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The loud dinging noise startles Finn awake, and at first he slaps his alarm clock a few times to make the noise stop. By the fourth ding, he figures out it’s actually his phone alerting him to a text—several texts, actually—and grabs the phone, bringing it close to his face to squint at it in the low morning light. Only one of the text is actually a text-text; the other three are pictures of nicely-dressed Puck and Jonah.
The text-text says On our way out the door! Wish us luck.
Finn pokes at his phone with his thumbs, managing a GOoD LUK in response. He puts his phone back onto his side table and sits up, stretching a little. He should probably get dressed, then text Rachel, or more likely, text Rachel and then get dressed, since she’ll want to come over right away for the play-by-play.
I’m up so you can come over now Finn texts to Rachel.
Have you had breakfast yet? Rachel asks, then another text comes through. I can bring something!
Finn almost tells Rachel that no, he hasn’t eaten breakfast, but then he starts imaging vegan breakfast sandwiches, so instead he texts back I had some cereal, then hurries up with the getting dressed so he can go down stairs and make that true before she gets there.
Rachel arrives fifteen minutes later with a bag of muffins. “I brought snacks,” she says brightly when Finn opens the door. “It’s too bad you didn’t need a smoothie.”
“Nah, cereal was fine,” Finn says, giving Rachel a quick kiss. “Do you want to sit in the living room? I can grab some pop.”
“It was a pineapple-banana one, and Finn! You can’t drink pop at eight am!”
“My mom drinks coffee at eight am,” Finn says.
“Coffee and pop have far different levels of sugar content, Finn,” Rachel says. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Uh, no,” Finn says. “Anyway, Mom puts like five spoons of sugar in her coffee, so I don’t think a pop’s got more than that.”
“Yes, it does,” Rachel says. “Why don’t we have some water or juice?”
“Mom says juice is nothing but sugar,” Finn says, but he does walk towards the fridge anyway to get the juice out. He sets two glasses on the counter and pours juice into both of them, then carries them back into the living room.
“Did you get the photos from Kurt?” Rachel asks.
“Oh, yeah, I did. Look!” Finn pulls Kurt’s texts up on his phone and hands it to Rachel.
“I never realized until the last few months that sometimes Noah merely looks like he’s going to beat up everyone around him when he’s actually nervous,” Rachel says. “Joel looks content though.”
“I hope Kurt texts us again soon,” Finn says. “The waiting is the worst.”
“I suppose they have to do a lot of talking.” Rachel leans her head on Finn’s arm. “Do you think Noah’s mom will lie about him?”
“Probably, because she’s a lying liar who lies,” Finn says.
Rachel giggles. “Maybe I should have had my dads insist on attending.”
“I bet Mom and Burt can handle it.”
“Or Kurt will text us if they can’t,” Rachel says. “We should have told Matt to meet Kurt afterwards.”
“So, do you know what’s really going on with Matt and Kurt?” Finn asks. “Kurt won’t say. Puck just keeps talking about baking.”
“I think Noah is under the impression Kurt is wooing Matt with baked goods.” Rachel taps her finger on her lips. “He may not be wrong about Kurt’s intentions. I don’t know that Matt’s that subtle, though!”
“That is kinda sweet, though,” Finn says.
“I think everyone’s relieved Kurt’s set his eyes on Matt,” Rachel says diplomatically. “It’s too bad we couldn’t all triple-date, though.”
“Yeah,” Finn says nodding his head. “They’d have to get a third person.”
“What? Who?” Rachel asks.
“Hmm?” Finn says, feeling a little confused. “A third—like, so there’s, you know. A triple.”
“I meant three couples. What did you mean?”
“I meant, um.” Finn frowns. “Three… couples?”
“Okay,” Rachel says, a bit doubtful-sounding. “Should we watch something while we wait? I brought a few DVDs with me.”
“Sure. It’ll make waiting easier,” Finn says, putting an arm around her and pulling her close so he can kiss her on top of her head.
“What do you want to watch? I brought West Side Story, 1776, and Guys and Dolls.”
“Uh. You pick.”
“Ooh! We can watch West Side Story and sing along!” Rachel says. “Do you need the lyrics?”
“I bet I can follow along,” Finn says. “Besides, if I don’t sing all of it, I can listen to you sing it, and that’s even better.”
Rachel beams at him before she gets up to put the DVD in. “This’ll be perfect to keep our minds occupied.”
Finn smiles back at Rachel, and drapes his arm across the back of the sofa so she can settle against him as the DVD starts playing. It turns out Finn only knows about three lines worth of West Side Story, but luckily, Rachel sings all the solos, whether they’re girl parts or guy parts. They’re almost through the movie when Finn’s phone starts dinging again.
About to go in for judge decision. Should know in a few Puck’s text says. A few seconds later, a second text comes through that just says ijop’kl;
Finn laughs and holds the phone out for Rachel to see. “Look, Jonah texted me!”
“Maybe he’s trying to spell his name,” Rachel says as she giggles.
“He got the J and the O right.”
Rachel giggles again. “And the L at the end.”
“Jonah doesn’t have an L in it,” Finn says.
“Oh, Finn,” Rachel says, before Finn’s phone dings for a third time.
Nothing for Mom it says, followed almost immediately by I get some kind of official papers for Joel.
“Yes!” Finn says.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Rachel says in a way that makes it seem like she might have been more worried than she let on.
I think Burt gets some papers for me too the next text says.
“Awesome, it’s a go for Burt, too!” Finn says. “Nothing for Puck’s stupid mom.”
“Hopefully she’ll regret having even tried anything,” Rachel says.
Finn exhales loudly, letting his head fall back against the sofa. “Man. I think I was more stressed about it than I realized.”
“Unfortunately, I think we know that the world doesn’t always work out fairly. I’m sure that contributed,” Rachel says. “Luckily it did today.”
Finn’s phone dings again. Did I interrupt you and Rachel fooling around or something? He laughs and shows the phone to Rachel.
Rachel squawks. “Text him back!”
“You don’t want to wait a few more minutes?” Finn asks. “I mean, if he already thinks he interrupted us—”
“Give me that!” Rachel says, grabbing Finn’s phone and typing something quickly. “How would you feel if you thought your friends were having fun while you were nervous!”
Finn laughs, trying to get the phone back from Rachel. “I’d think ‘hey, good for my friend!’ and tell him to keep on fooling around.”
“You would not!” Rachel insists. She finishes typing and hits send before handing Finn the phone back. “There.”
“I might,” Finn says.
“You wouldn’t. You should tell him we’ll get dinner, if he doesn’t have plans.”
“Fiiiiine,” Finn says, typing Dinner with us? to Puck.
Sure Puck sends back, and then after a brief pause Burt’s taking us to lunch and then Kurt insists on going shopping. Early dinner right??
“Puck wants to know if we can have dinner early,” Finn tells Rachel.
“Okay,” Rachel says with a slight shrug. “Why?”
“I think he wants to get out of shopping with Kurt.”
“Oh my.” Rachel looks guilty for a moment, then laughs. “Do you honestly blame him?”
“Nope,” Finn says, quickly texting Puck Earlys good.
“Now that all of that’s sorted, I can make arrangements for him to go over and talk to the Bodners’ before school starts,” Rachel says. “Things are coming together so well, and who would have ever guessed at it a year ago?”
“Yeah. It’s all pretty good, I think,” Finn says. “I think it’ll all turn out okay.”
“As long as Puck doesn’t show up to dinner looking like Sandy from Grease.”
“Do they make those jumpsuit things in dude sizes?”
Rachel makes a face. “If they do, Kurt would know where to find them.”