A/N: WELCOME TO 'I CAN'T WAIT'! I'm so glad to see so many familiar names from SOWK, and lots of new ones as well! I hope you're enjoying the concept of the story so far – it's incredibly exciting and refreshing to be writing this journey from Cory's point of view! If you don't already know, this story is based off of the song 'I Can't Wait' by Runner Runner and it is directly inspired through the lyrics, which are the themes for the chapters. The chapters will always follow a format: current thoughts and a flashback, sometimes with more current thoughts at the end.

PLEASE NOTE: The e-mail notification that a new chapter has been posted might act funny – if you get an e-mail that a new chapter has been posted and the link doesn't work, come directly to the story via the website or my permalink. I apologize for that – the site was funny when I uploaded the Introduction, and I'm afraid everything else will be thrown off.

I hope you all like the story and continue to read it, post comments and leave your thoughts and opinions – it really keeps me motivated and going! Love you all!

- Therese

Chapter 1

One thing you should know about Lea is that she's always late. Honestly, I'm not much better, but it's just easier to blame lateness on one person than on both. But when I'm late, I'm only by five or ten minutes. Lea will manage to be late by nearly an hour. I'm not quite sure how she always gets behind, but you always know she's off on her timing when she starts getting frantic and angry for no good reason. This outburst of random emotion turns into clumsiness. That would explain how we managed to break five iPhone screens on the tile floor in our bathroom in nearly a year. Pretty sure the guys at the Apple store have phones off to the side for her replacements. May I also add, this clumsiness and franticness is also the reason why I nearly almost drive everywhere.

Because she's always late, our timing is always thrown off and we always seem to get stuck in some kind of traffic or hold up. Even if we start to get ready two hours before we need to be somewhere, she'll still find a way to get caught up in a catastrophe to delay us almost worse than what it would be on a day that we get a late start. I really don't know how this even happens, but it does.

One of my favorite days of us being late and stuck in traffic going somewhere really isn't even all that special. But even these ordinary days seem to stand out in my head because of the way she leaves her mark on them.

Here's reason #1 why I want to marry Lea Michele Sarfati: The way she curses when we're in traffic.

"Mooooooove!" Lea yelled at the car in front of us, her New York and New Jersey accent strong and present in her voice. Yet again, we were stuck in ridiculous bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 405. We were both supposed to meet a call time of 7:00am at set, and of course, it was 7:40, and we weren't even off the entrance ramp to the highway.

I really couldn't do anything but groan as I began to flip through the radio stations, hoping to find something good to listen to. We'd be in this kind of traffic for at least a half hour. In the past, we'd call set and tell them that we'd be late and that we were terribly sorry for missing call time. But now, they've all just come to expect it from us. I always feel bad when we rush in and everyone else is ready to go. I wonder what they'd do if we were on time just once.

Lea took a sip of her coffee from her travel mug before letting a small moan escape her lips. "That Keurig makes a damn good cup of coffee."

"You mean your boyfriend makes a good cup of coffee?" I smiled at her. "Someone has to put the cup in the maker and your mug underneath the spout and press the button, you know."

She smirked at me before nodding her head. "Same thing, really."

"I'm sure it is," I replied before settling on a radio station. Couldn't go wrong with some old-school Pearl Jam on the classic rock station.

Lea leaned to her side, straining her neck to look around the line of cars in front of us to see what the hold up was. "Shit, man, this asshole in front of us has so much space in front of him."

"You're supposed to leave a car space, you know," I reminded her.

"Bullshit," she muttered before leaning over towards me quickly and extending her arm. With a strong push, she jammed her hand down hard on the horn. It blared, and not even only for a second or two, but for nearly ten. All during this time, I went into a shear panic, trying to pry her heavy-pressed hand off of the horn on my steering wheel.

"Are you crazy?" I squealed in a high-pitched manner, completely out of my normal voice range.

Lea started to laugh loudly, and after she felt like she clearly made her point, she removed her hand from the horn. Sure enough, the car in front of us started moving. Her laugh was infectious, and soon after my initial panic had subsided, I began to laugh with her.

"That's how you get shit done, baby," she smirked before taking another sip of her coffee. "Look at us moving now."

Honestly, we weren't going any faster than a whole 10 miles an hour, but compared to the standstill we were just in on the ramp, we might as well have been flying to work.

We spent the rest of the car ride in back and forth conversation about the scenes we'd be shooting that day, how sore we were from the dance rehearsals that were held yesterday, and what we wanted to have for dinner that night. It didn't take as long as we expected to get to work. Turns out, there was an accident that we were able to pass up pretty quickly. But at the end of the day, it wasn't so much about the rides to work, or the petty conversation, but her attitude in general. Maybe it's just the New York really coming out in her, but I just love that damn potty mouth. It makes her real, it shows her emotion, and as weird as it sounds, it makes her comfortable. I don't have to worry about being a guy around her. If I let the f-word slip, she doesn't even blink an eye. She sprinkles those in with her cereal in the morning.

We arrived at work, parked the car, and held a healthy jog all the way to our lot. I had to head over to the recording studio to work on a song that I'd be performing later, while Lea had to head straight for the makeup trailer to prepare for her first scene at Breadstix. Before we parted, we gave each other a small kiss and wished each other well.

"I love you," Lea called out to me as she marched up the steps to the makeup trailer.

"Love you too," I called back as I made my way across the parking lot to the studio. God, I wondered if she knew how much I really did.