Finn Hudson was never good at shopping. He never understood all the hype over it. To him, clothes were just clothes. Their purpose was to cover your body, and as long as they did exactly that then he honestly didn't care what colour or brand or whatever they were. The same went for smaller stuff like watches or shoes. Fins didn't care as long as the watch was sturdy enough to weather out his clumsy tendencies and as long as the shoes could withstand the seemingly long, arduous hike to and from his mom's house and his job at the local sports store five minutes away.
Which is why Finn was kind of pissed off at Blaine for dragging him along to the LA boardwalk sales. What's worse, they'd only just moved here from Michigan. Between his meagre earnings at the sportswear store and Blaine's father bearing down on him to become the best classical pianist since, well, himself, they didn't have much money at all to be spending at these market things.
And Finn was definitely not digging this warm weather.
However, Blaine's girlfriend-of-the-now, a short but insanely hot blonde chick with wide blue eyes and a damn near perfect body, was tagging along with them. She had this way of walking really slowly and swinging her hips, probably angling for Blaine to stare at her ass, but he never did. Instead, Blaine was too busy haggling down the price of a pair of Armani knock-off loafers, insisting that, "They're last season's design, no way in hell am I paying full price!"
So Finn couldn't really feel bad as he helped himself to the glorious sight of Blaine's girlfriend's ass. Because if no one else was looking, somebody really ought to.
Except... wait, since when was Blaine's girlfriend a brunette?
And since when was she that short?
And since when did she wear dinky little plaid skirts and white tights and woolen cardigans?
Finn felt warmth singe his cheeks as he looked up to the fruit stall to see Blaine's girlfriend, Tiffany, laughing her pearly white laugh at a misshapen banana.
His eyes immediately latched back to the perfect ass in front of him, owner unknown, just as said owner turned around and fixed him with a cold glare. She was pretty cute for a girl who dressed like Finn's grandma, defined cheekbones and glittering brown eyes catching him off guard for a moment and Finn swore he could actually see the sun reflected in her fiery chocolate brown irises.
He awkwardly stepped back, almost knocking a table over. "S-sorry. I um, I thought you were someone else and I uh..." He gulped as her gaze turned worryingly nicer. "Please don't call the cops."
"Of course not," the girl said with an enthusiastic shake of her head, "True, your highly inappropriate act of staring at my behind would seem vulgar and frankly disgusting to most young women, but I happen to appreciate the sentiment. Also, it would be rude of me to call the cops on my best friend's ex boyfriend's best friend."
Dumbfounded, Finn tried to sort through the numerous problems with everything the hot granny-girl had just said. He resisted the urge to ask what a sentiment was. "Your ex-best friend's boyfriend's best what?"
The girl sighed dramatically before waving Finn off. "Kurt told me all about Blaine. And his..." the girl gave Finn a calculating once over before a look of bright-eyed recognition found her features. "His tall friend. Finn, right? I've seen pictures from the party at UMich."
"Yeah!" Finn laughed, maybe a little too enthusiastically, as he furrowed his brow.
Kurt.
Kurt.
The name sounded familiar.
Oh, right!
"You know Kurt? And Blaine? Yeah, Blaine told me a little about him. They were kinda friends back in college."
Rachel tittered. "Sure, they were friends," she enunciated, giving Finn a knowing smile and an exaggerated wink, and Finn tried to ignore the little butterflies zooming around his tummy, "If that's what people are calling it these days."
"What do you mean?"
"What do you mean, what do I mean? Kurt and Blaine were totally-"
"Rachel, leave the nice man alone."
Suddenly a willowy guy with immaculately styled hair, snug jeans, white knee-high boots and a pressed dress shirt slid up beside Rachel and hooked his arm through hers. He gave Finn a tight lipped smile, looking him up and down with cool, appraising eyes that really unnerved Finn.
"You look familiar. Do I know you?"
Finn shrugged and opened his mouth to say something before Rachel jumped in first. "Kurt, this is Finn. Don't you remember? You told me all about Blaine's friend Finn from Michigan that time you went to one of those inane frat parties with Quinn."
A look of realisation passed over Kurt's face, blue eyes widening as he made a move to talk. This time, Finn cut him off. "You knew Blaine, right? Hey Blaine, dude! Over here!"
Heaving a sigh, Blaine sucked his teeth and gazed mournfully down at the shoes cradled in his arms. One look from the huffy stall clerk told Blaine that if he gave up the haggle now, he'd never get the same offer again.
"Blaine! Seriously, come here! Some people wanna see you."
He felt his stomach clench up as he gripped the shoes tighter. The clerk merely glared.
"BLAINE!"
Finally, Blaine groaned, rolled his eyes and thrust the shoes back into the stout arms of the store owner. The leather wasn't even patent anyway.
He motioned to Tiffany, who was still smirking at a banana that had an oddly bulbous tip, that he was going to find Finn, but she wasn't looking anyway. Sighing once more, Blaine dragged a hand through his hair and loped off to Finn.
This had better be worth a new pair of shoes or else I am going to kick his a-
"Blaine!"
He had to stop himself from tripping over nothing as he saw Kurt Hummel, looking hot as ever, standing in front of him. The sun was placed perfectly just behind his back, rays of light bending around Kurt's form in a way that was almost unfairly flattering. Blaine was kind of dazed, but he kept his cool thanks to years of practise and, well, that term of musical theatre back in college wasn't proving to be entirely useless.
"Kurt! What're you doing here?"
"I just moved here a week ago. I'm in between scripts for my theatre company and I needed some inspiration," Kurt returned with a wide grin. He stepped forwards, arm leaving Rachel's, and cocked his head at Blaine. Blaine resisted the strong urge to hug him, which was weird seeing as Blaine was typically a very affectionate person. But with Kurt, so poised and elegant and seemingly carved from marble, as fragile as he was full-lipped and gorgeous, Blaine felt almost responsible for damages. He felt a red hot blush creep into his cheeks, making Kurt laugh but making Finn's eyebrows knit together in confusion, so he stepped back and coughed.
Cue Tiffany. Right on time.
"Blainey-boo," she cooed, rushing up to Blaine and sticking to his side like a leech. Kurt couldn't curb the icy smile he gave her, taking in her cheap and tacky appearance with distaste. So Blaine was still firmly in that closet, hey.
"Tiff, this is Kurt," Blaine said, eyes shifting warily between Kurt's, frosty blue and lethal, and Tiffany's, wide and hazel and slightly fearful.
Nonetheless, she took Kurt's shoulders in both hands and gave him an air-kiss above each perfect cheekbone. "Hello! How'd you do?" She said brightly in a broad Texan accent. After stepping back rigidly, Kurt fanned his fingers in a somewhat wave.
Wow. He must be very firmly in that closet indeed if he is settling for that thing.
"So um... Rachel and I should probably be heading back to our apartment now."
Blaine tried not to look too disappointed. "Oh? Oh, okay. Well why don't I give you my number and we can all hang out some time?"
Humming his approval, Kurt grabbed Blaine's hand and yanked a pen from his pocket, scribbling his number in prominent bright blue cursive into Blaine's palm. Startled, Blaine simply stared at the numbers, his warm skin tingling slightly from where Kurt's cool touch had gripped his knuckles and fingers. Tiffany cleared her throat and smacked her painted lips. She motioned with her head in Kurt's direction, as if trying to speed Blaine up.
Which Kurt didn't like.
In fact, Kurt really didn't like this blonde Texan hussy at all. Or the way she seemed to be bossing Blaine around. He felt a flicker of unnecessary protectiveness curl around his chest, and Kurt shook it off nonchalantly.
Like the gentleman he was, Kurt decided he'd let his strong dislike for the girl slide, just this once, as he accepted a crumpled slip of paper which Blaine had hurriedly scrawled his number across. He grinned in thanks at Blaine, gave Tiffany another scathing once over and eyebrow raise, and looped his arm fluidly through Rachel's. Rachel beamed, first at Kurt and then at Blaine, turning to bat her eyes shyly at Finn as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ears. Kurt snorted, elbowing her gently.
"Ouch! Kurt, you know I bruise easily."
"So do I but at least I don't flaunt my growing sexual tension in public."
Now Rachel was the one to snort in contempt. "You hypocrite! You told me how at that party you and Blaine were practically eyefuc-"
Kurt slapped a hand over Rachel's pathetic blabbermouth before another syllable of totally false, untrue obscenities fell from her totally falsified, untrustworthy lips. If she was in his theatre company, she'd so have coffee break duties and double bootcamp for a week.
Kurt looked across at Blaine, beautiful curly-headed, sparkly-eyed, closeted Blaine, and smiled. Rachel waggled her fingertips and giggled like a schoolgirl as Finn met her gaze.
"See you soon, Blaine Anderson."
"See you, Kurt."
With that, Kurt spun himself and Rachel around and dragged her down to the end of the promenade. He could wait to berate her for her astounding lack of tact until they were no longer in a public area.
