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The easy decision is that they should learn how to shave at Puck’s place, even though they usually hang out at Finn’s now. If Carole even knew they were thinking about it, she’d tell them to wait and then want to take pictures and probably cry about how her baby boy is becoming a man, and then Finn would be embarrassed and Puck’d have to figure out how to pretend he didn’t hear anything.
So they’ll learn how to shave at Puck’s house, and Puck doesn’t say anything to Rina, just puts ‘razors’ and ‘shaving cream’ on the grocery list on the refrigerator, and just like that, they show up in the bathroom a week or so later. Puck takes them out of the bathroom and stashes them in his room so Hannah doesn’t play with the razors and cut herself.
Puck doesn’t tell Finn what they’re going to do, either, just in case he mentions it to Carole, just that it’s a grown-up thing and he needs to make sure he can come over one day. Puck tries to find something online about shaving, but there’s nothing very helpful, and he figures that he and Finn will be fine. It can’t be that hard, since most guys do it every day. Neither Finn nor Puck probably needs to every day, but Puck is pretty sure that they need to know before the next summer, when they’ll be about to go to high school, so they should learn this summer.
Puck doesn’t say anything when Finn gets there, and the two of them eat some cereal before Puck crosses his arms in front of him. “We have to learn to shave,” he announces to Finn.
“Ok,” Finn says. “How do we do that?”
“I don’t know,” Puck admits, walking towards his room. “But we’ve got razors and shaving cream. It can’t be that hard, right?”
“We need little squares of toilet paper to stick to the places where we get cut, like on tv.”
“We can get those in the bathroom, right?” Puck pulls out the shaving cream and razors and heads to the bathroom. “I didn’t have Mom get any aftershave. I just now thought of it. I’ll put Axe on the list or something. You want the spray stuff or the gel?”
“Is one better?” Finn asks. “Get the better one. Oh, we should get the one that smells like sharks.”
“I’ll get both and you take whichever one you like better,” Puck says. He sets the stuff down on the sink and frowns at himself in the mirror. “We just put the shaving cream on and scrape it off with the razor, right?”
“Right. I think so.”
“Okay.” Puck picks up the shaving cream and shakes it, then turns to Finn. “Hold out your—no wait. Aren’t guys usually shirtless?”
“Oh, yeah, probably,” Finn says, pulling off his t-shirt. “Ok, now I’m ready.”
“Okay, hold out your hand,” Puck says, fiddling with the top of the shaving cream container before getting some to come out, mostly in Finn’s palm. Finn looks down at the shaving cream like he’s not sure what to do with it.
“So I just kind of smear it all over my face, right?” Finn asks.
“Yeah, I think so. Make sure you get above your lip, you don’t want a ‘70s mustache,” Puck says before spraying some shaving cream in his own hand.
“Maybe you don’t,” Finn says, starting to spread the shaving cream across his cheeks.
Puck laughs. “You’d look pretty dumb!”
“No, I’d look awesome,” Finn insists, but he does cover above his lip with shaving cream.
“I’d probably end up with a curly beard,” Puck says with a sigh as he starts putting the shaving cream on his face. “Like those long curls.”
“That would look funny. You probably shouldn’t do that,” Finn says.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Puck says, leaning into the mirror to make sure he didn’t miss any spots.
“Yeah?”
“I won’t grow a curly beard if you don’t grow a ‘70s mustache.”
Finn laughs and moves the shaving cream around on his face a little more. “Deal.”
“It feels weird,” Puck says, wrinkling his nose and looking in the mirror. “You think we should use the razors now?”
“I guess so. I don’t want to cut part of my chin off,” Finn says. “We should shave really slow.”
Puck rinses off his hands as he nods, then gets two razors out of the bag. “Yeah. Or your lips, that would suck.” He hands one to Finn, then takes the cover off the other one. “You think we’re supposed to start at the top or the bottom or what?”
“I’m starting with my cheeks, ‘cause they’re the easy part, I bet,” Finn says. He takes the cover off his razor and runs it down his cheek to his jaw. “Ow, that sucks!”
“Are you bleeding?” Puck asks, barely touching the razor to his cheek.
“Yeah, I think so.” Finn puts his face close to the mirror and frowns. “Yeah, right there.”
“Maybe don’t press so hard?” Puck guesses and gingerly moves the razor down. “It tickles, too.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t call it tickling,” Finn says, taking another swipe at his cheek, then grimacing.
“I don’t get how you can put aftershave on with cuts,” Puck admits, leaning in and very carefully scraping at the skin above his lip. He succeeds until the last swipe. “Ouch, dammit.”
“You ok?”
“You think we could use, like, Neosporin for shaving cream? It’d be quicker,” Puck says with a frown.
“Probably we’ve gotta practice a lot,” Finn says. “I guess we’ll need to try to grow hair quicker so we can practice shaving it off.”
“That sounds like that thing my mom says. Counterintuitive,” Puck says.
“We could get that laser thing like they have the commercials for,” Finn says.
“For cats?” Puck asks as he keeps scraping at his cheeks. “Neither of us have a cat.”
“No, like the laser thing for armpits,” Finn says. “I bet they can laser off face hair, too.”
“That’s one way to make sure you never have a ‘70s mustache,” Puck says with a shrug. “Well, that’s half of my face.” He turns to Finn. “I can’t really tell much difference.”
“I can. I’m bleeding here, here, and here,” Finn says, pointing to spots on his face.
“Yeah, well, except for the blood,” Puck says, staring at his chin. “At least we don’t have to do this every day yet?”
“Yeah, at least,” Finn says. “You’ve got some blood on your ear.”
Puck makes a face. “I didn’t even realize I’d hit my ear.”
“Maybe you got it on your hand or something and touched your ear,” Finn says.
“Yeah, maybe so.” Puck leans to look into the mirror again as he starts on the other half of his face, and he’s pretty sure this shaving thing would be easier if he were shaving Finn’s face and vice versa, but that’s just not how people do it. He cuts himself another time and winces. “Once a week to give ourselves time to heal,” he grumbles.
“We’ll figure it out eventually,” Finn says. “Everybody does. It’s not like there’s a bunch of guys in high school with beards.”
“Too bad it’d be all curly, or I’d just be one of the only ones,” Puck says.
“I don’t think a curly beard would look very good.”
“Yeah, probably not,” Puck admits, then scrapes at some of the last of the shaving cream off. “Why do I look scrubbed? Did we peel our skin off or something?”
“Maybe we need better razors,” Finn says.
“Those razors they advertise are, like, fifteen bucks or something,” Puck says. “That’s a lot of movies.”
“But if they don’t shave our faces off…”
“Maybe put them on your mom’s grocery list, now that we have a reason to get the expensive ones?” Puck says.
“Yeah, ok, I’ll do that,” Finn says. “You think we could put some ice on our faces or something? My skin hurts. It feels like sunburn.”
“My mom has some lotion?” Puck guesses. “Maybe that’s why people use aftershave. You want me to try to find the lotion?”
“Yeah. Maybe that’ll help,” Finn says.
Puck nods and goes to his mom’s bathroom, rummaging around her sink before finding two different kinds of lotion. One of them is scented, and Puck doesn’t think he and Finn want to smell like pomegranates at midnight or any other time, so he only takes the Vasoline Intensive Care Repair lotion.
“It says ‘repair’,” he tells Finn when he gets back to the bathroom. “Maybe that’ll help.”
“If it plugs in the holes, I’m good,” Finn says.
Puck flips the lid up and squeezes some onto Finn’s hand, then some into his own hand. “Yeah, there has to be some trick we’re missing.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Finn says. He spreads the lotion on his face, staring at himself in the mirror with his eyebrows squished together.
“You think we did the razor the wrong way?” Puck asks, patting at his face and trying to avoid the cuts that are bleeding. “Or… I don’t know.”
“I don’t know. Maybe they teach it in health class or something.”
Puck sighs and keeps rubbing the lotion, moving his fingers in really small circles so he doesn’t hit any cuts. “Maybe. I thought you didn’t skip all of health class, though?”
“Maybe they teach it in next year’s health class?” Finn says.
“Yeah, I’m still going to skip most of it, so you’ll have to tell me,” Puck says.
Finn frowns. “You shouldn’t skip so much.”
“I passed last year. I’ll pass this year,” Puck promises.
“You’d better,” Finn says.
Puck elbows Finn in the side and laughs. “Okay, Dad.”
Finn rolls his eyes, but still manages to look pleased with himself. “Whatever,” he says, ripping off some small squares of toilet paper and handing them to Puck. “Plug your face.”