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Kurt has been meaning to call Finn for what feels like weeks or possibly months, but between his busy schedule and the fact that he keeps forgetting about the three hour time difference, it’s a Wednesday in the middle of December before Kurt thinks to call at a time that should be between when Finn’s finished teaching and Finn’s dinnertime. The wonderful thing about calling Finn is he’s never reproachful for however much time might have passed. Kurt settles into a chair in his home office and calls Finn, waiting for him to answer.
“Hello. You’ve reached Finn Hudson,” Finn says.
“Finn? It’s Kurt.”
“Oh, hey!” Finn says. “It’s been, wow. A while!”
“It has. How do you like California so far?” Kurt asks, then pauses when he hears what could be giggling in the background. “Is this a bad time?”
“No, it’s fine. Girls? Pipe down a little, okay?”
“Girls?” Kurt repeats.
“Yeah. They get a little cranked in the car sometimes,” Finn says. “I blame Pips.”
“Finn!” Pips says indignantly.
“Hey, it’s not my fault it’s true!” Finn says.
“I’m a little lost,” Kurt says. “Girls, plural?”
“Oh, yeah. Moxxie’s with us, obviously,” Finn says. “It just makes more sense for me to do the afterschool transportation, since I’ve already got to be at both places.”
Kurt has the immediate and distinct feeling that he’s missed something, but since he’s not really sure what question to ask, he settles for “Moxxie?”
“Yeah, Pips’s late-in-life non-identical twin.”
“Oh, well, okay,” Kurt says, feeling even more confused. “I take it they’re in the same class at your new school?”
Finn laughs. “Yeah, and in the same bedroom in our apartment.”
Another girl’s voice, not Pips’s, says, “Is that my New Uncle Kurt? Hi, New Uncle Kurt!”
“Hello,” Kurt says, feeling tentatively embarrassed that he had no idea Finn was even seeing someone, much less living with them. “I didn’t realize.”
“Oh, you’re not on speaker, she’s just loud,” Finn says.
“Oh, right, well. I didn’t realize your living arrangements had changed, either.”
“Ah,” Finn says. “The house was nice enough, but you can’t beat the ocean view at the apartment, so we decided that was the better place for all of us.”
That doesn’t really explain all that much to Kurt, but asking Finn lots of question while he’s driving probably isn’t the best course of action, either, and he calls up his calendar. “Do you have some time free this weekend to FaceTime?” Kurt asks, thinking he can probably at least ask Andy if Carole’s mentioned anything. “Sunday afternoon, maybe?”
“Sunday’s Puck’s only consistent off day,” Finn says, sounding apologetic. “I can talk on Saturday while he’s handling his appointments, though, if you’re free.”
Kurt is glad he isn’t FaceTiming, because he probably looks confused and stunned. Probably he misheard Finn, is all, and it’s better for all of them if he doesn’t ask for clarification, especially when it comes to that name. He looks at his calendar again. “Around two?”
“Sure. Sounds great. Talk to you then,” Finn says.
“Bye, New Uncle Kurt!” the other girl—Moxxie, presumably—shouts from the background.
“Until then,” Kurt agrees, then ends the call, staring perplexedly at his phone for a bit. “Andy?” he calls after a few minutes pass.
“Yes, Daddy?” Andy says, hurrying into the room.
“Andy, has your grandmother mentioned anything to you about a new cousin?” Kurt asks.
“Pattipips has a new sister and she sleeps in her same room!” Andy says, wide-eyed and nodding his head like he’s very intrigued by the idea of a brand new sister who shares a room.
“Yes, so I heard,” Kurt says. “Does she like having a new sister?” Judging by the way Finn talked and the giggling Kurt overheard, he’s fairly certain the answer is yes, but he’s still curious.
“Grandma says half of Pattipips’s room is purple.”
“Well, it’s nice to have a freshly painted room, isn’t it?” Kurt asks.
“The other half is teal because it’s Pattipips’s new sister’s favorite, like how purple is Pattipips’s favorite,” Andy says. “My favorite is blue.”
“I know it is. I think we’ll keep your room all one color, okay?”
“I like my room color. Can I get a new sister, though? To sleep in my room?”
“Oh, I think Daddy and I would have to talk about that extensively first,” Kurt says with a little laugh.
“Can she have my same birthday?” Andy asks. “Like Pattipips’s new sister does?”
Kurt’s mind flashes back to Finn’s comment about Pips’s ‘non-identical twin’, and he shakes his head a little. “No, probably not. That’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Andy says, nodding his head.
“Go ahead and go back to what you were playing,” Kurt says. “It’s almost bath time.”
“Okay, Daddy. But you should see about getting me a sister,” Andy says, trotting out of the room again.
Kurt laughs to himself, and he contemplates calling Carole before Saturday. It’s only a few days, though, and undoubtedly Finn will make things more clear when they talk. Kurt enters the planned chat into his calendar, along with an alert, and then stands to find Blaine before Andy’s bath time.
For the next two and a half days, Kurt mostly contains his curiosity and pushes it to the side, but he can’t say he isn’t a little eager when his alert tells him that it’s time to chat with Finn. He’s tried to figure out what Finn said instead of ‘Puck’, and he can’t remember really if it sounded like a ‘he’, anyway. It was probably a ‘she’, and Kurt just misheard her name completely. Maybe Finn had assumed that Carole had passed along some information or similar, and so perhaps Finn had been using a nickname for this mystery woman with the daughter named Moxxie.
Kurt pulls out his tablet, scrolling through his contacts until he taps on Finn’s name.
“Kurt!” Finn answers the call. “Hi! How’re Andy and Blaine?”
“Oh, we’re doing well,” Kurt says, smiling. “Andy’s very excited about Christmas coming up, of course. He’s got a countdown going.”
“Cute. Paper chain or one of those calendars?”
“Paper chain, in alternating red and green, naturally,” Kurt says. “How about all of you?”
“Well, Hanukkah’s over, so we’re taking a little breather before going full Christmas,” Finn says.
Kurt thinks he does an excellent job of not looking or sounding surprised at all. “Right yes, that was this past week, wasn’t it,” he says. “Are… the girls still young enough to get excited about both?”
Finn laughs. “Yeah, the girls get excited about everything.”
“Oh, good. So where exactly are you?” Kurt asks.
“I’m in the back room at Moxxie. It’s on the Promenade.”
“Wait, I’m confused. Moxxie is a place, too?”
“Yeah. It’s a salon,” Finn says. “I mean, it’s named after Moxxie, obviously, but there’s a Moxxie-the-person and a Moxxie-the-salon.”
“I suppose that’s efficient,” Kurt says, and now he’s even more certain that he misheard Finn on Wednesday. Surely Finn’s new partner is a woman who works at or owns a salon. “So tell me more about Santa Monica.”
“I love it here. I never thought of myself as a beach person, but apparently I am!”
“Do you get to the beach most days?”
“Yeah, we go out in the evening, and the girls go out in the water,” Finn says. “I don’t always get in. Sometimes, though.”
“And the apartment has a view, you said? Windows or is there a balcony?”
“Balcony,” Finn says, sounding particularly fond. “Great view.”
“It sounds like moving to Santa Monica was the right choice, then, for sure?” Kurt asks, hoping some question or another will elicit information before he has to start asking more directly.
“Absolutely. It’s all turned out better than I ever hoped. Everything’s a perfect fit,” Finn says.
“Perfect? That’s high praise.”
“Just calling it like it is.”
“Should I be expecting a wedding announcement, too?” Kurt says teasingly.
“We haven’t decided what kind of ceremony, if we’re even having one,” Finn says. “Honestly, we’ll probably keep it small, just us and the girls, maybe Mom.”
“Oh, my,” Kurt says, feeling a little startled that he was so close to right. “Isn’t it a little fast?”
Finn starts laughing hard. “That’s one of those questions,” he says, taking a breath in between laughter. “I don’t even know how to answer that.”
“You only moved to Santa Monica four months ago, Finn! It’s a fair question.”
“I know that, and I know me and Puck had an eleven year gap in even talking about each other, but it’s not like all the history from before that just went away,” Finn says.
Kurt is very proud of himself for only blinking a few times, and he carefully makes sure his mouth does not drop open in any way. He mentally congratulates himself on his acting while reviewing the conversation he had not, apparently, misheard. “I suppose that’s true,” he finally says, a little slowly. “I wouldn’t have guessed at him owning a salon.” It seems, Kurt thinks, one of the safer avenues to take.
“I know, right?” Finn says. “I was surprised, too, but he’s really good. People pay a lot of money to get him to do their hair.”
“And does he do your hair?” Kurt asks.
“Oh, he wishes!”
Kurt isn’t totally sure what that means. “Oh? You have a line of where you’ll trust him, and that’s your hair?”
“I just think I’m not funky enough for one of his haircuts,” Finn says. “Dove did a good job the first time, and I don’t see any reason to mess with that.”
“How funky are you talking?” Kurt asks.
“Pretty funky. Like, I’m not totally lame, but I’m definitely not cool enough.”
“Are the girls?”
“Pips has purple in her hair right now,” Finn says. “Moxxie is the definition of cool enough.”
“I have to see that,” Kurt says immediately. “Purple? Really?”
“It looks good on her. Puck fixed all the stuff we were doing wrong with her hair and she looks so pretty,” Finn says.
“Send me a picture? I suppose if you have one of her and Moxxie, that would be good,” Kurt suggests.
“Sure thing,” Finn says.
“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” Kurt says. “It’s just a bit hard to imagine, is all.”
“There,” Finn says, then Kurt’s phone dings. Kurt looks right away, and he knows he startles a little.
“Oh!” Kurt says. “Goodness, she looks a lot like her uncle, doesn’t she? And I wouldn’t’ve have picked that style for Pips, but it does work very well.”
“Like I said, Puck fixed it,” Finn says. “And you’re right about Moxxie looking like Jake.”
“Does— I suppose it’s none of my business,” Kurt says, “so feel free to tell me to butt out, but does Jake know Moxxie exists?”
“Yeah, but Jake’s the only one. Puck pretty much cut off contact with anyone else from Lima.”
“Oh, yes,” Kurt says, shaking his head slightly. “I suppose congratulations are in order for all of you, really.”
“Thanks, Kurt. I really appreciate that,” Finn says. “We’re all really happy.”
“And of course we’re all busy, but send a few more pictures whenever you get the chance,” Kurt says.
“Definitely! I’m always happy to brag on my girls,” Finn says.
Kurt smiles at that phrasing. “Tell Puck I said hello?”
“Yeah, I will. Same for Blaine, okay?”
“Of course. Merry Christmas, Finn.”
Finn must get distracted by something—or, Kurt corrects himself mentally, someone—because the call ends, and Kurt sits for a few moments, trying to integrate everything he’s learned. He still has no idea quite how this figures into the long period of time that no one was supposed to even mention Puck, but Kurt has to admit that Finn does sound very happy.
“Maybe,” Kurt says to himself, “if I send him a few pictures of Blaine, Andy, and I together, I’ll get a picture of the four of them in return. It can’t hurt!”