"GROUNDED? BUT WHY?" Kurt whined into the phone, sounding utterly distraught that Lindy was on house arrest for God only knew how long.

"I told you, I'm failing AP Lit," she whisper-sighed into the home phone. She had snuck downstairs in the middle of the night while Lee was sleeping to call Kurt and alert him of her fate. The fight that she and Lee had gotten into had not been pretty, and he'd rewarded her bad grade with a grounding that cut her off from any human contact.

"AP Lit? What even is that," Kurt said sourly. He paused, then sighed. "I know I should just take this as a sign that I need to get my shit together and practice more with the band, but it's hard to enjoy myself knowing you're locked away."

"Don't worry about me. I'll figure a way out of this," Lindy said, though she couldn't help but feel entirely hopeless. Lee was not one to be bargained with. He had promised his daughter that she would not see the light of day, except to go to school, for awhile.

"Hey, you live on Fern Street, right?" Kurt asked abruptly, switching the subject. 

Lindy scrunched her eyebrows together, twisting the cord of the telephone around her finger until it turned purple.

"Yeah, I do. Why?"

Kurt had only been to Lindy's house once to drop her off from an outing together. Most of the time, she took it upon herself to make her way to him instead of the other way around. They couldn't risk a run-in with Lee, who would probably chase Kurt down the driveway with a pistol if he knew he was courting his daughter without his consent.

"No reason," Kurt said quickly. "But get some rest. We can call again, same time tomorrow night."

"Okay," Lindy agreed sadly. "Goodnight Kurt."

"Goodnight, Lindy," he replied, before hanging up the phone.

Lindy, totally defeated by her predicament, quietly crept up the stairs and back into her room, shutting her door gingerly. She pulled back the sheets to her bed and laid down, attempting to get comfortable but giving up against her clouded mind. 

Her attachment to Kurt was only getting stronger. That was a fact. She enjoyed it very much so, but felt unprepared to deal with such an immense feeling. She'd never had a boyfriend in her life and had never known the love of a significant other, yet Kurt was willing to devote himself entirely to her. She was nobody to him, no one of importance, yet he had chosen her completely. 

And that was even if he were to love her one day. One day . . .

A drowsy fog had begun to settle itself over Lindy, drawing her closer to unconsciousness until she heard the crack of something small against her window.

Her eyes opened.

Another crack. This time a little louder, as if whatever had struck the window was bigger than the last object.

And then another. Concerned, and a little scared, Lindy sat up and threw her covers off of her. She ran to the window, pushing it open and sticking her head out. The gasp that left her mouth was almost loud enough to wake her dad.

"Surprise," Kurt called softly from down below. He had a handful of tiny rocks in his hand and he was waving goofily up to Lindy as if it were a bright Sunday morning instead of the dead of night on a weekday.

"What are you doing?" she hissed. "My dad is going to kill you if he sees you!"

"I wouldn't ordinarily do this, but for you, I don't mind. And like I told you before, sleeping on a friend's couch doesn't give me a shit's worth of shut-eye."

Lindy sighed, slumping against the window frame and placing her hand to her forehead. Although she was worried about Kurt being discovered, she was inexplicably happy to see him.

"You can't come up," she informed him with a wry smile. She would have really wanted him to, though. The thought of them both alone in her bedroom did something funny to her heartbeat.

"So you come down," Kurt retorted.

"If I sneak out and my dad finds out about it . . ." Lindy began.

"Yeah, yeah, he'll kill you. So what? He'll kill me too. We'll die together and the world will keep turning but at least we'll live happily in the ever-after," Kurt said, his voice too nonchalant and playful for the occasion.

"You'll be in a hell of a lot of trouble with him if he finds out, Kurt," Lindy replied gravely. Kurt didn't know Lee. He didn't know how delicate her father's anger could be, how one thing could set it off like a nuclear weapon. 

"Lindy, do you know that there are seven hells in the universe? And do you know that I've been through every single one of them only just imagining not being able to see you?"

Lindy felt her face flush pink at Kurt's bold declaration.

"I can't believe they told me you were shy," she muttered under her breath.

"Come down, please. I'll protect you from the scary night monsters," Kurt reasoned with a grin. 

Lindy looked over her shoulder, glancing at her door and picturing what Lee would do if he caught her. She would be absolutely dead.

But then she looked down at Kurt, wearing his soft, boyish smile. She remembered what she had thought earlier, about wanting him more than she had ever wanted anything before in her life.

Her mind was made up.

"I'll be down in a second."

________

After Lindy had tip-toed out her front door wearing her pajama top with a pair of jeans, Kurt had kissed her so enthusiastically that she thought she might faint.

He led her down the empty streets of her neighborhood, taking her into the lone darkness of central Aberdeen. It was quite a walk, but Lindy didn't mind it, simply because the sound of Kurt's voice kept her well distracted from the pain in her feet.

"This way," he beckoned, taking her around a street corner that led to a row of different shops and commercialized stores.

"Are we robbing a bank?" Lindy laughed, jogging to keep up with Kurt's pace. With him, it was easy to forgot the severity of what she had done. She felt weightless and free, her voice echoing in the night. 

"We can, if you want," he smiled, walking up to a decently sized building with a huge sign that read 'Music Center.' It was an instrument stop.

"Are we . . . we're not breaking into there, are we?" Lindy asked, suddenly nervous as she watched Kurt approach the back door to the building with a calm look upon his face.

"It's not really breaking in when they always forget to leave this door unlocked," Kurt said innocently, jiggling the handle until the door swung open freely.

Lindy felt her jaw drop.

"Come on," he laughed, taking her hand and guiding her into the store. Even without the lights on, Lindy could see everything, the windows allowing moonlight to pour in. From wall to wall, guitars were hanging in rows, every brand one could imagine present. There were other instruments too, such as drums and keyboards and even violins and trumpets, but the dominant force in the store was clearly its ability to sell a good guitar.

"Don't take this as me being worried about playing a ridiculously expensive guitar," Kurt warned, weaving in and out of cluttered musical instruments with Lindy close behind. "I get all my gear from junk stores and I stand by that. But I like to experiment with the fancy stuff from time to time. I've got a Univox Hi-Flier right now, but I can't resist picking something else up and just playing the hell out of it."

Lindy was in awe over what had just happened — she'd broken into a store, regardless of what Kurt had excused it as, and he was going to play guitar for her. It felt like something out of a dream. In fact, she was beginning to wonder if she had actually ended up falling asleep in her bed that night and was caught in the middle of an intense REM-cycle. 

Kurt reached up on the wall, selecting a Fender Telecaster that would allow him to play left-handed and pulling it off its hanging display.

"Be careful," Lindy whispered, feeling like she could jump out of her skin. Kurt just grinned at her, amused by her skittish mood.

"Is there no alarm system?" she asked in wonder, looking around at the plethora of expensive merchandise.

Kurt shrugged, setting up his desired equipment. "There should be, but for some reason, it's never gone off on me."

He plugged the guitar in, and Lindy winced when the amplifier made a high pitched screeching noise that sounded like it very much objected to being messed with.

Kurt pulled a stool towards him, sitting on it as he started to pluck away. He stopped to look at Lindy, who stood stock-still in front of him with one arm wrapped protectively around her torso. 

"Sit with me," he suggested.

She obliged, finding her own stool and pulling it next to Kurt. She raised one leg, putting the heel of her foot on the seat of the stool so she could use her knee as a chin rest.

"I just found this and I've been learning the notes," Kurt told her, beginning to play again as his fingers moved rapidly across the guitar strings, producing a fast trickle of sound. "There's this really awesome bass line in the beginning but I'll show you what I've got so far."

Lindy listened patiently, entranced by Kurt's mesmerizing presence. It was captivating in every sense of the word, from the way he held his guitar to the look of determination mixed with joy on his face as he played. And then he started to sing.

"Would you believe me when I tell you, you are the queen of my heart, please don't deceive me when I hurt you, just ain't the way it seems," he sang with ardor, his fingers moving instinctively across the guitar fingerboard.

Despite the fact that she had heard him play before, Lindy had never heard Kurt's voice like this, isolated by the solitary sound of his guitar playing. There was no chatter of voices or other instruments, just him and his guitar. It was everything; it was liquid gold spilling from his mouth.

She let him finish, and when he did, he looked to her for a response. She had been so quiet that he had nearly forgotten he had an audience.

"It's called 'Love Buzz.' What do you think?"

Lindy chose her words carefully, deciding she ought to tell him the truth, since he decidedly deserved it. It should have come from her anyway, seeing as how she wanted him to succeed so badly it made her chest hurt. In that moment, all she wanted was for Kurt to be heard by the world.

"I think," she began steadily, reaching out to touch the hand that dangled over the guitar, "you're going to be really fucking famous one day."