A/N: So this is the first story in a round robin LJ community I have with sassy26, 2looney and jlz_1 that uses Texts From Last Night as prompts and can be found at http:/ community livejournal .com/ gleeksfln / (without the spaces). The original prompt was from sassy26 but was not TFLN based. I added in the TFLN prompt (214): Sex on bubble wrap = best decision ever.

"I'm serious Rachel; you've got to help us out!"

Finn was starting to panic a little; it was nearing the end of July, almost 2 months after regionals, and he and Puck had still not saved up enough money to pay back Vocal Adrenaline.

"How can you boys have not made enough money yet, it's been almost 2 months since you started working!" Damn she looked scary when she was pissed. Finn wiped his hand over the back of his neck and cringed at telling his ex-girlfriend about his current girlfriends need for nice things. Their relationship had been pretty strange ever since "The Incident" 4 weeks ago.

"The Incident" involved lies coming to light, really awkward sex and admissions on both their parts that a romantic relationship was clearly not working between them. It's been a rocky road to friendship since then, but damnit they need her help, Ms. Corcoran is flipping out.

"Well…you see Santana…she's the kind of girl who well…she expects nice things" He sounds like an idiot but Rachel is crazy enough, he does not need her mad at him.

She just scoffs, rolls her eyes and tells him that he better secure her the job before walking away muttering something about guys and poor spending habits, he thinks he might have even heard her say morons.

Puck thinks it's pretty crazy that they've been working together for 2 weeks and they're all pretty much fucking inseparable. What fucking planet is he living on? It started that first shift, they were all working together when Rachel got the call from her dads that they were going out for the evening and wouldn't be able to pick her up after work.

"It's fine daddy, I'll take the bus home, you guys have fun"

It was Finn who had opened his big mouth; Puck swears he would kill him if they weren't just getting their friendship back on track. "Puck can drive you home!"

To pretty much everyone's surprise this starts a tradition; over the last 2 weeks any time they all worked together they'd pile into Puck's truck after their shift ended and head to Wendy's where Puck and Finn would convince Rachel to eat French fries, lots of French fries. It was weird how outside of school Rachel was really almost, almost a normal teenager. The three of them got along surprisingly well.

Finn isn't a complete idiot. Like he knows he's not the brightest crayon in the tool shed, or however that expression goes, but Puck has been his best friend since they were 4, he knows him better than anyone. So Finn knows that when Puck's daily trips to the 7/11 before work change from Twizzlers and Cherry slushies to Red Vines and Grape slushies something is up.

During their third shift working together a silly pop song comes on the radio and Rachel gets a small smile on her face and starts humming along while absentmindedly folding towels and stacking them on the shelves. When the song is over she turns to Puck and says "I think our version was better Noah"

Finn looked over at Puck and watched as he started choking and coughing. Finn burst out laughing. Puck got his shit together and gave Finn a menacing look, "Shut the fuck up dude"

"When did this happen?" Finn asked in between fits of laughter.

"Seriously dude, shut up!"

Finn thinks it's funny, he knows for a fact the only time Puck has ever willingly played such a girly song was a year ago when his little sister had chicken pox and she asked him to play Hannah Montana songs for her. So the fact that he played this pop song with Rachel is seriously messed up. He's beginning to wonder what the hell is happening to his best friend.

It got even weirder when they were driving home from Wendy's the other night when Rachel reached out and changed the radio channel. Finn expected Puck to snap, the radio in his truck had been off limits to everyone ever since - well ever since Puck has had the truck. Once he'd tried changing the station and he'd had a bruise on his arm for 2 weeks afterwards.

Finn didn't connect the dots until the other day at work when they were all stacking wash cloths; Rachel was bending down to fill up the bottom rack while wearing one of her short skirts causing it to ride dangerously high. The Puck he knew would have been all over her, making ridiculous comments and leering. Instead Puck started freaking out, "Berry what the hell are you doing? Are you trying to flash the whole fucking store?"

"Language, Noah"

That's when Finn got it. All the little things he'd been noticing over the last 2 weeks finally made sense; Puck was into Rachel, like really into Rachel. He comes up with a plan to get them together.

Okay so it was really Santana's idea when he asked her "what should I do about them?"

She snarled back at him, "I don't know; lock them in the back room? Who cares? Now take me out to dinner"

So that's exactly what he does. Friday night he sets the lock in the back room to only unlock from the outside and leaves a few minutes early, leaving Puck and Rachel close up.

Puck and Rachel were closing up on Friday night and grabbed the piles of extra towels to go back in the back room. As Rachel reached up to put them on the top shelf, and now that they were alone in the back room he had to appreciate the view, those skirts really should be illegal.

"Come on Berry, let's get you home"

Puck reached for the doorknob to the back room only to find it locked. What the fuck? You've got to be kidding me!

"What's wrong?"

"It's fucking locked! We're locked in here. You've got to be fucking kidding me!"

"Calm down Noah!" Rachel told him, watching as he paced the back room fuming.

"Calm down, who the hell locked the door! It's never locked."

Rachel just shrugged surprisingly calm given the situation "Look it doesn't matter, we're stuck, you know there's no reception back here. We may as well get comfortable; we're going to be here all night"

Puck was pissed, who wanted to spend the night locked up in a storage room at Sheet-n-Things with Rachel fucking Berry, no matter how much you were getting along at the time.

Rachel and Puck had been sitting locked in the back room for an hour, in complete silence. And then suddenly Rachel is sniffing, wiping furiously at the tears running down her cheeks and Puck has no fucking clue what to do about it, or even what caused it.

But he gets up from where he's sitting on an overturned crate and slides down next to her on the floor, gently resting his hand on her knee. He hates seeing the women he cares about in tears, it's an awful fucking feeling, and whoa, apparently now Rachel falls into that category.

Rachel puts her head on his shoulder, and they sit there for a few minutes still not saying anything. But they don't really need to if he thinks about it; he knows all the crap Rachel's been dealing with, her mom not wanting her, Jesse stomping on her heart, her disastrous attempt at dating (and having sex) with Finn only to discover he'd lied. They'd both been through hell and back in the last year.

"They're all idiots Rachel. Shelby, Finn, Jesse; they don't know what they're missing" he tells her with a wink.

Rachel quickly wipes away her tears and looks up at him, "Really?"

"Yeah, really" he answered back with a smile.

When she smiled up at him his chest felt lighter, until she lifted her head up and brushed her lips softly against his and the pressure was back, but different, like he couldn't breathe without wanting her. And before he's even aware he's done it he has his hand on her jaw, tilting her head back up as he lowers his lips to hers. It started out gentle, but to his surprise Rachel was the one to deepen the kiss, running her tongue along his lip asking for access. It was when the bit and pulled gently on his lower lip that he lost his shit, dragging a blanket off the shelf and laying her back on it, never breaking the kiss.

Rachel was pulling on his shirt, sliding her hands along his stomach as he slid his hand up her thigh. They stripped each other's clothing off slowly; Puck running his hands all over her body, teasing her with gentle swipes of his fingers on her ribcage, her thigh, her hip and everywhere in between all while kissing her senseless. Winding her up until she was shaking with need. When his hand (finally) reaches down and he swipes along her slit he finds her soaking wet and has to fight back the moan threatening to spill from his lips. He slips one finger into her; she grips him so tight he can't even imagine the pleasure of having that tight heat surrounding his cock and almost pushes himself into her right then. Except he doesn't have condoms, and even he's not dumb enough to make that mistake twice (he ignores the voice in his head saying maybe down the line somewhere, with Rachel, it won't be a mistake).

"I'm on the pill Noah, pleaaase" Rachel whines, pushing herself down onto his finger. Puck lets out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, he wasn't sure if he was capable of being locked in this godforsaken closet all not and not be able to have her. He slips a second finger into her, stretching her as he lines himself up at her entrance. When he finally slides into her, rocking his hips until he's completely sheathed in her, he almost snaps, he just needs her so goddamn much. But he's determined to take this slow, show her in some small way that he cares about her enough to be gentle. She meets him thrust for thrust, wrapping her legs around his waist and taking him in deeper and he loses track of time. All he knows is the pleasure he experiences as he slides in and out and he can't get enough. When they climax together, almost perfectly in sync he feels whole. And he's not sure how he should feel about that.

So he slips out of her, collapsing beside her and says "Sleep Rach".

He wakes up a few hours later to Rachel tickling him. No like actually, legit tickling his sides. When she sees him open his eyes she giggles and tries to get away. But Puck's too quick and he tackles her onto the pile of bubble wrap on the floor a few feet away, the loud pop echoing around the small back room. As Rachel struggles beneath him giggling and moving around all the blood in his brain starts rushing south and he's cutting off her giggling with his mouth as he grows hard and thick against her stomach.

This time when he slides into her it's different, it's hard and fast and needy, like they can't get enough of each other. Every time they moved more bubbles would pop causing Rachel to jolt against him at the noise, and clench herself tighter around him. Rachel's orgasm rips through her causing her whole body to shudder and send Puck into his release. They're both covered in a thin sheen of sweat and breathing hard as Puck pulls out and collapses beside her as the air bubbles in the bubble wrap pop. He doesn't even know why really, but all of a sudden he's laughing, and Rachel's giggling right along with him and he realizes he hasn't laughed this hard in almost a year, and it feels nice. It also feels oddly right that it's with Rachel.

She turns to look at him after they've both stopped laughing (except for the odd chuckle that escapes)."Sex on bubble wrap? Best idea ever"

By the watch on Rachel's wrist it's almost 7 am. She's lying with her head on his chest fast asleep but Puck has been awake for the last 20 minutes replaying last night (and really the last 2 weeks) over in his head. And he has to wonder if he should have seen this coming. He's not even sure when he started care about her, he thinks it may have been there ever since they spent that one week 'dating' months ago.

When he looks back down Rachel is stirring, slowly opening her eyes. A sleepy smile spreads across her face as she looked up at him.

"Morning"

"Good morning Rach"

She sits up and gives him a quick kiss and that's all it takes to get him going. As she's pulling away he grabs her and pulls her back, fusing their lips together in a scorching kiss. 5 minutes later they are furiously making out, Rachel's shirt on the floor beside them when he hears it, the distinct sound of the door unlocking. He stands up quickly shoving Rachel behind him along with her shirt just in time to see Finn open the door to the back room. He took one look at them, their rumpled clothes and Rachel struggling to put her shirt back on, and burst out laughing.

Puck made himself look as menacing as he could while trying to keep Rachel covered until she finally got her shirt on. When Finn calmed down enough to form a coherent sentence he just shook his head and muttered "Finally"

As they all headed for the parking lot, his arm around Rachel's shoulders, he couldn't help but wonder when Finn had become so damn perceptive.