Rachel absolutely detested these parties. She knew that she had to attend them, schmooze with the old couples that donated money to their production company, knew that these were the people paying her paycheck, allowing her to live her dream in New York, but she hated them. They were stuffy, they were boring, and there was rarely food she could actually stomach. But she was the star of the show, she couldn't get out of them. So she put on short cocktail dresses, curled her hair just right, flirted with the right people, laughed at their dumb jokes, wishing she could be at home with her roommate on their couch watching bad TV or old musicals while complaining about how in a city of a million people, they couldn't find one boy for themselves.

"I was just telling my husband how wonderful you were in last night's performance," some old woman was telling Rachel. She smiled graciously, always quick to accept compliments.

"Thank you so much," she replied, "I'm so fortunate to have found a great company that puts on fantastic shows and gives me wonderful roles," she gushed, laying it on thick so the woman would leave a more generous donator than before. This is what she was told to do, and Rachel wasn't working her way towards Broadway for nothing.

"Well I'm glad to have some sort of role in your future fame dear," the woman said, patting Rachel's arm before wandering away. She barely contained her eye roll as she drank a generous portion of the wine in her glass, frowning when she remembered she shouldn't have too much. She wandered over towards a wall, leaning against it and wondering when, exactly, she would learn about wearing five inch heels when trekking across Manhattan.

It was then that she saw him, their eyes meeting almost instantaneously, a smirk playing on his face as he looked at her. He was around her age, with dark curly hair and a little more facial hair than she normally preferred, but she was hooked. She wanted to go over, introduce herself, find out who he was-it was rare that someone outside of the company and under the age of 55 attended these parties-but her director pulled her over into a conversation with an elderly gentleman, raving about how she was one of the most promising new talents he had ever seen in his twenty years of running a theater company.

"Ah, this is my grandson," the man said as he pulled over the guy Rachel had seen almost ten minutes before now, the grin even wider on his face as he joined their conversation. "Just moved to New York, starting up in my company you see," he said, and Rachel nodded, not taking her eyes off the boy.

"My name's Blaine," he said, offering her a hand. "Blaine Anderson."

"Rachel Berry," she replied, shaking his hand.

"Rachel here is our star," her director explained, looking slightly less thrilled that someone with less money was now in the conversation.

"I saw last night, Grandfather took me to the show. You have a beautiful voice," Blaine told her, and she felt herself blushing-something she rarely did anymore, having gotten used to people complimenting her so often.

"Thank you," she finally said, realizing she had been silent for an uncomfortable amount of time.

"Can I get you a refill?" he asked, and she nodded, letting him lead her away from the other two. "It looked like you needed a break back there," he confided after they were far enough away that her director wouldn't hear them.

"Oh, no, I love these-" she started in her automatic voice, but he just looked at her and she realized she couldn't really lie. "Yes, I did, thank you very much. I appreciate everything the donators do, but these parties are so-"

"Boring?"

"I was going to stay stuffy," she laughed, surprised at how comfortable she felt with him. "But boring works too."

"Hey now, it must take a lot of work to get these old men to part with their money," Blaine joked, depositing their empty wine glasses on a table and picking up two new ones, handing one to her.

"No, that actually comes pretty naturally to me," she joked back.

"I can't say I'm surprised," he said in a mocking tone, and it was natural to retort back, for a witty repertoire to unfold. She found herself laughing, not caring that her feet killed, or that she was beyond exhausted from 40 hours of rehearsal on top of parties and performances. One glass of wine turned into three, and they moved towards a table, completely engrossed in conversations as they unfolded secrets, telling him things she hadn't even told some of her oldest friends. They barely noticed as the party begun to empty out, as enthralled as they were with each other, and it wasn't even until her friend Jasmine came over that she realized it was nearly one in the morning.

"Rach, you said we were sharing a cab and my feet hurt and I'm exhausted," she whined as she stood over the pair, completely uncaring that she was interrupting a conversation about musicals versus their movie counterparts.

"I'm in the middle of a conversation," Rachel said tersely, but Jasmine didn't seem to care.

"Say goodnight to Prince Charming," she said, yanking Rachel out of her chair. "It's time for me to go home." Blaine looked slightly confused, amused and upset all at once, and she barely got a chance to wave goodbye before Jasmine was pushing her out the door.

It wasn't until she got into the cab that she realized they hadn't exchanged numbers, the fact that she may never see him again haunting her all the way home.

Kurt was sleeping when she got home, so she went into her room and changed into pajamas, trying to convince her body it was time to sleep now. Normally she did well at this, falling asleep almost instantly, but it was like her entire body was alive, electrified from hours of conversation. She wanted to kick herself for not getting his number earlier, for not finding out where he was staying, for not giving him her number.

She felt all kind of stupid words, wonder struck, giddy, enchanted. He was wonderful and attractive and, though he hadn't actually sang for her, he had told her he used to be in his high schools glee club. He was smart and funny and she wanted to spend forever with him, realizing she was falling way too hard, way too fast for someone she'd more than likely never run into again. She looked at the clock, it's numbers telling her it was nearly 2:30 in the morning, the threat of an early day not enough to lure her into sleep as she sat up, picking at her cuticles.

If her life was a movie, he'd find her and take her out on a date and within months they'd be married. It'd be a whirlwind romance, only fitting for true love. Love is a big step Rachel, she reprimanded, reminding herself she wasn't in high school anymore, she couldn't throw the word around.

But when she thought about Blaine, she had that same jolt of compassion and caring, of wanting to be around him all the time, of wanting to hold him and bring him back to Ohio with her to introduce to her dads. She wanted to see him in the audience when she won her first Tony, put it on a mantel in an apartment in Manhattan. She wanted to go ice skating in Central Park and go to late night movies with him.

She wanted him.

She started pacing across her floor now, biting her lip as she walked up and down in the moonlit room. Never had she been this affected this quickly, and she tried to pinpoint exactly when it happened. Sure, the moment they made eye contact she wanted to know him. And when he reached across her and brushed across her arm, she thought she was practically on fire. But it was more than a physical attraction, more than an emotional attraction. It was everything into one.

She walked now into her living room, practically willing him to somehow know her address and show up. She blushed as she recalled when he pushed a piece of her hair back, doing the same to herself now, tracing where his fingertips had gently touched her cheek. She had literally stopped breathing for a second, and wondered briefly if he was going to kiss her. But then the moment passed, the room was moving again, people were around them, the world was bigger than the two of them.

A vague notion of panic set in when she realized neither had established that they were single, a sense of dread filling her stomach as she silently prayed that he was, don't be in love with someone else, she whispered to the ceiling, hoping that the powers at be listened to her just this once. All of a sudden all she could imagine was him walking into the apartment of another girl, a tall, leggy blonde who wrapped him in her arms and whispered how she had missed him all night, did he have fun?

No, she decided, he would have told her-he was a decent guy, an honest guy, and there was clearly chemistry between them. If there was even a chance that he had a girlfriend, a fiancé, a wife, he would have mentioned it. She took a deep breath, sitting down cross legged on the floor and staring in the direction of the living room window, looking at the dim light outside. They lived on the top floor, and some nights she could almost make out stars. Tonight was one of the few, the moon hanging low as it taunted her, almost seeming to make the entire night more magical, more enchanting.

She quickly got up and changed into clothes, not knowing for sure where she was going but knowing she couldn't sit in her apartment anymore, dashing outside before she could give thoughts to her actions.

Two blocks away, as she headed for the subway downtown, Blaine emerged from the stairwell. "Rachel?" he asked, seeming just as startled as she was. She answered his question with a kiss, his arms wrapping around her as she felt like her legs would go out.

It was a movie style kiss, in a movie style night, and as they continued to kiss under the streetlights in the quiet half-dark of a New York City street, Rachel thought she heard Blaine say something about the evening being "enchanting."