Okay so I owe you all an explanation as to where the heck I've been lately, and why this hasn't been updated, so here goes nothing.

In the past year, I was diagnosed with Epilepsy, and I've been messing around with medications and getting testing done, and well I've finally found a drug that's working for me (at least for now) and so I figured that I'd update this.

I just wanted to say thank you to everyone that's read this in the past, that will read this, and I really hope that you like it. I tried to do something a little different this time, and I might switch the writing style since my writing has changed quite a lot within the past while, but I do hope that you guys like this update, and if you've got any criticism, comments or questions, feel free to message me!

xxx

BRODY'S POV

The minute that he heard her voice say his name, his heart constricted in his chest slightly, and he had to put the dish that he'd been washing back in the sink. They'd sat down and spoken a few days ago, but it'd gone no where, and truthfully it'd just left him feeling empty and angry. "Uh, hey..." he finally let out, his shoulder trying to carefully balance his iPhone between his shoulder and ear as he looked for a tea towel. Once his hands were dry, he ran one of them through his hair and stood in the middle of the kitchen, trying to figure out what to say to the young woman on the other side of the phone.

"Brody?" he heard her say, and automatically he replied with a simple yeah. "I said, we need to talk." She repeated, her voice clearer than it had been.

He nodded and then realized that she couldn't see him. "Yeah I-I heard you, sorry. Where'd you wanna talk?" he asked, as he leaned against the oven.

It was times such as this that he was glad that Rachel, Santana and Kurt were out of the loft, it gave him the freedom to speak to whomever he wanted, and while most of the time when he was alone in the loft he just read, it was nice to be able to speak to Mercedes without worrying about Rachel catching him.

He could hear Mercedes curse underneath her breath, telling him that she hadn't thought that far ahead, and when she admitted to as much, he smiled softly, only to wipe the expression off of his lips when he realized what he was doing. "We could meet in Central Park?" He offered. It was public, and there was less of a chance of him wanting to sexually jump her in the presence of hundreds of people, rather than them both meeting at the restaurant of her Hotel, where it only took twenty or so steps to go to her room.

"Uh…" she paused, and he gathered that she was thinking the same thing he was, and within seconds, a simple "sure" escaped her lips. Nodding to himself, he moved off of the oven, telling her just where to meet him, before hanging up the phone.

His feelings towards what was about to happen were a mixture of different things all at once. He was nervous; because he didn't want to lose her as a friend – which he considered them to be. However, he didn't want to hurt Rachel even more than he already had, even though he knew that something was going on with him. His feelings towards Mercedes weren't just that of friendship. When she had come to the loft to visit, he had stared too much at her lips, her breasts, at the curve of her ass, or the way her hips swayed as she walked. There was more to what had happened between them the night they'd hooked up, and while it was mind boggling to think about, it was the truth.

Letting out a long groan, accompanied with a sigh, he grabbed his keys and left the apartment, locking the door behind him, prior to heading towards Central Park to meet the young woman who was not his girlfriend, but who was starting to occupy his thoughts.

Once he got there, he could see her sitting with her legs crossed at the ankle, her hands resting over her purse, which was situated on her lap, as she looked at the people around her. Kurt had been right, she was glowing, and a part of him took pride in the fact that he'd been the cause of that. Biting on his lip, he walked down the steps that lead down to the fountain, and made his way over to her, a small smile on his face as he did so. He was trying to hide the fact that his stomach was doing flips, and that his heart was banging inside his chest cavity like a sledgehammer, he hoped at least, that he was being somewhat convincing. "Hey." He said finally, hoping that whatever they came up with during their conversation, that it would at least lead to them remaining to be friends.

MERCEDES' POV.

Mercedes had been waiting in central park for the past fifteen minutes, she'd been listening to the people around her talk, laugh – even cry; all to keep her wits about her. After her talk with Santana, things had kind of hit her, and she needed to talk to Brody before she lost the nerve that she'd gathered in the first place. The last thing she wanted was for either she or him to be hurt, and so them speaking was something that they were going to have to do, and while in a sense she was 'okay' with talking to him, when she laid her eyes on him, any sense of her being okay was gone, and instead her heart decided to start beating rapidly in her chest, skipping a beat every now and then. Offering him a small smile in response to the one that he gave her, "Hey" she replied back softly, standing and placing her purse over one of her shoulders as he held his hand out to her. She didn't take it, but she did follow him as they began walking away from the fountain, silence radiating between them for a few moments before he spoke.

"So, you uh, you wanted to talk?" he asked awkwardly, running his hand through his chestnut hair as he waited for her to reply. "Yeah –" she started, before moving out of the way for a bike rider, "I…Santana stopped by my room earlier." She said to him, and the information that she'd given him caused him to falter in his steps momentarily.

"What did you two talk about?" he asked curiously, his jaw tense.

She knew it had been wrong of her to tell Santana what had happened without consulting him, but she couldn't help it, it had slipped out, and truthfully, she felt better having shared with at least someone. "Well… We-We talked about you. I told her what happened, and she wasn't too impressed, but she just basically said that we needed to talk." She told him, her arms crossing against her chest. She knew it was foolish for her to want to talk after speaking to Santana and not Brody, but there was a difference. Her feelings for Brody were different, even if her guilt was telling her to start thinking otherwise.

"Oh…" he began, as he tried to figure out what to say. "What exactly did you want to talk about? I thought we did all of our talking at the coffee shop the other day, you know, when you decided that you were going to ignore all of my calls" he said, the small jab at the end of his sentence causing her to wince ever so slightly.

"Okay, I deserve that… But." She paused, and took his hand, eyeing an empty bench and leading them to it. "I've just been really confused. I can't look at you properly, and if Santana can tell that something is up with me, I don't know how I'm even going to be able to face Rachel." She confessed, tears welling up in her big doe like brown eyes.

She could tell that he sympathized with her, because of the grimace that was etched on his features. "So what, you want to… Come clean to Rachel?" he asked, an audible gulp sounding from the back of his throat. And when she nodded, she could see him physically hunch, perhaps their conversation wasn't going to go as well as she'd originally planned.

BRODY'S POV.

She'd told Santana. She'd gone and told Santana of all people what had happened between them. Brody didn't know Santana that well, but he knew enough about the tall woman to know that she didn't like him, and so to have Mercedes not only be friends with her, but have confessed something that needed to be treated with such digression to her, it frustrated him. Instead of groaning however, he simply rested his elbows on his knees and rested his head in his hands.

What would he lose and what would he gain by coming clean to Rachel? Well, he'd lose her, and he'd lose the roof over his head. What he'd be gaining? Freedom, a chance to really figure out what was going on with his sudden feelings towards Mercedes, and for all his guilt to go away – or at least, most of it. Mercedes was right, coming clean was probably the better option out of all of them, but it didn't mean that he necessarily liked it.

Sighing, he sat up and looked at the young woman beside him, who seemed to be holding back tears, and instead of getting angry at her, or short, he wrapped his arms around her and brought her body to his, so that her head was resting on his shoulder. "We can come clean to her, if that's what you want. I don't like keeping secrets either." He finally stated, only to have a small sniffle and a quiet 'thanks' of a reply come from the young woman whom he was growing to like, quite more than he should.