flirt - noah puckerman

Chapter 23

chapter twenty-three - the substitute 

Erin's POV

"Hey," Mercedes sighs, coming up to my locker. 

"Hey," I respond, but it ends up coming out more as a question.  

"What are you doing afterschool today?" she laughs nervously, making me cock an eyebrow at her in confusion.

"Why?  Do we have a Glee thing?" 

"No," she swallows. "I just was wondering if you wanted to go to the Lima Bean or something." 

"Oh," I let out a small laugh. 

It's not that Mercedes and I weren't friends-- we just weren't necessarily on a hanging-out-outside-of-school basis.  

"Look, Erin," she sighs. "I know you probably aren't the biggest fan of me since I dated the dude you liked, but-" 

"No," I laugh, rolling my eyes playfully and shutting my locker. "Mercedes, it's fine.  We can definitely go to the Lima Bean after school."

"Thank God," she lets out a dramatic sigh as the two of us make our way towards the choir room.  "If I have to spend one more minute with Kurt and Blaine, I think I'm going to explode."

We walk into the choir room, and I roll my eyes seeing Puck crouched on the ground with a stick of butter.  I quickly grab Mercedes' arm and guide her around the slick floor.

"Hey!  You're ruining the novelty of the butter floor," he pouts. 

"I think the novelty of the 'butter floor' was ruined after you did it every single time we had a substitute since sixth grade," I laugh, as he gives me a playful scoff.   

"Did someone say something about a substitute?" Rachel struts into the room, before slipping and falling on her back. 

"See?" Noah smirks, raising his eyebrows at me.  I roll my eyes at him before he comes over and takes a seat on the other side of me.  He looks around the room and raises an eyebrow at me. "Where's Bieber?" he smirks. 

"He had to go home last period," I explain. "He got that monkey flu that Mr. Schue is out with." 

"You know, my girlfriend, Lauren Zizes, was actually patient zero at McKinley for the monkey flu," he smirks confidently at me. 

"Was that supposed to be a flex?" I cock an eyebrow at him.  "That your girlfriend was the first one to get the monkey flu?" I laugh.  He pauses and opens his mouth to respond but is quickly interrupted.

"Hola, clase," a tall blonde lady grins at us, sliding gracefully over the buttered floor and making her way to the center of the room. "Nothing says 'Bienvenidos' quite like a buttered floor.  My name is Holly Holiday," she smirks.  "What's yours?" 

"I'm Finn Hudson.  I'm quarterback of the football team," Puck mimics Finn. 

"And I'm Rachel Berry," Santana grins. "His loud, loud girlfriend." 

"I'm Mike Chang," Brittany nods.  

"Well, Mike Chang," Ms. Holiday laughs. "I recently watched a video of you guys performing at Regionals where you came in last.  Maybe it's because the songs were about thirty years old-" 

"Those songs are classics," Finn defends, making me roll my eyes. 

"They are," she laughs. "But they sounded like somebody else's favorite songs, not yours."