Kitty
She was at the grocery store for the second time that week already. It seemed they were already out of the necessities, thanks to a surprise visit from her two oldest brothers during the middle of the week. They had their own house and their own groceries, sure, but Kitty supposed it was much more appealing to eat food that you didn't buy.
She'd been rounding the corner to go down the aisle for some brownie mix (she usually tried to be smart about what she ate but brownies were her weakness) and came upon the scene of two very excited blonde kids, a girl and a boy, standing on either side of a wheelchair.
"I can climb up there and get it," the boy, Stevie, was saying, as he pointed to some frosting high up on the shelf. "If you want."
"No, Stevie, we'll just get somebody who works here," Artie said, just as Kitty caught his eye and caused him to do a double take.
"I could probably get it on my tip-toes," Kitty offered, smiling warmly at the guy that she hadn't seen for any of spring break, not even the part at the end when he'd been home for a few days following his adventures with the wonderful Julie.
"Not every day you get to be the only one who can reach, is it?" Artie replied, smirking up at her. "Thanks, Kitty. We want the white whipped frosting and the Pillsbury brand white cake mix."
"Is this for your birthday?" Kitty wanted to know, as she stretched her arm as high as she could while rising up on her toes to fetch the two items.
"Sort of," Artie replied. "It's main purpose is to be a gender reveal cake for Amy and Sam's baby. I'm making it for them."
"So, what are they having?" Kitty asked. "I assume you know, since you're making the cake."
"I do know." Artie just grinned wickedly, saying nothing more that this.
"He won't tell us!" the little girl named Stacey whined, shooting an angry look at Artie.
"Only because it'll be more fun for you this way," Artie insisted, in response to the little girl's complaint. And then, in a manner most unexpected, he looked up at Kitty and asked, "You wanna join us?"
"Uh, what?" Kitty struggled with that for a moment because, yes, she absolutely thought spending time at Artie's house sounded better than tossing frozen pizzas in the oven with her dad, Logan, and Collin and watching them watch baseball. And finding out the gender of the baby sounded pretty exciting, too.
"If you want." Now Artie was the one who appeared to be struggling, and maybe he was sorry he'd asked.
"Sounds like a family thing though," Kitty said, slowly. "Are-are you sure?"
"Please come, Quinn," Stacey added, earnestly.
That got a laugh out of them both. "Kitty," she corrected. "My name's Kitty. Sometimes people do confuse me with Quinn Fabray. I'm okay with that. She's really pretty."
"It's just a small... casual dinner thing," Artie went on, looking like he was still possibly second guessing his impulsive invitation but was charging on ahead anyway. "We're probably ordering pizza and then having this cake. Not very healthy."
"Well, we didn't exactly have the healthiest meal plan for tonight either," Kitty said, plucking the box of brownie mix off the shelf and dropping it into her buggy. "Okay, sure, I'll come over. Just let me get these groceries home first. So, I'll see you in, like, twenty minutes."
They went their separate ways then, as Kitty hurried to check out so she could get home, unload these groceries, and get to Artie's. She was about halfway to her house when she realized how pathetic she was. She was all giddy about hanging out with the guy who still had a new girlfriend, last time she'd checked. She was pretty sure she'd get some kind of Instagram notification if they broke up. Just like she'd gotten that notification at 2:00 AM when Julie sent over an accidental like on an old picture of Kitty and Artie, one of the ones Bree posted of them at the carnival last year.
"Maybe I shouldn't go..." she muttered aloud to herself, as she carried all her groceries into the kitchen in one trip, like a pack mule, and sat them atop the small island.
"Maybe you shouldn't," someone said, scaring her out of her reverie. She narrowed her eyes at a smirking Collin, who had gone unnoticed by her when she thought she'd stepped into an empty kitchen.
"Go where?" Added a second voice, as Logan stepped into the kitchen and both of the freeloaders, er, brothers... began helping her put the groceries away.
"To, um, to..." she opened the fridge at just the right moment so that her face was hidden from their view. "To Artie's. They're doing this small family thing to, uh, well, have you heard of a gender reveal? To find out if his sister's having a boy or a girl."
"I can't keep up," Collin remarked. "Are you two dating again?"
Kitty scowled. "You know we're not."
"Sounds like a dating thing," said Logan, finishing his twin's thought, as he often did. Kitty didn't know when or even if her brothers would ever settle down and stop being roommates. She didn't need relationship advice from these two.
"It's too bad," Collin said. "I liked him."
"Well, he's moved on, he's now dating this brunette swimmer film-aficionado he met at OSU who looks and acts nothing like me," Kitty concluded, as she finished putting away the spices she'd bought for next week's dinner and slammed the cabinet much harder than she'd meant to.
"Well, have fun," Logan said, with a knowing glance at his brother as he tore into one of the frozen pizza boxes.
Ten minutes later, Kitty made it to Artie's just as he was unloading from his trip to the store. Kitty guessed that two kids and a chair made it take much longer than her trip. He glanced over his shoulder at her, as he started pushing his wheels, and gave her that crooked grin. She could tell, he was just as uncertain about her presence as she was, but it didn't make him any less glad to see her. She returned the smile, in perfect imitation of his crooked one, as she'd always done when she was teasing him, when they'd dated.
As they headed inside, they were promptly greeted by Amy, Sam, and some other guy Kitty hadn't ever seen before.
"Oh, hey, Kitty, this is Zack," Artie said, as he passed the bags in his lap off to Stevie and Stacey to take to the kitchen. "Zack, this is Kitty."
Kitty extended a hand to the guy before she noticed his eyes, not exactly focused on anything really, appearing to look over her head. Before she even knew what she was doing, she shot Artie a nasty look and drew back her hand.
Zack looked amused. "Oh, handshake, right?" he asked. "Sorry, uh, didn't notice. Artie didn't mention he brought a blind dude over?"
"Guess he forgot," Kitty said, continuing to glare at Artie as she addressed Zack. "Nice to meet you. Artie, you want any help with the cake?"
"We'll help!" Stacey and Stevie called, in unison, as they returned from the kitchen.
Sam shook his head at them. "No, you won't," he said, firmly but not unkindly. "You know I love you both, but you're the two biggest blabbermouths I know. You'll definitely tell me and Amy what it is before we get to cut the cake."
"You could count on me not to tell you," Zack piped up, in a joking manner that reminded Kitty of Artie's brand of self-deprecating humor. "But, uh, I'm not the best choice to help Artie."
So it was down to Artie and Kitty to make the cake. They were quiet, at first, as they went about finding all the supplies and ingredients in the kitchen.
"Kitty, sorry about all that," Artie finally said, sheepishly, as she dumped cake mix into the bowl. "I just..."
"Forgot?" she supplied, smirking at him as he busied himself with getting the eggs and not really looking at her. "Well, now you see how easy it is to do."
She knew that he was aware of what she was referring to. The first time she'd ever introduced Artie to her brothers and her dad, she'd completely forgotten to mention that her new boyfriend was in a wheelchair. Their stunned reactions hadn't gone unnoticed, and he'd sort of called her out for it.
"I do see," Artie said, as he cracked the eggs and added them to the mix. "And I think I owe you an apology for all that. Thing is..." he shifted his gaze to meet hers. "I realize now how great a thing it is, that you completely forgot."
Her intense expression softened and she realized that she could fall for him all over again, if not for the laundry list of reasons why she couldn't, including the new college girlfriend.
"So, uh," she diverted, changing the subject then, as they turned on the mixer. "We need to make frosting next. What color?"
"There's a pack of pastel food coloring on the top shelf, " Artie said, not divulging which color he would be mixing in.
"Well, I happen to be really good at frosting cakes," Kitty said, climbing up on the countertop to retrieve the food coloring. "I know you cook, but you don't bake much, right? How's about you go ahead and tell me, so I can help with all of it?"
"Alright, alright," Artie conceded. She leaned in as he, keeping his voice low in case of lurkers nearby, divulged the big secret to her.
The topic of conversation over pizza with Artie's parents, Sam, Amy, Sam's siblings, and Artie's friend Zack was, surprisingly, not the baby and the gender reveal. They were waiting on Sam's parents to get home for that. (Now that Kitty knew, she could hardly stand it.)
They ended up talking about glee club. Amy confessed that she was anxious about leaving glee club to her sub in the fall.
"If we don't win at our Nationals," she was saying. "And especially... especially if the New Directions do win again, I don't know, I just feel like Next Direction could be in a bit of trouble..."
"As long as the superintendent's nephew is still on the team, you're good," Kitty commented.
"Yeah. He moves up next year though..." Amy sighed. "I wish I knew someone who subs for our district. If I could just prepare that person now, I'd feel better..."
"Don't you just need, like some college hours completed to sub in our district?" Kitty wondered aloud. "I mean, they let Finn sub for Mr. Schue."
"I think so," Amy said.
"Well, what about Sam?" Kitty suggested, as Sam looked surprised and a little intrigued by the idea. "He'll have finished a semester."
"I was gonna suggest you call up Holly Holliday, but that's an even better idea," Artie added, grinning at her.
Amy looked Sam. "You sure you're up to putting up with Leah Sarfati? She is brutally mean sometimes."
"She's twelve years old," Kitty pointed out.
"Doesn't matter," Amy shot back, looking completely serious. "Also, she said that by getting pregnant at this pivotal point in our club's history, I was being totally irresponsible."
"She's not wrong," Artie couldn't resist a chance to tease his sister, and she payed him back with a slug to his shoulder. "Hey, ow!"
"Hey, if they'll hire a guy who just finished going to school there, then I'll do it," Sam finally said, at which point Amy planted a kiss on his cheek.
Just then, they heard the sound of the garage going up. Sam's parents were back from their date.
"Happy Anniversary, love birds!" Amy called out, as Sam's mother came up behind her where she was seated at the table and hugged her around the neck.
"Nineteen years with my lovely bride," Dwight said. "Thank you, Abrams family, for the gift card. That was the best steak I ever had."
"The movie was cute, too," Mary added. "But all I could think of was getting home so we could cut that cake and find out if my first grandchild is a boy or a girl."
"These are your parents, Sam?" Zack spoke up.
"Yes they are," Sam said. "Zack, meet Dwight and Mary, my parents. They just celebrated nineteen years, one month before I celebrate my nineteen years."
"That explains why you look so young," Zack said, without missing a beat, and Kitty was reminded of again of Artie's similar sense of humor. No wonder these two got along so well.
"Are we ready?" Nancy asked, holding up the cake and the cake knife. It seemed she'd been waiting to do this just as soon as Sam's parents arrived.
"I dunno, maybe we should just wait a bit longer," Sam joked.
But Amy already had the knife and was poised over the cake to cut it. She gestured for Sam to join her, and it kind of reminded Kitty of a bride and groom cutting the cake, except of course, for the fact that Amy and Sam hadn't done that yet.
"Blue!" Amy yelled, when she saw it first. All the women shrieked as Nancy and Mary hugged one another. "It's a boy!"
"Evan Evans then?" Artie had clearly been ready for that one, since he'd known for several hours now. Amy looked at Sam, who seriously appeared to be considering it as a possibility.
"We'll, um, still have to talk names," Sam said, as he held onto Amy and shared a kiss that Kitty supposed Artie was just used to watching by now. She had to applaud the guy for how he'd really come around. And it was then that Kitty noticed Amy's left hand holding onto Sam's bicep, adorned with the blue sapphire.
"So, when's the wedding?" Kitty wanted to know, as she helped Mary and Nancy begin slicing and passing out pieces of the cake they'd made.
Amy grinned and flashed her ring proudly. "Probably the first weekend of June," she said. "June 7th, so it's before Artie's surgery."
"Oh, you're having surgery?" Kitty turned to look at Artie in surprise.
"Oh, uh, yeah," Artie said, clearly irritated at Amy for bringing it up. "It's so far off, so I wasn't really talking about it yet, but uh, it's for my scoliosis. Like I had before in the summer of 2010."
Kitty just nodded, in the moment, and let it be as Artie redirected the conversation back towards Amy and Sam's upcoming nuptials and the baby. She waited until the end of the night, when Artie accompanied her out to her car, like he did back when they'd been dating.
"I wasn't like, hiding the fact," Artie explained, before she could say that she was thinking exactly that, that he was back to his old habit of keeping secrets from his friends. "I was planning to talk about it when the time came."
"Would you have told me though?" Kitty wondered, turning her keys over in her hands and staring at them. "I mean, we're not dating so..."
"So I don't have to worry about holding you captive all summer while I'm laid up," Artie finished, with a shrug. "Of course I would have told you, Kitty. You're still one of my best friends."
"So, are you gonna hold this Julie girl captive all summer?" Kitty asked, innocently.
"Maybe not," Artie muttered.
Kitty raised an eyebrow. "Meaning what?"
"Meaning I don't know yet."
Kitty just nodded. She didn't want to say any more than that, lest he think she was hoping they'd break up. And she wasn't hoping for that, not if this girl was better for Artie than she was. And she suspected that was the case.
She opened the car door and slid into the front seat of the car. "You shouldn't worry so much about that, Artie," she said. "Shouldn't love be about for better or worse anyway?"
Artie's slack-jawed response had her thinking maybe she'd said too much. She just gave him a shy smile and mumbled a quick, "See ya later." With that, she slammed the door and drove off. About halfway home, she was crying and she wasn't entirely sure why.