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Puck doesn’t make the decision lightly or anything. He goes with Finn to the pre-preseason meeting, where the new coach introduces herself and talks about her expectations for the program and the year and the team. All of it sounds pretty good, but she also talks about the practice schedule, and Puck leaves that meeting with an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.
He’d really been fooling himself by even attending, since the only job he has lined up is right after school at the Bodners’, and there was no reason to think football practice might magically be in the evenings and on weekends instead of afternoons. There’s definitely no way that he can play football and work and ever see Joel, even if he found a different job and changed his schedule around.
Three days later, it’s less than twelve hours before the first preseason practice starts, and Puck knows he has to admit the inevitable: he’s not going to be playing this year, and probably not the year after. He sits on the floor beside Joel and retrieves Joel’s giraffe toy repeatedly, thinking, and then texts Finn.
You know I can’t go tomorrow right?
But you have to!!!Finn texts back.
If practice were from 7 to 9 every night I’d be right on top of it Puck sends, followed by but it’s not
We can figure something else like a babysittr or something
Only job I have is after school too. I’ll steal a Cheerios uniform and wear it to the first game
It’ll suck without you
I mean you could quit too but youre supposed to get that Hawaiian scholarship remember?
:( :( :(
Puck grins a little in spite of himself. no snow!
Yeah yeah ok ok I’ll go without you
Make me proud ;)
You know it!!!
Puck drops his phone and stretches out next to Joel. “It’s just a new normal, that’s all. At least it should be easy to get him to drop basketball.”
He does his best during the day the next day not to think about where Finn is, because for so long, being there has been part of who Puck is, too, in multiple ways. He doesn’t go anywhere with Joel, hanging around the basement more than usual. While Joel naps, Puck turns on the desktop that Burt decided to move down to the basement a few days after they went to court. It’s true that Burt needed a laptop to take between the shop and home, so Puck didn’t call him out on how new the “old” computer really was as he moved it downstairs and then set it up.
Way too many of the people Puck has on Facebook are actually people on the football team, he realizes, and most of them are on there only because of football. They have, as far as Puck can tell, nothing in common otherwise. He doesn’t do a mass deletion, though, because he figures that might look weird on the first day of practice. A little too much like a tantrum, Puck thinks, but he does start by deleting the two most obnoxious seniors from his friends. He never really liked what they posted, anyway.
The next day, Puck pretends like he has no idea why Kurt’s determined to keep him busy, but he takes up Kurt’s offers of the park, the mall, swimming, and baking, in that order. Puck mostly hopes that Kurt’s visit to Matt the next day between football practices will finally involve something more than Kurt slicing bundt cake for Matt, and that Kurt leaves at least a few of the oatmeal cookies behind, because Puck can eat them easily at the same time he’s feeding Joel a bottle.
Puck isn’t surprised when the doorbell rings the next morning, exactly ten minutes after ten and five minutes after Kurt left for Matt’s—planning to be there when Matt comes home between practices, apparently—and he’s even less surprised that it’s Rachel, carrying two reusable grocery bags and a bright pink tote bag with gold stars printed on it.
“It’s important to have a signat—” Rachel starts to say when she sees Puck looking at the tote bag.
“I know,” Puck interrupts. “I was just wondering if you had to have it custom made or if someone actually manufactures them.”
“I plead the fifth,” Rachel says as Puck steps back and she walks inside. “I thought we could get a jump start on the school year.”
“Rachel. No.”
“Not schoolwork, although I think perhaps both you and Finn should at least look up your summer reading.” Puck attempts not to look guilty. “I’ve brought food for lunch, as well as for snacks that you could prepare for the Bodners. In my tote bag is sheet music that I think might be appropriate for glee club this year. I could only find the tablature for approximately half of the songs, but I didn’t think that would be a huge concern for you. And I also brought along my old Hebrew school materials so you could review!”
“Hey, I remember Hebrew fine,” Puck says. “Seriously. Languages aren’t that hard. That’s why my Spanish grade is so high.”
“You skipped most of Spanish class last year. I know because I was in it,” Rachel says.
“Yeah, and I had a 95.” Puck shrugs. “The snacks and music are cool, though. What music?”
“It’s a selection of pop, jazz, and country standards,” Rachel says. “As well as some musical numbers from Tony-nominated and Tony-winning musicals of the past two decades. I also brought along my DVD copy of The Producers.”
“Is that a musical?”
“Yes, it’s a film version of a musical version of a film,” Rachel rattles off. “Mel Brooks wrote it.”
“Yeah? Okay, cool,” Puck says. Joel picks that moment to start to fuss, so Puck walks towards the activity seat and scoops him up. “Just put the food in the kitchen while I go downstairs and change him.”
“Oh yes, I’ll do that,” Rachel says, making her typical diaper-related face.
Puck laughs quietly to himself as he goes down to change Joel’s diaper, which makes Joel laugh, which overall makes the process a lot more fun. “C’mon, little guy,” Puck says he picks Joel up from the Pack ‘N Play, then gets his guitar in his other hand. “Let’s go see what Rachel brought for us to play.”
By the time he’s back upstairs, Rachel’s grocery bags are folded on the table, and there’s a small group of foods on one counter, with a stack of index cards on top of them. Puck grabs a bottle for Jonah, tucking it under his arm, and heads into the living room. Rachel is sitting in Burt’s recliner, looking ridiculously tiny, stacks of music on the coffee table, and Puck spots a DVD case on top of the DVD player.
Puck could make a lot of excuses for why Rachel’s there. She’s spent a lot of her summer with Finn too, so clearly he could say she’s bored. Plus, she loves a captive audience for her ideas, especially things she’s passionate about. Puck would bet good money all of her snack ideas and recipes are vegan, and for all that Rachel talks about performing, it’s the music that she loves the most, far more than dancing or acting. Still, she didn’t have to come over to a house with a baby and entertain him to take his mind off of how much everything’s changed, and Puck has a few seconds to look at her perched in Burt’s chair and feel a wave of affection both for his childhood friend at temple and for the teenage girl in front of him, before she hears him and looks up with a smile.
“Oh good! I wasn’t sure what Joel’d like us to do first.”
“He’s slept through the guitar before, so maybe we watch this movie first, while he eats and plays a little more,” Puck says, setting his guitar down and then settling on the sofa with Joel and the bottle.
“I’ll start the movie, then,” Rachel says, picking up the remote and navigating the Hummels’ set up without any trouble, which makes Puck duck his head to hide a snort. Neither he nor Finn can figure it out on the first try, still. “I think you’ll enjoy this. It’s more of a comedy than a musical.”
“I don’t not like musicals,” Puck points out as Joel starts to eat. “I just think a lot of the stories are boring. Same with a lot of non-musical movies.”
“You always were picky about movies. When they tried to put Fantasia 2000 on at temple, I thought you were going to have a fit!”
“At least we aged out before Home on the Range. Or like poor Chloe, so many showings of Chicken Little.”
“Have you talked to her?” Rachel asks, and Puck shakes his head. “Do you want me to slip her a note?”
“She’s not old enough to hide it good yet,” Puck says quickly. “Just tell her to be patient. I’ll figure something out if I need to.”
“Okay,” Rachel says, then falls silent as the movie finally begins. Rachel’s not wrong: it is a hilarious movie, even if Puck’s pretty sure that exactly none of the songs are good for a competition. Joel finishes eating and then plays in the floor on his playmat for awhile, and he’s starting to get tired and fussy as the movie ends.
“So you were thinking ‘Keep It Gay’ for Sectionals, right?” Puck asks with a completely straight face as he picks up Joel.
“Noah!” Rachel says.
“It’s got multiple solo parts, a catchy lyric, good beat,” Puck continues.
“I think your…” Rachel trails off and looks around, as if Kurt’s going to suddenly appear and suggest a good title for himself.
“Fake-brother,” Puck says.
Rachel makes a face, but continues. “Your fake-brother might object.”
“Are you kidding? Kurt always wants to make things gay and keep them that way,” Puck says, smirking a little.
“Noah!”
“It’s true!” Puck says. “I bet you could even call and ask him. Only, don’t do that right now.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“More baked goods at Matt’s,” Puck says. “One day, they’re going to do something other than slice bundt cake.”
Rachel snorts and then covers her mouth as she giggles. “That sounds like a euphemism.”
“I’m just saying, an entire summer of baked goods better yield something other than Matt having a weight gain to work off.”
“Oh my goodness!” Rachel keeps laughing. “Do you want to eat lunch before we sing?”
“Yeah, let me just put him down,” Puck says, straightening out the blanket on the floor with his foot before placing Joel gently down on top of it.
“I didn’t even realize he was falling asleep.”
“He mostly goes to sleep easy. Luckily he can’t roll too much. I’m thinking once he can, the stroller can be his napping spot up here.”
“Or another Pack ‘N Play?” Rachel suggests. “Don’t you still have some of the gift cards from the shower? I thought I heard Carole on the phone with Burt a few days ago and she mentioned it. You could get one of the ones without the extra attachments, now that he’s bigger.”
“Oh, huh. I guess I could,” Puck says. He follows Rachel into the kitchen. “What did you bring for lunch today?”
“Salad,” Rachel says. “I thought you could put a sliced hard-boiled egg on it, if you wanted, and some cheese, or if you want to join me in putting chick’n strips and daiya cheese on top, you could.”
Puck winces. “I’ll stick with egg and cheese.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a vegan lifestyle, Noah.”
“Nothing wrong with a non-vegan one either, Rachel,” Puck mimics, grinning at her.
“That was eerie,” Rachel says, opening the refrigerator. “You can always go into impressions.”
“Only of, like, four people,” Puck says. “Believe it or not, the demand for Finn Hudson impersonators is not actually that high.”
Rachel laughs. “Well, you never know. Maybe it will be one day?”
“Or Finn could pursue a football scholarship from the University of Alaska, on the scale of likeliness.”
“Oh no,” Rachel says, her eyes widening as she clearly pictures Finn in Alaska. “Oh no, poor Finn!”
“Do Canadian colleges have football? I guess some of them could be worse, since they’re landlocked,” Puck says.
“How is it possible to grow up here and dislike the winter as much as he does?” Rachel asks as she divides the salad into two bowls. Puck grabs two eggs and puts them in the pot on the stove.
“I put snow down the back of his pants a lot the year we first met. I always figured that was part of it,” Puck says with a shrug. “But then, he liked to find the little black ants and stick them down my shirt.”
Rachel opens and closes her mouth a few times. “I’ve never heard either of those stories before,” she finally says.
“We were seven,” Puck says, shrugging again.
Joel sleeps through their lunch and as they start slowly going through the stack of sheet music that Rachel brought with her. After a couple of songs, Puck frowns and gestures for Rachel to hand him the stack.
“We’re gonna separate these out into group numbers, duets, solos, and ‘no way’,” Puck says. “There’s no point in even trying some of these from the 50s and 60s, Rachel. You’re the only one that’s heard of some of them, and the rest of them are just…” He trails off, looking for the right words. “Products of their time.”
Rachel makes a face, but lets Puck put some of the sheet music into the ‘no way’ pile as he sorts. “Also, you have to pick out a few of these solos for any of the other girls that you think want a solo. So not Brittany. Doesn’t mean they get a competition solo,” he adds before Rachel can start her objection, her mouth already open. “Maybe invitationals, though. And some in rehearsal. Everybody’s got to get along and all that.”
“Fine,” Rachel says with a sigh, then sticks her tongue out at Puck. “I’m keeping my favorites for myself.”
“I wouldn’t expect any less,” Puck says, sticking his tongue out in return.
Around the time Joel wakes up, they stop singing, and after Puck learns how to make “crispy buffalo-spiced cauliflower,” Rachel leaves. Puck assumes she’s going home until she informs of her dance class and at least three other errands, which means Puck’s relieved that all he has to do is play with Joel and clean up the kitchen from the great fried cauliflower experiment. He chews on one of the leftover pieces of cauliflower as he washes the pan. It’s not an adequate substitute for wings, no matter what Rachel says, but it’s not a horrible snack if he compares it to raw cauliflower in ranch dip. Plus, nothing’s stopping him from having actual wings when he wants them, aside from a lack of money.
By the second week of preseason practices, Puck feels like he has a brand-new routine, and suspects some collaboration between Kurt, Finn, and Rachel. Kurt hangs around in the mornings, Rachel comes over for lunch, Kurt leaves after lunch, Rachel and Puck hang out, and every couple of days, Puck and Finn hang out in the evenings. Most of the time, Joel and Puck stay at the Hummels’, but on the second Wednesday of preseason, they go over to Rachel’s, because she wants to use her keyboard with a few of the songs they’re practicing.
Puck takes a few toys and Joel’s stroller, which at least gives him a place to hang out while Puck’s playing on the guitar. Like Puck expects, Joel goes to sleep after a bit, despite the combination of keyboard, guitar, and singing going on.
“He sleeps through a lot, doesn’t he?” Rachel asks.
“He’s apparently an ‘easy’ baby, except for the colic thing,” Puck says. He looks over at Joel, whose lips are turned up a little in his sleep. “I don’t really want to put him in the child care place at school, you know?”
“Aren’t you taking the class where you work in the child care center?”
“Yeah, but I bet they don’t let you just pick your own kid for the entire time,” Puck says. “There’s even a textbook I think.”
“You can bring him to glee practices at least?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Puck says, rubbing his hand over his face. “Just, I understand why so many people drop out after they have a kid.”
“Noah! You can’t drop out,” Rachel says.
“I didn’t say I was going to! I understand, is all.”
“You have to bring your grades up, in fact,” Rachel continues.
“Why?” Puck says.
“For your college applications, of course.”
“Rachel, we both know I’m not going to end up going to college,” Puck says. “My grades mostly suck, I’m poor, and I can’t even spell.”
“You still remember Hebrew, you have high grades in math and, apparently, Spanish, and what was all of that about encouraging Finn to get a scholarship?” Rachel rattles off in one breath.
“Hebrew’s not a school subject, that’s only two classes, three if you count glee club in my GPA, and Finn needs the encouragement. He can do it if he just thinks he can.”
“That sounds familiar,” Rachel says tartly, raising at eyebrow at Puck.
“He’s pessimistic, I’m realistic,” Puck says.
“You could get a degree in music, in languages, in math, in business,” Rachel says, barely pausing to take a breath. “It’s hardly fair if you encourage Finn with the promise of going too, and then you don’t go at all!”
“I could go to Hawaii or wherever still, I’d just be working.”
“Aren’t you the same person who just suggested that you understood why people dropped out? Joel would be in childcare far longer each day if you’re working forty hours a week than if you’re in college,” Rachel says, looking smug, as if she’s found a loophole.
“You’re relentless,” Puck says.
“Thank you.”
“It wasn’t exactly a compliment!” Puck says, sticking his tongue out at her. He laughs as she sticks out her own tongue. He can’t remember if they commonly did it as kids or if there’s something about the two of them that makes them regress, but he’s pretty sure they each stick their tongue out at the other at least twice a day.
“You’re going to at least strive for higher grades and apply, Noah,” Rachel says, getting up from the keyboard and sitting on the bed next to Puck. “We can hardly all move to Hawaii if you aren’t even trying, right?”
Puck rolls his eyes a little as he sets his guitar down and shakes his head. “Fine, fine,” he says. “I’ll try to balance my As with low Bs.”
“Or you could enroll in more classes that you’ll do well in. Have you considered taking French? Or Chinese? There’s probably math electives you could take. Don’t take more than required of history, and that’ll bring your GPA up!” Rachel says. Her face is animated, and she gestures a little. “You could major in something like international business, Noah, and get an excellent job.”
“You have a lot more confidence in my future than anyone else,” Puck says. “I think I’d get Spanish and French confused, though, ‘cause of the spelling part.”
“Chinese, then,” Rachel says. “I’ll mention it to Ms. Pillsbury the next time I’m at McKinley swapping out more sheet music.”
“One of these days we’re going to reach the end of the sheet music, you know,” Puck says.
“Not anytime soon!” Rachel beams at him. “And we still need to show Finn the group numbers we liked.”
Puck thinks about suggesting that they tell Finn to come there after practice, but his brain goes off on a tangent. He thinks about the idea of Hawaii, of the three of them working together on things, and the idea that seemed so far-fetched originally doesn’t seem far-fetched at all now, at least not in his own mind. They’ve spent enough time together as the-three-of-them, and now he’s spent enough time with Rachel alone as a teenager and not a kid, and he and Finn have more or less been a set since they met, with a few exceptions. He can’t speak for Finn and Rachel, but he knows Finn’s relaxed around Rachel in a way he never was with Quinn, and Rachel’s less over the top around Finn or the both of them than she is in other settings.
All of that’s in his mind, and Rachel’s eyes are bright and she’s smiling as she leans towards Puck just enough that part of his brain whispers “Go for it,” and he’s nothing if not impulsive, so he complies.
He lets himself almost fall forward, keeping his eyes open as long as he can, and he can see the surprise in Rachel’s eyes shift to understanding and what must be at least a little bit of desire, because when he kisses her, she kisses back from the beginning. There’s no startle or hesitation, and the two of them sit there kissing almost lazily for long enough that Puck has to shift his weight. When Rachel’s hand lands on top of his, though, he suddenly remembers that this isn’t something they do. The Finn-and-Rachel-and-Puck threesome is something entirely in his head, there’s no evidence that Finn would be interested in Puck romantically or in non-monogamy, and less than a year after he slept with his best friend’s then-girlfriend, he’s kissing his best friend’s current girlfriend. All of that goes through his head, but he doesn’t pull away abruptly, instead slowly ending the kiss. It’s not really Rachel’s fault; he’ll make sure she knows that, and that Finn does too.
Maybe he can even remind Finn about the conversation they had before, and it’d be painfully embarrassing to admit that his mind got ahead of everyone and everything else, but it might make Finn more apt to at least forgive him and not beat the shit out of him. If he doesn’t mention how Rachel was reciprocating, the two of them might even be okay, in the end.
Rachel is blinking, looking a little dazed and confused, then her eyes widen.
“I’m sorry,” Puck says quickly. “I’m sorry. I’ll… it’s my fault.” Maybe they don’t have to tell Finn at all, even, but he suspects it’ll come out eventually.
“Noah Benjamin Puckerman, I was here,” Rachel says, “and I believe we were both fully participating.”
“I’ll take the blame,” Puck insists. “Just… let me talk to him first, okay?”
“You really think that’s a good idea?” Rachel says. “Don’t you think it’d be better coming from someone whom he won’t punch?”
“I have a baby,” Puck points out, looking over at a still-sleeping Joel. “I can hold Joel while we talk. He won’t punch me if I’m holding a baby, and he can’t break up with me without listening.”
“You can’t use your son as a human shield!”
“You were going to use your.. your… being a girl-ness!”
They stare at each other for a few seconds before laughing, and even though Puck knows they have to figure out what on earth they’re going to do, he lets himself laugh for a bit. It is funny, the two of them arguing over who’s going to tell Finn and take the blame. Ninety percent, or maybe ninety-five percent, of Puck’s brain is sure it’s going to be a disaster, with Finn angry and Puck embarrassed and frozen out for awhile again, but the traitorous remainder of his brain keeps suggesting that there’s a slim possibility that Finn’ll understand, or even want the same thing that Puck wants.
Puck sort of hates that part of his brain for keeping the hope alive in the face of all evidence to the contrary.
“I’m talking to Finn,” Puck says when they calm down, as firmly as he can. “There’s… stuff he knows that might make it less bad. Whatever that word is. Not meditate.”
“Mitigate, I think.”
“Yeah, mitigate. So maybe since he knows it, it’ll get smoothed over. Okay?” Puck doesn’t really think it’ll be okay, at least not for him, but he can probably convince Rachel.
“I’m not pleased with this course of action,” Rachel says. “I’m just as at fault as you are.”
“Shhh,” Puck says harshly. “No. Stop that.”
“I’m just as guilty!”
“Not outside of the next however long I’m here today, you’re not,” Puck says, frowning at her. “Guilt-free. You can’t act guilty.”
“Noah!”
“I mean it,” Puck says. “When Joel wakes up, I’m going to pack up and go home, and tomorrow I’ll talk to Finn, and you can’t act weird if you talk to Finn before then, and you can’t act weird around your dads. In here. You can be guilty in here, and that’s it.”
“I don’t like this!”
“I don’t care!” Puck says. “Why are you so determined to take the blame?”
“Because truth is important!”
“Not this time,” Puck says, as Joel starts to stir. “Seriously. We’ll all be happier this way.”
“I somehow very much doubt that,” Rachel mutters under her breath, but quietly enough that Puck can ignore it. He packs up Joel’s stuff and the sheet music, and just before he leaves Rachel’s room, he turns towards her again.
“We’ll meet at the park tomorrow. Public, but if we didn’t meet, Kurt and Finn’d both get suspicious before I talk to Finn at all.”
Rachel sighs heavily. “Fine. We could simply not tell Finn at all, you know.”
“Do you really think we could both pull off not acting weird and guilty around him? Even if we did individually, what about when all three of us are together? Then he finds out eventually, and he’s madder because we lied. Sound familiar?”
Rachel doesn’t respond, just sighs again, and Puck heads out with Joel. It doesn’t take very long in the truck for Puck to start feeling the crushing guilt he figured was on its way during his and Rachel’s conversation. It doesn’t really matter what he wants in his head, he still kissed Finn’s girlfriend—again—and that’s probably how Finn will rightfully see it too. He’s mad at himself, and by the time he gets back to the Hummels’, he’s a little bit mad at Kurt, too. He knows it’s not the most rational thing, and not really Kurt’s fault, but Puck feels sick to his stomach, and he needs to push a little bit off onto someone else.
Puck unloads the truck and carries Joel in, bags over his shoulder. He almost gets to the basement door without seeing anyone, which would have been the most ideal situation. He could put Joel down and flop down on the bed or the floor himself and wallow in the guilt for awhile.
Instead, he hears footsteps behind him that he recognizes as Kurt’s, and he realizes he’s not going to be able to disappear down the stairs before Kurt sees him. “We almost made it,” Puck whispers to Joel, who gums at Puck’s shoulder instead of responding.
“Did you and Joel have a good day?” Kurt asks.
Puck swallows and reminds himself that Kurt has no idea what happened, but then he remembers that it was a conversation with Kurt that started the whole thing. “Fine,” he says, and he knows it’s a little brusque at best. “Peachy.” He doesn’t really wait for Kurt to respond before heading down the stairs, even though he can hear Kurt spluttering a little behind him.
He puts Joel down in the Pack ‘N Play and then lands heavily on the bed, dropping Joel’s bag in the floor as he does so. “We are so fucked,” he says into the mattress, and Joel squeals a little. “Yeah, including you. Rachel wasn’t wrong. I’m totally using you as a shield.”