A/N: Welcome, welcome folks! :) I'm CE, and I have yet another story to bring to you (without finishing one - WHAT IS THIS SICKNESS I HAVE?) Thanks so much for clicking into this story! This is actually a rather important note: I have an incurable tenancy to make absolutely every aspect of a story 150% historically accurate. This one is set in the 1930s. Now, I don't know how many of you are familiar with the American 30s, so I put together a little references section that I'd recommend you read, just to orient yourselves :) It'll be below this author's note and before the song.

This story is Part One in what I like to call The Sinatra Trilogy (yes, I do know that he's from a different time period). The second installment will be called "Something Stupid", and I'm 50% sure that the third will be "Summer Wind". This was supposed to be a one-shot (a veeeerry long one-shot) but I thought it would be more fun to put it out in chapters because there's a lot of suspicion and questions that won't be resolved until the end and I'd like to hear your thoughts! I'm shooting for this story to be three chapters! I've been listening to a lot of Sinatra lately (his voice is sex), and I got the idea for this story in particular because I'm enamored with Fred and Ginger movies and was just recollecting The Gay Divorcee, which is aptly but misleadingly named.

About the Boston accent: I am most assuredly not from Boston (unfortunately) and all the way on the other side of the country, we have little to no knowledge about such accents. That said, the Boston accent is one of my absolute favorite, so no disrespect is meant to Bostonians. I get my knowledge of it solely from Papa Google and Boston Rob, who happens to be one of my favorite people on this planet and the honoree of what must now be a ten year long crush. I highly suggest reading the dialogue out loud if you can't immediately pick up on what's being said.

This has officially been too long! Enjoy! (And go learn something! I promise that you will! :P)


Important Dates:

1920 to 1933 – Prohibition in the United States.

1920 – Edith Wharton publishes the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Age of Innocence, set in upper class New York.

1920s – Louis Armstrong rises to fame. (For more about Armstrong's purpose in this story, see Bing Crosby.)

October 1929 – Black Thursday. The month the stock market crashed on Wall Street, and the effective beginning of the Great Depression.

1930 – Galvin Corporation invents the first car radio. Founders, and brothers, Paul and Joe Galvin come up with the name Motorola for their new car radio brand.

September 2, 1931 – Bing Crosby makes his solo radio debut. His popularity boomed quickly. Ten out of the top fifty songs in 1931 featured Crosby and he would soon become one of America's most famous singers. (What's ironic here is that Bing Crosby was heavily influenced by Louis Armstrong and tried to mimic his style, especially in his early days. I tried to use this as a subtle tool to expose some of Henry Anderson's character.)

Important People:

Alexis F. du Pont and Mary Chichester – The father and mother of this story's Du Pont family.

Alexis Felix du Pont, Jr. – Called Felix. The oldest of the Du Pont children. He graduated from Princeton in 1929, two years before this story was set.

Richard Chichester du Pont – The middle child of the Du Pont family. He and Blaine are meant to be the same age. In 1932, a year after this story is set, he'll go to study aviation at Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute. Aviation is a passion all of the Du Pont children have. (Richard's personality here is completely fabricated. I just got done with a post-modern section in English Lit so I decided to try it out a bit. Richard is, more or less, me in male form. Take away the Bible-thumping sentiment, the gambling, and the aviation - I am Richard :D)

Alice du Pont Mills – One year younger than Blaine and Richard. In 1935, four years after this story is set, she'll marry James Paul Mills.

The almost imponderable joy of…: this is taken from Charlie McDonnell, of course! :) I love that boy.

Goodtime people: phrase used by James Baldwin about jazz musicians in his short story "Sonny's Blues".

The exceedingly strange sleeping scene (you'll recognize it when you read it): my short-lived and never to be replicated attempt at recreating an experience in a post-modernist style of writing. Thank you, Jonathan Safran Foer.

Shadow man: Doctor Facilier from The Princess and the Frog. I'm actually not even sure if they really do call voodoo people the shadow man in the south.

Rooney: …Afraid I can't actually illuminate this one :) It would give the plot away! Ten million points to whoever can puzzle out what Rooney is in reference to!


Strangers in the Night by Frank Sinatra

Strangers in the night exchanging glances

Wandering in the night, what were the chances

We'd be sharing love before the night was through?

Something in your eyes was so inviting

Something in your smile was so exciting

Something in my heart told me I must have you

Strangers in the night

Two lonely people

We were strangers in the night

Up to the moment when we said our first hello

Little did we know

Love was just a glance away

A warm, embracing dance away

And ever since that night we've been together

Lovers at first sight in love forever

It turned out so right for strangers in the night

Love was just a glace away

A warm embracing dance away

Ever since that night we've been together

Lovers at first sight in love forever

It turned out so right for strangers in the night

December 19, 1931

"You're hiding." The sharp, accusatory words leave Madeline Anderson's lips and reach my ears not a moment later. My mother's voice is unmistakable.

I'm currently lounging in a window seat of our Upper East Side residence. I absolutely loathe the room I am in –rather, I loathe the fact that I actually might love it. Frilly lace curtains frame the open windows so that the sharp winter breeze blows through and makes the curtains billow directly into my face. It is wallpapered with a soft white color that looks dull in the winter lighting, and my mother specifically ordered a fleur-de-lis border that looks charmingly out of place during this season. This is the room in which Madeline retreats with her group of friends to twitter away for hours about this person who had been "working late" or that person who seemed to not be working at all. I like to call it the Tea and Cakes Room, because that seems to be what the ladies subsist off of during their hours in here.

However dull the room looks in this moment, I know that at the right time of the day in the springtime, the sun filters in perfectly so that I don't even need to turn on a lamp. It would warm the cushions of my window seat and I would roll up my sleeves and unbutton the top few buttons of my shirt so that the sun could warm my skin. The image is easy to conjure when I close my eyes, but when I open them it is a very different picture that actually awaits my gaze. I'm done up in layers, with a scarf to protect neck from the frigid air. Falling snow gathers just inside the window, where it is propped open. Wind blows through the open window and brings color to my cheeks and the tip of my nose, making them numb. I like it when this happens, because when I close the window and step into the hall, I know I will be able to feel warmth filling them again.

I don't answer my mother immediately. I don't even turn to face away from my window, through which I can see bundled couples strolling hand in hand through Central Park, which is blanketed in a soft layer of bright snow.

"I can't say that I'm surprised," Madeline continues. "After all, you've been successful so far. You can only avoid these things for so long. If you could just…change your mind –"

"I didn't make up my mind in the first place," I interrupt abruptly.

"I thought being in such a pathetic state meant that you had refused to accompany your father and I – not to mention the rest of polite society – to the beach houses this week."

"That is not what I meant, and you know that, Mother," I say. I snap the window shut and finally turn to face my mother. "I was referencing what you were referencing, which has nothing to do with your fancy Christmas sabbatical in Florida."

Madeline doesn't speak for an uncomfortable stretch of abnormally long seconds. What she does say is no less or more than what I expect: "You'll be coming with your father and I, then? The Du Pont family is coming down from their home in Delaware to meet us. It's important to keep up connections with friends such as them, Blaine. You know that." I roll my eyes at the use of the words friends. It seems a bit of a strange choice in words to me, since in the same breath she claims that the connections for import's sake only. "I've been exchanging letters with Mary. She says that Alice will be there. She's such a lovely girl, Blaine."

"Not interested," I say, returning my gaze to the window. "She's completely infatuated with that Mills fellow." Even if Alice hadn't been infatuated with the Mills boy, I still would not have been interested.

"Well, Richard will be there as well, perhaps even Felix. Mary gave a glowing report about him. He just graduated from Princeton the year before last, you know. Perhaps you can talk to him about getting a higher education…"

"The Du Pont brothers are obsessed with airplanes," I say, trying not to roll my eyes. "It's all they talk about, and I don't know the first thing about aviation." That is true enough, but I actually quite like Richard. He's an easy person to get along with, if a bit tiring. We all but grew up together. He's the closest thing I have to a brother, but my mother wouldn't know that.

"Fine. You don't like the Du Pont boys. At least you won't be getting any ideas then," she says tightly. A swell of rage rises within me, and I have to struggle to retain a neutral expression. Behind her backhanded question is a cutting edge that lodges deep in a place too-near to my heart, making it shrink back within my chest cavity.

"I'll come to Florida for Christmas," I say shortly.

"Fabulous." She leaves, just like that. What irks me is that she knew I was coming all along. We do the same thing every year. The old money in New England leaves the snowy frigid north for several weeks in the dead of winter in favor of a string of beach houses on the Florida coast. It's like an archipelago of wealthy families and their wealthy children, schmoozing with one another, holding balls, dressing up every day in order to whisper behind their fans, and finding out new ways in which to intermarry. It's all slightly upsetting and I don't particularly enjoy it. That is not to mention my mother hauling over every single eligible bachelorette just for me to politely dismiss her.

The past couple years have been getting worse and worse. When I was seventeen, in 1928, people began to say that I was picky. They laughed but dismissed it. I was waiting for the right girl, they said, someone special. The next year, our annual trip to Florida came just more than two months after that fateful October. My father wasn't stupid. There had been signs that others were too foolish to see. He sold our stock about two weeks before Black Thursday. They had been bought in an instant. Other families had not been so lucky.

When we went to Florida two short months after that, many middling families were in a scramble. They needed stability. They needed to marry their daughters into wealthy families to assure their own lasting well-being. Turning down marriage arrangement after marriage arrangement that had tried to be made for me was no longer an endearing picky quality. It was suspicious. People began whispering that perhaps I wasn't simply waiting for the right girl. Perhaps I wasn't simply a snob apt to turn my nose up at anyone not level with myself in society. Perhaps I wasn't looking for a wife at all. Why would that be, they wanted to know.

Each time I backed away from a potential wife, I merely confirmed what everyone thought they already knew. I never had to say anything out loud. Besides, it isn't something that one speaks about, at least not someone like me. Manhattan pays reporters to detail every aspect of our lives in the papers. I am sure that the day we leave there will be an article running about how the New York Andersons have escaped on a retreat with the prestigious Delaware Du Pont's and the rest of their society of old money. They will point out how the Vanderbilt's have once again been left in New England as further proof of their slow downfall from prestige. If I were to confirm what people already suspect, the Andersons' would be the next Vanderbilt family. My father would do anything to prevent that.

I've never confessed anything to my parents. I've never confessed anything to anyone. It doesn't matter. That horse was shot in the mouth when our manservant found Teddy Holland climbing down from the second floor window…out of my room. It had been late fall in 1929. His father had just killed himself after losing almost all of his family's money. Teddy had just needed someone to listen to him – someone to comfort him. That excuse might have even flown had we not both had extremely incriminating and freshly made marks on our necks.

After the incident with Teddy, my parents had tried even harder to quell this 'rebellion', or so they phrased it. They think I've decided to fabricate an interest in men to avoid the committal that accompanies marriage. It sounds like a bad joke, doesn't it? Unfortunately, it's my reality. It's all I have to look forward to.

December 23, 1931

The ride down to Florida is long and bumpy. Father and Mother sit in the two front seats, whilst I get the almost imponderable joy of riding in back with the luggage. Father doesn't turn off the car radio almost the entire time. We'd gotten one of the first ones, hot off the production line, at a friend's-and-family discount price from Paul and Joseph Galvin themselves. Father had insisted on giving their new brand, Motorola, a generous donation that actually amounted to three times what we would have had to pay had we know known the Galvin brothers at all.

I must have listened through "Out of Nowhere" two dozen times. Father is obsessed with this new musician, Bing Crosby, and he actively searches the stations for him. Of course, when one of the stations announces their intention to "mix it up with Jazz Hour", and started to play Louis Armstrong, Father immediately changes it, which is wholly typical of him. "We don't need any of those goodtime people giving our son any ideas," he says. "It's bad enough that he reads that Edith Wharton woman."

"Edith Wharton is a genius," I say dully. I have actually packed The Age of Innocence in my luggage. I've read it before but I find the social commentary about marrying someone as society dictates you to especially poignant of late.

"She's a cancer in the body of polite society," my father says. He effectively ends the conversation.

The entire trip proceeds in such a manner, and I'm actually grateful when I see the beach houses. Silently, I carry the luggage to our house and then immediately set out for the beach.

When we had stopped in Virginia, I had changed into a short-sleeved shirt, but the air here is so warm, even in the dead of winter, that I now shed even that, and cast it beside me into the sand. All that remains is a thin undershirt and tan slacks, for I took my shoes off back at the house. Sighing in relief – for I am alone finally…not one other person is on the beach – I lay back on the sand and close my eyes.

…Voices. Fizz the sound of waves in the sand. Laughter. Limbs. Heavy – encased in syrup – can't move. Sun like warm breaths across…too hot. Skin. Comfort. No – struggle. Mind sharpens. Eyelids flutter. Waken.

It is only when I truly wake up that I realize I have fallen asleep, as is common when you are truly tired, down to your bones. I feel horrible – sticky, sluggish, sweaty, and mushy, as if somehow the sun has taken all the strength out of my limbs. My skin aches like it is straining to cover my body, and there are now dozens of other people up and down the beach.

The only ones in my vicinity are two men, leaning close together. From the stretches of words that reach my ears, I gather that they are arguing.

"You…this when…up…your grand…task, and you'd bett…" The bigger man waves his arms around as he speaks. I'm not actively trying to listen in, but they are so close, and they're talking so loud.

"What if…that Pat could…tell Grandfath…" The other man sounds young, though his frame is strong, which makes him seem younger than his presence alone would have. I figure that he can't be older than me.

"…You'll do…proud…any arguments."

The bigger man – the older, I assume – leaves, giving the younger one a poke on the chest as his farewell. Even the younger's call of, "Uncle Liam," doesn't halt his retreat. He stares after his uncle for a minute before spinning around. His gaze fixes on me and I realize that I'm staring. I try to look away but I don't manage it before he speaks. "Whatta you lookin' at, Lobstah boy?"

The accent catches me off guard almost more than the fact that he is now addressing me. I don't say anything, but quickly gather up my shirt and make to leave. "You make a habit of listenin' in on othuh people's private convuhsations?"

"You came up to me." By this time, he is at my side. In spite of the heat, he's done up in all black, with long sleeves and a hat pulled low over his eyes.

Now, he reaches up and takes his hat off. When I straighten up and look at him, all I see are eyes that seem to be blue and green and gold and every color all at once. I'm transfixed. I don't walk away. I don't look away. I don't say anything. I can't. I just stand there staring.

His rainbow gaze does not waver. His eyebrows are drawn together slightly and his lips are pursed. The fierce expression looks out of place. He has a kind face, I think, and it would just look that much more handsome if he was smiling. Suddenly, absurdly, I want to be the one who puts a smile there.

As if he is reading my mind – is he reading my mind? – his forehead relaxes from its drawn up position. His lips also relax, and a smile – smaller than the one in my brief fantasy – replaces the look of tight suspicion. His current expression puts me in the mind that he knows something about me that even I don't. Suddenly, I feel quite naked.

"You wuh sleepin'," he says, lips still curved in a half-smile.

"I, uhm…woke up," I say. Stupid.

He raises his eyebrows. He obviously thinks I'm stupid, too. "Back in town. Nettie's stoah sells sunbuhn ointment that wuhks befo' rit stahts to hurt. I'd go now if I wuh you. Tell her you's one of Papa Rooney's. She'll give ya half off."

"Uh, uh, uh." It's all I can say and I suddenly wonder if he's some sort of shadow man – you never know down here in the South – who has put a stupidity spell on me. I usually pride myself on being rather well-spoken. His smile grows a little wider. With a wink that seems to awaken a few living things in my stomach – things with an impressive wingspan – he puts his hat back on and walks away.

My jaw is quite literally agape as I watch him walk away. I've never seen him before, which means he is not here regularly. However, he knew about Nettie's, which I've never heard of despite being here twenty times, so he could be a local. But no, the Boston accent effectively rules out that possibility.

"Who are you?" The question rips away from my throat before I can help it and I'm immediately mortified. The man doesn't turn back, but I see his head tip back, as if he's chuckling, and one hand lifts in a small wave. I could go after him. I don't. I could call out to him again. I don't. I could inquire about him with someone else – Mrs. Du Pont seems to know everybody's business. But I know that I won't. I've never believed in fate before now, but suddenly I have the feeling that I'll see that man again.

December 24, 1931

It's Christmas Eve, and the beaches are buzzing. Yesterday, I went to Nettie's, as the young man with rainbow eyes had suggested, and I'd said what he'd told me to. What had happened next was exceedingly strange:

I grabbed the sunburn ointment ("Makes the hurt go so all you're left with is that summertime glow!") and went up to the counter. Nettie was a middle-aged woman with hair already grey. With a tight smile she informed me of the price.

I cast my gaze around and leaned closer to her. I wasn't sure what made me do this, but I had the feeling that Papa Rooney wasn't a name that should be tossed around freely. "I'm here with Papa Rooney," I said, effectively hiding my surprise when her eyes opened saucer-wide. "I…I believe we have an arrangement."

"O-of course!" she said. Her tan face had paled and her hand shook as she rewrote the new amount on me receipt. "Of course. Mister Rooney's…yes. It's…good to see you boys back in town."

Quelling the thrill that went through my stomach, I nodded at her and left. I only let out my sigh of relief when I had turned the corner. What I'd done was stupid. I should have just paid the full amount. I'd gambled both that Papa Rooney was in Florida and that he'd made an arrangement with her. They had seemed like logical assumptions at the time, but seeing the way her face paled and her eyes grew wary…I didn't desire to dwell on what the other side of my gambling coin would have been.

I stare out of the window of our house at the beach outside. Families sit together on the sand, laughing and engaging in general merriment. It's a private beach, so the only ones here are those who have vacation homes on the beachfront. That doesn't by any account mean that there aren't many people here. The Anderson family is small, but many of the others aren't. The Du Pont's alone have at least six proliferous branches, one of which my family has an in with.

As if my ears are burning, I hear a knock at the door. "Blaine?" It's Richard, the younger of the two Du Pont boys and the same age as me. I turn around and he's beaming so hugely that I can't help but smile. I really am platonically fond of the man. He can talk for hours, but it generally isn't about anything – aviation, in my opinion, is a nothing, since I don't know the first thing about it therefore cannot fathom the lingo. He amuses me to no end though.

"Richard," I say, standing up and offering him my hand, which he forgoes for giving me a hug and a hearty pat on the back. If my father had seen the action, he might have collapsed into sudden cardiac arrest. "How are you?"

"Good, old chap! Quite well!" Richard says loudly. "Listen, Felix and I are going to see about a blind tiger." He raises his eyebrows meaningfully, leans forward on his elbow, and grins at me conspiratorially. "After that car ride down, we could use a little 100-proof coffee. Care to join?"

I let out a chuckle. "Richie, it's not even noon."

"We'll get lunch first," he says with a grin.

"Well, I'll come to lunch, but I think I'll pass on…the coffee." The corner of my mouth quirks upward in a smile. "How long will you boys be there? Maybe I'll hop on down tonight."

"They have a billiard table?" Richard asks rhetorically. "Card game going? Felix will spend the entire vacation there."

"Goodness, I hope not," I say with a chuckle. I take a quick glance in the mirror. When I'm not in New York, I get to dress relatively casually. This means black fitted slacks, leather shoes, and a buttoned shirt with rolled-up sleeves. In other words, the Anderson family doesn't do casual. Fortunately for me, the Du Pont family doesn't either, and Richard is dressed in a similar manner. "He'll kill himself…or get arrested."

"Ah, I've seen officers in more than one speakeasy, boozing with the rest of us. One of these days, Blainers, people will wise up and stop the Bible-thumper mission to outlaw sweet escape."

"Do not call me Blainers," I say as we walk down the street towards the downtown area. Despite my words, I'm smiling. I never realize how much I miss Richard until I see him again. I might even be just a little bit fond of his stupid nickname, which I know he won't stop saying no matter how many times I ask him not to. It's a twenty year old habit. "Where on Earth are we going, Richie?"

"This little Thai place in a nook downtown. I took a girl there once and she swears that it's the best food she'd ever had," Richard enthuses.

"Thai? What is Thai food?"

Richard smirks. "You'll like it…or it'll make you sick!"

I shake my head and laugh reluctantly. "You're the gambler, not me, Richie."

"You don't get far if you gamble when you're in the air – unless far is that great big Something Other – so it's better to do all my gambling here on the ground."

"Thank God for that." I make a mental note never to let Richard fly me anywhere. "Try not to gamble your family's fortune away with Felix, alright? How do you know the password to get in, anyway? I wouldn't think the locals would want us visiting Yankees to invade."

"That's something to ask Felix," Richard says absently, examining street signs for the correct road. "You'll need it if you come later, though. "It's 'Rooney'."

I skip a step and almost stumble. I have to grab onto Richard to keep from falling over, and I cling to him because suddenly, my limbs have started trembling slightly. "Rooney?" I repeat. "Why? Rooney…what does it mean?"

Richard shrugs. He is all but holding me up, and surveys me with worry. "I don't know, Blaine. The owner maybe? A patron? It could just be a random name so people don't get wise. Are you alright, Blainers?"

"Fine," I lie, trying to quell my racing heart. "I'm fine."

Forty minutes later, Richard and his brother Felix were bidding me goodbye and heading off for their appointment with a "blind tiger". Stuffed to the brim with exotic food and the startling password all but forgotten, I start teetering back toward the beachfront. Richard had been right, it had been the best food I've ever had…however, I was getting the suspicion that it still might make me sick. I'm in a bit of a food-coma, which is unfortunate because I know that tomorrow, Anderson's, Du Pont's, Mills', Astor's, Roosevelt's and more will all gather for a blindingly extravagant Christmas dinner.

I don't hear the steps by my side that signify that someone has joined me. In fact, I only notice that I'm not alone when I look up from watching my feet and actually see the figure there. There's no black coat this time, but the hat remains and now he has sunglasses on, veiling his rainbow eyes. His long-sleeved white shirt is rolled up past his elbows, exposing lovely fair skin that could have come straight from a magazine ad.

"It's you," I say stupidly.

"Me," he confirms, and a smile lifts the corner of his mouth. "Ya went to Nettie's yestahday." It wasn't a question. He already knew that I had.

"Yes," I say anyway. "Y-you were right. She cut the price…more than half off actually."

What I can see of his eyebrows under his hat lift in mild surprise. "She must've liked the looka ya." He pauses, and if I don't known better, I could swear I see that upward lift of his lips twitch in amusement. "Who can blame her?"

My eyes open wide in surprise. Had just said what I think he said? Does he mean what I think he means? Was it possible…? "Can you?" I ask the question before my brain manages to prevent me from it. It suddenly hits be that I might not even have a logical brain at all, for it escapes me far too often. Or if I do, this mystery man – Rainbow Eyes, I've been calling him in my head – puts it into temporary inactivity.

He doesn't look over at me, though I haven't taken my eyes off of him, and his steps don't miss a beat. "Maybe I'm not totally qualified to say," Rainbow Eyes says. He begins to scuff the toes of his dark, expensive looking shoes on the ground as he walks. "Aftuh all…all I seen'a ya was ya face smashed into the sand – you snoah, by the way. You do look a bit less lobstah red today, though. Mo' like an erasuh." Now, he looks up at me and smirks. "Baby pink, Baby."

Wondering whether that faint buzzing in my head was because of bees in my ears or because I was verging on unconsciousness, I finally turn away and take a deep breath. It sounds too vulnerable, even to my bee-filled ears. In the back of my mind, I recognize that he has completely avoided my question.

"Right," I say slowly, gradually shaking myself back into reality. "Uhm…I guess I never even introduced myself. How rude of me. I'm –"

"I know who ya ah," he interrupts, looking away and tilting his head up toward the clear blue sky. As he looks up, I take the opportunity to sneak a glance back in his direction. A pale expanse of throat stretches from the collar of his shirt up to his upstretched chin. I actually have to bite my lip, just in case my non-brain decides it has any more eloquent things to blurt. "Blaine Anduhson, of the Manhattan Anduhson family."

"H…how do you know that?" I ask quietly.

"I know what I need to know," he responds evasively. "Fah example…you just came back from lunch with the Du Pahnt brothuhs."

"That's something you need to know?" I ask, not sure whether I should be flattered or worried that I may have a stalker…a very, very attractive stalker.

"No." It's only with that word and the conspiratorial smile that accompanies it that I realize he'd just made a joke, and I let out a relieved sigh of air. He has a strange, almost undetectable sense of humor, to be sure, but I find that I can appreciate it easily. "I wanted to find ya."

"Why?" I ask. He doesn't answer. Our feet have carried us without agenda, and we are now on the division between the sand of the beach and the street. In silent agreement, we stop walking and I face toward him.

He still doesn't answer me, but instead stares out across the ocean. Sensing that an answer isn't about to come, I change the subject. Once again, what I say mightn't have been the smartest or most subtle path to take. "You know I was with Richard and Felix, then," I say. "They're off to see about a blind tiger. I…I told them I might join them. I have to say…when they said that the password was 'Rooney'…I couldn't help but wonder." His head snapped away from the ocean. Though his dark sunglasses prevented me from seeing his eyes, I knew they were fixed on me.

"Don't wonduh," he said shortly.

"Is it your Rooney?" I persist.

"There's dozens of Rooney's in this state alone," he says sharply.

"Maybe I'll go," I continue. Judging by his former tone of voice, I'm beginning to push my luck. "I'm sure they're different here than they are in New York. Will I see you there?" A sane person would have realized that those words sounded an awful lot like admittance to wanting to see him again. The thing is…I do want to see him again, and even if I didn't I wouldn't have the sanity required to recognize that.

"Is that an invitation?" he asks, leaning closer to me.

"Perhaps." I don't lean away.

He smirks and leans back again. "Don't go to the blind tiguh," he says. "Just…don't."

I gape at him like a fish suddenly thrown out of water. Who is he to tell me what to do? I haven't even known the man a day. Yet, there is an unmistakable yet unidentifiable mysterious air about him that I can't help but take seriously. "I'll see ya again, Blaine Anduhson." He lifts up his sunglasses for a moment…just long enough for a wink and a brief glimpse of his rainbow eyes.

"Wait," I call, before he makes it two steps. "Who are you? You never told me your name."

"It isn't impahtant," he tells me. "But…about why I needed to find ya." He dips his hand briefly into his pocket and pulls out a small present, complete with wrapping paper and a glittering green ribbon. "Merry Christmas, Blaine Anduhson." He passes me the small box, which I take with numb hands. As he hands it off to me, his fingers draw lightly down the length of my hand in a way that I am absolutely sure isn't accidental.

"Merry Christmas," I whisper as he turns and walks back toward town, hands in his pockets. I take a steadying breath and I realize that I've moved to hold the small box against the left side of my chest – right above my heart. Steeling myself, I dip behind some of the palms on the beach and simply look at the neat, wrapped box for a few moments. Gathering my courage before it flees, I pull on the ribbon that ties the whole assemblage together.


A/N: Yay, cliffhanger! :D So, I worked pretty hard on this and did an almost embarrassing amount of research so I'd like to hear all of your thoughts! What I'm really curious about is whether anyone has a handle on Kurt. Any ideas about his story? I've tried to veil him in a bit of mystery - Blaine's certainly puzzled - but at times I think I've made him too transparent. Any ideas? I'll give you one hint: he's a Southie :) Also, does anyone have an idea about what Rooney might be a reference to? :) I wait with anticipation for your thoughts! (Also, this has been my first shot ever at writing in present tense. I hope it wasn't too awful! "^^)

Thanks for reading! This should have two, possibly three chapters left! :3