The next day Santana immersed herself in everything and anything she could in order not to think about Brittany. She did homework, chores, went shopping on her own – spending lots of daddy’s money to make herself feel better. But nothing she did completely worked; she still had Brittany on her mind. She knew it was something she just had to get used to, or get over, but it was making her grumpy.

Ridiculously hot weather was also getting her down, which was probably a little strange for a Latina girl, but she wasn’t a fan of being sticky from the heat. It was all kinds of gross and making her want to move to Alaska, or somewhere equally as chilly.

Once she’d put her new clothes away and decided what to wear for the party later, Santana meandered over to the phone, giving it a glare and shaking her head in disgust at herself. She just couldn’t go a day without talking to Brittany it seemed, and though she knew they’d be getting together later for the party, she still just wanted to hear her voice. It was utterly infuriating, and Santana wanted to kick herself in the shin for being so annoying.

She decided not to call Brittany, choosing to go and take an inordinately long time getting ready instead. A shower was needed, to relax her, though she doubted it would help. Then Santana planned to groom and dress like she’d never groomed and dressed before. Not that she was out to impress anybody, she just wanted to feel good about herself in the midst of her growing confusion.

Surely gay girls could look glam too, she thought. Not that she’d started identifying as gay, but being majorly attracted to another girl obviously meant she was leaning that way. It would have been mortifying if the label suddenly came with a loss of style and snark, but as far as she could tell . . . she still had oodles of both. This gay thing would be fine, really, as long as she didn’t think about the fainting her parents would do and the crap she’d probably have to take from Sue Sylvester. Oh, and the fact the Cheerio’s would disown her and her friends – what few she had – would look at her completely differently.

In fact, she was sure everybody except the bottom feeders in Glee club would treat her differently in some way or another. They were in a small town; people didn’t just go around being gay without getting slushied every day or thrown in the dumpster. She’d seen it happen so many times to Kurt.

For a moment she almost felt bad for him, but it quickly passed. Now she just felt annoyed with herself again for being unable to ignore what she felt for Brittany.

If Santana had known she would end up wanting Brittany she would never have made friends with her. She would have ignored her from day one, despite Brittany’s impossibly cute pout and that little lost look she did when something confused her. Bah, who was she kidding? They’d been firm friends from the very first shy smile, and Santana knew it couldn’t be any other way.

Pushing her feet into some sexy black boots, Santana nodded her head to the music she had blasting from her speakers. Whatever happened tonight she was determined to have fun. It would be great if she could forget about her feelings and what she really wanted from Brittany for a little while and just enjoy their friendship, enjoy the party, and the free booze. She was resolute in her plan, no matter what.

Of course, when she pulled up outside Brittany’s house and watched the girl come down her steps and head for the car . . . any such plan went right out of the window. Brittany had obviously chosen tonight to try out for the ‘most gorgeous girl in the world’ contest, and she was winning hands down.

“Damn,” Santana said to herself, blowing out the air from her lungs as her eyes took in every inch of Brittany in her very tight, very short, sparkly dress.

Brittany’s hair was down, flowing like silk all around her shoulders, and as she pulled open the door and slid into the passenger seat Santana had to warn herself not to stare.

“Hey,” Brittany said, greeting Santana with her usual enthusiasm.

Santana nodded and smiled, glad that she’d chosen to wear her new, sexy, black leather pants; there was no way she would have been able to compete with Brittany’s legs if she too had chosen to wear a dress.

“You look really good,” Brittany said, smiling proudly at Santana. “I’m glad you wore blue.”

Her gaze roamed over Santana and Santana felt her stomach flipping and flopping about. It was silly really, but she’d gone with Brittany’s suggestion to wear a blue top just to please the girl. She wanted to look good for her, even if Brittany wouldn’t appreciate it in quite the way Santana wanted her to.

“And you look . . .” Santana couldn’t think of appropriate words to describe how Brittany looked, but she hoped her expression said it all. She was practically drooling.

“Thanks,” Brittany beamed, not needing further input.

She clicked her seatbelt into place and they set off, no apparent awkwardness or uneasiness between them. Brittany chatted freely and Santana nodded and added the odd comment, mostly trying to concentrate on the road and not Brittany’s legs, and definitely not thinking about what she’d done last night while imagining Brittany’s fingers in her pussy.

“I hope they have good music,” Brittany said, pulling Santana from her thoughts. “If they don’t you should sing.”

“What?” Santana asked, more than a little befuddled.

“You have a great voice, and I like hearing you sing,” Brittany explained. “I could listen to it all day, though probably not if I take a bath ‘cause I like to go underwater, and then you’d sound like you were singing from miles away, and that’d make me sad.”

Santana furrowed her brow and shook her head, but she said nothing. It was normal for Brittany to make statements that made her head spin.

“I’m not gonna sing,” Santana insisted. “We’re there to have a good time and possibly get laid; acting like uber-morons from Glee club ain’t the best idea. Leave your geek at the door, Brit.”

Brittany looked down at her hands, then out of the window. She had a sad little pout on her lips and Santana instantly felt rotten.

“I didn’t bring a geek, was a supposed to?” Brittany asked, her voice losing its happy cadence.

Santana scrunched up her brow and sighed. There was a fine line between Brittany being absurd and adorable, and right now Santana definitely thought the later. It wasn’t helping her plan not to think of them as anything more than friends.

“Let’s just forget about Glee club for tonight,” Santana said, her hands gripping the wheel hard. “My rep is looking all kindsa man-hands right now so I needs t’get my ass on the dance floor and shake it up.”

“Ok,” Brittany agreed, glancing over at Santana. “As long as I can join in.”

That was a given; they always danced together at parties. Not in a gay way, though – at least, not in a way that Santana had been aware of before. Maybe it did get a little hands-on now and then, but they did that to make the boys flock. It never failed to work.

Thinking about getting the boys flocking around Brittany suddenly made Santana want to punch something. She gripped the steering wheel tighter and hoped Brittany wouldn’t disappear with some guy tonight, as she had a habit doing. Though Santana had just said she wanted to get laid she didn’t really, and she didn’t want Brittany leaving her to go get her fill of some teenage boy’s premature excitement. The idea mortified her.

“You’d better dance with me,” Santana responded, glancing over at Brittany. “We do it better together.”

The realisation of what she’d just said, and the implications of it considering her recent naughty thoughts, made Santana blush. She looked away from Brittany quickly, catching just a glimpse of the little smile Brittany gave her.

They quickly pulled up to the house Puck had told them to go to, parking in amongst a few other cars. It was a fairly large house and they could already hear the music coming from it. For once, it wasn’t lame music. Puck’s football friends may have been considered ‘cool’ in school, but they normally had atrocious taste in music.

“This’ll be fun,” Brittany all but squealed as she jumped out of the car.

Santana followed a little more demurely, making her way up the path with Brittany linking their arms together. Santana almost tugged her arm away, but she didn’t want to upset Brittany. Not tonight at least; the less drama the better.

As Brittany pushed open the front door, failing to knock first, she looked down at their linked arms, grinned to herself – or appeared to – and said “We make a cute couple.”

She gave Santana’s arm a squeeze, then let go as they entered the house, much to both Santana’s dismay and relief.

Santana wasn’t sure what to make of Brittany’s comment. After all, it was Brittany. But maybe Brittany wasn’t as clueless as Santana was hoping she was about the way their friendship had been sliding – with the touching, and the glances, smiles, naughty thoughts in Santana’s head. She couldn’t be sure what Brittany was thinking, however, and she couldn’t ask.

Slightly unnerved and more than a little befuddled, Santana followed Brittany into the house, where music was pumping and people were milling around with drinks. Only, they weren’t the normal kids that showed up to these parties Puck discovered. They weren’t the normal kids at all.

“Hey, Brittany,” Artie said as he wheeled past them, on his way into a very large lounge, a drink placed between his thighs.

Santana raised an eyebrow, then she sighed as she caught sight of Rachel and Finn, and Kurt and. . .the whole of Glee club crashing her party.

“What the fuck?” she muttered, trying to ignore the way Brittany’s face had lit up upon seeing their fellow Glee clubbers.

“Yay!” Brittany said excitedly, clapping her hands together.

She rushed off into the crowd to hug people, causing a bit of a stir and some bemused, but mostly amused, looks.

Catching sight of Puck and grabbing his arm, Santana repeated herself a little louder.

“What the fuck?” she directed at Puck, watching as he smirked at her. “Why the hell are these guys here?”

It wasn’t that she hated them all – not really – but she didn’t exactly want to spend her party time with them. Ever.

“Chill out, Hulk,” Puck said. “It’s Chang’s party and he likes these guys.”

“This is his parent’s house?” Santana asked, nodding in approval.

“Yup, and they’re away on some kinda rich Chinese person conference so it’s time to party down and get some ladies,” he said, his skeezy confidence not as off putting as it should have been.

He walked off, strutting like a rooster. Santana wanted to laugh, but she was too busy scowling.

“Come and say hi,” Brittany practically yelled in Santana’s ear as she bounded over and grabbed her arm. “Everybody’s here. Even Quinn.”

“Yeah, I see that,” Santana pointed out, pulling her arm away and crossing them at her chest, slowly following Brittany into the lounge. “I’m not staying.”

It seemed as if Brittany wasn’t listening, and Santana didn’t leave. Instead, she allowed Brittany to take her through the lounge, making her mumble hello to the lame Glee kids before they got to the kitchen and found drinks. As soon as she had something alcoholic in her hand, Santana began to relax. There was good music after all, and Chang wasn’t as lame as the others. There were also some ‘normal’ people there from school – including a few of the football team, and some of the basketball team.

She supposed it wasn’t all bad, as long as she could avoid talking to anybody from Glee for more than five minutes. Hopefully they’d all have to leave early so she could still get her dance on with Brittany without any of the geeks watching and being weird about it. She certainly didn’t want to spend another night without Brittany, and now that Brittany had said all her hellos she was firmly back by Santana’s side, and that was enough to keep Santana’s bad mood from spoiling the entire now.

Now, if only she could stop Puck from leering at her from across the room, and find a way to be around Brittany without wanting to take her in her arms and smother her in much more than friendly kisses.

“More drink?” Brittany asked, noticing Santana’s empty glass, and downing her own to join it.

Nodding, Santana let Brittany take her glass and watched her disappear into the kitchen. She gave Santana a glance over her shoulder as she went.

Santana had seen that look before. She’d seen that smile. It was Brittany’s flirty smile.