And Here's What You Missed on...GLEE

“Quiet down, everyone!” Mr. Schue announced as he walked into the chorus room. The room went silent as directed. Mr. Schue turned around with this creepily huge grin on his face, his arms crossed in front of his chest. “You guys ready for the new assignment this week?”

We all sort of mumbled, being tired after the long Monday. At least, I knew that I was about to fall asleep on Puck’s shoulder. Thinking about it made me yawn widely, but I tried my best to cover it up. Without much luck, judging by the amused look that Puck gave me.

“This week’s going to be simple and broad,” he informed us, using his hands to talk. “Love songs. But some of you are going to be paired up, okay? I’ll draw two different pairs, and the rest of you are going to work alone. Sound good?”

Rachel immediately grabbed Finn’s hand, which made me chuckle. What were the chances that either of them would get drawn to be part of a group? And even then, both their names drawn together? Get real.

“Alright, first name…” he trailed off, reaching into his hat. He drew a piece of paper and read aloud, “Tina!”

Mike patted her on the shoulder and smiled, which made her lips upturn a little.

“Tina, you’ll be working with…Artie.”

They both exchanged looks before putting their eyes to the ground. Oh, how awkward, being exes and all. That sucked, for sure.

“Mr. Schuester?” Rachel questioned, getting to her feet and facing the group with a huge grin stretched across her face. “I volunteer Finn and me for the last group.”

“Doesn’t work that way,” he told her, gesturing back to her seat. “So sit down, and I’ll draw the next names.” It took a second for him to pick out another piece of paper. “Ellie!”

“Wooooo…” I expressed without enthusiasm, waving a fake pom-pom. “Go partners!”

A couple of people chuckled lightly at my blatant sarcasm, but Mr. Schue ignored me. What a nice guy. Really.

“And the lucky person who gets to work with Ellie is…” Mr. Schue mixed the names around really well, taking a good minute and a half before he finally drew the last name.

His tone as he said the name was normal, totally natural. “Finn.”

But it didn’t settle well. Puck’s hand immediately tightened around mine before he got to his feet. “Mr. Schue, draw again.”

“Sorry, Puck. That’s not how this stuff works.” He moved his attention from Puck, who was looking so angry that you could fry an egg on his forehead, to the entire group, ending their excited whispering. “Those are the groups. The rest of you are on your own. Dismissed!”

“Stop being jealous,” I whispered angrily at Puck as we left. “Honestly. There’s nothing going on between Finn and me, so just stop it with that look.”

“What look?” he scoffed, rolling his eyes.

“That one,” I pointed between his eyebrows. “Stop flexing your face muscles, unless you’re going to smile. And a real smile. Not one of your, ‘I’m better than everyone else on the planet’ smiles.”

“I think someone’s jealous because they don’t have a cocky smile,” Puck teased, poking me in the stomach.

“I think someone’s jealous because they may be tough on the outside, but on the inside, they’re an insecure adolescent girl,” I retorted in the same tone, but my words were more cutting than his.

“Did you just call me a girl?!” he snapped at me. Since we were already in front of the boys’ locker room, I just shoved him toward it with a grin.

“See you after practice!” I called after him in a sing-song voice. Fixing my bag so it was back on my shoulder, I walked out the doors and headed to the bleachers.

To my surprise, Finn was already sitting there, his helmet resting next to him, dressed for practice.

“Um, hello there,” I greeted. “May I help you?”

“Hi, Ellie,” he smiled. “I was just thinking that tomorrow, we could start working on our duet. Um, want to come over my place after football practice tomorrow so that we can pick out our song and stuff? I’ll do some research tonight, if you want.”

Laughing a little, I put a hand on his shoulder. “That sounds great. But relax. The project is supposed to be fun. Do a little research if you want…actually, you probably should. The most I’m going to do is go through my iPod and hope that I find something good.”

“Okay, I’ll look.” Finn’s eyes went to the green grass of the field, taking in the sight of the rest of the team filing out to start stretching and warming up. “Well, I guess I’ll talk to you later, Ellie.”

“Sure thing,” I replied.

He made his way down the steps, trying to put his helmet on at the same time, trying to look like Mr. Multitasker Extraordinaire. Instead, he couldn’t coordinate his movements, and he tripped on the last step.

“I’m okay!” Finn called up, putting a hand in the air. “I’m fine.”

I couldn’t help but let out a loud burst of laughter as he finished making his way to the field. It was easy to tell, even from how far away I was, that the guys were giving him a hard time about his little stumble.

It only took me about fifteen minutes to do my homework, so once I was done, I was stuck watching the practice. Even though the air was cold, I had remembered to bring my jacket, which was good. Not that I’d risk forgetting and having Puck on my case about cheating on him with Finn over a stupid sweatshirt.

Ugh. Pushing the thought from my mind, I made myself focus on the different drills that were going on. At one part, where Puck was, they were practicing tackling. Every time the coach blew the whistle, a player would charge forward, having to push this weird dummy thing as far as he could. It looked easy enough from where I was sitting, but I knew that the dummy must have weighed a lot more than I could have surmised.

After a few minutes, the practice was boring me, so I pulled out my iPod, trying to look for various different options for Finn and me to sing while the smooth sound of She’s Like the Wind by Patrick Swayze filled my head.

A couple of different options went through my mind, but I wasn’t really positive about any of them. All the times before, a song had shown up in front of me, and I had an AHA moment. But that was just not happening.

That sucked.

There was one song that stuck in my mind, but I wasn’t sure that Finn was going to go for it. Probably not, since he was more into the classic stuff, but I could run it by him. After all, chances were, he’d find a way better song, since he was actually going to be putting some effort into the assignment. Good for him, really.

“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” Puck cut through my concentration, waving a hand in front of my face. I pulled the ear bud out of my left ear and looked up at him. “Welcome back to Earth.”

“Thanks, it’s great to be back,” I played along, standing up and picking up my bag from the metal bench. “Great job at practice.”

“Nice try,” he scoffed. “I looked over, like, four times, and you weren’t watching.”

“I watched for a good five minutes! Give me some credit!”

Instead of credit, I got another eye roll. It was no wonder why Puck was my boyfriend. He was always so sweet and caring to me.

That was sarcasm, in case I wasn’t clear on the subject.

“God, you’re slow,” Puck laughed, grabbing my arm and starting to drag me a little faster toward his car, not caring that I tripped and stumbled over rocks and branches.

Point proven.