� � � � � � � ��When Burt Hummel first laid eyes on Elizabeth Burton, he knew that was it for him. He was smitten. The problem was not his devotion, but that he hadn’t a single clue how to tell her that she was his everything when he hadn't actually had a conversation with her.
��������������� She was everyone’s sweetheart. Top of her classes, head cheerleader, the golden girl. How would he even begin to approach her?
��������������� He didn’t get his chance until he happened to walk by the Chemistry lab on a Wednesday afternoon. He found Elizabeth struggling with a rogue water hose, water spraying in every direction but the sink. He watched in shock as she tried desperately to tame the wild hose, but it kept evading her grasp.
��������������� A nervous laugh rose unbidden, and she turned to look at him, eyes narrowing into a glare.
��������������� “Well, you could help!”
��������������� He shuffled into the room and immediately shut off the water, the hose slumping docilely into the sink. She looked at him in amazement. “I never even thought of that.”
��������������� He shrugged shyly, eyes on his shoes. “My dad’s a plumber, so...”
��������������� She nodded, a smile beginning to spread across her face. “I’m Elizabeth,” she said, holding out her pale, thin hand.
��������������� “It’s nice to meet you,” he replied, taking the handshake.
��������������� She gave him an appraising look, as if trying to place him.
��������������� “I’m tight end for the football team.”
��������������� Her face cleared and she said, “You’re Burt, right?”
��������������� He nodded, finally looking up to see her clear blue eyes sparkling. “You were great last week against Carmel.”
��������������� He shook his head. “Nah, I’ve played better games.”
��������������� She raised an eyebrow. “If you ask me, you pulled that game on your own. If Paul Karofsky would get his shit together and not fumble the ball about fifteen times a game, the Titans would win by a much greater margin. I’ve never understood why people worship him so thoroughly.”
��������������� He looked at her in awe for a few seconds, finally saying, “Ellie, you’re the smartest girl I’ve ever met.”
��������������� She threw her head back, laughter pealing from her throat.
��������������� By the end of the week, she’d left a mixtape in his locker labeled “Burt.”
��������������� And after he’d listened to the first track (“Rio”) around two hundred times, he returned the favor with a mixtape in her locker entitled, “Ellie.”

-β-

��������������� Just like that, the nickname stuck.
��������������� While her family called her “Beth” and her friends and classmates “Lizzie”, Ellie was what came to mind when he thought of her. When he looked at her, he didn’t see her family’s sweet and helpful Beth or Judy Garrison’s sarcastic, eyebrow-wielding compatriot, he saw her: feisty and full of dreams that she wouldn’t dare share with anyone. She was his best friend in the truest sense, the person he felt confident he could tell anything, though most times, he was reticent to reveal the insecurities he held.
��������������� Especially his insecurities surrounding his place in her life.
��������������� Ellie was quickly becoming his everything: the first person he looked for when he told a joke, the object of every song he listened to, the dedication of all the songs he sang in the shower. When people asked questions about her, he had to struggle not to answer, even if the person was asking her. But she was at the top of the heap, and even if she didn’t have two shits to rub together about that, he wondered if she even saw him.
��������������� But he reasoned that she had to have seen him; she made him a mixtape, right? Clearly, she had to put a lot of thought into that. But if she didn’t see him as an option, he sure as hell wasn’t going to ruin what they had by asking her out for a half-baked date at Delia’s, the diner down the street from her house, or a movie.
��������������� Although they ate lunch together almost everyday (a time Burt treasured), they didn’t see much of each other outside of school. It wasn’t until he was driving �home in his old Chevy pickup that he saw her in a setting unblemished by other students. Her ‘65 Mustang was stopped on the side of the road, her shoulder filled with its powder blue majesty.
��������������� He stopped behind her and got out, worried that something had happened to her. So when he found her in the car, intact if shivering, he forgot to measure his response, eagerly knocking on her window and forcing a less than dignified yelp to escape from her mouth.
��������������� Her breath puffed white in the late November air as she rolled down the window.
��������������� “H-hi, B-b-burt,” she stammered, teeth fairly chattering.
��������������� “Hey, Ellie. Something wrong with Dizzy?”
��������������� Ellie tilted her head slightly, looking at him in a distinctly judging manner. “No, I’m just f-f-f-freezing my ass off out h-here for fun.”
��������������� Burt chuckled, but took the hint and asked, “Can you pop the hood for me?”
��������������� Ellie looked taken aback. “Y-You fix cars?”
��������������� He shrugged. “My neighbor runs a repair shop part-time, but he’s thinking about retiring soon. He’s got time on his hands to teach me.”
��������������� She looked surprised and relieved as she moved to open the front end of the car. This relief continued even as he got tools out of the back of his truck. She stood behind him as he bent into her car, watching him intently and asking questions about the car and his neighbor, Mr. Daniels. It was an easy fix and she soon had the car running, heat blasting from the vents. She hopped back out of the car as soon as she was sure the car is going to keep running.
��������������� “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Burt said, slamming the hood to make sure it latched.
��������������� She laughed, eyes on his as she said, “How about we meet at Delia’s instead?”
��������������� Burt blinked in shock.
��������������� “Tomorrow night after the game?” she asked, biting her lower lip.
��������������� Burt nodded numbly and Ellie beamed.
��������������� “I’ll meet you at the diner at 9?”
��������������� He nodded again, unable to think of any words except, “why?”
��������������� She kissed his cheek lightly and got back into her car, her cheeks pink from more than the cold. “See you in the morning!” she called as he stepped away from the car.
��������������� He watched her car rumble off down the street and wondered vaguely what he’d gotten himself into, cheek still tingling.

-β-

��������������� He’d almost convinced himself that he’d arrive at the demure diner to find a large group crowding a single table.
��������������� Instead, he found Ellie alone in a booth, facing the door. Her chestnut hair rested against her delicately pink sweater, hippo brooch firmly attached, and she grinned at him. He couldn’t quite fight the urge to smile back just as brightly.
��������������� When he sat down, she said, “I’m glad we came here. It’s much quieter than Breadsticks is right now, I’m sure.”
��������������� Burt chuckled. “Yeah, I half-expected Judy and the Cheerios to be here.”
��������������� Ellie’s smile faded and her brows started to come together as she said, “That wouldn’t be much of a date, would it?”
��������������� “So, this is a date?”
��������������� He meant the words to be teasing, but they came out more hopeful than anything else.
��������������� She reached for his hand over the table, “Well, I hoped so.”
��������������� He lowered his eyes to their joined hands. “So did I.”
��������������� Her face brightened again. “I’ll have you know that I have specific expectations for this evening,” she teased, her eyes glittering.
��������������� “Oh, really?” Burt said, eyebrows rising.
��������������� “Yes. I expect you to kiss me goodnight on my doorstep. I’m a very traditional girl.”
��������������� He squeezed her hand. “I think I can handle that.”

-β-

��������������� A week later, they had dinner in Columbus after an away game and the week after that, they made a dual appearance at Russell Fabray’s “my parents are gone and I’m drinking” party.
��������������� Somehow, they became one of the couples people expected to see. It was simple and confusing and they didn’t plan it, but it happened anyway and they embraced it.
��������������� The only people who didn’t seem to embrace their relationship were Ellie’s parents. They weren’t extremely wealthy, by any means, but between the jeweler and his music teacher wife, they made much more than Burt’s plumber father and county clerk mother. Burt came to expect the wary nature of Bill Burton’s �expression when he picked Ellie up. Lily’s passive aggression wasn’t much better, often obliquely suggesting that Burt might not be good enough for her daughter. Bill didn’t think much of his career prospects either, putting �little to no stock in Burt’s work as a mechanic.
��������������� But after months of pining, he wasn’t going to let a little parental disapproval get in his way. He strove to build a customer base in Lima, practically taking over for Mr. Daniels’ (“Jack, Burt, honestly”) place at the garage under encouragement to rebrand “for the love of God.”
��������������� On particularly trying days, Burt came home directly from a customer telling him that he was just a kid and he didn’t deserve to work at “Jack Daniels’ Tires and Lube.” He grabbed his pajamas and got in the shower, considering the irony of drowning his sorrows because of Jack Daniels.
��������������� When he left the bathroom, heading to bed without even bothering to eat, his father yelled up the stairs, “Ellie called for you.”
��������������� Burt sighed, relief and disappointment weighing in equal measure. He went downstairs to the kitchen phone, sitting at the table behind his mother and absently watching her chop an onion. Dialling Ellie’s number almost as a reflex, he opened the conversation with, “Sorry, I was in the shower.”
��������������� “That’s the third time this week!” she exclaimed. “You must be the cleanest motherfucker on the planet.”
��������������� Burt raucously laughed, thrilled to be talking to her instead of angry customers. “I love you,” he said, chin dropping into his hand.
��������������� His mother turned around with wide eyes. She’d never heard him speaking to Ellie before, he realized with a jolt.
��������������� He nodded at his mother and grinned when Ellie said, “I love you too” softly and with great affection.

-β-

Burt started working full time at Jack’s shortly after he graduated and when Jack died five months later, he left Burt the shop and full control of it in his will. Burt renamed it Hummel Tires and Lube almost immediately.

-β-

��������������� Ellie started looking at colleges what seems like the day after Burt symbolically peed on the store. And her father started seriously looking at him the next time Burt brought her home. It was Lily, however, that finally got through to him.
��������������� “Beth may love you and you might love her and that’s all well and good, but we both know she deserves more than being a struggling mechanic’s wife in this town.”
��������������� Ellie got into every college she applied to, surprising no one but herself and that’s when Burt decided to give up the ghost.

-β-

��������������� He stopped calling her back after showers.
��������������� He stopped letting her make everything better.
��������������� He stopped telling her about the assholes that came into the shop.
��������������� She eventually stopped asking.

-β-

��������������� His mother side-eyed him every time he ignored the topic of Ellie at dinner. When he listened to “Rio” and “California” for what have been the fiftieth time that week, she realized that patience was overrated.
��������������� “Burt Eugene Hummel,” she said, bursting into the room with laundry on her hip, “you listen to me right now. You may be eighteen and have a job and technically be an adult, but you clearly need someone to tell you what to do.”
��������������� “Mom—”
��������������� “Shut up and listen. Elizabeth Burton has called you fifteen times and you refuse to call her back. You must miss her; you’ve listened to that mixtape so many times I know the words.”
��������������� “Mom—”
��������������� “Let me finish. The last time she called, she asked me if you’d said anything about her and not in a needy, ‘does he like me’ way, but in a ‘I know I did something, please help me fix it’ way. She cried. And you and I both know that that girl does not cry.
��������������� “You don’t have to tell me what’s going on, but if you really love her, you’ll fix this.”
��������������� “Mom, if I really love her, I’ll let her be angry until she fizzles out and goes to Stanford like she deserves instead of staying in this podunk town to be with me.”
��������������� “Burt—”
��������������� “She should get the best and I can’t give her that. Because the best isn’t nice clothes or gourmet restaurants. It’s getting the chance to be all she can and prove herself to whatever she chooses to do. That’s important. I’m not that important and if she can just forget me, she can have everything she deserves.”
��������������� His mother didn’t say anything for a few moments, leaning down to place the laundry basket on the floor and walking toward him. “She deserves to have love, doesn’t she?”
��������������� Burt nodded emphatically. “But from someone—”
��������������� “Don’t. Don’t throw yourself to the side like you don’t matter.”
��������������� He didn’t respond and she crooked a finger under his chin.
��������������� “‘Cause you matter, Burt.”

-β-

��������������� When Ellie answered the door an hour later, hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, Burt started talking before he lost his nerve.
��������������� “So here’s the deal, Ellie. I tried the whole pulling away until you get sick of me thing, but all that did was make you sad, and that’s the opposite of what I want, so I came up with a new plan.

“Go anywhere you want. Do anything you want. Study anything or everything, I don’t care, whatever makes you happy. But know that it doesn’t matter how far you go or what you do or study, I’ll still be here, loving you. And if you need a place to call home or to talk to someone who loves you , no matter where you are or when it is, I’ll be that for you.

“Because you’re it for me and I knew it when I first saw you. And if someone asked me to prove it or explain it logically, I couldn’t. But you’ve been my everything since you yelled at me for laughing instead of helping and I’m done looking for anyone else.

“And I’m sorry this speech is really cheesy and long and unoriginal, but I just realized an hour ago that yes, you deserve the very best college and life, but you also deserve to choose whatever you want and this was the best I could do when all I wanted was to apologize for being a moron.”

��������������� Ellie hadn’t moved, nor had her face. Burt wondered what it was in the jumble of words he had just said that had been wrong, but he didn’t remember most of what he said past “here’s the deal.”
��������������� She stood watching him for a while before she whispered, “Simple-minded mechanic, my ass.”
��������������� Burt furrowed his brow. “What?”
��������������� “Something my father said,” she explained, sounding dazed.
��������������� “Oh. Okay,” he replied. “I did say I was sorry, right? ‘Cause I’m so sorry about treating you like shit when all you ever did was love me.”
��������������� She shook her head. “I should’ve known you would be trouble when you liked me for being a smart ass and called me Ellie.”
��������������� Burt shrugged. “Hummel’s aren’t exactly known for following social convention.”
��������������� Ellie nodded. “Good, because I’m gonna marry you one day and I don’t marry boring.”
��������������� Burt absorbed her forgone conclusion and said, “Wanna come to my house for dinner? I have a great tape on deck.”