Hiram Berry watched as Rachel sat by the piano, sipping her glass of water and taking several deep breaths, attempting to calm herself. The next day was going to be the Regionals competition of her senior year. Hiram's daughter was usually pretty confident when it came to her performance with her New Directions. This was going to be her third year making it to regionals, so why was she so worried? He had a feeling he and LeRoy should probably talk to their daughter. She clearly needed a nice pep talk from her dads.
When Rachel went upstairs to start her elaborate but completely rational evening routine before bed, Hiram went over to the kitchen where LeRoy was washing some dishes from that night's meal. "We need to go talk to Rachel."
"Why's that? She seemed fine at dinner."
"That may be true, but I just saw her by the piano. She looks really worried about Regionals."
"Well, that doesn't seem like her at all. "
"Which is precisely why we need to go help out our daughter, dear," Hiram urged and started walking toward the staircase.
"Hold on. Let's wait a little bit. I don't want our baby to think her father was spying on her. It's almost time for her evening tea anyway."
The two men waited a few minutes while the kettle heated the water for their daughter's tea. And right as everything was ready concerning the tea, Rachel said LeRoy a text saying: "Hi Daddy. Ready for my tea now. xoxo"
Rachel's dads stepped into her room with slightly fake smiles on their faces, trying not to show their concern for fear of making her teenage emotions more volatile than usual. She would never be cross with her dads, but they did not like seeing her upset under any circumstances.
Hiram decided to break the ice. "Rachel, how are you feeling about Regionals being tomorrow? We know our little girl is going to steal the show. You're going to be wunderbar."
"Thanks, dads, but that's not it. I know it's not like me, but I don't want to talk about it right now. I'm fine though, thank you." She smiled a half-hearted smile that meant she wanted to be left alone for now. Both Hiram and LeRoy reluctantly left their daughter in her room, hoping that they could find a way to help her out with whatever she was going through right now. Hiram had no clue what could possibly be bugging his daughter so much that she couldn't tell either of her fathers about it.
"LeRoy, I've got it. We surprise her tomorrow at the competition. We go without her knowing that we are there."
"Well, I have always wanted to see her perform with her classmates. Now that I think of it, other than Finn and Kurt, I've never really met of the members of our baby's glee club."
"Alright then, it's settled. You cancel your usual Saturday client. We need to finally be there for our daughter during a performance."
"Hiram, I can't do that! I've been working on this case for so long. The firm already let me have weekdays off to take care of our baby for 17 years now. They won't let me cancel for this."
"They'll have to. Our baby won't tell us what's troubling her. That's never happened before. Something is wrong and we will get to the bottom of it.
The next evening, Hiram and LeRoy got dressed up and got into their car to go to their daughter's competition.
Hiram decided to sport a white dress shirt, cream-colored tie and a black dinner jacket with matching pants. LeRoy wanted to wear something with a little more color, though: an aquamarine shirt, a rather flamboyant tie, and black dinner jacket and pants to match his husband.
Rachel had stayed after school in order to rehearse with everyone else, so both men didn't have to sneak around too much. When they got there, Hiram parked their car quite far from the entrance so that Rachel wouldn't be able to see it if she looked out a window. He wanted this to be a big surprise for her.
"Slow down, honey, people are staring. You look like you've committed some sort of crime. Don't be so nervous," LeRoy noted.
"I don't think my quick stride is what's drawing these people's attention. They've probably never seen a queer married couple without some sort of rainbow flag or pink tie."
"Calm down, Hiram. Let's just go inside, sit down and enjoy our golden star's performance."
And that they did. LeRoy couldn't help but check his smartphone constantly, getting bombarded by text messages and emails from his Saturday client that he had put off to see his daughter. "LeRoy, put that away. We are here for our daughter."
"Sorry, hun," the busy lawyer whispered while shooting a heart-meltingly gorgeous smile at Hiram.
After a few performances by several glee clubs from the region, like the Golden Goblets and the Warblers, their baby was finally about to perform. She wasn't featured very heavily in the first number, which was an amateur mistake. The next number started with Rachel doing a very nice version of a song Hiram had heard on the radio a while back. She wasn't the main voice throughout the rest of the song, though. That performance was a little sloppy for Hiram's liking, but it was quite good nonetheless.
Hiram wrote music, arranged vocals, and composed scores as a profession, so when anything about the arrangements was even a little off, he knew. There were plenty of imperfections in those last two numbers, so his face had contorted into a very unhappy expression by the time the third number came around. What was this Shuester man thinking?
For their final number the New Directions seemed to have finally made a good decision. Rachel was on the stage by herself, without any distractions, just her, her voice, and the stage. LeRoy's idea to have a daughter 17 years ago was the best idea he had ever had, Hiram thought. She was hitting all the right notes and everything was perfect. She suddenly looked over to where her dads were sitting, which they took as a cue to stand up and applaud their baby on her performance. Rachel seemed ecstatic that her parents showed up to watch her, which is all that Hiram wanted: to see his daughter happy.
LeRoy was also very much into Rachel's solo, but every now and then, Hiram would catch him reading an "important" email on his phone and elbow his better half in the ribs, urging him to pay attention.
Finally it was time to announce the winner, which was obviously going to be the New Directions, because Rachel had done such a wonderful job up there. But Hiram understood the need for theatrical tension. He looked for Rachel throughout the crowd of several eager teenagers up there. She was behind a boy he had remembered being introduced as Blaine.
This boy suddenly stole Hiram's attention away from his precious daughter. He swore he saw the boy wink at him. Just to make sure, he looked around to find the kid's parents or something, but no one else around him seemed to be the recipient of that mischievous wink. Hiram didn't hesitate to tell his husband of what he thought he had just seen.
"Oh, hell, Hiram, why must you always insist that everyone is in love with you? Not that I would be surprised. You're quite the catch." LeRoy let out a chuckle that involved his whole body. That laugh was just one of the many reasons Hiram was so head-over-heels in love with his life partner.
"I'm not imagining this, honey. It appears I have a new fan, and not a bad looking one at that. But…"
But LeRoy wasn't really paying attention anymore, pulling out his phone and replying to a text message.
Author's Note: Remember, this is only an introduction. The real stuff goes down in upcoming chapters. I hope you like it so far. Please leave me a review, whether you liked it or not. Your input is really helpful. Thank you and see you again soon. :)
