Little Red and the Big Bad Wolf

My teeth had plunged into the soft bread of my sandwich before I chewed slowly, completely checking out from reality. I only started blinking again when Sam slid in next to me.

“Sorry I’m late,” he expressed, opening his carton of milk.

For a second, I stared at him. Something was very different about him…but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. “Why were you late?”

“No reason,” he shrugged, but a bit of color filled his cheeks.

Grinning like there was no tomorrow, I nudged him. “C’mon…who is she? Tell me!”

“What makes you think it’s a she?”

“So it’s a he? Well, you still gotta tell me.”

“No, that’s not what I meant…” he trailed off, laughing at what he inferred. “I meant that maybe there were just a lot of people in the hallway and I got held behind a couple minutes. Really. No big deal.”

“Then why’d you blush?”

I got him there. He flushed again for a second before letting a long, dramatic sigh. “Fine,” he groaned. “You caught me.”

“I just win at life.” Quickly, I glanced over at the other end of the table to see Kurt trying to look preoccupied with his food, but it didn’t take an expert to realize that his head was tilted just slightly so that he’d be able to hear us better. “Kurt!” I snapped.

He looked up at me with wide, innocent blue eyes. I glared at him, and he got the message, running his hand across his bangs as he turned to listen to what Mercedes was saying.

“Where were we?” I chuckled, turning back to Sam.

“Um…don’t remember.”

“Funny. So who was she?” I was being pushy, but I didn’t care. I wanted to know what girl was lucky enough for Sam to be crushing on. And she obviously had to be amazing, since this was only his first week at McKinley.

“Um, she’s in Glee Club with you.”

My eyes shot daggers as I immediately jumped to the conclusion of Santana. “Look, I know that she’s hot or whatever, but she’s just getting over a friggin’ STD. How are you still attracted to-”

Sam cut me off with a, “No. Oh, no way,” and a grimace. “I’m not talking about Santana.”

“Then who?”

He smiled a little bit as the name, “Quinn,” escaped his lips.

“Awww…” I cooed softly, making sure that snoops on the other side of the table didn’t hear me. “That’s so cute. You guys would be the total angelic couple, all blonde-haired and perfect.”

“Um…thanks…” He shook his head for a second. “But anyway, I just came from class with her and we talked for a little bit. She was complaining about your assignment this week for Glee Club.”

“What? No one can hate on the 70s! Except...disco,” I interjected. Though, as an afterthought, disco kind of was the 70s. The majority anyway.

Sam didn't acknowledge me in the slightest, instead continuing to talk like I’d never said a word. How sweet of him… “And I was just trying to give her some suggestions about what she could sing. She’s really nice.”

“And gorgeous!” I followed up with. I didn’t care if she was in cahoots with Santana in the past; I had no grudges against her, really. “Why are you sitting here, then? You should be talking to her!”

“She’s sitting with the other Cheerios. Do you know how awkward that would be?” He deepened his face and impersonated how the exchange would go. “Hey, ladies. Mind if I squeeze in here? Yeah, I just want to make Quinn like me. Thanks a lot.”

Letting out a snort of laughter, I remembered my sandwich and took another bite. “That would be super embarrassing.”

“Exactly. It’s alright. I’ll just talk to her later. I think she’s in my Spanish class, too.”

Suddenly, an idea popped into my head. Why the hell I hadn’t thought of it before, I didn’t know. But once it was there, I couldn’t get rid of it.

“SAM!” I exclaimed, almost bouncing up and down with excitement.

“Whoa…” he laughed, putting his hands on my shoulders to get me to calm down a little. “What?”

“You have to join Glee Club! Oh my God, could you imagine? Like, you could sing a song to Quinn, and she’d fall in love with you! It would be amazing. You seriously need to. Just don’t make it so completely obvious that you’re singing to her. Just sneak the occasional glance. C’mon…whataya say?”

Sam thought for a long second before sighing. “But…I can’t sing…”

“Oh, please. You know what? You are coming over my house this afternoon after football practice, and we’re working on a song for you. Because there’s no way I’m letting this perfect idea go to waste.”

“But-” He started to protest, but the loud bell sounding through the cafeteria cut him off brutally.

“Ah, look at that! Gotta get to class!” Scooping my books into my arms and throwing my bag over my shoulder, I weaved my way through the students so that he couldn’t say another word about it.

He was going to sing for Glee Club if it was the last freakin’ thing that he did.

* * *

“I’m still not sure about this…” Sam trailed off as I was making my way to Glee Club. “I’ve never really sung anywhere outside the shower before.”

“I’m sure that you’ll be amazing. And if you’re not…then we’ll work on it. I’ll wait for you in the bleachers for the end of practice, okay?”

He nodded. “Thanks, Ellie.”

“No problemo.” Shooting him one last smile, I settled down in my seat and waited for Mr. Schue to arrive.

For a couple of minutes, I listened to my iPod, bobbing my head slightly to the beat and humming, since I didn’t want to break out into song randomly. It was Glee Club…but there were limits.

“Ellie?” a voice questioned hesitantly. I didn’t wait to find out who the voice belonged to before putting on a hateful look to face him.

But once I took in that the face was Finn, my expression softened. Even though I should hate him, and kind of did for trying to kiss me last year, I just didn’t have enough hatred to go around for Santana, Puck, my mom, and him. Too much.

“Hey, Finn.” Gesturing for him to take the seat next to me, I put my iPod into a small pocket on the inside of my bag and waited for him to start talking.

And after making sure that no one was listening, he did. “Look, so I just want to say that even though we’ve had our differences…I’m sorry about what happened between you and Puck. That kind of sucks.”

“Oh, it sucks a lot,” I snickered. “But thanks. That’s sweet of you.”

“There’s something else…” As he started biting his lip, my stomach tightened. In my mind, I was begging that he didn’t still have feelings for me. The last thing I needed right then was a relationship. “You know how it got around school that Puck has an STD?”

“Has it? I haven’t really been paying attention to it.” Which surprised me, considering I couldn’t wait just yesterday for everyone to find out and hate him.

“Yeah, it has. And...well…” He cleared his throat and blushed slightly, clearly getting awkward. Even though I hadn’t fully comprehended what he was about to say, my stomach did, sprouting mass amounts of nervous butterflies. “It may have not have gotten out to everyone that he got it from Santana.”

All the blood drained from my face as I uttered, “Um…what are you saying?”

He sighed, obviously not wanting to spell out the whole thing for me. But he did. I couldn’t misunderstand. It was imperative that I didn’t, even if my heart already knew the truth.

“They…they think that he got it from you.”