Glee: The Beginning (10 page)

she was jealous enough of Quinn as it was, but if she found out that Quinn was hooking up with the guy she was afte r, there would be serious trouble. And Brittany was simply too dumb to be relied on to keep any secret. She meant well, but her brain cells were seriously defective. ‘It’s from Finn,’ Quinn lied. ‘He is such a sweetheart.’

‘Awww,’ Brittany and Santana cried in unison. A group of
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freshman girls jumped out of their way. One of the advantages of being a Cheerio was that you could walk straight down the middle of the hallwa y, and people would move to accom-modate you. ‘That is so cute.’

‘You guys really are the perfect couple.’ Santana held out her hand to high-five a fellow Cheerio as she passed. ‘I can’t believe it took so long for you to get togethe r.’

‘Like Cinderella and Prince . . . Prince . . . William.’

Brittany smiled.

‘Prince Charming,’ Santana corrected her.

Quinn fought the urge to roll her eyes again. (Her mother always reminded her that eye-rolling caused crow ’s-feet later in life.) Eve ryone kept saying the exact same thing to her, as if she and Finn had been made only for each othe r. She wasn ’t sure she believed that. Besides, it sucked all the romance out of it.

It wasn ’t like with Puck, whom she clearly wasn ’t supposed to be with. He was totally wrong for her. Eve ryone knew that he’d slept with all kinds of MILFs through his joke of a pool-cleaning business over the summe r, and although he’d gone to the last meeting of the Celibacy Club, she seriously doubted his commitment.

Which made him all the more exciting.

‘There is a serious lack of eligible guys of quality in this godforsaken high school. I don ’t know why it took me so long to find him, eithe r.’ Quinn tried to put away her phone without answering it.

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‘Puck’s hot,’ Brittany said. ‘And that guy in math class who always sits at the front of the room and wears sweaters.’

‘That’s Mr DeWitt.’ Santana scowled at her. ‘The teacher?

Remember?’

Quinn gave up. She stared at Puck’s text one more time before writing back.
I can
’
t meet you. I have to go to class.
Her thumb paused.
And this thing between us cannot go on.
The girls passed a classroom with an open windo w, and the smell of freshly cut grass wafted through the halls, bringing Quinn back to the other afternoon, under the bleachers. It had to end with Puck just so she could stop this craziness. Almost immediatel y, her phone vibrated again.
I just want
to talk. Please.

It was the
please
that did it for her. It made Puck’s request sound so simple, and she felt that she would be unreasonable to say no. He just wanted to talk. That was only fair. They would stand there in the dark janitor ’s closet and mutually agree that while there was some level of physical attraction between the two of them, it didn ’t make sense for them to pursue it. Quinn would admit to herself that she had only submitted to the attraction in a period of moral weakness during which she had briefly forgotten her way, and she would ask God to forgive her brief indiscretion.
Fine
, she texted back before throwing her phone into her bag.

‘I just remembered – I’ve got to return a book to the libra ry.’

The words sounded like a blatant lie coming out of Quinn ’s
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mouth – but Santana and Brittany were arguing about which had more calories, a carrot or a celery stick, and they just nodded their heads at Quinn. ‘And I’ve got to go to the restroom, too, so don ’t wait for me.’

‘’Kay. See you in class.’ Santana waved over her shoulder as Quinn turned to go up the stai rwell to the libra ry. As Quinn climbed the stairs, she tried to compose her thoughts. She was just going to be honest with Puck – or sort of honest with him. She would tell him that she liked him but they didn ’t have a future. She wouldn ’t mention the fact that her knees got weak when she thought about the way he touched the back of her neck as he kissed her, or that the smell of grass was now something she associated only with him.

The upstairs hallway was nearly empty as students hurried to class. Quinn glanced at the libra ry, almost wishing she actually had a libra ry book to return so that she hadn ’t lied. It was never good to lie, as lies always caught up with you in the end. She spotted the janitor ’s closet; its dark green unmarked door blended in with the tile walls of the hall. The closet was conveniently located next to the girls’ bathroom

– anyone who saw her might think she was headed to powder her nose. Quinn took a deep breath, feeling the way she did whenever she stood at the top of the Cheerios’ pyramid – on the narrow line between exhilaration and disaste r. She opened the doo r.

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twelve

Janitor ’s closet, Thu rsday mo rning

P
uck was leaning against the wall of the janitor’s closet in the dark, waiting for Quinn. He flipped open his phone to check the time. A tiny part of him worried she wouldn ’t come. What if she’d just said she would come to get him to leave her alone, and now she was sitting in her stupid English class, giggling with Santana and Brittan y, prob-ably laughing about how Puck was such a fake for pretending to be such a player when he was getting all soft on a girl like Quinn. Here he was, waiting for her in a dark janitor ’s closet he’d only discovered because he and his buddies had locked some freshman loser in there once. Puck’s face burned.

Then a magical thing happened. The door opened, and Quinn Fabray scooted inside. ‘Why are you standing here
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with the light off?’ She fumbled around looking for a light switch by the doo r.

Immediatel y, Puck’s confidence returned. If Quinn Fabra y, founder and president of the Celibacy Club, had agreed to meet him in a dark janitor ’s closet, he was seriously doing something right. ‘You don ’t want anyone to see us, do you?’

He grabbed for Quinn ’s hand and held it in his. Quinn was quiet as her eyes adjusted to the dark. This was already off to the wrong start. Her chu rch – the Kingdom of His Faith Fellowship – had once sponsored a haunted house and hayride out at Old Miller’s Farm. The haunted house

consisted of a long tunnel whose walls were made of a black plastic that buckled in the wind. Each person had to go through the tunnel alone, in complete darkness, while creepy music played. Occasionally someone in a sheet would jump out at you. It had been the scariest feeling in the world – not being able to see anything in front of you, even when you knew it was there. Quinn had almost wet her pants the first time someone jumped out at her.

This, someho w, was scarier. She shook Puck’s warm hand off hers. The janitor ’s closet smelled like Lysol and like Puck. Unlike Finn, he didn ’t wear any cologne, and so his smell, instead, was a mixture of deodorant and some musky scent that could only be his own.

‘I knew you’d show up,’ Puck said cockil y, stepping closer to Quinn. She took a few steps backward until her back was pressed against the closed doo r. She could barely see his face
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in the darkness, but she could sense that he was just inches from her. Oh, crap. All her plans flew out the window as her heart thudded against her rib cage.

‘And how did you know that?’ Quinn started to ask, but before she could finish, Puck’s lips were touching hers, gent ly at first, then with more pressure. And she couldn ’t help but kiss back. His mout h taste d like chocolate . Quin n was reminded of the double chocolate fudge brownies she used to buy at Auntie Amy’s at the mall – melt-in-your-mouth

warm and delicious, and completely terrible for you. Puck, in a nutshell.

‘You taste so good,’ Puck said as his mouth moved to Quinn ’s neck. ‘Like some kind of really delicious citrus fruit.’

‘My lip gloss.’ Quinn closed her eyes at the feel of his lips at the base of her neck. ‘It’s mango.’

‘Mango,’ Puck repeated, his lips mouthing the word against her skin. She shuddered.

Outside, the bell rang, shattering the spell Quinn had fallen unde r. Quickl y, while she could still think, she ran her hands against the wall and found the light switch. She flicked it on, flooding the room with light.

‘What did you do that for?’ Puck held his hand over his eyes to shield them from the sudden light. Quinn looked so out of place in the dingy janitor ’s closet, in her perky Cheerios uniform.

‘I came here to talk.’ Quinn crossed her arms over her chest, blinking to get used to the light. What had she been
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thinking, coming to a filthy janitor ’s closet to make out with Puck? She hadn ’t been thinking, that was the thing. At least not with her brain. In the light, the room was much less exotic and thrilling. A giant metal shelving unit lined one wall, chock full of cans of Lysol, bottles of Windex, and other cleaning materials of various shapes and sizes. In the corner was a giant metal bucket on wheels and a mop that looked as if it had been wiping up filth for fifty years. ‘You said you wanted to talk.’

Puck hung his head. ‘I know. But just when you walked through that door . . .’ He trailed off, looking up at Quinn with a puppy-do g look tha t someho w came off as extra devious. ‘I couldn ’t help myself.’

Quinn patted her hair in place. ‘Well? What did you want to talk about?’ Her eyes landed on a big white bucket with a label that read VOMIT ABSORBENT AND DEODORIZER POWDER. It must be a year’s supply of that orangey-pink sawdust the janitor threw on the floor whenever some poor kid upchucked. Not romantic.

‘I don ’t know.’ Puck was suddenly shy. ‘I thought, maybe, since there ’s clearly something between us, you’d want to go to the homecoming dance togethe r.’

‘What?’ She felt a rush of triumph that he wanted to go with her, not Santana. Not anyone else. With her. ‘That ’s really sweet, Puck. But there ’s no way that could happen.’

Puck stepped back. Was she saying he wasn ’t good enough for her? He’d raised almost four thousand dollars cleaning
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pools that summe r, and he still had a couple hundred dollars left after all the six-packs and video games he’d bought. Plenty left to buy tickets to the dance, a corsage, and a sixpack of wine coolers for afte rward. ‘Why not?’

‘Get real, Puck.’ She shook her head sadly and tried not to think about dancing with him. She’d bet he knew how to move. His body seemed to know how to do a lot of things.

‘There’s no way we could ever go public as a couple. I have my reputation to think about.’

Puck ran his hand over his Mohawk. ‘What the hell does that mean? I’ve got my reputation to live up to, too.’

‘Exactly.’ Quinn sighed. ‘Your reputation for getting into the pants of every single girl who so much as smiles at you.’

‘Hey, don ’t get mad at me just because the ladies like me.’

Quinn stared at the vomit-absorbent bucket. Puck’s cocki-ness was infuriating but also incredibly sexy. Puck was famous for going through girls like they were Kleenex, and he left each one a little dirtier than he’d found her. Quinn tried to imagine what her father would say if he opened the door to his house and saw Puck, with his look-at-me Mohawk and his sexy smirk. He’d throw Quinn into a chastity belt.

‘Besides,

I’m dating Finn now.’

Puck leaned against the opposite wall. His jeans hung on his lean hips, and his long-sleeved thermal shirt hugged his pectorals. Quinn tried not to think of him showering off after football practice. ‘That’s official?’

Quinn nodded. ‘Pretty much.’ She took a deep breath,
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feeling the need to lash out at Puck in some way. She needed to end this crazy, insane thing between them, and she’d already proved that she couldn ’t be trusted with him. ‘We’re probably even going to win homecoming king and queen. Eve ryone keeps telling me so, at least.’

Puck waved his hand in front of him and gave a brief, sarcastic bow. ‘Well, I wouldn ’t want to stand between you and your crown, if that’s what gets you all hot and bothered.’

‘You’re disgusting.’ Quinn shifted her backpack on her shoulde r. ‘I don ’t know why I even came here.’

‘Because you like me.’ Puck stepped closer, so close she could see how long his eyelashes were. ‘You can ’t say no to me.’

‘How’s this for no?’ she asked, zipping up her white hooded sweate r. It was warm in the closet, but she felt that she needed another layer of protection between her and Puck. ‘Whatever this was between us, it’s over. For real.’

Before he could say anything else, she opened the doo r. The hallway was completely empt y, and she quickly walked away from the broom closet, hoping Puck would have enough sense to stay inside until she was gone, at least. Besides, she didn ’t really want to see him again. Not now. She paused, realizing exactly how late she was to English class, and then ducked into the girls’ bathroom. She still needed a minute to collect herself.

Back in English class, Mr Horn perched on the corner of his desk and started telling the class about his trip to the
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sout h of France four years ago. They had just read – or pretended to read – the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel
Tender Is
the Night
, which takes place on the French Riviera, so it was ostensibly relevant. The class was used to this sort of

‘educa-tional digression’ from their teache r, and they all leaned back in their chairs and managed to carry on their own conversa-tions without his ever noticing.

Santana glanced at the giant clock above the blackboard. What had happened to Quinn? She kept disappearing! The other day she’d been ten minutes late for Celibacy Club, which Santana had joined only at Quinn ’s insistence. And now she was way late for class. It was unlike her. Besides, Santana had brought her copy of
Lucky
magazine, covered in little sticky notes to mark the pages, and wanted advice on a dress for the homecoming dance. Mr Horn was babbling on about the farmers’ markets in France, and it was the perfect opportunity for Quinn to help her decide on red, to make her pop, or dark green, to highlight her olive skin tone. Bored, Santana scanned the room. Puck wasn ’t in class, eithe r, which was much less surprising. He didn ’t always make it to class, and whe n he didn ’t, Santan a foun d herself un-teth ered. Who was she supposed to stare at now? He always sat one row over and two seats up, and Santana had the perfect angle to contemplate how sexy she found the back of his ears.