Written with Nephewsnixx.
Thanks to Bella for her kind words and to those who read the story.
I want to say one quick thing - we like working on this story and what we did with the characters. Those who don't like it, no one is pointing a gun to your head and forcing you to read. There are many stories out there and guess what? If you don't like some, you don't have to read them. Find the ones you do like and enjoy them, that's the whole point.
June started a couple of and brought with it vacation for the college girls and great weather, making Santana a very happy lady, more than she usually is. With no homework, projects and exams, Dani and Beth had plenty of time to spend with the family, Emily and friends. Riley was close to saying his first word, or that was what Rachel and Santana believed since some of his mumbles sounded like familiar words.
The movie Rachel stared in as the lead actress achieved great success in the states and abroad. Due to that, Rachel had many meetings with Quinn to sort through the offers she got; TV show, hosting, a few movies and even a couple of album offers. At first it was easy, saying no to what Rachel knew she wasn't interested in, but then many offers sounded appealing, making her and Quinn sit together for long hours during the week the discuss what would be best.
For Santana, business was doing well, as usual. She hired a girl from Vegas and just moved to New York City, one that her boss called with a great recommendation and Santana was not disappointed. With the financial situation being stable and very good, the Lopez family hired a few people to work on their pool, with Noah overseeing them; they didn't know much about construction and trusted Noah to make sure things were going as they should.
Today, Noah and the constructed guys were working the only different was that both Rachel and Santana were home when they arrived in the morning, a couple of hours after breakfast. They decided to go with Riley to the back porch and let the boy play with the different activities on his walker that helps with his developments. Dex was eyeing the strangers, sitting next to his owners while Keanu was all over the place; trying to get to Riley, jumping on Dex and snuggling to his owners sides, mostly Rachel's.
Santana and Noah were in the kitchen, getting lemonade for everyone. They briefly talked about the progress of the pool, then Noah carried the tray to the workers while Santana brought the glasses to the couch, where her wife is. She hands Rachel the two glasses, so she could get Riley's bottle to him and help him drink; it's a hot day and it's important he drinks a lot of water. She fixes the hat on his head, then tells the dogs to drink too on her way to the couch. "I want to pool to be done already." Santana starts and takes her glass. "Not only so we can have lots of fun, I missed tanning." Of course she could get in her bikini and tan, but that would mean the workers starting at her instead of doing their work. And anyways, she likes tanning topless and that's unacceptable with anyone other than her wife around.
"I want to teach Riley how to swim at some point, get him all the baby swimming stuff so he can enjoy the water with us." Rachel says while Riley tries to scoot towards his mother to grab her hair, she moves him back some and shakes her head at him, but that doesn't stop him.
"He loves the bath so much; he won't want to get out of the pool." Santana sips her drink, then smiles at their son. "He'll be a natural in the water." She states.
Rachel shrugs and nodded in agreement at the idea of it, she then looks towards Keanu and ruffles his head gently. "God, Keanu is almost as big as Dex is now." she points out with a soft chuckle.
Santana laughs and nods. "And he's going to get bigger. Good thing he prefers you." She scoots closer to Rachel and scratches Keanu's ear. She pulls her legs up, laying them over her wife's lap and put her arm on the back of the couch, resting her head on her palm and keep drinking the cold drink. She sees Keanu is trying to get Rachel's attention, so she leans and starts kissing her cheek, knowing it'd get the pup jealous, and chuckles.
Seeing that caused Keanu to whimper, that gets Rachel's attention as she furrows her brow. "What's wrong sweetie?" she asks the pup, he then lifts his front paws on Santana's legs since they were on Rachel's lap and continues to whimper. "Oh, relax buddy, you know mama always means well." she says and continues to ruffle Keanu's head gently.
"You're just too cute, Keanu and mama can use some love too." She pouts at him and give his ear another scratch. It's amazing how despite the presence of a group of strangers, not including Noah, being not too far from them, they're still in their own bubble.
Keanu softly barks and rests his head against Santana's leg for a few seconds, and then he gets off of the couple and continues to try to mess with Dex who just grunts as a response. "Dex has the patience of a saint, if I haven't said it before." she points out and gently grazes Santana's leg.
A moment passes and Santana starts laughing loudly. Her body shakes from the laughter, so much that she almost spills her drink. "Do.. Do you.." She tries to speak, but the thought in her head is so funny to her. "I'm not drunk, I swear." Santana hold her hand over her heart, trying to calm down.
"You okay, San?" Rachel looks at Santana with a raised brow. "You're a little cackle-y today." she says then grabs her drink.
"I just.." Santana takes a couple of breath to calm herself down, though a wide smile still on her lips. "You know dogs, over time, acts like their owners." She bites her lip for a second to not burst into laughter again. "Do you think they're like us sometimes? Dex being you and Keanu more like me."
"I could see it, very, very well." Rachel says with a chuckle. "I also see some traits of Dani as well, the hyper side and the grump side, like during Christmas how she gets all happy about it and stuff that she jumps on us and practically scoots us out of bed. That's Keanu." she chuckles some more. "And during the summer when we want to take her some place outside of the house and she's sprawled in bed, giving us a grunt as a response.. That's Dex."
Santana laughs again, saying "Oh my god, you're so right." To her wife when she catches her breath. "And Riley is like Keanu, apart from when he's tired or just woke up, then he's more like Dex." This is just hilarious to her; they're all a perfect much. She leans a bit closer, placing a kiss on the side of Rachel's lip.
Rachel lets out a happy sigh and wraps an arm around Santana; she looks at the woman with a smile. "I love you so freaking much, you know that?" she asks.
"I might have a clue..." This time Santana lips meet with Rachel's, only for a quick kiss. "And I love you just as much." She tucks some hair behind Rachel's ear, her eyes fixed on her wife's. "You're just so beautiful, especially with how the sun stroking your skin.." She brushes their noses together. "I.. I actually got something I want to ask you about.."
"Well, ask away." Rachel leans back some; she sets her drink on the table beside her then turns her attention back to her wife with a cam smile.
"Remember when we were in Los Angeles, you said something about having a reason for not drinking. You kind of brushed it away, but.." Santana moves her face a little back, to give them space to talk. "I figured you just weren't into it anymore. You can keep the reason to yourself, but I'd really like to know." She's so used to them sharing everything, it's weird for her to not know something about Rachel, but if her wife chooses not to tell her, she'd respect that.
Rachel gulped and let out a soft sigh, she looks away from Santana's gaze then folded her arms as she tries to piece together the words to say this. "When… When you had your accident, it was around the time that Dani had that severe attack in school and ended up in the hospital as well." she says quietly. "The night you were in, I told Dani about it, and she was scared out of her mind… Which I didn't blame her, because I was scared too." Rachel shivers at the memory and takes a deep and shaky breath. "I didn't drink too much of it as I got older because I learned a bit about your past and.. Yeah… I guess seeing you with those tubes hooked into you was the final straw." she says. "That drunk driver that hit you, almost took you away, and I.." she bites the inside of her bottom lip and brushes under her eye.
Learning that what happened to her brought Rachel to make the decision to stop drinking, Santana feels her heart skip a beat. She leans to places her glass on the on the table, then pulls Rachel into a tight hug. She doesn't say anything, only holding her wife against her and letting the information sink in. Rachel cared for her when she wasn't and didn't feel worthy of such care, when she wasn't ready to accept that much love. And like her, Rachel isn't breaking any promises she made to their daughter. "I married an actual angel." Santana whispers and place a hard kiss on Rachel's temple. "I wish my dad was here, just so he could meet you and the kids, see how lucky I am." She pulls from the hug just enough to be able to look at Rachel. "He would've adored all three of you, probably tell me you're too good for me." She jokes and actually let out a soft laugh.
"I think he would be distracted by the dogs and Riley, you know how they are." Rachel sniffles and follows it with a soft chuckle. "I just…" she takes a deep breath and holds Santana tighter. "I love you so much, always and forever…"
"Even if we had eternity, it wouldn't have been enough for me to show you how much I love you back." Santana snuggles into Rachel, feeling pure happiness. "That was a rough time, huh?" She asks, quieter, and nuzzle into Rachel's neck.
"I had like… One meal a day for that entire time you were in the hospital." Rachel whispers towards Santana's direction. "And it was the size of like.. Four Skittles bunched together." she shakes her head and chuckles some. "You got on my case about that eating thing after you woke up and fully talked to me."
"I cared about you when we were friends, when I was struggling with my feelings and it only grew strong over the years." Santana takes Rachel's hand and intertwine their fingers. "You had so much to deal with back then and then my accident and the temporary memory loss. I don't know how you didn't give up on me.."
Rachel smiled a bit and chuckled some. "Because I was that annoying, stubborn Jewish girl from Glee club, that's how." she lifted Santana's hand and kissed it once. "When I have passion in anything, I don't give up, due to my nature."
"So I should be thanking your parents then?" Santana looks up with a playful smile. "I'll remember that the next time I see Shelby and when we Skype with your dads." She sticks her tongue out.
Rachel smirks and bites her lip a bit more. "Don't tease me with that tongue, my dear wife, don't you know it's bad luck to tempt me while I am emotional?" she says in a joke like manner.
"I think it's quite the opposite, mi amor." She says with a low tone, her eyes darkening a bit and glancing down to Rachel's lips for a few long second before looking back up. "Last time we barely stood in the shower and that was without me using my tongue, so just imagine.." Santana purrs the last part of her sentence, then slowly licks her lips.
"I guess we owe each other something flavorful, huh?" Rachel winks then yawns in her hand briefly. "I need some coffee, I am without my daily dose today." she mumbles before yawning again. "When I am wide awake, I will be more confident in my dirty talk." Rachel lazily caresses Santana's leg for a few moments.
"Be sure I'll remember that." Santana chuckles as she moves her legs from Rachel's lap. "Go get your fix; I'll just have our little prince keep me company." Santana quickly gets up to pull Riley up from the walker, then goes back to the couch. The boy looks confuse for a moment, but then he smiles when Santana wraps her arms around him. "Ahh!" He starts jumping on her lap. "You're going to say mama real soon, aren't you?" She taps his chin and Riley giggles.
Heading into the evening in New York, Kurt and Jake were on their way back from the nice date they did indeed have. Now Kurt and Jake have talked a lot since their first encounter during Thanksgiving, the two had quite a few things in common. Whether it was their love for organic foods, specialized body wash, in which Kurt actually recommended Jake his and the young Puckerman obliged with no regrets so far. They would chat on Skype all day when it was a day off, hell; sometimes Kurt would sneak on the work computer just to talk to Jake for a couple minutes. Finally when Jake visited New York in February, he asked Kurt out on a date. And since then, they've been trying to keep the dating going on as much as they could, whether it be in person, which before this date, Kurt has been on three others with Jake, or over Skype which was a cliché but they made the best with what they had. During their dating time, they weren't really labeled as exclusive, but they didn't like the idea of dating multiple people especially when they took into account of the hard work they put into what they built so far.
Now they are at Kurt's apartment, Kurt offers Jake a beverage in his apartment as a 'Thank you' for their amazing date. The boyish Hummel did not look away from Jake as they continued up the stairs. Kurt unlocked the door, and turned on the lights to his living area before allowing Jake in. Jake of course thought this action was adorable and went along with Kurt's requests.
"I.. I hope you don't mind how the place looks, I didn't have much of a chance to clean up the Five-million papers stacked on my coffee table." Kurt says before shutting the door after Jake walked in.
Jake chuckles and waves his hand. "Don't worry about it; the place doesn't look bad at all." He says as he walks in. "When we Skype, I move all the mess so you want see it on camera and let's not talk about the computer I have, but not touching because the mess on it is too much to handle." He admits and laughs. "Are you going to dump me now?" Jake asks teasingly.
Kurt raises a brow and shakes his head with a smile. "After the date you treated me to, wouldn't dream of dumping you Mr. M.I.T." he folds his arms and winks towards his.. Well, date. Kurt then turns to walk to the kitchen, when he gets in the kitchen he rummages his fridge. "I have a couple bottles of Diet Root Beer, is that good enough?" he asks aloud.
"Great, actually." Jake responds and walks to take a sit in the couch.
Kurt takes this time to rise up with the bottles in hand, and this is the only time that he lacks a bottle opener, or at least a clean one since his accidentally fell into a can of grease while he was cooking one day. "Just a second!" he says and carefully thrusts downwards with the bottle against the corner of the counter to see the lids fly onto it. "Perfect." he says then quickly walks over to the couch to see Jake patiently waiting. "Here." Kurt hands Jake one of the bottles with a smile.
"Thanks." Jake returns the smile. "I'm glad you didn't get any emergency calls from work during our date, I prefer not sharing the little time we have together." He tells Kurt, the takes a sip.
Kurt rolls his eyes and takes a sip of his own drink. "That one time, and I told you I was sorry many times." he softly laughs. "But yes, I too am glad that we get to spend time together, how long are you staying in town this time?" Kurt asks.
"About four days, there are a few lectures my work sent me to listen to; they're supposed to be good." Jake shrugs. "That's for the next couple of days, on the afternoons, then I have an extra free day." He moves the root beer to his left hand and drinks.
"Well, be sure to keep me posted, I want to do this some more." Kurt reaches over and gently grazes Jake's arm, and inside the guy's mind is going everywhere. 'Oh my fu-... I can tell he has muscles, like… Oh my god.' he gulps then slowly moves his hand away.
"I'm going to spend some time with my brother, but if you can squeeze me," Jake glance at the spot Kurt's hand just touched. "-To your schedule, it'd be fantastic." He looks into Kurt's eyes for a long moment before taking another sip.
Kurt nervously smiled and nodded a few times. "O-Of course, just give me a heads up the night before and I will make time, gladly." he says and sets his drink down, gently pressing his thumbs together whilst having this nervous feeling.
Jake notices Kurt is not so calm, so he place his bottle next to Kurt's and then reach his hand to cover the fidgeting ones of the man in next to him. "I'm enjoying spending time with you."
"I-I enjoy spending time with you as well." Kurt looks over at the man before him, smiles a bit more genuinely. "Uh.." he looks over at his clock and bites his lips for a few seconds. "It's getting a little late, I think." he looks back over at Jake, lost in the fact that a man so perfect in body and mind would ever consider Kurt as an option. "I mean.. If you don't have other plans tonight.."
"I'd say yes if you invite me to stay, Kurt." Jake stays cool, trying to get Kurt to relax. "After all that screen time, I want to be with you in person." He adds and gently grazes Kurt's knee.
Kurt's face lit up at the comment, and his eyes lowered to Jake's lips. The way they curve when he smiles, the way they tense up when he's serious, Kurt definitely was into this man. "Maybe we should do more about that, don't you think?" he suggests while smiling a bit more.
"Oh, yeah, I agree." One side of Jake's lips curves up and he gives Kurt's knee and squeeze. "Just before we get into the fun part, I want to ask something. I know what we have isn't conventional, with me living in another state and most of our communication is via technology." He pulls his hands back, straightens up and uses a serious tone so his nervousness won't show. "But I like you and I don't want to miss on something good just because of distance.. So what I'm saying, or rather asking is.. Would you be interested in making this exclusive?"
"E-Exclus.." Kurt gulped as his face formed a shade of crimson from the thought; it's been so long since he was last exclusive with anyone. But he would be a fool if he turned this idea down, especially since this man is genuinely into Kurt, and is taking the first step. "I'd love to." he answers.
Jake beams at the response, for a moment there he thought he made a fool of himself by reading the signs all wrong. He sighs happily now that the question had been answered and he knows they're on the same page. "I believe we have a reason to celebrate." Jake grins as he leans forward to capture Kurt's lips and his hand finds the man's knee again, only this time Jake is moving it up to Kurt's thigh.
A soft noise escapes Kurt while doing this, he accepts the kiss gladly and cups Jake's face to return the said kiss. Kurt rests one hand against Jake's chest while sucking his bottom lip.
Jake runs his tongue over Kurt's lips, waiting for permission and when he gets it, their tongues meet, turning the kiss more sensual. Jake put his free hand on the back of Kurt's neck, to pull the man closer to him and deepens the kiss as much as he can; craving to feel more of Kurt. His hand on Kurt's thigh move up some more, massaging the covered skin, wishing he could feel it.
Kurt was so caught up in this sensation, the rhythm, the feeling of their tongues dancing, it was perfect. But when Kurt parted enough to moan out, it wasn't coming out right as he heard "Blaine.." escape his lips. Right there Kurt's eyes widened some, and the kiss stopped.
Not only the name isn't his, but Jake knows who the person behind the name Kurt just moaned is. He lightly pushed Kurt away from him and jumps up to his feet. He clenches his jaw, determined not to reveal how hurt he is. The truth is, Jake feels like he just got punched hard in the stomach. He was willing to work hard because he was starting to really like the guy, he felt like they clicked. "I'm so stupid." Jake shakes his head. "I thought you were honest when you said you're over him."
There was little to no excuse as to why he said the wrong name, hell, he didn't know why he let out Blaine's name, especially when he swore he was over that man. Kurt covered his face and takes a couple deep breaths, after that he looks towards Jake, frowning some. "I was being h-honest, I really was." He says quietly.
"Clearly, that's why you moaned his name while kissing me." Jake doesn't raise his voice, his dry tone does the job better. "I don't need this drama in my life; I'm not going to waste my time with a guy who's going to imagine his ex when he's with me." He feels humiliated. Jake turns to leave, circling the couch so he won't have to go pass Kurt.
Kurt waits for Jake to leave, knowing that he already made an ass of himself as is by his actions, he doesn't need to make things worse for himself by digging a bigger hole than he has. He then leans back in the couch, letting out a frustrated groan and covers his face. "Fuck…" he whispers to himself then looks back at the door in hopes that Jake would have come back, but he didn't. Kurt stood up, walked to his window to see that Jake's rented car was gone, so he lightly head-butted the window a couple times muttering various curse words with each thud. "Only you, Hummel can make a relationship then break one in less than 10 minutes, how? I have no damn clue…" he sighs, not wanting to stay home much longer so he walks to the door, leaves the apartment, remembering to lock the door behind him. Kurt then walks down the steps, to his car, when he gets in; he puts his seatbelt on and leaves a text for Santana that he's coming over. Then he starts the car and pulls out of the lot.
Over on a separate end of New York, Shelby and Beth were spending time with each other throughout the day. Now, since they rekindled their closeness, Beth has been over there more and more, almost to the point where she wasn't at the apartment too much, which Dani didn't mind as it was better that Beth spends as much time with her mom as possible. It was starting to get a little late in the day, too late for Shelby to ever consider Beth going home via the bus, but whenever she brought up going home, Beth just thought of other things to do there to prolong her stay.
Shelby and Beth were just finishing up the last of the dishes in Shelby's house, which this was nice as well, seeing Beth so involved in doing some work around the house to make it easier on Shelby. It was to say the least; endearing, but Shelby was still colored curious about Beth's behavior. As for Beth, well she honestly wanted to do more around her mother's house, granted she's been trying a little too hard to stay there.
"Thank you for helping me around the apartment, it means a lot." Shelby says as she dries her hand on the towel that's hung over the stove handle. After she does that, she walks over to her purse, pulls out her wallet and grabs a $20 from it to give it to Beth. "Here." She says as she approaches her daughter. "A little something for helping me out, get yourself a knick-knack or two." Shelby chuckles.
Beth looks at the money and shakes her head with a smile, she moves from the sink to dry her hands as well. "Mom, you don't need to pay me for helping out." She expresses before walking over to the kitchen table, making sure everything is all set for future use.
Shelby lazily stuffs the $20 back in her purse then follows Beth; she looks at the table for a couple seconds then back at Beth. "You know, the table can't blink back, right?" she partially jokes at first but sees the seriousness in her daughter's eyes. This concerns Shelby quite a bit as she sits down in one of the chairs. "Okay, talk to me, you're never this focused on something as simple as a table unless it's for a science experiment, or you're upset about something."
Beth briefly looks over at Shelby, shakes her head again and looks back at the table. "I'm fine." She whispers.
"Bethany…" Shelby says, not buying her daughter's attempt at a front. "Speak." She requests then reaches over to grab her hand, grazing the back of Beth's hand with her thumb.
The blonde looks at her mom for a couple more seconds then sits in the chair, feeling a little nervous about talking. "I haven't stopped thinking about when you were in the hospital, even though that was practically forever ago, it haunts me…" she starts off then looks to see the change in Shelby's expression, what was once a calm expression was now concerned. "I keep thinking about the fight, and how horrible of a person I was for saying what I said…" she sniffled some and used her free hand to wipe away any tears. "I-I-I.. I know you tell me not to worry, and that it's not my fault, but the fact is, mother; I put you in the hospital." Beth started to breathe some, she felt a big cry was going to hit so she wants to get everything out in the open before that happens. "Our fight was the catalyst that sent you to the E.R., which gave you your heart attack; it was all my fault mom, no matter how you look at it." She says.
Shelby took in what Beth had just said, and was hurt by it, not because of Beth saying it, but because of Beth being so hurt and keeping that much inside her for so long. They did talk briefly, but Shelby didn't fairly give Beth a chance to fully spill everything out, now that she may have, Shelby's perspective changed. Shelby pursed her lips for a little bit, trying to collect her thoughts before she tries to speak on the matter. "Look…" she starts. "Beth, you know me more than anyone else, I am a workaholic." Shelby continues. "Even before the fight, I worked, while you were here, I worked, when I was in the hospital bed, I wanted to work. I love working because it gives me that satisfaction of being able to do something with myself." She explains, and sees that Beth has something else to say. "Besides being a parent to the smartest, beautiful kid ever." She smiles a bit. "Our fight hurt a lot, I won't lie about that, but it wouldn't have sent me to the hospital… My obsessive working would, and that was more than apparent." She bites her lip some. "Please, don't feel like you hurt me, I promise you didn't."
Beth listened to her mom and nodded slowly, she looked down a couple seconds and sniffled some more. "O-Okay mom… I love you." She looks back at Shelby with furrowed brows.
"I love you too, sweetheart." Shelby leans over to hug Beth tightly and to kiss her cheek. "You're such a great kid."
"T-Thank you." Beth says shyly then looks into her mom's eyes. "Mom, I think…" she gulps and scratches her arm some. "I think I want to move back in, I missed you too much, and I just.." Beth struggled to explain to Shelby.
Shelby smiled a bit and moved some hair behind Beth's ear. "You feel safe at Dani's, but you would feel vastly safer under the eye of your mom." She raises a brow. "And you think I can't take care of myself here, right?" she partially jokes.
Beth shrugged and looked around the room. "Well, the place looks nicer now that I cleaned it, admittedly." She smiles and sniffles some more. "I love Dani, she's amazing, great roommate, and even better as a friend… But she needs her own life too, and I know she would keep me there as long as she possibly could, but I want to respect my friend's personal bubble and allow her, her apartment back." She explains.
"Well…" The older woman looked around and nodded. "I don't see why not, you're my kid, my home will always be your home." Shelby answers with a big smile. "We will start getting your things next week, for now, let's enjoy this week, and since you asked to move back in, I can only assume you want to stay here tonight?"
Beth nods.
"Good." Shelby gets up. "My closet has some clothes that might fit you for you to wear as night clothes, I want you to shower then come back to my room and we can eat popcorn and watch a nice movie, okay?" she asks.
"Y-Yes mom." Beth gets up and smiles. She then runs past Shelby to get a night outfit, after she gets it she goes to the bathroom to take her shower.
Shelby leans against the wall and smiles at the idea of having her daughter back in the safety of her own home; she's also now curious how things will change considering a certain close friend of hers likes to hang out at times… But Shelby can't focus on that right now, she's just happy that Beth is back home, and so she can focus on that for the remainder of Beth's time there, until Beth decides to officially move out on her own. 'Til then, it's movies, popcorn, and consistent good times for the small part of this huge family.
The evening routine at the Lopez's household took longer than usual. Riley fell asleep while Santana breastfed him, exhausted from playing, crawling and standing all day, then mothers had to give him his second bath of the day because it was so hot and they didn't want him to get to sleep sweating. It was a struggle in the bath, considering Riley was frustrated and wanted to sleep, but they finished quickly. Santana left Rachel to dress him and put him in his crib, while she took the dogs for a walk and a short run. When Santana came back, they both took a shower, separately.
They're in bed when Santana's phone buzzes from getting a new text. Rachel is reading a book and Santana is at the first stages of planning an event at the club. The Latina furrows her brows, her mind jumps straight away to something being wrong with Dani. She grabs her phone and sees that Kurt is, apparently, coming over. "Babe, get your supporting and comforting mod on, Kurt needs us." Santana put the phone back on the nightstand; she knows Kurt is driving and will tell them what happened when he gets there, no need for a text back.
"On it." Rachel sets her book on the nightstand, gets up and then walks over to the door, and waits for the noises of Kurt coming up the stairs. "I should hum the Jeopardy theme while we wait, huh?" she asks.
"My adorable dork." Santana chuckles as she gets from the bed to put shorts on. "I wonder what went wrong.. He had a date with Noah's brother, he's in the city." The nearest pair of short shorts she sees are Rachel's, not that she minds at all, she put them on and gets back on the bed.
"Maybe it didn't go bad." Rachel leans against the door, gently swaying from left to right. "It could have went so well that he wanted to brag about it to us, which wouldn't be above him to do so… Then again it's 10 at night." she shrugs.
"If he does come to brag, I got that coming." Santana chuckles; she kept him awake and woke him up many times in the past over that kind of things, before she and Rachel got serious. "But it's Kurt, it can be about anything.." She shrugs.
Rachel smiles a bit and hummed a soft tune in her head; she lightly bobs her head for a few moments before feeling a couple knocks from behind. "Speak of the devil." she says then moves a bit to open the door, and indeed it was Kurt. "Hey Kurt, how ya doin'?" Rachel asks.
Kurt shook his head and his gaze is to the floor. "I am a screw up…" he mutters and walks into the room, leaning towards the dresser when he approaches is. "I… I messed up."
Santana's heart speeds up a bit, seeing her best friend in this state, especially when she still doesn't know what's causing him to feel like that. "You are not a screw up." Santana tells him. "Come over here and tell us what's wrong," She pats on the spot next to her on the bed. "We'll work this out."
"I don't think we can work this out, especially when my screw up is… Huge." Kurt walks over to the bed, sitting down on the edge of it. "Okay, I'm gonna tell you two, but you have to swear to whatever deity that you don't overreact, 'kay?"
Rachel looks at Santana for a couple seconds then back at Kurt. "Sure." she says, mostly because she can't say whether or not their potential reaction will be overdone.
"Fine." Santana agrees, but only to not overreact, she has many other ways of dealing with things, even more since she became a mother to a teenager. "Go on."
Kurt takes a deep breath, making sure to collect his thoughts. "Okay.. So, the date itself went amazing.. Jake took me out to this restaurant over by the coast, and we had this delicious lobster meal." he expresses with a slight smile. "We went back to my apartment, had a couple sodas and we talked about making things… Exclusive, which I was more than on board with." he looks over at Santana then at Rachel, and back towards the floor. "We made out, for a tiny bit, and for some idiotic reason.. I moaned out Blaine's name…"
Rachel gasped and covered her mouth for a few moments; she looks at Santana briefly and mouths "Oh my god…"
Santana's brows shot up, not expecting to hear that. This thing has the potential to be big; what happened with Blaine hurt Kurt and left a mark, however Santana thought her best friend overcame the pain and was ready to move on. "And with you being here, I'm assuming Jake left, huh?" She sighs and moves her hand up and down Kurt's back. "Do you think somewhere inside you still have feeling for Blaine?" Santana hates even saying the name, let alone thinking about the guy who broke her best friend's heart.
"No, absolutely not." Kurt says with every bit of confidence in his body. "What Blaine and I had, only lasted a little bit when we vowed for a lifetime, it was a bullshit vow that he didn't keep on his end." he continues then lied on the bed, covering his face and takes a couple deep breaths. "Even in Snail-Eating France, he somehow is hurting me…"
Rachel slowly walked to the bed, sits over by Santana while facing Kurt. "Sweetie…" she lets out then sighs some. "D-Do you know what caused this then, because it shouldn't have come up for no reason…" she points out.
Kurt uncovered his face to gaze at Rachel; he didn't have an answer right away because he was still figuring out what brought it on. Something in his head played, which he assumed was a good answer, but he knew it most likely wasn't. "I guess, maybe it's due to not having anyone since him, no one to make me comfortable the way he did… And when Jake made me feel as such, something in my head went back to when Blaine and I were first an item, if that makes any sense…"
Santana listened to Kurt speaks and watched him; it's obvious he regrets the slip, even if he had no control over it. "It makes a lot of sense, actually." Santana says and not only to make her best friend feel better, that's not who she is. "It was one hell of an unfortunate mistake, but you can fix it." Santana tells him with confidence. "Blaine is in the past, he's irrelevant and you deserve to be happy. Jake is making you happy and by how badly you feel about what happened, it's clear he means a lot to you, so you need to talk to him."
"When?" Kurt asks. "He's over at his brother's house, probably venting about this situation to Puck and Quinn." he runs his hand through his hair. "Oh god… Puck is going to kill me dead, that's his baby bro and I fucked with his heart." Kurt starts to panic.
Rachel reached over and gently patted his shoulder. "He might get pissed, because he's the big brother, but he won't kill you, mostly because you're important to the family, you're not only Dani's uncle, but you're also Riley's godfather." she says calmly. "And even if those facts weren't enough, we all go back, way back… I am sure he knows your struggle as a guy, more than anyone else in our family, you know?" she adds on then looks over at Santana in hopes she's saying the right thing.
Santana gives her wife a small supportive smile, then begins massaging Kurt's scalp to try and calm him down. "Rach is right; Noah won't harm you, though you should expect the cold shoulder for a while, until you fix it." She stressed the last part. "We won't let you give up on something that can be great, not when you finally found someone worthy of trying again with." Santana glance up at Rachel, then she places her index finger on Kurt's chin and tilts his face up so he would look at her. "Now, I'm not familiar with the guy on guy courting and begging for forgiveness methods, but we're going to help, even if it's only not letting you rest until you talk to him."
"Thanks…" Kurt sighs then sits up some. "I just wish I didn't have to come here with bad news, you know…?" he asks then stands up, "I should get going, I have a bit of work in the morning and so… I should get some rest."
Rachel shakes her head and holds her hand out. "Give me your keys, you're not going home tonight." she says then realizes that she probably should have asked Santana first, so she looks at Santana with a nervous expression. "He's emotionally distressed; it's dangerous enough that he drove here while upset."
"Yes, I agree." Santana doesn't hesitate and nods towards Rachel. She gets up and steps to where Kurt is standing, putting her hand on his arm. "Rachel is going to keep your keys until after breakfast tomorrow, when we're sure you're doing alright." She tells him softly. "Dani's room has everything you might need and I'm sure we have something of yours here you can sleep in. Just stay with family tonight."
"B-But.."
"But shut up and gimmie your keys." Rachel says in a child-like voice, she bounces a bit on the bed with her hand out. "Don't make me pull the "Beautiful women" card, because I will pull it." she insists.
Kurt rolled his eyes and followed it up with an exaggerated sigh. "Okay." he says and pulls his keys out of his pocket, he then puts them in Rachel's hand then folds his arms. "Just know, I am protesting this, alright?" he says.
"Duly noted." Santana dryly says and pats his arm. "You can find Dani's room on your own I'm sure. There is an extra toothbrush in the bathroom, got get ready." She's basically pushing him out of the room. "I'll find you something to wear."
"Yeah, yeah." Kurt says then walks away.
Rachel opened the drawer to the nightstand and placed Kurt's keys inside, after that she closed it then got up. "Sorry I put you on the spot like that, I should have asked you first." she says.
"Honey, it's fine, it's the right decision." Santana walks over to Rachel and kiss her cheek. "He's not in the best shape as it is; we take care of our own." She smiles, then walks to the closet; Santana knows they have a couple of shorts and shirts that belong to Kurt; she just needs to find them. It takes her a couple of minutes, but she finds the items in one of the drawers. She tells Rachel she'd be right back and goes to Dani's room. Santana hands Kurt the clothes and promise him things will be alright. She advises him to go to sleep because in the morning he'll get a delicious meal and a lot of love from his godson. Kurt tells her he'll try and Santana let him be, not before giving him a tight hug and a kiss on his cheek. When she gets back to the bedroom, Rachel is already in bed, so Santana gets in and cuddles into her. They look at each other, silently promising to see that Kurt will be fine and soon enough sleep takes over.
The sleep was good, at least for the couple. For Kurt, it was a nightmare, mainly because he was so focused on his mishap. He doesn't recall ever being so embarrassed to be alive, Kurt kept replaying that moment in his head, and wishes he could slap himself for doing so. Occasionally he would leave Dani's room to just walk around from the kitchen to the dining room, thinking of the ways he was going to try to make it up to the man he hurt, a man he really, really wanted to be with. The stress alone kept him up for a few hours before fatigue started kicking it's way in, he was seated at the table when it kicked in, and he didn't want to walk up the stairs so he decided to settle on the couch for the night.
Five hours later, Rachel, Santana, and Riley were awake and focused on making a nice delicious breakfast. The sounds of the light chatter woke Kurt up, not that he minded the noise, but he did wish he could get a tiny bit more sleep than he did. He got off the couch and started walking over to the kitchen to see Rachel working on the food and Santana dancing with Riley to the music that Rachel was playing.
Rachel looked over to her side and smiled over at Kurt. "Morning, Hummel." she says then bobs her head as a way to tell Kurt to go over to her. Kurt did just that. "How are you feeling?" Rachel asks.
"I feel as terrible as I felt last night, but more rested and clear headed." Kurt answers and walks over to the fridge. "You guys have any soda, not feeling like the conventional beverages for breakfast." he announces.
"Bottom left drawer in the fridge, help yourself." Rachel answers and continues to work on the food.
"I'm allowing you to wallow in that bad feeling until we finish breakfast. After that, it's a fresh new day and you're going to think how you're going to fix it with your man, not more self-pity." Tough love? Santana just doesn't want Kurt to be stuck on that mistake and waste time not feeling good, she wants him happy like he was when things were great with the younger Puckerman. In her arms, Riley notice Kurt, he squeals loudly into his mother's ear and tries to reach for the man. "Riley, mi amor, I know you missed you uncle, but not so loud."
Kurt pulls out one of the diet sodas they had, then bumps the fridge shut with his hip. "I know, I know, but it's not just a simple thing to fix, I need to be careful now. Vastly careful." he says and walks to the table, he sets his drink down and turns to Santana.
Santana tightens her hold on Riley, keeping him in her arms, letting Kurt wake up before the boy and all his energy can say good morning to him. "Honey, I know all about kicking your a-s-s to make things right." She reminds him. "And you were there to help me, so it's my turn to be the voice of reason and to encourage you. You need to prove him you're over your ex and want him, but don't take too long."
"I will, but I can't right now, the wound is still fresh." Kurt opens the can of soda then takes a quick sip from it; he looks at Riley whom is looking at Kurt with all sorts of amazement. "You're more charged than the Energizer bunny, aren't you?" he asks then slightly smiles.
The Latina drops it; she doesn't want to make things worse for her best friend. Well, she's going to drop it for the time being. She feels her son jumping in her arms and when she looks at him, Santana sees a wide smile on his lips. "He really is." Santana chuckles. "But he also missed his uncle. Right, mi hijo?" In response, Riley makes a noise; Santana takes it as an agreement.
Kurt holds out his hands. "May I?" he asks with a slight smile.
Rachel turned the heat off the stove, took her apron off, and then walked over to one side of the kitchen to grab some plates. "Breakfast is ready, you three." she looks back with a smile as she brings down a few plates.
"You want to feed him?" Santana asks before sitting down. "Or it can wait until after breakfast.."
"I can try to feed him; he can eat normal foods, right?" Kurt asks. "I could portion off whatever Rachel gives me and try it out on him, if that's okay."
Santana gives the very excited Riley to Kurt and sits next to her wife. "He has his own plate and spoon, just wait until he finishes everything in his mouth before giving him more." She instructs him and give Rachel's hand a gentle squeeze. "Thanks, babe."
"You're welcome, now dig in." Rachel smiles at Santana for a couple moments then turns her attention to eat her food, which was a salad with hardboiled egg chopped up in it.
Kurt carefully fed Riley a bite, and Riley seemed to enjoy it a little more than when his mothers would feed him, which made the man laugh some. "I think your kid likes getting fed by me, what do you think?" he looks over at the two for a little bit then back to Riley.
Santana chuckles and waits to finish her bite before speaking. "You're lucky he's not frustrated and not interested in something else, since he's excited to see you." Santana shrugs and takes a sip from her juice. "But he loves you, that's for sure. I almost lost the hearing in my left ear because of it.." She says seriously, but quickly smiles.
Kurt chuckles at the comment and continues to feed Riley his food, and for a second, it seems like Kurt had already forgotten that last night existed, well.. He didn't fully forget, but this moment definitely helped lighten his spirits some. "Your mommy makes some delicious eggs, doesn't she baby boy?" he asks and gets a happy noise from Riley as a response.
Looking at their son, Santana smiles proudly at how he doesn't make it difficult for Kurt, how it looks like Kurt calmed down the moment he took Riley in his arms. 'Yeah, this little angel can do that to a person.' She thinks to herself. "I hope you're going to make some time to spend with your godson and best friends." Santana gives him a pointed look with her brow raised. "Plus, you'll be eating warm and delicious meals if you do." She adds, then continues to eat.
"You know if I could, I'd stay here forever and be a live-in nanny like Fran Drescher, I wouldn't have her laugh, but I'd be a fun nanny." Kurt jokes then grabs a napkin to gently dab it against Riley's chin.
Rachel bites the inside of her lip and gently patted Santana's arm to get her attention, she looks at her wife. "We should consider it, I don't mean the live-in part, but he could easily be Riley's nanny as well as his godfather." she points out. "I mean, as our primary go-to if we really need it, Kurt hasn't been around much, which you can tell he wants to be around more." she whispers. "What do ya say?"
"I don't see why not, if he's willing." Santana answers quietly to her wife. They don't leave Riley with strangers, ever, it's always family, so if Kurt is up to spend more time with Riley when they both have to be out, that'd be great.
"We'll talk it over after breakfast, for now, let's enjoy the food." Rachel suggests with a smile then continues to eat her food.
"Ah, ah, ah.. That's Uncle Kurt's plate." Kurt says and gently pushes it a bit, when he did that, Riley threw his hands up and down as he starts to throw a bit of a fit. "Riley, Riley.. Buddy, okay.." he gently bounces Riley for a couple moments. "I will give you some of the food off my plate, even though you finished yours." he chuckles and takes the baby fork and cuts into some of his eggs, digs it in and carefully feeds it to Riley.
Santana observing them and besides the thought of how adorable her son is, she can't help but think of Kurt being a dad. She knows he wants a family and she hopes with Jake he'll have that, he just has everything a parent needs, or else they wouldn't have made him Riley's godfather. "Make sure you eat too." Santana laughs at the cute sight. "He just loves eating pieces from other people's plate, like it'd taste differently." She explains and drinks from her glass.
'till next time.