"What do you think about this one, Dad?" Elliot was breathless as he popped into Kurt's doorframe, a black top hat perched on his head. His chestnut hair poked out from under the brim, splaying messily across his forehead.

"You look fantastic, Ell!" Kurt dropped his jacket to his bed as he complimented his son, keeping his tone light to counter-balance the young boy’s obvious nerves. He reached out and brushed Elliot's bangs to the side with his thumb; the absent gesture briefly sent his thoughts back to his high school days, ten long years ago, when he was still a guarded, Midwestern teenager, brushing his own hair away with a dainty thumb.

Still in the closet. Still trying to pretend he liked girls. Just before what would end up being the most blessed accident of his life.

“Here, let me help you with those sleeves.” Kurt knelt in front of Elliot and tugged on the cuffs of his button down, folding them neatly over the wrists of his gray jacket. “There! Perfect.”

Kurt sat back on his heels and admired his son’s ensemble: from his hat to his skinny green tie to his favorite indigo jeans, worn and faded around the knees from hours of running in the park. Elliot may not have inherited his sexual orientation, Kurt thought with a satisfied nod. But damn if his son didn't have his shrewd sense of style.

“I especially love those laces,” Kurt said, tapping a finger against the neon green shoelaces threaded through Elliot’s tan suede shoes. “You ready to go?”

“Uh huh.” Without another word, Elliot clasped Kurt’s hand in his and started pulling him through the door.

“Wait, wait!” Kurt exclaimed with a laugh, stopping Elliot and reaching back to his bed to snatch his jacket. “Boy, I’ve never seen you so excited!”

“You’ll see, Dad.” When Elliot grabbed Kurt’s hand again, Kurt let his son haul him out of his bedroom toward the front door. “She’s the most beautiful girl in the whole world.”

***

“How do I look, Daddy?” Maya asked as she twirled into the center of the living room. The skirt of her green dress trailed in the air around her, offering a peek of the pink leopard print on the fabric under the hem.

“Like the most beautiful girl in the entire universe,” Blaine answered automatically, his voice still thick and rough from sleep.

Maya giggled. “That’s what you always say!”

“Well, it’s always true!” Blaine took another sip of his coffee, eyeing his daughter over the steam rising up from the mug in his hand. “Why the green dress?”

“Because,” she started in a worldly tone that clearly meant to convey Blaine should know better. “That’s Elly’s favorite color!”

“Oh. Sorry.” Blaine held one hand up in the air in defense as he took another swig from his mug. “You need to put a sweater on over that before we leave.”

“I knoowww.” Maya rushed over to the hall closet and yanked out a sweater – her favorite one, pink with big bell sleeves and a loose-knit crochet pattern, sent over from Italy or Spain or wherever Santana was roaming when she happened to briefly remember she had a daughter.

Maya wrapped the soft fabric around her body, expertly sticking her tanned arms into the sleeves before flipping her hands under the collar, sending a wild mass of curly, caramel hair into the air behind her. “Okay, all ready!”

“Jeez, Maya, I’m not even done with my coffee yet. Sit down for a few minutes, would you?” Blaine ran a hand through the mop of sleep-mussed curls on top of his head. It was days like this when he wondered how he had any hair left at all, after clumsily chasing around his precocious daughter for the past seven years.

“We can’t be late!”

“We won’t. It’s only seven o’clock.” Blaine reached for his iPad, lying on the cushion at the end of the couch. “Here,” he said, flipping through to the morning’s New York Times. He stretched out an arm and caught Maya’s hand, pulling her down to the couch beside him. “Read.”

He thrust the iPad into her lap, placing a peck on top of her head and inhaling deeply. Her hair still smelled impossibly sweet from her bath the night before – like strawberries and candy and little girl.

“I love you, baby,” Blaine mumbled into her hair.

“Daddy.”

“Okay, okay!” He eased himself up with a groan and staggered toward the bathroom, stopping halfway to look back one last time at the cozy image of his daughter, curled into the corner of the couch, swaddled in pretty pink yarn and warm morning sunlight.

Grinning in spite of himself, Blaine stumbled into the bathroom and turned the faucet on full blast. Something told him he’d need to be refreshed for whatever they had ahead of them that day.