Puck tapped the phone number into his phone, hoping that Kurt was home. He was in a bind and he was certain that Kurt was the only person he knew that could help him out. He dialed the number.

Burt picked up the house phone when it rang.

"Hello?"

"Um, yeah. Is Kurt there?"

"Yeah. Who's calling?"

"Noah." He had almost slipped and said Puck. He was afraid that Mr. Hummel would have heard about him and wouldn't let him talk to Kurt.

"Just a sec. I'll get him."

Burt walked over to the door to the basement and called down. "Kurt! Someone named Noah is on the phone for you." Burt went back to watching the basketball game he had been watching.

Kurt came bounding up the stairs and picked up the phone. "Hello?" He expected it to be a prank call, but was surprised when Puck actually responded.

"Hey, um, Kurt. This is Puck."

"Why are you calling me?"

"I need a favor."

"From me?" Kurt asked incredulously.

"Yeah, dude. From you. Why else would I have used our ancient phone book to find your landline number?"

"What is it that you need me to do?"

"You know I'm Jewish."

"Yeah."

"Well, my sister is 7 and her friends at school have been talking about Santa and Christmas and she's convinced that Santa will bring her a really nice gift for Christmas is she's good enough. She's been, like, cleaning her room every day for a month. Hell, she's cleaned mine once a week. We don't do gifts at Hanukkah. We light the menorah and say the stuff, but we don't have money for gifts every night. Anyway, I found one of those American Girl dolls on eBay with a matching dress in her size. She's wanted one for ages. Several of her friends have one. It came in the mail this afternoon and it's a wreck. The doll's dress needs work. And the matching dress that's for Sarah has the stitching broken along the seam, one of the belt loops is half off, and the belt is a ribbon, but it's not in good shape. The doll's hair is a mess. I should've known it was too good to be true, but now I spent what money I did have to buy the stuff. The person selling them obviously posted photos of a different set."

"So, you want me to repair them?"

"Can you? I seriously don't know anyone else who might be able to. She's just a kid and I don't want her to think she's bad. She's in first grade. I'm hoping that by next year, most of the kids will have figured it out, but for now, I need some help. If you can't do it, do you know someone who can?" Puck sounded desperate.

Kurt was still a little confused. "How did she not hear about Santa before now if she's 7?"

"Kindergarten isn't mandatory, so my mom left her in the daycare at the Temple last year. Ma only lets her stay at people's house that go to Temple with us."

"I see. Can I do it here or do I need to come there?"

"I can drop all of it off at your house. How long do you think it will take you to fix them up? Christmas is in three days."

"Well, the sooner you get the stuff over here, the better chance I have of getting it done on time, if I can even fix it."

"I don't have any money to offer you. What do you want in exchange for doing it?"

"I don't know. I'll think about it. Just bring the stuff over here so I can get busy on it. I have plans for Christmas Eve all day, so I need to get started."

"Right. I'll bring them over in about 20 minutes."

"Sure." Kurt hung up.

Burt looked over the back of the couch. "What was that about?"

"Someone needs me to do some repairs on a doll and a few clothes."

"Ah, well, they gonna pay you?"

"I'm not sure. It's for his sister."

Burt turned back to the game.

Kurt stayed upstairs near the door until Puck got there. Kurt stepped outside when he saw Puck pull up. He jumped out of his beat up pickup truck and handed Kurt the bag and ran back to his truck.

"I'll call you. I can't stay. Ma sent me to pick Sarah up at her friend's house. I can't be late. Then I gotta watch her all evening." He backed out of the driveway.

Kurt took the sack down to his room to assess the problems. He started by repairing both of the dresses. The ribbon had to be replaced. Once he had the mending finished, he took them upstairs, sprayed and scrubbed the stains, and tossed them into the washer. Afterwards, h went back down to start on the doll. He read the directions on the website, but didn't have any baby shampoo. He took the ribbon with him upstairs.

"Hey, Dad. I need to run to the store to get more ribbon."

"Knock yourself out," Burt said without looking at him.

An hour later, he was back. He checked and the stains had come out, so he threw the dresses into the dryer on air fluff and got to work on the doll. He cleaned her skin and washed her hair. When he was done he grabbed the dresses from upstairs and brought them down to iron them the rest of the way dry and put the ribbons on. When he finished, the doll looked good, not brand new, but good enough for a 7-year-old to be impressed. He folder Sarah's dress neatly, dressed the doll, and put it back in the paper grocery bag.

X-X-X-X-X

It wasn't until the next morning that Puck called again. Kurt was in the kitchen when the phone rang.

"Hey, it's me. How's it going?" He was seriously concerned that he'd have nothing for Sarah from Santa.

"I finished, Puck. You can come pick it up."

"No can do, dude. I'm watching Sarah all day again today."

"Fine. I'll bring the stuff over. Give me your address." He put it in his phone. "I'll be there in 20 minutes."

He grabbed a jar of peanut butter, put a cup of sugar into a plastic storage bowl, and wrapped and egg in a paper towel and put it in another storage bowl. He put everything in grocery bag and left it on the counter long enough to grab the stuff from downstairs, including some sheets of wrapping paper, tissue paper, and two boot boxes he hadn't thrown out yet. He grabbed the other stuff from the counter, put a coat on, and left for Puck's.

When he got there, Puck was out on the stoop. He put his index finger to his mouth. He approached Kurt. "Give me whatever you brought and I'm going to take it upstairs by going in the back door. Give me five minutes, and then knock on the front door and I'll let you in."

Kurt handed him everything except the cookie-making supplies. He dashed for the back of the house. Kurt waited, and then knocked.

Puck opened the door and let him in. "You can put your coat on one of the hooks."

He took it off and hooked it on the back of the door.

"Are you any good at Super Mario?" Sarah asked from across the room.

"I'm not bad, why?"

"I can't get through this part." She pointed to the screen on the TV.

"Oh, it's been a while, but I could try."

"Okay." She sat back down and offered him the controller when he got close enough. "What's your name? Mine's Sarah."

"I'm Kurt." He sat down next to her, and after three tries, he made it through.

"Thanks," she said. She took the controller back from him. "Noah was too busy to help. He said he had to do something about a song when you got here."

"I better get busy on that with him," Kurt said as he stood up.

"Okay. Maybe you can play again when you finish the song."

"I actually brought something along that we can make later."

That got her attention and she looked up at him with her big brown eyes full of curiosity. "What did you bring?"

"I brought stuff to make peanut butter cookies. You're not allergic to peanut butter or eggs are you?"

"Nope. Not me. This boy in my class named Peter, though. I can't sit at his table for lunch because peanut butter and banana sandwiches are my favorite."

"Perfect. We'll do that once we finish the song, but you can't interrupt us or it will take a lot longer for us to get done."

"Got it. I leave you alone to do the song and we make cookies sooner."

"Exactly, squirt," Puck said. "We'll go as fast as we can."

X-X-X-X-X

Puck closed the door behind them and locked it. "Okay. Show me. I didn't have time to look, but I saw the boxes and gift wrap."

"I need a pocket knife and duct tape."

Puck turned to his dresser. "Done and done." He held out both.

"Okay. Turn on some music or she's going to know we were lying. Something you wouldn't normally listen to. Like country."

"Fine." He tuned the radio to a country station. "So what needs cut and taped?"

"We're going to create a single box out of these two that the doll and the dress will fit in together." Kurt showed him where to cut and tape them and left him to it. He took out the dress for Sarah and laid it out on Puck's bed. He pulled the doll out and laid her next to the dress.

Puck looked up. "No fucking way. That does not even look like the stuff I brought to you yesterday. You, like, got the stains out and fixed everything that was wrong. It all looks perfect now."

"Thank you. We need to wrap the bottom and the top of the box separately." Kurt demonstrated how to do it.

About 10 minutes later, they had finished wrapping the box. Kurt showed Puck how to fold the dress to keep it from being really wrinkled and they placed it on top of a double layer of tissue paper. Kurt put the doll on top of the dress and covered the tissue paper over the top on both sides. Puck picked up the lid and put it on. He grabbed up the leftover box pieces and put them in the brown paper sack.

"It's perfect, seriously. Did you decide what you want in return?"

"Well, I had to spend $2.00 on new ribbon."

"I can do that." He reached for his wallet and handed Kurt two $1 bills. "What else?"

"I have a question for you first."

"Sure. Just make it quick and pick the name of the song we're doing. Make it something I know the words to, so when she asks us to sing it, we can."

"'Sweet Caroline'. You sang that not too long ago. I'll just make up some harmony part if she asks us to sing. It doesn't have to be great. She's 7."

"True. So what's your question?"

"Have you ever kissed a guy?"

Puck was surprised by Kurt's question, but answered honestly. "Yeah. When I was drink playing Spin the Bottle at a few parties with some bi guys that go to OSU Lima. That's not for you to repeat."

"I wouldn't. So, what about me?"

"What about you?"

"Rachel says you're an amazing kisser. All the girls who've kissed you have said so."

Puck preened a bit. "So you want to kiss me?" The thought didn't bother him even sober, which surprised him since he'd never really considered it, but he'd kissed far less attractive people than Kurt for money. He didn't see any difference. He couldn't afford to pay Kurt what he deserved for making everything look great so quickly.

"I'd like to kiss someone who won't turn around and try to kick my ass the next day or the next week because they don't want the jock block to find out. I just figured if you've already kissed other guys, I wouldn't be 'turning' you like some of the guys would accuse me of trying to do."

"I thought you had a crush on Finn."

"I do, sort of, but mostly just because he's cute and nice."

"So, if I was nice, you might end up with a crush on me." Puck waggled his eyebrows.

"Are you implying that you would be okay with me having a crush on you?"

"Hell, yeah. I'm a stud. I'm all for people crushing on me." He flexed his biceps.

"Impressive, but like I said, I'm more into kindness. But I would like to not be the only person who hasn't kissed someone. If you agree to it, I will swear to never tell, if that's what you want."

Puck stepped closer. "Make sure that this is what you want. I don't take anything you're not offering. That's not me." He took another step closer.

"I'm sure." Kurt closed the gap and tipped his chin up just enough to kiss Puck.

Puck wrapped his hands around Kurt's waist and pulled him closer and pressed in to slowly ease Kurt into deepening the kiss on his own. When they broke for air, Kurt's cheeks were flushed, and between them, they could both feel the effect the kiss had had on their bodies. Kurt didn't pull away and Puck kissed him again. This time he took the lead and kissed Kurt, backing him into the wall. He kissed along Kurt's neck while he caught his breath.

"Oh, God," Kurt said. "No wonder all of the girls want to kiss you."

Puck grinned cockily. "You're no slacker. You're definitely a natural." He kissed along his jaw and back to his lips for one last breathtaking kiss.

This time when they had to catch their breath, Puck stepped back. "If you're interested, we can work off the rest of your most excellent work on the doll and the clothes another time."

"I think I could manage that." Kurt tried to calm his thoughts and get his body under control. His previous musing on his sexuality after watching gay porn and not enjoying it had just been thoroughly answered by the amazing French kissing with Puck. No to porn. Yes to kissing Noah Puckerman. Refocusing his thoughts, he said, "We should get to those cookies."

"You may need to come over to work on songs and bake cookies more often. Maybe you can even help me with my homework." Puck winked at him and opened the door and held it open for Kurt to walk through. "Sarah, we're done," he called out. "Cookie time!"

X-X-X-X-X

Kurt returned to the Puckerman's the day after Christmas after he had been out shopping with the girls. He knocked and Sarah let him in.

"Hi, Kurt. Will you play Mario with me?"

"For a little bit."

"Guess what?" she asked excitedly.

"What?"

"Santa came yesterday morning and he brought me the most amazing doll. The dress I'm wearing matches her dress. Come look!"

Kurt followed her over to the TV where she had the doll sitting next to where she had been playing. "She's really pretty, but not as beautiful as you. Your matching dresses are lovely though."

"I think so too."

Puck came down the stairs. "You're here."

"I am. Sarah was showing me her new doll. It's lovely."

"Are we going to make cookies again?" she asked.

"I actually brought stuff to make pizza."

"You can make pizza?" She wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him.

"You can make pizza. I'm going to tell you how."

"Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!" she chanted as she jumped up and down.

"After Noah and I work on our song."

"Okay. I'll wait right here and play Mario."

When they came back downstairs 30 minutes later, Kurt said quietly, "You know I bet Sarah would like another matching outfit."

Puck just laughed and pushed him into the kitchen.