Freckles ➳ Santana Lopez (re-writing)

2x01 Audition - Zero to a Hundred

"Did Puckerman tell you yet?" Santana asked, clutching a stack of Sue's Cheerios try-out posters she was supposed to hang.

"About what?" Julia sighed, her ponytail bouncing with every step she took down the mostly empty hallway beside Santana.

She expected the worst whenever his name was mentioned.

"Nothing bad, just a party Friday after school at one of the hockey players' houses. You wanna go?"

"I would, but I have dance on Friday for a few hours and then I'm gonna teach a class for little kids, so I don't really think so," Julia said, stopping to plaster a shiny glee club sign-up sheet on the wall, one of the thousands Rachel had printed last night and demanded the glee club to hang on every piece of free wall space they could find.

"Oh my god, that's actually so cute, I'm gonna barf," Santana cooed with a smitten smile, waiting patiently behind Julia.

"Stop," Julia replied, glancing over her shoulder at her best friend with her own smile.

"But it's fine, I didn't really care to get groped by a bunch of boys this weekend anyway," Santana shrugged as Julia carried on pressing the poster against the wall. "How about...I pick you up when your done and we can go to my place and watch movies or something?"

In all truth, Santana didn't really care what they would be doing that weekend; as long as it was what Julia wanted.

"Sounds good," Julia nodded before they continued a bit further down the hallway. "Mean Girls?"

"Again, Jules?" Santana whined.

"Yes, again, San," Julia mocked her co-head cheerleader with a dumb smile.

"Fine, but we're watching other stuff too, okay?" Santana easily caved.

"Whatever you want."

Julia sauntered over to an empty stretch of tile on the right wall of the hallway, while Santana found some space on the left to put up a Cheerios poster.

Not even two seconds had passed when Julia suddenly felt a presence beside her, one definitely too large to be Santana.

"Hey, Julia right?"

The freckled girl internally groaned as she noticed a mop of chestnut curly hair out of the corner of her eye.

"That's me," Julia displayed a fake smile as she slightly turned her head to meet the boy's eyes for a quick moment before directing her attention toward the sign-up sheet she was neatly pinning against the wall.

She never had any intent to study the bold printed letters "Rachel Berry" on the front of paper so carefully in her life, but anything as not to maintain awkward eye contact with the football player beside her. Julia didn't know what he wanted or if he thought they had a "connection" in the courtyard. Either way, she had no motivation to have any involvement with him.

"Cool, well uh, I'm Layton," he placed one of his gigantic hands on the wall, leaning on his large, flexed arm.

Julia couldn't say she wasn't uncomfortable as he towered over her almost as if he was pushing her backward with an invisible force. Though this was simply the way that boys were and she had been dealing with it her entire life.

"Are you new here or something? I don't think I've seen you around," Julia peered back up at him, her neck craning just to meet his eyes.

"No, I've lived in Lima all my life. But I'm a sophomore, that might explain it. And I just got moved to Varsity football from JV," he gloated, fixing the hem of his Varsity Jacket.

"Oh, yeah, guess I've never noticed you," Julia weakly smiled, very obviously letting Layton know she wasn't too interested in him if that was his goal with the conversation. "But, uh, you seemed kinda into the number at lunch."

Santana successfully stuck her poster on the wall with the cheap, decade-old tape Sue had given her and turned around just for her face to drop.

"Yeah, totally, I would love to get in on that," he grinned.

Santana instantly picked up on how uncomfortable and awkward Julia felt just from her small tells like how she fidgeted with the edge of the sign-up sheet, flicking it between her fingers. Or how her smile fluctuated, dropping every few seconds before she forced it back up.

Santana was about to step in when suddenly, Julia was calm and at ease with the boy. It was a zero to a hundred, abrupt change as Julia threw an arm over one of the boy's shoulders, her fingers digging into his neck and a few of the loose curls hanging on the back of his head.

"Well," Julia suddenly spoke smoothly, her words flowing in a relaxed stream. "We're holding auditions tod-"

"I'll be there," Layton blurted.

He reached into his pocket and conveniently pulled out a pencil, messily scribbling his name on the first line.

"I'm glad," Julia fully smiled, baffling Santana. "I hope you can sing."

"Trust me, I can," he beamed before beginning to walk away, but not before trailing his fingers down Julia's left arm that hung around his shoulders, his hand in hers for a moment until he let go. "You can count on me!"

"After school at three!" Julia called out with an unfaltering grin.

He turned and left her a goofy thumbs-up, before disappearing around the corner.

"Who the hell was that?" Santana snapped with her usual dose of aggressiveness.

"Oh, some kid who wants to join glee club," Julia nonchalantly shrugged it off.

"Oh, that's it?" Santana questioned, implying she knew something else was going on.

"That's it," Julia confirmed, beginning to walk ahead and away from Santana's confrontation.

Santana still was unable to comprehend the sudden change of Julia's mood in the midst of the conversation with the overly smug football player.

"You're kidding, I-"

"Coach needs to see you in her office!" Becky suddenly came sprinting by, directing the remark at Santana.

The Latina sighed, spinning on her heels in the direction of Sue's office.

"Whatever. Don't wait up," Santana told Julia, a bit frustrated by this impromptu meeting with her cheer coach and how it interfered with her single unsupervised moment with Julia.

Santana stomped off and was quickly out of sight, giving Julia a moment to breathe.