. He's just saying he doesn't want her to, and there's a huge difference. He loves her and he wants to be close to her, and she loves him for that.
Sometimes it's still hard to believe that this man is the same boy she went to high school with, even though she knows exactly how much he's changed over the years. She was there for all of it, after all.
She spins the ring on her pinkie finger and watches him sleep, and when her thumb brushes against her ring finger, her heart races, thinking he's going to put a ring there someday, too. They haven't talked about it, but she knows he will.
When he blinks his eyes open and gives this gorgeous, tiny, little smile, she knows she needs to tell him what she's decided.
"I'm not going to London."
He lets out a hum, then, "Good." Then his eyes open all the way and he reaches for her. "Really?" he asks. She nods and slides her hand up his back, then smoothes out his hair. It really is a disaster. "You sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure," she says, and she's never meant anything more. "I just love you, and I don't want..."
He kisses her before she can finish, pushes her onto her back. She parts her legs for him because it's the most natural thing in the world for her to do, and he murmurs that he loves her against her neck, and that, "London is stupid and I'm better," and she thinks he's saying it a little too smugly, but it's so adorable that she doesn't really care.
She doesn't necessarily disagree, either.
... ... ...
She gets a call for another audition when they're out shopping one day, and he thinks she should be excited or something. She explains that it's always the same thing and usually nothing comes of it anyway.
"Well, when you have that kind of attitude it's no wonder," he says. He regrets it immediately because she stops walking, but when he turns around to face her, she's actually smiling.
"Do you have any idea how much you just sounded like me?" she asks, giggling. He rolls his eyes. "And I always give 100%. Do you really think I wouldn't?"
"That's not what I said. Don't pick a fight."
She laughs again and slips her arm through his. "I'm not picking a fight. I'm just saying it's difficult to have a positive attitude when you know you're one of hundreds of people all doing the same thing."
"So do something different," he says, shrugging his shoulder.
"That easy?" she laughs.
He doesn't see why not. "I'll help you."
She smiles up at him and doesn't call him on the fact that he really has no fucking clue what he's doing.
But then they get to her apartment and she hands him his guitar, and she's totally serious about this. When he suggests she ditch one of the stupid Broadway songs she usually does and sing something totally different, she looks skeptical, then asks what he has in mind. Shit, he doesn't know. He just thinks if she'd just fucking loosen up a little bit and do something new, she'd have more fun and show off some of her personality or whatever.
So he plays guitar and helps her arrange a cover of some pop song until it doesn't make him want to jam a pen in his ear.
She thanks him for it by stripping her clothes off in her living room to some Janet Jackson song or something. She tells him he can't touch her until she says so. But he's never been good with taking orders, and as soon as his hands are on her she's changing her mind and begging him for more anyway.
God, he can't wait until they live together.
... ... ...
She's really happy he scheduled his flight in the evening so the last day he's there, they really do have a full day to spend together. They get about an inch of snow, which is really nothing, albeit strange for March, and use it as an excuse to stay inside all day and keep one another warm. They say it like that, as though they wouldn't have found some other reason to stay in her bed under the covers all day.
He's currently eating from a bag of Doritos and sipping a beer, and she's holding a glass of wine and accepting the few chips he holds against her lips until she opens her mouth. She doesn't make a habit of eating junk food, but it's hard not to when it's being fed to you by the naked man currently taking up residence in your bed.
It's 2:00 in the afternoon and this is his idea of 'sustenance'. He says he needs it before he can...
Even after being with him for so long, she still blushes sometimes when she thinks of the way he says things, the things he wants to do to her.
"What's with the face?" he asks, laughing as she takes a sip of her wine. "You're blushing."
"Nothing!"
"Liar. What?"
He already knows what she's thinking about. She can tell, and he's just being a jerk about it.
And sometimes she likes to surprise him.
So she somehow gets the courage to tell him exactly what she wants to do to him for a change, and he nearly chokes on his beer when the words slip past her lips. Apparently he's nourished enough now, because he's pulling her onto his lap and telling her to make good on that promise.
She does. Then he makes good on his.
"I don't want you to go," she says as they both watch the clock. They have a half hour before he has to leave to catch his flight on time.
He doesn't say anything to that, but he kisses her gently and nods. She just wants to keep him here with her and she's already trying to figure out how it might work if she could. She doesn't mention that, though, just kisses him at the security checkpoint at the airport and pretends it doesn't break her heart every time they do this. He knows anyway, but she likes to put on a brave face. He always does it for her.