She can't remember why she's meeting him for dinner, but she's been told that it's important, so she has to look nice. Initially, she scoffs at this idea, because Rachel always looks nice. She coifs every inch of herself so that she always looks like a cut out of a magazine. Every opportunity is a photo opportunity, she tells herself.

Rachel eventually decides on a pale pink number that matches her nails, deciding that it will look the nicest with how she's already dressed herself for the day. She looks nice in pink, it compliments her. It's one of the reasons why it's her favorite color, anyway.

Her manager tells her over the phone that she's supposed to be nice to this man that wants to go out to dinner with her, but she knows that she's going to. She's nice to everyone. It just takes time sometimes for people to chip past her 'take no prisoners' attitude to see that she's really a nice person. And she is, really. She's not a pain to be around. Rachel knows of people that are much worse than people expect her to be. Some of the people that she works with are horribly ruthless, and she knows it. Rachel promises that she'll never stoop down to their level, no matter what the circumstances.

She's going to have a great conversation with whoever this man is at dinner tonight, she can feel it. She's Rachel Barbra Berry, she can do whatever she wants. She's gone from dance classes in Columbus, Ohio to having her name in lights above Times Square. She's accomplished so much already, why not this as well?

Maybe it's a producer. Maybe he wants her for the next best movie musical being made. She would bring a certain finesse to Hollywood, really.

:.:.:

He makes his living criticizing other people. Sometimes it's for the better and sometimes it's for the worse, but it's normally for the worse. He goes to performances and criticizes them, finding each little flaw laid out before him on stage for him to point out.

Theatre's never been his favorite thing to review, but he's found his career in it. According to the editor of the newspaper, he's not just good – he's great. He's got a way with words that describes the performances of all people, good and bad. Finn never would have guessed that he would have a knack for words, but here he is, calling out actors and actresses for their flubbed lines and calling musicals 'Tony worthy' or 'next to hideous.'

He enjoys all of the perks that come along with his job. He goes to the nicest events in the entertainment industry – even the award ceremonies. He keeps a collection of the things he's obtained from the swag bags from the Grammys, Emmys, Tonys. He's never been to the Oscars, but he wants to go someday.

He enjoys meeting all of the people that manage their way through the rat race of performing – but the girls seem to come in multitudinous amounts. They're better than the girls back home. These girls aren't hot for a small town, they're New York City hot. The girls that take their time to make sure their eyebrows are perfectly threaded, that their legs are equally spray tanned on both sides. They're gorgeous; walking down the street in designer clothes that Finn wouldn't be able to afford even if he tried.

He isn't suited for the New York City girls. They're stylish and go through boys like they're pieces of fashion. If they're so last season, they end up in the back of a Filene's Basement.

Finn's never been in an actual relationship. There was the one in college, but it was nothing special. He prefers not to even think of the entire situation, and looks forward to his future – if he has one.

He wants a nice girl. A girl he can wrap his arms all the way around, a girl that can help him make all of his favorite meals when he gets stuck in the Betty Crocker recipe book. It wouldn't just be her doing all of the work, though. He would massage her feet after a long day of work and make sure that he kept their bathroom clean. He would solemnly swear that he wouldn't leave the seat up as long as he had a girl to share the bathroom with.

He has an interview with a girl tonight. He knows it's strictly business, but Finn feels that he can make a connection if he wants to. Besides, in his job, he only has to know the person who's performance he's reviewing for a few weeks. Once those weeks are up, the girl could be his.

He's seen her picture in the paper multiple times. In fact, he sees it every day, much like the rest of the city. It's the face of the girl who graces the large advertisement for Chicago, the one musical Finn's yet to actually see.

She's hell to look at in the picture that looms over Times Square. Her legs look like they go on for miles, her eyes managing to smolder through his, even on a marquee picture. She's any guy's dream, right there in a bustier and fishnets. It should be illegal to hang a picture that's so sexy in a place where millions of people can see it.

Black and white suits her, he notes.

:.:.:

The light of the restaurant suits her as well, it seems. Finn spots the girl from across the way, his hormones causing him to push past the maître and towards the table she's sitting at for them.

She begins with pleasantries and he just laughs nervously, wiping his hands off on his pants. He takes stock of her dress, hearing his heart beat in his ears.

She looks absolutely wonderful in pink.

"Rachel Berry," she greets him, extending her hand out across the table. "You must be…"

"F-Finn Hudson," he stammers, accepting her hand and giving it a firm shake. She has to have some of the softest skin he's ever felt. Her hands are so small as well, at least in comparison to his. Finn's sure that he has the largest, most abnormal hands in the entire world.

"You're here from the Times?"

'The Journal," he corrects her with a small smile. "We're not the Times, but we're almost there. I'm sure you've had your name in papers before."

A small, somewhat haughty smile crosses Rachel's face. Of course she's had her name in the papers. She's Rachel Berry, for God's sake.

"Well, maybe you'll work for the Times someday. Then you can interview me for them, too."

The two shared a small burst of laughter together, Finn smiling wider than she was. She had a lovely smile, almost putting him in a trance. It's no wonder she was slowly becoming Broadway's next best thing. Rachel Berry will easily share her name with the likes of Bebe Neuwirth, Bernadette Peters, Sutton Foster. She's a star on the rise and he's lucky enough to be sitting in front of her, asking her questions about her life and the like.

"Maybe," he says, looking down at his notepad. He thinks that he need to buy a new laptop he can bring with him everywhere and so he doesn't look like he's stuck in the stone age, but there's something he likes about being able to pull a pencil from behind his ear and take dutiful notes like he's a reporter from long ago. They were the classy ones, after all.

"You look stunning," he tells her, and she blushes. Finn's learned over time what the difference is between telling someone that 'they are stunning' versus 'they look stunning.' The first option is more permanent, like she'll always be that way. The second is like saying that she looks stunning on this particular day that he's run into her, not like she was born to be a beautiful woman.

He's sure she is, though.

Rachel doesn't notice his choice of words.

"Thank you," she adds in with a grin. "You don't look too bad yourself." Her eyes fall on his notepad, watching his hands as he pulls his pencil out from the metallic coil that binds the paper together and takes it between his fingers, folding the cover away from the paper and beginning to write something. He has rather large hands, she notices.

His handwriting is chicken scratch, otherwise she would be able to tell herself what he was writing. She wonders if he has a hard time reading his own handwriting when he goes back to review his notes from the evening, her mind straying. What if he misreads something about her and it's printed? A lie about her for all of New York to see?

"So… Rachel Berry…" He jots something down on the paper, his hand pausing. "That's your real name, right? Just for the record and all. Sometimes actors are really quiet about what their real name is and what their stage name is."

"No, it's Rachel. Rachel Barbra Berry. I was named after the iconic legend of stage and screen, Miss Barbra Streisand herself." She watches as his eyebrows knit together below his forehead.

"Well, my second name."

"Where does Rachel come from then?"

She pauses, watching him as he asks. He hasn't written anything but her name down on his sheet of paper. This is an interview, isn't it? She feels like he's supposed to be asking more questions pertaining to her career, her childhood.

"My parents were obsessed with Friends when they found out they were having me."

Finn laughs at her forced answer, not writing anything down on the sheet of paper before him. He notes her pout and change of position in her chair, moving her arms up to cross over her chest like a wall to the rest of her. "Hey, it's fine. You want to know why my parents named me Finn?"

She unfolds her arms and adjusts in her chair. "Why?"

"My great, great, great, great grandpa owned this potato farm, and I guess he had this dog that he loved and treated like his best friend, and he named it Finley. The name stuck, and I guess, and my mom picked that name for me."

Rachel stifles a laugh and smiles at him, letting her guard down after he tells her his story.

"Finley?" She giggles sweetly, trying not to sound like she's teasing him. She really isn't teasing him, she hopes he realizes. "Why don't you go by your full name in the paper?"

"I don't know. Too old-fashioned, I guess."

She smiles, reaching across the table to take his hand in hers. "Well, I think it's sweet. The story and everything, I mean. My parents weren't that creative when they named me. I'm named after Jennifer Aniston's haircut that rocked the world in the nineties."

Finn smiles, the touch of her hand on his again startling him. She seems like she goes from this unabashed woman to a shy, introvert in a matter of seconds. He slips his hand out from underneath hers, arching back down to view his notepad.

"Well, maybe you'll start a trend with a haircut, and they can call it the Rachel, too. The Rachel 2.0."

Rachel giggles, running a hand through her hair. "I could see how the banged bob could catch on." She laughs a bit to herself, smiling at Finn. "It's trendy." She's since cut her hair off from high school; the dark waves ending just above her shoulders, blunt bangs falling in her eyes. She had originally cut it for the show, but she's grown a liking to it. It's less to take care of, which is exactly what she needs.

"So, um, what was your life like before you came here?" Finn asks, getting down to business. Rachel can see this and places her hands in her lap, like she's at a job interview. She's only been through one job interview, she knows nothing else. The rest of the interviews she's done haven't been over dinner and drinks.

Speaking of which, their waitress hasn't even arrived with their courtesy breadsticks yet. She'll have to see the house manager before their night is over.

"Nothing special. I grew up in Lima, Ohio, which is the smallest excuse for a town I've ever seen." She sighs deeply and prepares the monologue she tells others of her life, one she's told countless times. "While others were busy playing football and cheerleading, however, I excelled in the arts; pushing myself in every category possible. By the time I reached age six, I realized that the theatre was my true passion, and I chose to follow my passion, like many do. I'm just one of the lucky few that's succeeded."

Finn can't move his hand fast enough to put all of her words onto paper. Although he's been trained not to, he wants to record her word for word. She's got such an extensive vocabulary, and the way she talks about herself like she knows everything about everyone and everything probably comes across as irritating to most people, but he likes it. She's confident, not cocky. He wonders if people often make this assumption about her, but she beats him to the punch and answers his question for her.

"Of course, I went through many a trouble in high school. People thought I was too big for my britches, that I was just a big fish in a small pond. I knew, however, that I was built for the big leagues."

"Did you have any friends that supported you on your way to… stardom?" The word slips out of his mouth uneasily.

Rachel feels her heart skip a beat, her stomach tie itself in knots. Sometimes she wonders if her stomach's gone through Girl Scout training; it ties itself in knots faster than she knows how to undo them.

"Not a friend, per say, but a boyfriend. He's always been there for me."

Finn smiles a bit at her response, writing it down in his notes like the dutiful reporter he is. He's good, and he knows it – but not like Rachel does. She carries herself so that everyone knows she's good, and everyone knows that she knows that she's good.

She's a mystery.

"So, this boyfriend, were you close all through high school, or?" Finn can't help but wonder what kind of girlfriend she'd make. She's stunning, of course, with legs to die for and boobs that he's been staring at all night when she isn't looking. But she has this megawatt smile and this disposition about her that are some of the most loveable things in the world, even if he's just known her for a matter of moments.

The way she answers his questions with such vim and vigor, like they're questions she's never been asked before. Finn tries not to ask the same questions over and over to the performers he interviews, knowing they've answered the same questions time after time. But she has the bright, sunny attitude that makes him smile.

She could wake the living dead with her laugh.

It sounds like she's singing, which only makes him wonder what she sounds like when she sings. He wonders what she sounds like when she sings, since he's heard nothing but good things about her. There has to be a reason behind why she's a top contender for a Tony nomination this season.

His eyes glance down at her hands quickly, realizing that they aren't on the table anymore. He racks his brain, trying to think if she's wearing any rings on her fingers. Actresses normally don't wear wedding or engagement bands, though, since they're not supposed to wear them on stage. It's Monday, her only night off of the week. He doubts she would be the type of girl to put her wedding ring back on for only one night, especially if she wasn't seeing her husband or boyfriend or whatever she had that meant something to her.

She's beautiful, and he may have a chance if he plays his cards right. Judging from their conversation so far, she seems to like him just fine, but she's programmed to act this way. She's an actress, she's supposed to treat each person like her best friend and like she's known them her entire life and she loves them dearly like a family member.

Although, Finn can't see Rachel Berry sugar coating anything in her life. She seems like a realist, but a dreamer. She knows what she wants but doesn't play any games to get there. She's the perfect package coming in around five feet tall.

Rachel clears her throat and Finn snaps back into reality, looking up from his notepad.

"Oh, we're not apart," she says, voice twisting into confusion. "Jesse St. James, maybe you've heard of him?" She begins to blush and her words turn into words of adoration, gushing as she speaks about this man she's put up on a pedestal. "He teaches music to underprivileged children in the Bronx, but he's hoping to establish his own career on Broadway someday." She looks up and sighs deeply, losing herself in her thought of how perfect her boyfriend is.

"He's a saint."

Finn feels his heart sink, his stomach feeling like he's just swallowed a pound of cement. Naturally, the one girl he falls head over heels for from the second he sees her is claimed by someone else. He shouldn't be so shocked; she's a celebrity. Millions of people see the picture of her in Times Square each day and ogle her and want her for themselves, but Finn knows that she can only belong to one person. Unless she's one of those Mormons that's into polygamy and stuff, but he doesn't want that either.

If he were some kind of masked superhero, Finn could sweep Rachel up in his arms right now and claim her for himself, peppering her with kisses and being able to call her his own.

"I really hope that at some point, we can star in Les Miserables together, as Marius and Éponine, respectively. Although our romance on stage will fall into shambles, our real life romance will show through come curtain call."

Finn couldn't hear himself think. Who he thought was the well-rounded, lovely woman was nothing but a shallow girl obsessed with her boyfriend.

More importantly, she had a boyfriend. Who she was clearly in love with. It felt like his entire life had just circled a drain.

"Make sure to put that last part in the paper, won't you? It would mean the world to me. That's the best thing I've said all night."

No, it's not, Finn thinks. The best things you've said all night are how hard you've tried to get here, how much you love performing in front of everyone up on that stage each night. People are going to want to know about you overcoming the audition process of being in a Broadway show after you win your Tony award, not how badly you want to star in some production with your boyfriend.

It's playing desperate, and he won't print it in his article.

"Sure," he tells her, crossing a dark line across something on his paper. "It'll be the headline for the Arts section."

She giggles and claps her hands together in excitement, bouncing up in her chair a bit. She's made a friend in this Finn Hudson character, she thinks. He's charming and lovely and he's going to write nice things about her in the paper, to top it all off.

Their waitress finally arrives to the table, a basket of cold breadsticks in hand. She wants to leave a quarter as the tip, but she looks at Finn, a smile growing on her face.

She'll cover their dinner. She'll be paying for their food, but his report on her will be paying for her Tony.