Plus One

Chapter 9: Wedding Belles

Around four that evening, a small fleet of luxury buses lined up outside the hotel, ready to ferry guests to the Weston estate just under a mile away.

Finn and Puck were on one of the first buses to leave.

“This is one of the advantages of being gay,” Puck realized as the half-full bus rolled down the avenue.

“What is?”

“You don't have to wait for some chick who tells you she'll be ready in a minute and then an hour later still hasn't picked out which fucking shoes to wear. It used to drive me crazy about Quinn. She took forever to get ready. But if I told her she looked fine, she'd get mad at me!” He shook his head. “You asked me if you looked OK, I said yes and you believed me. Why do women always make such an issue of things?”

Finn laughed. “I have no idea how the female mind works.” He glanced at Puck. “So you and Quinn went out? I thought you just hooked up?”

“We kind of went out a couple of times.”

“I see. So you guys were in a relationship?”

“I don't want to talk about it,” Puck said. The bus came to a stop and Puck hopped out quickly.

Finn followed and handed over his invitation. He was given two programs and ushered forwards.

“On the other hand, we have almost two hours to kill before the ceremony starts,” Puck said. “We could have waited.”

“We're invited to take a walk through the grounds,” Finn read from the program. “Look there's even a map with all the interesting features marked on it.”

“Oh good, flowers,” Puck said sarcastically. 

It turned out that the interesting features were not flowers, but a weird and wonderful collection of statues and art installations. Even Puck the Philistine enjoyed the tour of the grounds.

The walk finished at the spot where the wedding would take place. Five hundred chairs were arranged in a semi-circle facing three large cherry trees. The trees were so laden down with pink blossoms that no other decorations were needed. 

An usher led Finn and Puck to seats located in the middle of the groom's side. There was still about forty minutes to go, and only a handful of other seats were taken. Finn looked around to see if Rachel had arrived yet, but there was no sign of her.

He was hoping to run into her again to see how she reacted to him and Puck. He knew Rachel Berry, she wasn't the type to discriminate against anybody, for any reason. She'd obviously got a shock when she'd found out that they were gay. Which on reflection, he was glad about. He would have hated to find out that she'd 'always known he was gay' like Quinn had.

He just hoped that when she did find out the truth, that she saw the funny side of it. He had been in touching distance of a date with her, and he was determined to make it happen when she moved to New York.

Finn was broken out of his thoughts when Puck nudged him and motioned subtly to Finn's left. Finn turned and spotted Rachel following an usher up the aisle. He caught her eye and nodded.

Rachel stopped at the end of the row they were sitting in and gestured to the usher that she'd sit there.

“Be gay, Finn,” Puck joked.

It was difficult. Rachel looked absolutely breathtaking in a tight purple dress with her hair loosely curled around her shoulders. Finn had to exhale slowly to calm his nerves.

“Hi guys,” Rachel said uncertainly. “May I join you?”

“Of course,” Finn told her.