“How does this look, Kurt?”

Kurt peeks over his husband’s shoulder and into the pot on the stove, assessing his progress. He checks it against his iPhone screen and the gif playing of the meal that they’re making. The two look identical. Kurt gives him a pat on the shoulder.

“Looks good, everybody!”

“Yes! High-five!” Blaine wipes a hand on the apron wrapped around his waist, then raises it so his daughter can give him a high-five.

She looks at it, and him, and rolls her eyes.

Kurt sees and rolls his eyes, too. He grabs her wrist and lifts her arm so that his husband can get his high-five. Blaine taps her limp wrist with his palm, and both dad’s cheer.

Tracy rolls her eyes again, but a smile slips. She can’t help it. Her dads are too goofy.

“Okay, Kurt. What comes next?”

“Next” - Kurt scrolls down the page and continues reading the recipe - “fold in three egg whites and one egg yolk separately, careful to incorporate each one fully before adding the next.”

“Got it.” Blaine holds out a hand to his daughter, gesturing for the bowl of eggs, but she turns on her stool, putting her back to him.

“That sauce smells like puke,” she mutters, taking out her own phone and checking her messages.

Blaine reaches past her to get the eggs. “Look on the bright side - it probably doesn’t taste like puke.”

“I wanted to go to the grand opening of the new Chuck E. Cheese. Everyone from my grade is going to be there.”

“Don’t be so dramatic, little lady,” Kurt says. “I’m sure not everyone is going to be there.”

Tracy swipes angrily through her messages, then spins on her stool and flashes her dads the screen. Both men lean in to have a look at the video playing – a restaurant full of kids eating pizza, playing arcade games, laughing and running and doing what thirteen-year-olds do. When the video ends, it flips to a picture – a group shot containing pretty much every kid in her homeroom with a banner running diagonally across the screen that says Wish you were here, Trace!

Kurt and Blaine look at one another. Blaine looks guiltier than Kurt, but they’re both sympathetic. Thirteen is a difficult age. Tracy is luckier than they were at that age. She’s extremely popular. Both Kurt and Blaine can remember not being invited to the parties, not having a date to the dances, wishing they could join in and be accepted (or, in Kurt’s case, plotting his revenge).

But somewhere in New York there’s an entire rodent-themed restaurant filled with kids missing their daughter.

And she’s not there to enjoy it because her lame dads insisted on staying in and making a homemade meal consisting of a butter-sour cream-parmesan cheese sauce that smells like vomit.

“That definitely looks like her whole grade,” Blaine remarks, moving on to the next egg but with a questioning brow raised at his husband. Kurt pulls himself up straight and shakes his head.

“We can got to the Rat Pizza Palace when it’s not family dinner night. Friday night dinners are a tradition. Tonight is a night for togetherness, reconnecting with one another, and a family cooked meal.”

“But we eat dinner together every night!” Tracy complains.

“Yeah, well, the way you’ve been acting lately, that’s probably not going to last too much longer, Miss Sassy Pants. Now, let’s continue.”

“Ugh!” Tracy returns to her phone, frantically composing text after text, which Kurt can only assume include such complimentary terms as jerk, unfair, controlling, and even asshole. And as much as that breaks his heart, he can’t yield. This is too important. Being together as a family, sharing a meal, talking about their week was the cornerstone of his and his father’s relationship after his mother died. No matter what went on in their lives, no matter how many late night rehearsals or overtime at his dad’s shop took them away from one another, they always had Friday.

It was sacred.

There was a time during high school when Kurt took Friday night dinners for granted and ducked out. Not too long after, his father had a heart attack. Kurt regretted those missing Fridays for the rest of his life. Thank God his dad recovered, because if Kurt had squandered that time and didn’t get a second chance to …

Anyway, that didn’t happen. But it could have. And it’s because of that that he made the decision when Tracy was born that Friday night dinners would be sacred again.

Of course, nothing says they can’t have a family meal together outside the house …

No. No, they’ve gotten to this point. He’s put his foot down. If he folds, then that’ll just be him giving in to the demands of a girl who’s acting like a brat.

Acting like her mother.

And the same as in high school when he and Rachel butt heads, Kurt does not negotiate with terrorists.

If fate dictates that they should leave their gourmet dinner behind to go eat sub-par pizza with the same kids she’s going to see come Monday, then it’s going to have to reach out and slap that pot out of his husband’s hand.

“While slowly raising the heat, stir vigorously to get your sauce to thicken.”

“What constitutes vigorously?” Blaine asks.

Kurt shrugs. “I don’t know. Just, stir it fast. It needs to thicken, right?”

Blaine lifts the spoon from the pot and watches the sauce drip. “Yup. It’s about the consistency of water right now so the thicker the better, I say. Right, peanut?”

Blaine skips to Tracy’s side and nudges his daughter with his elbow. She grabs the edge of her stool and scoots it away, the feet scraping loudly across the floor. Blaine goes back to stirring, a little more amused by Tracy’s current tantrum than Kurt, but he still wants to make this up to her. His mind wanders while he stirs, trying to come up with something she might like to do over the weekend that would make her forget about tonight. The new Star Wars movie? She’d said something about wanting to go see it. He could take her, even invite a few of her friends ...

… which would probably turn into her begging him to just drop them off at the theater, or asking him to sit in the back row … or go to a completely different movie so that she can spend time with her friends alone. He sighs. When did this happen? When did their little girl go from cuddly toddler to temperamental teenager? Was he like this when he was a teenager? He can’t seem to remember …

“Uh … Daddy?”

Blaine’s ears perk up at Tracy calling him Daddy.

“Yeah, pumpkin?”

“Is the sauce supposed to be doing that?”

“Wha---?” Blaine looks at the sauce he’s been stirring non-stop and sees not a thick, creamy sauce, but a frothy foam, expanding with each turn of his spoon, rising steadily to the top of the pot. Blaine is reluctant to stop stirring but not sure he should continue. “Uh … Kurt? Can you read what comes next, please?”

Kurt looks over from the salad he’s been throwing together to the recipe on his phone. “Don’t stir too vigorously, or that may cause your sauce to thicken too quickly and rise.”

“Uh …” Blaine and Tracy share a look. She hops off her stool and takes a cautious step away. “I think it’s thickening too quickly! And rising!”

Kurt turns to look, startled by the concoction now rushing to the top of the pot. “Jesus!”

“What do we do!?” Blaine asks.

“Stop stirring!”

“Won’t it burn!?”

“Turn off the heat!”

Blaine moves the pot to a cold burner and switches off the flame. Dad, dad, and daughter gather around the stove, watching the pot, waiting for the sauce to settle. But their dinner suddenly takes on a life of its own, burbling and bubbling, overflowing at an alarming rate.

“That didn’t help!”

“It’s getting all over!”

“Lay the spoon across the top!”

“That only works for pasta!”

“Put the pot in the sink!”

Blaine moves the pot to the sink. The contents slurp over the sides, leaving a trail of white spots on the floor, each one doubling in size after it lands. “It’s not stopping!”

“It has to eventually! There’s only so much sauce in there!”

“It doesn’t seem like it!”

“What now!”

“Dinner’s ruined!”

“I don’t think that’ll matter if it drowns us first!”

“God, I’m hungry,” Tracy mumbles.

Kurt and Blaine both glare at their daughter.

“I thought you said it smelled like puke?” Blaine accuses.

“Doesn’t mean I wasn’t going to eat it!”

Kurt looks at the mess that was their dinner and sighs. They followed all the directions exactly. Up until the point his screen froze and he took a moment to make a salad, everything was going fine.

Except, it wasn’t. His daughter was unhappy, his husband was torn, and he was acting like a dictator. He dared fate to step in, and apparently it did. He looks at the pot, out of his husband’s hands, spewing its contents onto the counter, and smirks.

Fate works in mysterious ways.

“Run!” he says.

“Run where?” Blaine asks, but Tracy doesn’t need to be told twice, grabbing her jacket and heading for the door.

“Where was that Chuck E. Cheese again?” Kurt says, internalizing a groan because, as much as he loves his daughter, as much as he hopes this will make things better between them, it’s still Chuck E. Cheese – a cardboard crust, tomato sauce out of a can, and cheese whose authenticity he can’t vouch for.

His stomach objects just thinking about it.

“Yes!” she cheers, hopping on her phone on the way to the door to let everyone know she’ll be there, late but fabulous (in her own words).

Just like Rachel.

Aaaaahhhhh!

“What about the mess!?” Blaine asks, worried about the possible destruction of their kitchen but relieved to be ushering a giggling Tracy out of the house and off to her friends. It’s strange, but why does it feel so good to let go?

“We’ll clean up when we get back! Just go!”