Chapter - 21

"Hey, Berry! I've brought some booze!" Puck says as soon as he is through the door with a couple of beer boxes. Puck and Matt are the last ones to make it to the barbecue, as last night the bar was open and they actually went to sleep early this morning. The two of them open a couple of bottles and go outside.

The rest of the party is around the house and the backyard mingling. Finn is at the barbecue, cooking the meat that Rachel won't touch. Lux and Bug are looking through the iPod connected to the sound system, choosing the next few songs. Leroy is animatedly talking with Judy, while Hiram hangs around them, contributing from time to time to their conversation and making sure Leroy is completely comfortable. Brittany and Santana were telling Lucy how their lives in California are going and now the blonde seems to be showing the other some new moves she's come up with.

Tasha and their friends are sitting by themselves, talking about Seth's experience at the charity gala. Sofia listens to the obviously exaggerated tale of how he met some famous people and laughs with him. Anna nods along at the excited boy's monologue while eyeing curiously Tasha out of the corner of her eye.

"Hey, guys. How are you doing?"

"Great Mrs. B." Sofia and Seth answer in a chorus.

"Oh, please. I asked you two to call me Rachel when we are out of school." She repeats with a chuckle. The two teenagers look at each other and shrug. They don't seem to have made up her mind to call her by her name. Anna just laughs. "I'm going inside. Can I get you something to drink or something? " She tells them.

The teenagers eye their drinks and seem fine. "I'll help you." Tasha volunteers, following Rachel inside.

Rachel puts various glasses on the counter and gets the ice from the freezer. "Are you having fun, Tasha?" She tries.

The younger brunette shrugs, her arms tucked around her chest. "I guess."

Rachel sighs, she isn't going to get anything from her. She stops in her tracks, turning to the teenager. "I'm not really sure what was going on last night or what you and Lux have talked about, but I just want to say that I am here too if you ever want to talk... if you need anything at all. I'm not going anywhere and neither are you, for as long as you want to."

She sees a little frown come across her otherwise plain features. She locks her eyes with the teenager's. "I love you, Tasha. I know we all came together in a rather... accidental way, but we have formed our little family and I absolutely love it." Tasha's eyebrow pops a little upwards, as if surprised. "We have each other and balance each other out quite well." She continues. "While I tend to look into the bright side of life, Lux is a very catastrophic person. And you..." She chuckles, to herself. "You serve us both with sarcastic jokes and reality checks. I feel pretty lucky to have found the two of you."

Rachel doesn't expect Tasha's walls to fall down in an instant. And they don't. However she feels them tremble slightly around her. Rachel takes advantage of this to take a step into Tasha's personal space and wrap her in a bear hug.

The teenager tenses up. "I'm a mess." She shakes her head slowly. "I freak out and do stupid things."

"Teen hormones. Maybe you can try to think things through first." Rachel shrugs it off.

"I'm harsh and rude." She continues.

"That's part of your charm." Rachel chuckles. The brunette kisses the teen's head. "I am not going to get rid of you, Tasha. I'm going to fight for you, I'm going to earn your trust, I'm going to keep loving you and squeezing you into as many hugs as you let me. Probably until you are fed up with me." The teen chuckles. "But I hope with time you grow more comfortable here and they're just plain annoying." She says, squeezing her again. Tasha doesn't return her embrace, but relaxes into it, leans in even.

"Hey, what's going on?" A blonde head comes into the kitchen and finds them hugging. Tasha tenses a little, but Rachel doesn't let go. "Can I join?" Lucy leaves her empty glass on the counter and opens her arms wide. "I love hugs."

"Seriously..." Tasha musters, as Lucy joins in and puts her arms around the both of them.

Lucy just chuckles. "Yep."

After a couple of minutes, Tasha coughs and disentangles the two of them from her. She turns around to the fridge and gets a couple of sodas and a couple of glasses with ice. Lucy doesn't move too much and continues embracing only Rachel, nuzzling into the shorter woman's neck.

Tasha smiles at them. "You two are disgusting." She states. Rachel laughs at her antics.

"We are disgustingly sweet?" She asks.

Tasha nods and chuckles. "Yeah, you are something."

"So what do you think?" Rachel continues, completely ignoring that Lucy is there listening. "Do you think we are good together? Do you approve of her?"

"Wait, she doesn't approve?" Lucy recriminates Rachel.

Rachel shrugs. "She's never said a word one way or the other." She looks back at the teen. "Not to put you on the spot or anything."

"You don't like me?" Lucy snaps her attention to the teenager.

Tasha chuckles at the blonde's pout. It reminds her a whole lot to Lux's pout. "It's not like it matters, you know."

"Of course it matters." Rachel and Lucy say in a chorus. For a second, they look at each other. Then Rachel continues. "Of course it matters, Tasha. You are part of this family. Your opinion matters to me."

"I am not part of your family, but it matters to me too." The blonde musters, a little gutted. "I care about you."

Tasha's astonished look speaks for itself. "Really." Rachel intervenes, giving her more time to process. "I mentioned last night that you went out on your own and she called me at 3 am to ask me if you made it back okay." She explains.

"I actually asked you to text me when she did, but you didn't and I had an awful feeling that something had happened so I decided to call you at 3 am." She recriminates. "And you were completely asleep."

"Well, I'm sorry I forgot, but you got the message." She continues. "Now, come on. Take these drinks to the guests or something. We'll follow you out."

"Yes, ma'am." She salutes and starts to leave with her hands full.

"Lucy?" Tasha speaks, with a little voice. "You're cool." She finishes. The blonde smiles at her and nods happily, before finally walking out.

Rachel takes the rest of the drinks and stops by Tasha. "It's okay." She tells her. The teenager breathes out slowly. "You are doing great. Little steps, okay?" After some consideration, Tasha nods. Rachel bumps her hip against the teenager's. "Now, come on. We have friends and family outside. Let's have fun."

As they walk out the house and into the backyard, Rachel spots Lux spying on Tasha from their friends group. Just one look at her friend and she quickly fixes her questioning eyes onto the diva. Rachel nods, reassuring her. Things will be all right.

"Hey, Rach." Lucy comes along again. "Everything okay?" She asks, a little worried.

The brunette nods. "Yes." She answers, keeping her sight on Tasha. The teenager sits on an empty chair by Lux's side and the blonde puts her arm around her shoulder, dragging her to lean in. Tasha complies to her best friend and finally she smiles, relaxed. "I hope it'll be okay."

Rachel sighs and looks back to the blonde. "Am I going to complicate things? Maybe we should just..."

"No, it doesn't really have anything to do with you." She quickly assures her. Then she sighs. "I think she is getting comfortable in this living situation... and that's exactly her problem. She doesn't want to get comfortable here, because she isn't used to these things to last." Lucy bites her lip and continues listening. "I talked to her, told her she is here for the long haul, that I love her and am going to earn her trust. It's going to take time, but we'll get there. Seeing that you care about her may have helped too." She pauses. "And just so you know, I was pretty sure she didn't have a problem with you - she was way about you, but she's accepted you now -. It was just a way of including her in the issues affecting this family." She adds as an afterthought.

Lucy nods along, smiling, and kisses Rachel's forehead. "You are amazing, you know that?" Rachel gives her a weird look. "Yes, you are. You have taken in not only one, but two teenagers and you are doing an unbelievable job with them."

"I'm just doing my best. Not sure it's unbelievable, though." She huffs.

She shakes her head, smiling. "And you are modest." Lucy leans in and kisses her slowly, not deepening it, just savoring the chaste kiss. She finally leans back after a few minutes, not too far, their breaths still mingling, their eyes still closed. "I really, really like you, Rachel." Lucy whispers, loud enough for Rachel to hear in the close distance. "If it wasn't so early in our relationship, I might've said I love you."

Rachel's face lights up, her smile grows impossibly big and her eyes brighten up happily. "I really, really like you too." She chuckles. "But for the record, I do think our relationship is quite special and it just took us too damn long to start dating."

"Did you just swear?" Lucy intervenes.

Taking advantage of the already short distance between them, Rachel brings their lips together again in a more leisurely paced kiss, effectively shutting the blonde up. The kiss quickly grows in intensity and Lucy recovers pushing her tongue into the brunette's mouth, massaging her tongue and making a moan escape from her throat.

"Excuse me?" Their make out session is cut short. Lucy immediately pulls away. Rachel slows her down, keeping Lucy's lower lip between her teeth, reluctant to break apart. "If that's my ginger ale, can I have it before the ice melts from the heat between you two?"

Lucy's pale skin gradually turns impossibly crimson. Rachel huffs and takes the ginger ale to her father, finally freeing her hands. She looks back at her girlfriend... if only she could put them back into Lucy while they go back to kissing.

The blonde squirms under Rachel's eyes and follows her girlfriend to the little group of parents. They were so lost in their little world that it didn't even cross her mind the thought that somebody might be watching in this little party, much less Rachel's fathers. "Oh, you look good in red, Lucy." Leroy continues.

"Daddy." Rachel wines like a five years old.

Hiram shakes his head, half amused. "Leroy..."

"Relax, honey. I'm just having some fun." He says, shipping his drink. "You two looked completely adorable, by the way. Until it seemed you wanted to rip each other's clothes off." He continues joking at the end of his compliment. A little smile plays on Lucy's lips as she continues to look red. "How are you doing, Lucy?" He asks the blonde. The Berrys have already met Lucy several times since she appeared back in Rachel and Lux's lives. They have become comfortable with the woman after learning that she wasn't anything like what they remembered and deeply regretted the pain she caused. Hiram and Leroy talked about it and decided to try to let that go and begin to know the woman before them now.

So far, so good. They were a little surprised when Rachel told them she had started dating the blonde and worried not only about her daughter, but the repercussions it may have with Lux. They were shocked to learn she was actually their bigger supporter.

"Pretty well." She finally answers, dropping her arm around Rachel's waist, determined to show that she is not in any sense ashamed of her relationship with the brunette or being affectionate with her in public. She just got a little too carried away, intoxicated by Rachel's lips, and would have continued if her father hadn't put a stop to it. "How's it going with you?"

"Well, we just finished a 5k pieces puzzle of the Forbidden City in Beijing and that is the most interesting thing that happened to me this week." He shrugs. "Have you read something good lately?"

Lucy takes a sip from her drink and draws patterns on the patch of bare skin she finds over Rachel's hip. "If you are referring to that new chapter of the book I told you about... not yet." Leroy groans. "The writer did make the modifications I suggested to maintain the suspense even more, but he's blocked. He won't admit it, but he is. I might have to go to New York to kick his ass into action."

Rachel tries to focus on the conversation between Lucy and Leroy. Her Daddy is hilariously invested in this story the blonde told him she was editing. However she can't seem to concentrate at all. She is hypersensitive now and squirms under Lucy's touch. Rachel watches how Lucy bites her lip to suppress her smirk and continues with the patterns.

Judy jumps into the conversation, curious, and Leroy starts recounting the story for her benefit, leaving Lucy free. Rachel stands on her tiptoes to whisper into the blonde's ear. "If you keep doing that, I'm going to start kicking people out and sending the girls to a sleepover."

Lucy chuckles, stopping her movements around Rachel's hips. "We do need to find some alone time. Soon."

Meanwhile, on the other side of the backyard, Lux's opportunity to drag Tasha to a secluded Tasha and question her are ruined when Puck walks by. "My daughter's a rock star!" He exclaims, picking Lux by her middle and up the ground. She squeals and he laughs as he puts him down away from the group. "I'm sorry I couldn't make it to the competition." He says then.

"It's okay. I know the club's biggest days are the weekends and you were open pretty late." She shrugs.

"Well, you guys were amazing. I'm so proud of you."

Lux gives him a weird look. "How do you know...?"

"Lucy sent me the video." At the mention of the woman, both of them search her in between the guests. The finally spot her kissing Rachel just outside the house. "Wow. Hot." He says, smiling. Lux looks back from them and to Puck's grin. She pinches his arm. "Ouch."

"Stop leering at them. That's my mother and my guardian." She reprimands.

"And I'm your father." He says passing his hand over the aching spot. "Are you okay with that though? Doesn't it weird you out?"

"Doesn't it weird you out?" He shakes his head vigorously, still enjoying the sight. She shrugs. "I... I love Rachel. She really cares about me and hers is the first home I have really felt completely comfortable in. And Mom... she is great, better than I ever imagined. She does love me and wants to be in my life. And I want her in my life too." She sighs. "I don't know, it's a stupid delusion. In my mind, it makes sense that if this works, maybe I can have both of them, at the same time, and I don't ever have to choose and disappoint one of them." Puck listens to her closely. "And I can hang out with you over the club any time, right?" She finishes.

Puck smiles and puts his arm around Lux's shoulders. He pulls her towards his chest and kisses her head. "Yes, you better."