Puck's truck exhibited a lot of road noise, but it apparently wasn't too loud for him to talk on the phone. Dave watched him nervously as he juggled his cell and changed lanes at the same time. "Hey, kiddo," he said, a big smile on his face. "How's your weekend going?" He glanced at Dave. "Mine started off just great, thanks."

Dave smiled slightly and raised his eyebrows. So you really liked that, huh? Because the start of Puck's weekend had pretty much been just them, Puck and Dave, talking and eating and getting naked and starting again from the top.

Dave didn't disagree that those things were a good way to start a weekend. It had been awesome. But it had also been exhausting, being together almost non-stop for that long. He watched Puck make faces on the phone, felt himself go soft and stupid at the sight of him, and he couldn't help worrying a little about what he might be missing in the real world. Puck distorted everything, clouding his thinking and throwing him into all sorts of unknown territories, and no matter how much Dave liked it he had to wonder what the wreckage would look like once he left.

"Well, that's what Neosporin is for. I practically bathed in it when me and Uncle Finn were learning to skateboard. The scrapes will heal - you won't even notice them in a few weeks." He drummed on the steering wheel in time to the song on the radio. "No skateboarding, then. We can take your stick out to the park and you can show me what you've learned about getting past defense. I've got somebody with me today I want you to meet, somebody who knows about hockey. And football, for that matter - he played college ball."

Because that would impress a seven year old girl. Well, maybe if she was Puck's daughter. Anyway, he'd rather talk about hockey, at least there were some happy memories there if he went back far enough. Dave had barely touched a hockey stick since he was eighteen, but he was sure he could manage well enough to convince Beth.

"His name's Dave. He's my, um, my boyfriend." Puck kept his gaze on the road, but Dave could see the flush creeping up from his neck, across his cheeks, to his ears. "No, boyfriend. Guys can have boyfriends, too. Yeah, like Uncle Kurt. Right." He choked a little at something she said, but managed to hold it together. "They probably shouldn't be kissing anybody at school, huh? Sharing germs and all that. Uh, can you put your mom on? I'll see you in a couple hours, kiddo. Love you too."

Dave felt himself blush along with Puck, in sympathy, because wow, that was an awkward conversation to be having with a little kid. But at least now Dave knew where they stood. He would have been totally okay with Puck introducing him as just a friend, he hadn't been looking forward to having to guess, or ask, exactly what was okay and not. Boyfriend...that was kind of a lot of pressure, for something this new, but it was also true and unambiguous, and there was a lot to be said for that.

Puck laughed into the phone, sounding a little hysterical. "Shit, Shelby, I just came out to my daughter. On the fucking phone. Yeah. She was a little surprised, I think, but no fallout yet. I mean, she knows Kurt and Blaine, right? … Oh, yeah, and them. But they're girls. Women, whatever."

Dave looked out the window, trying to give Puck a little bit of space. It wasn't him he was talking too, and Puck was trapped in the car with him with no real way to escape if the conversation turned too heavy. Dave didn't know if these were things he really should be hearing.

He felt a hand on his leg, and he took the hand in surprise before he realized what was happening. Puck gripped it so hard it threatened to cut off his circulation. Dave turned to look at him, but nothing seemed to be wrong. Well, except the fact that he was still holding the cell with his other hand and steering with his leg while having a pretty intense conversation on the phone, and Dave didn't think that was exactly recommended for road safety. Pulling his hand away wouldn't help, anyway, so he just sat there and let Puck crush it.

Puck took a big breath, knocking his head back onto the headrest. "Well, I'm seeing this guy... the one I told you about, from high school? Yes... him. He's my math teacher this semester. Yeah, no shit." He still wouldn't look at Dave, and Dave figured that was probably just as well, if he wanted to keep his attention on his driving in addition to this crazy conversation. "It's really great. Uh - well, he's right here. Yes. No, you can't talk to him." Puck sounded outraged. "You'll just have to wait in line like everybody else!"

Everybody else? Dave raised his eyebrows at him, trying to communicate that once this call was over, he'd love to know more about this line of people apparently wanting to talk to him. Puck didn't seem to notice.

He rolled his eyes, and then he did look at Dave, mouthing the word Sorry. "That's because you're a total bitch," he snickered. "Yeah. Thanks. I'll see you guys at four. Bye."

Puck shook his head, thumbing the phone off and tossing it on the seat. "I can't figure out how I ever thought she was dating material. I really wonder about my judgment sometimes."

"Thanks for the reassurance, man." He hoped Puck didn't notice how his worried grimace was more an exaggeration than a downright fake.

"Not you." Puck released Dave's hand and punched his thigh, right between the quads. "You're awesome. I'm talking about girls. Oh, excuse me, women. Like it matters, if I'm insulting them anyway."

Dave laughed. "At least you didn't tell your daughter you've turned to men because her mother is a bitch. So, you know, good job."

A slow smile spread over Puck's face. "God. Did I really just come out to her? My own kid."

Dave nodded. "You really did. Congratulations."

"Holy fuck. Well - it doesn't matter now. She'll get over it. And Shelby knew about - about me from the beginning. She just bitched and moaned about another gay one. Whatever that means." Puck eyed him. "You must be totally fucking sick of me by now. I've got to teach a class this afternoon. You want to borrow my truck?

Dave felt a stab of guilt. No, two. First for feeling crowded and overwhelmed, of course Puck must have picked up on that. And then because he was in Lima to meet Puck's family, and he hadn't even thought about calling his own. He could drive over to see his dad, he was sure he'd appreciate it even on short notice, but being questioned about his life, explaining why he was there...he didn't think he had it in him.

"Nah, I don't think so. The bike, though? That might be a good time to take her out for a spin."

Dave's bike was loaded on the back of Puck's truck again, he'd felt a little stupid suggesting it but the idea of being in Lima with no transportation of his own was a suffocating weight so heavy, he'd known he needed it there, if only as some kind of psychological support.

"Sure. Would three hours be enough time? I'll swing by the dojo so you know where it is. Where can I drop you off?"

Dave knew where the dojo was by now, of course, but he wasn't going to mention that, or the fact that he'd mapped it on the computer to see how far it was from Columbus, and especially not that he'd visited their web page to check out the pictures of Sensei Puckerman without his shirt on. He gave Puck directions to the corner of Allentown and Cornell, trying to be subtle, but Puck remembered.

"Your parents still live in that house? On Cornell?"

"Still do." He lifted the bike off the truck, grinning at how light it felt in his arms. "What do you say, baby, ready for a tour of the old neighborhood?" He glanced over at Puck, embarrassed.

Puck snorted. "You talk to your bike."

Dave smiled sheepishly. "Yeah. The bikes, and the cat, and computers when they're being assholes. I know, I have a problem. At least now you know what you're getting into."

"I'll find a way to deal." He laughed. "You two go ahead and enjoy yourselves." Puck gave the bike a pointed, stern look. "And you'd better have him back in one piece in time for dinner."

"Thank you, we will." Dave threw his leg over the bike and rode away, smiling to himself.


The woman outside weeding the garden didn't look old enough to be Rachel Berry's mother, but Dave figured there were all kinds of makeup tricks and things that women knew about to disguise their age. She also didn't look very happy to see them.

"Is it a problem that I'm here?" Dave asked. Puck glanced at him in surprise, then back at Shelby's scowl, understanding.

"No, no - she's always like that," he assured him, climbing out of the truck. "It's totally not about us. Well, if it is, it's mostly about everything else and only a little about us. I've learned to ignore it. Trust me."

"Well, I hope you're satisfied," she called, pulling off the green gardening gloves one finger at a time. "The craters in her knees are starting to make her look like a lunar surface. She's going to kill herself on that skateboard."

"She's wearing her helmet, right? So buy her some fricking knee pads." Their words were acerbic, but the hug she gave Puck was genial enough. He kissed her on the cheek. "Tell me she doesn't love it."

"No, of course she loves it. She wants to be just like her dad." Shelby smiled at Dave and held out her hand. "Hi. I'm Shelby."

"I'm Dave. Nice to meet you." He took her hand and shook it, trying for inoffensively polite. He thought that was just about the best he could do right now.

"She's been talking about hockey all morning, so you'd better get the sticks out of the garage. Beth!" Her sudden shout made Dave jump. "Your dad's here."

"In the back," they heard.

Shelby crouched down and started gathering up gardening tools. "Good luck getting her to come down from that treehouse. She ate lunch up there almost every day this summer."

"I know." Puck touched Dave on the shoulder and indicated the side yard. "We'll have her back after dinner," he said to Shelby as they headed around the back.

It was more of a tree palace than a house, Dave decided, staring up at the enclosure. It had siding and glass windows and a trap door that led to the roof, and a rope bridge connecting it to a platform on another nearby tree. Puck chuckled at the expression on his face.

"This is what happens when you have one kid with too many uncles, not to mention grandparents, all with too much time on their hands. I guess the bad economy around here has some positive effects. Finn and Burt come out here and work on it whenever they get a chance. Every time I come there's something new." He looked it over and pointed. "Pretty sure she didn't have a rope ladder last time."

Puck stood by the foot of the bottom platform on the smaller tree. "So you coming down?" he called. "Or are me and Dave going to have to go play hockey all by ourselves?"

The window opened. Blonde curls and piercing green eyes stared down at them, leaning over the sill at a terrifying angle. Dave wanted to step forward and caution her not to fall, but Puck didn't look concerned. "You wouldn't," she said.

"Would," he countered. "And we'll eat all the pizza."

She made a noise of protest and slammed the window. Seconds later, sneakered feet, purple leggings and a sparkly tutu appeared from the trap door, followed by a hockey jersey with number 20 on it. Last to emerge was the blonde head wearing a solemn face. She hesitated when she saw Dave, but made it to the ground, leaping the last few feet to land lightly on the grass.

"Hey, kiddo," Puck said, and held open his arms. She ran into them, knocking him back a good two inches. Dave smothered a grin. The Puckerman attack hug. Must be hereditary.

"Beth, this is Dave." He gestured at him. Dave offered a hand, and after a moment, Beth shook it. It was sticky with what he hoped was tree sap.

"Hi," she said shyly.

Dave felt the same, but he was the adult here and if she could do it, so could he. "Hi there." He resisted the urge to wipe his hand on his pants. "Nice treehouse."

"Thanks! Uncle Finn made it for me."

"Let me take a look at those knees." Puck knelt down, rolled up her leggings and inspected her scabs, poking at them with gentle fingers. "Hmmm... impressive. These don't hurt?"

"I'm not a baby," she said, crossing her arms.

"They're not going to stop you from running some stickhandling drills with us, are they?"

She glanced up at Dave, then smiled bravely at Puck. "No way."

They walked the three blocks to Robb Park, Beth dragging her hockey stick behind her, chattering at Puck about her second-grade teacher, Mr. Wood. "He's really tall," she said. "Like, taller than any other teacher in the school. Even taller than Marissa's dad."

"Everybody's tall to you, kiddo," he said, grinning at her. "And hey, I remember Mr. Wood. He was the one with the snake in his classroom."

"He still has a snake!" she shouted. "It's huge. Like this long." She reached as far as her diminutive arms would stretch apart, jumping to add more width. "It's a bald python."

"Ball python, I think," Dave said, then closed his mouth, glancing at Puck. But he just shrugged.

"Oh, yeah, that's right, he said. Because it can roll up into a ball. But it couldn't be the same snake as when you were there, Dad. You're way too old."

Dave saw the look on his face, and jumped in before Puck could protest the comment about his age - which, let's face it, he was probably the youngest dad in Beth's second grade class. "Actually, pythons usually live for twenty to thirty years in captivity."

She gave him a suspicious look. "I thought you were a math teacher. How do you know about reptiles?" The way she said her r's made it sound like weptiles, and it was hard not to smile, but Dave gave it his best shot.

"Grownups know about all kinds of stuff, kiddo. Especially Dave. He's a lot smarter than your old man." Puck reached out and touched him on the shoulder, just a brief clasp. It could have been completely innocent if it hadn't been accompanied by the expression of frank admiration on his face. Dave still didn't know what to do with that look.

"So, do you like math?" he asked Beth.

She nodded. "It's fun. My dad teaches me tricks with numbers."

"Maybe you can show me some of them later."

"Yeah. There's this one, you can multiply by nine, using your fingers. It's cool." She shoved her stick at Puck and held out her skinny fingers. "See, if I fold down, like, my third finger, that's multiplying nine by three, right? And the answer is twenty... seven." She wiggled the two fingers on the left of her third finger, then the seven to the right of it. "Neat, huh?"

Dave smiled. He had no idea what to expect of a seven year old, but it seemed like she had some of her father's talent. "That's awesome. And do you know why that works every time?"

"Why?" Her eyes were big, gazing up at him, and Dave felt the weight of responsibility. Whatever he told her, she'd believe. He guessed Puck hadn't been much about explaining his math tricks - he might not even know why they worked, himself, since so much of his math knowledge seemed to be instinctive.

"Well, because you have ten fingers. And so did the people who made up how we write numbers. You learned about ones and tens and hundreds' places in school, right? If math was invented by, like, snakes or aliens, maybe they'd decided to have a eights place instead, or something. And then if they had eight fingers, they could use that trick to multiply by seven."

"Hey!" She looked down at her fingers with new awareness, folding down two of her fingers. "Really? How?"

Dave took her hand. "Let's pretend those aren't there, because you're an alien, right?"

"Can I have tentacles instead of fingers?" She wiggled them, grinning.

"Sure. You have eight tentacles, so obviously you count in eights, like all the other aliens. So now you want to multiply seven by...two." He nudged her second finger, and she folded it down with fierce concentration.

"So there's one finger here...but that's not a ten anymore, it's an eight, right? Because of your eight tentacles. And then on the other side, there's...six. One eight, plus six, that makes fourteen. It always works, as long as you're multiplying by one less than there are fingers."

Her expression was so exactly like Puck's when he was thinking about something that he laughed. She looked up at him in surprise. "Wow! What if you only had two fingers?"

Dave grinned. "Then you wouldn't get a lot of multiplication done that way. And your math homework would take up a lot of space. But, you know what, that's how computers do it. Because they don't have any fingers. They only know on and off."

"No way." She jumped on Puck, grabbing his shoulders. "Dad! Did you know that?"

Puck struggled to keep his own hockey stick and Beth's from whacking her in the face. "Kind of. I couldn't have explained it like that, though. Dave's the teacher, not me. I just like playing with numbers."

Dave laughed. "And you're good at it, too." He took the big hockey stick from Puck. "Field hockey, right?" He shifted it back and forth in his hands, trying to get a feel for the balance of it. It was shorter than an ice hockey stick, probably more so because he was tall, and it didn't really have a blade, just a little round hook thing. He bent down and experimentally air dribbled a bit.

"You got any balls with you, or are we just playing with your stick?" Puck's eyes widened, and Dave could see him biting back some kind of undoubtedly filthy reply. Dave rolled his eyes and gave him two seconds of disappointed teacher face before he broke down and grinned back.

Puck threw a little red ball at him. Dave caught it and dropped it to the grass, dragging it from back and forth with the stick for a while before passing it to Beth in a weak imitation of a slapshot. She looked at him disdainfully. "That's not the right way."

"I mostly played ice hockey. Maybe you could show me how it should be done on grass."

Beth picked up her own little stick and flicked the ball back to him.

"Oh, I see. But can you do this?" Dave dribbled the ball around his legs in a figure eight pattern. It wasn't as easy as he remembered. The ball escaped and rolled away, and Beth ran to catch it.

She rushed back, dribbling it expertly around Dave and then Puck as if they were plastic cones.

"She's good," he told Puck, over her head. "Must have got your talent for more than just math."

"She's Quinn's too, remember," he said cheerfully. "She was always the one with the smokin' dance moves."

They played one on one for a bit, with Puck and Dave taking turns being either opponents or goal posts. Beth seemed not to need a break, she just kept running, and it was Puck who finally called a time-out. "Come on, kiddo," he panted with exaggerated fatigue. "Give your old man a break. I need to eat."

"But I don't know who won!" Beth protested.

"I'm pretty sure you did. Aren't you hungry?"

Dave looked at Puck. He kind of felt like siding with Beth on this one. "Aw, come on, we can't leave without knowing who won." He bent down over his stick and faced Beth. "Shootout? Goal's between your dad and that tree, three shots each or until we have a winner. The one who isn't shooting plays goalie."

Puck tried to be subtle about moving away from the tree whenever it was Beth's turn to shoot, but he wasn't exactly fooling anyone. Dave rolled his eyes, mouthing "cheater". Puck did the same back at him. "Come on, man, you're five times her size." And he had a point, so Dave just nodded, and Beth won four to three. She probably would have anyway.

They ended up at Chuck E Cheese for dinner. The pizza was like cardboard with a little sauce and cheese, but it was worth it to see Beth leaping into the great big ball pit and feeding quarters into the slot for nine more shots in Ski-Ball. She had great precision, but her enthusiasm tended to overwhelm her and the ball would go wild. Luckily she seemed to have the same good humor and attitude as her dad. When she made a mistake, she just tried something else and laughed harder.

Puck got a root beer and brought it back to the table while Beth rode on the spacecraft with the flashing lights. He sat on the bench next to Dave, leaning back on the table with both elbows. "I used to love this place when I was a kid. It looks a hell of a lot less shiny and awesome now than it did when I was seven, though."

"Yeah. It's weird coming back. It's like everything has shrunk, when really it's just that you got bigger." He watched Beth for a moment. "And for her it's still shiny, you know?"

"I do know," Puck nodded. "Having a kid, it's like you get to see everything all over again. The whole fucking world is shiny." He shook his head. "It's kind of amazing, Dave. I can't even tell you."

Dave looked at him. He thought maybe Puck must have some of those powers, too, if he could make a Lima Chuck E Cheese seem like anything but the godforsaken noisy hell Dave was pretty sure it really was.

Puck returned his gaze and smiled, a private smile, one that seemed way out of place for Chuck E Cheese. "She likes you." He took a swig of his root beer, then added, "I mean, not that I'm surprised or anything."

Dave smiled back, wondering for a moment what they looked like to the people around them. Two guys with one kid was unusual enough, and if any of what he was thinking showed on his face... they definitely weren't brother or buddy type of thoughts. He looked away from Puck's eyes and tried to harden his face a little.

Beth came running back over to them. "I won some tickets," she said. "Come on, help me spend them." She grabbed Dave's hand and tugged.

Dave cast a startled glance at Puck, but he just crossed his arms and gestured with his root beer. "Go on," he said, grinning. "Boring old Dad'll wait here."

Dave hesitated, but Beth was still holding his hand. Who cared about what people thought anyway. "All right." He got up and let Beth drag him away.


Dave had never been in Puck's house before, or at least he couldn't remember if he had, which spoke to the kind of not-friends they'd been back in middle school. But somehow it felt familiar, almost like Puck had told him all about it, simply by being in his life this past week, and now it was just part of him, like his truck or his daughter. He smiled at the pictures of Puck and his little sister on the wall of the hallway as Puck bellowed, "Sarah? We're here."

"Family room," he heard a girl's voice call. "Watch out for the model. It might eat you."

She hadn't been kidding. There was a building, halted mid-construction, sprawled across the dining room floor, cardboard and tape propped against the wall and up on chairs. Dave carefully picked his way around the model to find Puck's hazel eyes in a girl's face, gazing up at him upside-down from the couch.

"You're not Noah," she said, squinting at him. "You sure sounded like him a minute ago. What are you doing in my house?"

"Don't harass Dave, Sarah. He's already dealt with Shelby and Beth today. I think he might need a break."

She swiveled around to lean over the back of the couch, and grinned. That, too, looked incredibly familiar, even though it was framed by black curls and a face that was pretty in a completely different way from Puck's. "So you're the famous Dave."

"Sarah..."

"He talks about you all the time," she stage-whispered.

"What are you building?" Dave asked, trying to derail the conversation from certain disaster.

"Sancore Mosque, from Timbuktu - don't ask," she said, holding up one hand and wincing. Her nails were painted alternately purple and black. "My fucking history teacher thought it would be good enrichment for me. This is what I get for acing the pretest. Let's see if I ever do well again in her class."

"When's it due, squirt?" Puck said, tossing her the bag of chocolate-covered peanut-butter stuffed pretzels he'd picked up at the store. She snagged it out of the air without apparent effort.

"Thursday. But hell if I'm going to waste all week working on it. I'm getting it done and the fuck out of this house by Monday. I'm borrowing your truck, by the way - you can have the Honda for one day." She gestured at the TV. "I had to take a Disney break, though."

Alice in Wonderland was on the television. "If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense," Alice was saying. "Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary-wise; what it is it wouldn't be, and what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?"

I can relate to that, Dave thought, and glanced at Puck.

"Did you know the guy who wrote that book was a mathematician? Some people say parts of it is really making fun of modern geometry."

Sarah popped open the bag and took a handful of pretzels, passing them to Puck. "No kidding?"

"Yeah. It's really clever, actually. Like the Mad Hatter, when he's going on about no time, no time? Turns out there was this theory that came out around the same time as the book. Quaternions. Sort of like complex numbers, only with four terms instead of two." Dave looked at Puck, this was really more for his benefit than Sarah's. "And if the time term is missing, what you get stuck with is nothing but rotation, just like the tea party."

Puck wrinkled his nose, thinking. "So if the complex numbers are a plane, the - quaternions? - are like 3D space plus time?"

Dave nodded. "Sort of. They work well with the theory of relativity, things like that. Physics. But that's just one way to interpret it. I mean, they're mathematical objects. They sort of live...out there. And we just find a way to describe them."

"Way over my head," Sarah said, waving her hand. "Dude. You're harshing my Disney break."

Dave chuckled. "Sorry. I'll keep the algebra to myself from now on."

"You will not." Puck glared at Sarah and put a hand on Dave's arm. "Pay no attention to the stupid little sister."

"Honor roll, big brother," she said airily, turning back to the television.

"Whatever. Mathematically challenged little sister, then. Do I have to force you to sit through A Beautiful Mind again?"

Dave looked at Puck. "You forced her to watch that?" Then he turned to Sarah. "Not everyone who does math is a delusional schizophrenic, I promise."

"Pretty sure I live with one of those," she confided.

"Hey, that's a fucking awesome movie," Puck protested. He handed Dave one of the chocolate-covered peanut-butter monstrosities. "All right, then, tell me a good movie about math that doesn't have any... whatever you said."

Dave thought about it. There weren't that many great math movies, and most of them involved insanity in some form or another. "Proof. She only thinks she's crazy. And it's got Jake Gyllenhaal playing the professor. You'd like it."

Sarah and Puck glanced at each other. "Hot," they both said at the same time, then cracked up.

Dave avoided responding to that by eating the pretzel. It was probably a hundred calories all by itself, but he wasn't going to worry about it.

Puck managed to stream Proof from the digital video library. He made them butter-free popcorn, which was tolerable, and they lounged on the couch, all three of them in a row with their feet propped on the coffee table, Puck in the middle. Dave tried not to feel weird when Puck took his hand partway through the movie. He tried not to think about how much hotter Puck was than Jake Gyllenhaal, or to worry about whether or not Puck was going to want to do anything after the movie. It was a little distracting, the way he kept rubbing his thumb over Dave's, but he kept as still as he could, not wanting to bother Sarah.

At one point Dave saw a shadow pass between the television and the wall and disappear under the couch. Then, next to him atop the padded arm, a sleek black cat with amber eyes silently appeared. Dave reached out with one finger and let her smell him, then petted her smooth fur.

Puck did a honest-to-God double-take. Dave didn't think those actually existed outside of film and literature.

"Holy shit," he said in an awed whisper, nudging his sister. "Sarah."

She glanced over, eyes round. "Dude," she said. "Your boyfriend's, like, a cat-whisperer."

"Penumbra is scared to death of everybody," Puck told him. "Except me and Sarah. She never comes out when people are here."

Dave withdrew his hand, and Penumbra leaned her neck forward, delicately sniffing him, before climbing down onto his lap and curling into a glossy ebony oval. Puck let out an amazed chuckle and leaned against Dave, scratching behind the cat's ear.

"It's a sign," he said quietly, smirking. "Now I have to keep you."