Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Rachel, don’t torture me like this,” Kurt complains, letting Rachel drag him along the streets toward the brightly-lit glamour of Fifth Avenue. “We can’t afford anything here, not even a ring.”

Rachel gives him only a cursory look back, her eyes glittering as brightly as the windows they pass. “Come on, Kurt, we’ve lived in New York for months now and we’ve never even been shopping on Fifth Avenue!”

“Window shopping,” Kurt corrects, tugging her hand again to get her to slow down. His breath fogs up in a white ghost in front of him as he huffs, and try as he might he can’t really be mad, not with the expensive allure surrounding them, the well-dressed socialites flitting from store to store in six-inch Louboutins, the handsome men in business suits strolling along beside wives, or shopping at their own leisure. It’s where Kurt’s wanted to be for years now, and being so close makes his chest ache with an unrelenting want.

Rachel holds both of his gloved hands, smiling bright and broad. “Let’s just pretend that you and I finally have our dream jobs. I’m starring on a critically acclaimed Broadway show, and your designs are wanted by every boutique in the city. We don’t even have to look at price tags. We can just buy whatever we want, when we want.”

Kurt feels one corner of his mouth curl up, and he tilts his head, looks up toward the skyscrapers with their boxy orange glows of windows, and imagines living in a loft, a penthouse, with the world at his feet and the endless possibilities of the skies above him. “Well,” he says, drawing it out and looking at the mannequins in Louis Vuitton to his left, the busy street traffic and whir of yellow cabs to his right.

“Kurt!” Rachel squeals impatiently.

“Let’s go!” Kurt laughs and pulls Rachel into the store, not caring, for once, about how other people will see them when they stumble inside the warm, sweetly-perfumed air. He doesn’t try to hide his awe at the racks and rows and piles of clothes and luggage and purses and scarves, at the equally-as-amazing people picking their way through the store.

“Wow,” Rachel breathes next to him, her head tilted up.

“Wow is right.” Kurt heads over to a table full of iconic-print scarves, picking one up and letting the supple silk glide through his fingers like a fish taking to water. “I’ve always wanted to own one of these, but even on my quest for decently-priced designer merchandise online they were still way out of my price range.”

He unwinds his own thick cable-knit scarf, handing it to Rachel before folding up the one he’d picked up from the table, sliding it around his neck before looping it, tugging on the ends to get it to hang right. He cranes his neck, sees that there’s a mirror just on the other side of the table, and he turns around, eager to see what it looks like, and runs straight into someone else.

“Oh, god, I’m so sorry,” Kurt says quickly, cheeks flushing red and voice pitching high in nervous apprehension. He’s run into his fair share of people over the months, and nine times out of ten it doesn’t end well. “I didn’t mean to—that was so stupid of me.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” a smooth, slightly boyish voice says. It takes Kurt a moment to focus, but when he does he sucks in a breath that he doesn’t release right away.

“No harm, no foul, right?” the man continues with a good-natured smile, lips pulling deep laugh lines into the light stubble on his cheeks. His hair is black flecked with hints of gray, like the teasing light of stars in a sky Kurt rarely gets to see now, and is gelled back away from a well-lined forehead. His suit is slim and well-tailored, hugging his thighs and biceps in sleek matte black, and his tie is a tasteful splash of goldenrod atop a pinstriped oxford.

“I—,” Kurt lets his voice trail off, afraid that if he tries to speak any further it’ll crack embarrassingly. He clears his throat, squares his shoulders, and nods, still aware of the heat in his cheeks. “Right.”

The man smiles at him, looks down at the scarf, and Kurt sees something flash behind golden-green eyes, a flitter or a spark that Kurt can’t really place. The man reaches a hand out, gently touches one of the ends of the scarf, and adjusts it slightly before smiling again. “That looks great on you.”

Kurt giggles—giggles—and pets the scarf like it’s one of his own prized possessions. He bounces on his toes, feels like he could float away. “Thank you. It’s too bad I can’t afford it.” He looks down at it sadly, traces a finger over one of the metallic LVs.

The man clucks his tongue, looks thoughtful for a moment, and Kurt can’t help but notice how the motion brings deep frown lines between dark brows. “Pity. What’s your name?”

Kurt looks back, notices Rachel watching the exchange wide-eyed, and turns back around. “Kurt Hummel.”

The man holds out a hand, and Kurt takes it, takes note of the strength in a broad palm and long fingers. “Nice to meet you, Kurt.” A wink, then, “Blaine Anderson.”

Kurt smiles, bites his lip. “Nice to meet you, Blaine. And thanks for not getting mad at me for running into you. It’s just kind of exciting for a struggling intern at vogue.com who can’t afford much more than old thrift-store clothes to be here.”

“Vogue. It suits you,” Blaine observes with another devastatingly charming smile, and Kurt feels his knees go weak; his heart flutters like it wants to beat its way out of his chest. He appraises Kurt’s outfit, then says, “Not bad for thrift store.”

When Blaine parts with an explanation of work to be done before tomorrow, Kurt stands there, staring, until Rachel grabs him excitedly and turns him to face her. “He was totally hitting on you!”

Kurt blinks, says nothing for a moment as he strips off his scarf and lays it gently back on the table. “No…you think?” There’s a hopeful hint of longing in his voice. “But he’s so much older.”

“Even better!” Rachel hugs him tightly, and Kurt only has the time to awkwardly pat her back before she’s releasing him. “You should’ve gotten his number,” she says with a frown, hand on her hip as she cranes her neck, like she’ll somehow find Blaine hiding behind one of the racks.

Kurt shrugs, loops an arm through Rachel’s, and directs her back toward the door. “I’m sure he was just being polite. Now, come on. I really want Chinese.”

----

Kurt’s just finished typing up a memo for Isabelle when the ten o’clock mail arrives, and he’s surprised when Kenny, the cute mail guy who is unfortunately engaged, drops a package on his desk. Kurt picks it up, frowns when he sees his name in unfamiliar, slanted script on the mailing address.

“Who’s it from?” Kenny asks, hovering just off to the side of Kurt’s desk. Kurt could roll his eyes, but he does like Kenny, and he doesn’t blame him for being surprised: he never gets mail, not at work.

Kurt tears open the package, jaw dropping when a silky sea of light blue fabric stamped with metallic LVs falls from the paper, followed by a small business card. He turns it over, already knowing who it’s from, and sees the same slanted print cramped onto the back.

Kurt—

I didn’t tell you this last night, but this scarf matched your eyes so beautifully, and I couldn’t resist. I hope this isn’t too forward, but I’d love to get dinner sometime, and I really regretted not giving you my number when I had the chance. So here’s me trying—again.

xx Blaine Anderson

Kurt stares at the card for a few silent moments, reading it again and again and again just to be sure that he isn’t imagining it. He flips the card over and sees Blaine’s name and phone number, and from behind him, Kenny asks in disbelief, “Blaine Anderson gave that to you? You know Blaine Anderson?”

“No,” Kurt says truthfully. He's still busy staring at the card and the scarf. “I ran into him last night—literally. Why? Is he someone important?”

He turns in his chair to see Kenny looking at him, slack-jawed. “Important? Kurt, Blaine Anderson runs one of the most prestigious model talent agencies in the world. He could buy this entire building if he wanted to, and the magazine, and still have enough leftover to buy out all of Fifth Avenue.”

Kurt picks up the scarf, looks at the number printed on the card. “And he wants me?”

He stares at the card the rest of the morning, propped up against the metal pen holder, and wonders why someone like Blaine would want someone like him—young, inexperienced, completely poor and with all of the dreams real life has yet to squash out of him. He can’t deny that Blaine is gorgeous, and breathtakingly so, and though he isn’t quite sure of the age difference yet, it doesn’t bother him.

By lunchtime, he finally makes up his mind. He sneaks off into the bathroom, locks the door, and dials the number written on the card. His hand shakes, palm sweating, and his heart pounds faster with each fuzzy ring.

When a voice finally says, “Blaine Anderson speaking,” Kurt forces his breath out in one shuddery exhale, holds the phone closer to his ear and swallows hard, gathering up his courage.

“Blaine, hi. It’s Kurt Hummel. I was just wondering when you were free, because there’s this great new Thai place I read about in the Times that I’d like to try.” He pauses, smiles, says, “And the scarf does match my eyes.”

Chapter Text

“You got a date with him?!” Rachel screeches when Kurt walks into the loft. She’s waving her phone around as she runs toward the door, and for a moment Kurt’s afraid it’s going to fly out of her hand.

He grins, though, unable to help himself as he takes off his coat. The Louis Vuitton scarf is wrapped proudly around his neck, gleaming and shimmering in the light as he walks toward the kitchen. “Tomorrow night at some steak place Blaine insisted on.”

Rachel squeals again, hugging Kurt tightly and bouncing up and down. “Oh my god, you have a date with an older man! A hot older man!” She stops, pulls away and lowers her voice conspiratorially. “Are you gonna, you know, go home with him? Because you know what they say…”

Kurt feels his cheeks heat and quickly ducks his head, shaking it. He laughs nervously. “No. Oh god, no. Not yet. Rachel, you know I’ve never…done anything like that with anyone.”

“Oh, don’t tell me that you haven’t fantasized about your first time being with someone older, who’s more experienced and who knows how to make you feel really good.”

Kurt coughs awkwardly, rummaging loudly through their silverware drawer for two forks. He fishes the leftover Chinese out of the fridge and steadfastly ignores Rachel’s eyes when he says, “Can’t say that I have. I don’t fantasize much.”

“Bull.” Rachel takes a fork and a container, popping the top open and taking a seat at the table. Kurt sits down across from her, opening his container of orange chicken. “We have a very distinct lack of walls in this apartment, Kurt,” she says wryly. “I hear things.”

Kurt feels even the tips of his ears go red as he chokes on a mouthful of rice. “Rachel!”

She just smiles and digs her fork back into her vegetarian fried rice. “We all do it, Kurt. You just need to be stealthier, like me. And quieter.”

Kurt groans, but feels the indescribable happiness and fondness he gets on nights like these, when they have time to be together and just talk. “Of all the people to have as my roommate, Rachel, and I chose you.”

“You love me.”

“Mm, but very reluctantly.”

----

“Rachel, oh my god I’m so nervous.” Kurt fusses with his bowtie, his charcoal gray vest, the careful coif of his hair. He turns to the side, looking into the mirror as he runs the flat of a palm over his thigh, the curve of his ass well-outlined and well-highlighted in the tightest pair of black jeans that he owns. “What if he doesn’t like it? Do the pants make me seem slutty or desperate? He has to know more about fashion than me, and, god, he probably thinks that my fashion sense is severely lacking—”

“Calm down,” Rachel soothes with an amused smile. She takes Kurt’s hands, squeezes, and Kurt takes a deep breath, closing his eyes and forcing himself to relax. Though his shoulders drop his stomach still tangles itself over and over into knots, and suddenly the idea of eating anything makes him want to heave. Rachel catches his attention again, looking up into his eyes. “Blaine likes you. I’m sure he’d like you even if you showed up in a garbage bag.”

Kurt squeezes her hands back, exhaling his deep breath yoga-style. He hates feeling insecure again, hates not knowing what’s going to happen—especially with someone like Blaine, who was wearing the most gorgeous suit Kurt’s ever seen, a suit that probably costs more than Kurt’s entire life so far. “Do you think?”

“I know. And you look amazing, Kurt, seriously. Your jeans don’t make you look slutty, I promise.”

And hearing it from Rachel’s mouth, that ridiculousness, has Kurt laughing in relief. He has a tendency to overreact, and it doesn’t help that it’s only the second date he’s ever had (though he likes to forget the first one with a coworker a month or two after they’d moved out here). He takes a look in the mirror again, bends to tuck a bit more of his pant leg into his boots. “I do look good.”

“You always look good,” Rachel teases, clapping her hands together. “I’m so excited for you! A date with a billionaire. We’re moving up in the world!”

Kurt rolls his eyes, but over the duration of their living situation Rachel’s tendency for hyperbole has become more endearing than annoying, and seeing her get so excited about everything helps Kurt overcome his jaded cynicism about the world. “This hardly counts as ‘moving up,’” Kurt replies with careful air quotes. “This could be the only date we have together. He could be having a mid-life crisis for all we know and is trying to relive his past by dating the first young person that he sees.” He doesn’t acknowledge the way those words send a hollow, aching pang resonating in his chest.

Rachel shakes her head. “Nope, I don’t believe it for a second.”

Kurt opens his mouth to rebuke, refusing to get his hopes up on what is already a long shot and ridiculously perfect fantasy come to life, when his phone beeps from the couch. He rushes to get it, fingers trembling when he swipes his thumb over the screen.

To Kurt (6:47PM):
Are you ready?

To Kurt (6:47PM):
Look outside :)

Kurt looks at Rachel, perplexed, as his phone beeps again and he reads the second message. “I thought we were going to meet there.”

Rachel just shrugs. “Maybe he drove.”

“Someone like Blaine? I doubt it.” Kurt shakes his head and walks over to one of the tall, grimy windows that face the street, and when he looks outside, he nearly drops his phone in shock. “Rachel,” he hisses. “Rachel!”

Rachel rushes over to the window, looks out, and shrieks. “No way! He’s picking you up in a Town Car? A more-than-likely chauffeured Town Car?” She places a hand on his shoulder solemnly. “Please keep him.”

“He’s not a puppy,” Kurt replies, but his mouth twitches up, and renewed excitement chases away the stomach-churning anxiety. He bends to press a kiss to Rachel’s cheek. “I’ll be back later.”

As he’s grabbing his coat and wallet from his nightstand, he sees the Louis Vuitton scarf on his dresser, and it’s only a moment’s more hesitation before he hurriedly undoes his bowtie, deftly slides the scarf on and stuffs it between the V of his vest, and rushes out the door.

Blaine is waiting for him outside the car when Kurt runs out of his building, and he notices Blaine’s composure slip for a fraction of a second as he takes in Kurt’s outfit, and he smiles to himself, holding his chin up higher as he adjusts his coat to display more of the scarf.

“Hi,” Kurt says breathlessly when he gets close. Blaine looks even more handsome than Kurt had remembered, and he’s slightly less formal today in a burlap brown herringbone jacket, black button-down, and dark-wash jeans that hug his thighs carefully. “Wow. Um, you look…really, really handsome.”

Blaine holds the back door open for Kurt graciously, smiling broad in a way that fans crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. “You look amazing,” Blaine says as Kurt climbs in, sliding across buttery soft black leather. The door shuts behind him, and then Blaine is climbing into the backseat next to Kurt.

“Sorry for being maybe a little too ostentatious,” Blaine says with a wince as Kurt looks around wide-eyed at the sleek interior of the car. “But I figured it’d be easier than one of us getting stuck in traffic or something.”

“It’s fine,” Kurt says, far-off as he looks at the half-closed partition separating them from the front seat. “So you have a driver,” he says casually.

“Roy and I go way back,” Blaine replies. He leans forward. “Don’t we, Roy?”

“Way too far back if you ask me,” the man who must be Roy says in a deep, Brooklyn-accented voice. “Are we ready to go?”

Blaine looks over, and Kurt watches his smile morph into something softer, more intimate. His eyes land on the scarf, and Kurt sees the rise of his eyebrows, the curl of his lips as the smile returns. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to; Kurt knows. “Definitely ready.”

----

Kurt’s decided that he’d like to find the person who’d said chivalry is dead and introduce them to Blaine Anderson. When they arrive in Midtown West at a restaurant Kurt’s never heard of, Blaine holds Kurt’s door again, and then holds the restaurant’s door open for Kurt and for an elderly couple that had been walking behind them.

“You are entirely too nice,” Kurt says as Blaine checks in with their reservations. They’re led to a two-seater in a back corner of the rustically-themed restaurant, and Kurt accepts the menu from the waitress.

“My mother just raised me right,” Blaine says with a wink, opening his menu to the drinks section.

Kurt opens his, then blinks in surprise when every item is listed without a price next to it. “Uh, Blaine, how am I supposed to know what to order if there aren’t any prices?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Blaine waves it off. “Get whatever you want.”

“Blaine,” Kurt insists.

“Nope.” Blaine shakes his head with a smirk as the waitress comes back with a bread basket, setting it on the table between them. “It’s all on me tonight.”

Kurt huffs out a sigh but gives in, knowing that he won’t get anywhere. They order drinks, and when the waitress is gone Kurt finally dregs up the courage to ask Blaine the question that’s been on his mind since last night. “Okay, I have to ask—”

“How old I am?” Blaine grins easily. “I just turned forty in June.”

“Forty.” Kurt bites the inside of his cheek, nods his head slowly, and feels a sparking heat just below the surface of his skin that travels quickly from his chest down to his groin. “That’s…a good number.”

“Good as in…it’s an even number and you like even numbers, or good as in…you don’t mind?” Blaine bites his lip, looking hesitantly up over the edge of his menu, and Kurt’s shocked at how young that makes Blaine look.

He smiles, cheeks flushing, and reads about a cocktail he’s never even heard of. Blaine had ordered a dry martini on the rocks, and it’s weird to be on a date with someone old enough to drink when his own Pepsi is bubbling and dripping condensation in front of him, making him feel entirely too young. “Good as in…I definitely like it.”

“Oh.” Blaine looks immensely pleased, eyes bright where they seek out and find Kurt’s. “Well, good. I was…afraid I was overstepping boundaries, asking you out like this.”

“No, no!” Kurt’s quick to respond, setting down his menu. The candlelight on their table wavers and flickers in faint gold, shadows jumping and elongating, and Blaine’s lips part slightly as Kurt reaches hesitantly past the bread basket, then retracts his hand. “I’m actually really glad you did. Honest.”

Blaine picks up where Kurt had stopped, taking Kurt’s hand in his. He lifts them up, and Kurt watches, mesmerized, as Blaine brings the back of Kurt’s hand to his mouth and kisses it, a butterfly brush of slightly damp lips that make his body shudder, heart pounding and skin tingly not just where Blaine’s mouth touched, but everywhere, like there’s been a switch turned on for the first time.

“You’re so corny,” Kurt says, then giggles, and he feels like he should be mortified at the way he’s acting, but he can’t help it. It’s like he’s one of his Pepsi’s bubbles, carbonated and floating up, up until he finally explodes.

“I’m just an old old-fashioned guy,” Blaine retorts, winking. “So what about you? What’s your story?”

Kurt clears his throat and twists his fingers together nervously. “Well, um, I’m nineteen, and I intern at vogue.com, like I mentioned before. I came here from Ohio over the summer, and I share a place with my best friend Rachel.”

“I grew up in Ohio,” Blaine says, looking suddenly distant. “Westerville.”

“I grew up in Lima,” Kurt replies, fiddling with the gleaming silverware to the right of his plate. “It’s kind of eerie how close our hometowns are to each other.”

Their small talk continues after the waitress comes back to take their order and Kurt relaxes more and more with each story and anecdote they tell. He finds out that Blaine had begun his company when he was twenty-nine, and within a few short years it had ballooned into something that, Blaine says humbly and a bit embarrassedly, he could have never imagined. He’d had one serious boyfriend before, had been engaged to him, but they’d ultimately broken it off after a few months. Kurt isn’t sure why that thought makes him irrationally jealous.

He’d ordered the sirloin, medium rare, at Blaine’s insistence, and had tried his best not to moan as his first bite all but melts in his mouth. Blaine watches with a knowing smile, and when Kurt asks timidly if he can try some of Blaine’s rib-eye, Blaine holds out his fork with a piece speared on it. They don’t break eye contact as Kurt bites it off and chews.

They get cheesecake for dessert, sharing a single large piece, and this time Kurt lets Blaine bite off of his fork even though Blaine has his own. Blaine won’t let him see the check when it arrives, instead fishing his wallet out of his pocket and slapping down a black piece of plastic and slipping it into the little sleeve as he tips back the last of his martini. He offers one of the olives to Kurt, who takes it, wincing at the sour taste sharpened with a hint of vodka.

He reaches across the table, takes Kurt’s hand again. “I didn’t exactly say this earlier,” he begins, “but you look absolutely breathtaking tonight, Kurt.”

Kurt flushes. “You don’t have to do this, you know,” he says. “Taking me out, buying me dinner, buying me this scarf.” He touches the silk at his neck; watches Blaine follow the movement of his fingers. “I know I’m just some kid.”

Blaine shakes his head. “You’re more than that. There’s just something about you, Kurt. I couldn’t stop thinking about you last night. Did you know that I was already home when I decided to buy you that scarf? I went back down there with barely enough time before Louis Vuitton closed and bought it without a second thought.” He rubs his thumb over the back of Kurt’s hand, and Kurt loses himself in the feel of the rhythmic slide, the security of another hand wrapped around his. “You’re just…” He trails off, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, and when he opens them again they’re intense, dark, the candlelight casting shadows and splashes in honey irises, the salt-and-pepper stubble decorating a soft jaw and gently-lined cheeks. “I’ve never met anyone as beautiful as you, Kurt. I’ve never felt like this, not even about Jeremy. And I want to make you mine. I want to buy you things, and take you places, and make you feel special. I want to treat you like the prince you deserve to be, and I would be honored if you’d let me.”

Kurt opens his mouth, but he can’t find the words. He stares, speechless, at the man sitting across from him. Surely Blaine can’t mean all of that. They barely even know each other. He has to have better things to spend his money on. Kurt can’t just let him do all this stuff. He closes his mouth, opens it again, and tries to decline, tries to say no, I can’t let you.

Instead, he says, small and nervous, “Do you really mean that?”

Blaine looks relieved that Kurt’s response isn’t a no, and he nods, drawing his lips into his mouth to wet them. The waitress comes, takes the check without a word. “I do,” Blaine responds softly. His eyes flicker down, then up, and Kurt’s lips tingle like the back of his hand had, despite not knowing what Blaine’s lips would feel like on his own. “I meant every word.”

“Then yes,” Kurt responds immediately, feels his cheeks stretch as he smiles. “I want to get to know more about the famous Blaine Anderson, but preferably at a place where the menu has numbers.”

Blaine rolls his eyes but agrees, and when they stand to leave, Blaine slips his hand into Kurt’s, threading their fingers together. Kurt looks down, astonished, and he meets Blaine’s eyes when he looks up. He wonders what they look like to the other patrons, finds that he doesn’t really even care.

They climb back into the Town Car, and when Roy pulls away from the curb the heavy, warm weight of Blaine’s hand finds Kurt’s upper thigh. He bites his lip and looks out the window at the blur of neon lights as Roy and Blaine discuss the Giants game. And when there’s a lull in the conversation, Blaine squeezes his thigh gently; Kurt looks over, finds Blaine staring at him, and he’s shocked to find something akin to amazement on Blaine’s face. He barely even realizes when they stop at his apartment, the engine humming underfoot as Roy puts the car into park.

“I had a really nice time tonight,” Kurt says softly when Blaine walks him to the door. They stop just under the orange glow of an overhead light, and Blaine reaches out, touches Kurt’s scarf with wondering fingertips. “Thank you.”

Blaine doesn’t say anything, doesn’t retract his hand, and Kurt’s breath hitches. “…I kind of want to kiss you.” He bites his lip. “Is that okay?”

Blaine’s hand moves, now, to cup Kurt’s cheek, and he breathes out, “Very, very okay,” as he leans in. Like time has slowed down, it seems to take forever before Kurt’s eyes slide fully shut, before Blaine’s warm breath ghosts over his lips, before the soft press of them is against Kurt’s.

His arms go around Blaine’s back, fingers pressing into bone and toned muscle, Blaine’s arms going around his waist, palm flat on his lumbar region to push him closer. It stays chaste, unmoving, until Kurt feels like his lungs will burst if he doesn’t breathe soon. Then, it’s over, and he’s breathing in a tiny gasp as Blaine pulls back.

Blaine places a hand on his cheek, leans in to rub his nose against Kurt’s, and says, “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Kurt watches him walk away, leaning heavily against the cold concrete of his building as the black door slams and the car’s driving off. He touches his fingers to his lips, still tingling now with the actual memory of Blaine’s kiss, and wonders if it’s appropriate to start swooning.

Blaine Anderson had been his first kiss, and somehow, Kurt doesn’t find that a bad thing at all.

----

Kurt lies awake in bed for hours that night, his hand on his chest as he stares at the ceiling. He’s so full of conflicting emotions that he’s afraid he might burst and so full of restless energy that he’s almost tempted to pull on a pair of straight-leg sweats and a light hoodie and go for a really-early-morning jog—and he probably would if they lived in a better neighborhood.

On one hand, he feels absolutely ridiculous for so readily accepting Blaine’s fantasy-like proposal. He knows Blaine is genuine—he’s familiar with the type of passion that had been in Blaine’s eyes when he’d said it, but…Kurt is still just a kid. He didn’t go to college, and he probably won’t.

He wants to be a fashion designer, a hard enough industry to get into in the first place, if Project Runway is any indication, and when word gets out that he’s dating a model scout he’s going to be a very popular unpopular subject of discussion all over the fashion world and fodder for some extremely vindictive lies and rumors.

However, on the other hand, despite their age difference, Kurt really does like Blaine. He likes his smile, his laugh, the sexy way he drinks a martini and he adorable way he delicately eats his food. He likes the raw passion he’d seen, and the openly honest way Blaine had talked to him in the restaurant. He hadn’t been treated like a teenager wanting to become someone’s trophy husband: he’d been treated like he was the very important center of someone’s universe, like the fragile new beginning of something, a delicate, crushable baby bird in someone’s palm.

And Blaine…well, he’s far from lecherous, or creepy, or any of the other things you’re supposed to think when a man over twice your age hits on you. When Kurt looks at Blaine, he may see the physical markings of someone who’s lived a long, full, possibly sometimes hard life, but, as he’s learned, that’s just an exterior. Age doesn’t embody, doesn’t define, it just is. Kurt likes Blaine Anderson the person, not Blaine Anderson the number.

What he doesn’t want to think about, though, is how Blaine had been his first kiss. It had been nice—amazing, actually, and something he knows he’ll never forget, that shower of sparking bright fireworks as their lips had touched and pressed and melded together—and he doesn’t regret who it was with, but it’s terrifying to think that the man who had been his first kiss, who might eventually be his first everything, is much older and much, much more experienced than Kurt’s ever imagined himself being. And he’s scared of bringing it up, of telling Blaine that he’s a virgin in (now almost) every sense of the word. Though Blaine doesn’t seem the type to just run away, Kurt’s still afraid that it would be too much, that the pressure, the responsibility, would ultimately be the thing to crumble and undo all of this. And then where would he be? Heartbroken again.

He rolls over onto his side with a groan, tugging the sheets up to his shoulders. He should at least focus on the good things like how well the date had gone, how Blaine’s hand had felt on his thigh. How he’d wanted to kiss him and never stop.

And when he finally does drift off, Blaine’s face is the last thing that he sees.

Chapter Text

Kurt lies awake in bed for hours that night, his hand on his chest as he stares at the ceiling. He’s so full of conflicting emotions that he’s afraid he might burst and so full of restless energy that he’s almost tempted to pull on a pair of straight-leg sweats and a light hoodie and go for a really-early-morning jog—and he probably would if they lived in a better neighborhood.

On one hand, he feels absolutely ridiculous for so readily accepting Blaine’s fantasy-like proposal. He knows Blaine is genuine—he’s familiar with the type of passion that had been in Blaine’s eyes when he’d said it, but…Kurt is still just a kid. He didn’t go to college, and he probably won’t.

He wants to be a fashion designer, a hard enough industry to get into in the first place, if Project Runway is any indication, and when word gets out that he’s dating a model scout he’s going to be a very popular unpopular subject of discussion all over the fashion world and fodder for some extremely vindictive lies and rumors.

However, on the other hand, despite their age difference, Kurt really does like Blaine. He likes his smile, his laugh, the sexy way he drinks a martini and he adorable way he delicately eats his food. He likes the raw passion he’d seen, and the openly honest way Blaine had talked to him in the restaurant. He hadn’t been treated like a teenager wanting to become someone’s trophy husband: he’d been treated like he was the very important center of someone’s universe, like the fragile new beginning of something, a delicate, crushable baby bird in someone’s palm.

And Blaine…well, he’s far from lecherous, or creepy, or any of the other things you’re supposed to think when a man over twice your age hits on you. When Kurt looks at Blaine, he may see the physical markings of someone who’s lived a long, full, possibly sometimes hard life, but, as he’s learned, that’s just an exterior. Age doesn’t embody, doesn’t define, it just is. Kurt likes Blaine Anderson the person, not Blaine Anderson the number.

What he doesn’t want to think about, though, is how Blaine had been his first kiss. It had been nice—amazing, actually, and something he knows he’ll never forget, that shower of sparking bright fireworks as their lips had touched and pressed and melded together—and he doesn’t regret who it was with, but it’s terrifying to think that the man who had been his first kiss, who might eventually be his first everything, is much older and much, much more experienced than Kurt’s ever imagined himself being. And he’s scared of bringing it up, of telling Blaine that he’s a virgin in (now almost) every sense of the word. Though Blaine doesn’t seem the type to just run away, Kurt’s still afraid that it would be too much, that the pressure, the responsibility, would ultimately be the thing to crumble and undo all of this. And then where would he be? Heartbroken again.

He rolls over onto his side with a groan, tugging the sheets up to his shoulders. He should at least focus on the good things like how well the date had gone, how Blaine’s hand had felt on his thigh. How he’d wanted to kiss him and never stop.

And when he finally does drift off, Blaine’s face is the last thing that he sees.

----

Rachel is already in the kitchen when Kurt shuffles in the next morning, unshowered and in sweatpants and a plain T-shirt, and she turns, two white ceramic mugs in her hands. She beams at him, and from the thin black pants and tight tank top Kurt’s guessing that she’s just finished her early-morning workout routine. He feels bad for being so lazy this morning, but he hadn’t gotten asleep until late, and as a consequence had slept in later than he’d have liked.

He sits down at the table and accepts one of the mugs, taking a careful sip and wincing at the bitter, cheap taste. “God, I hate this stuff.”

Rachel sits down next to him, resting her elbows on the table. The steam from her mug rises up in wispy, silvery vapors, curling and dancing until they thin out and disappear. “Cheaper than Starbucks every day. Though, I think you should be the last person complaining right now.” She grins and leans in. “How’d it go last night with Mr. Sexy Billionaire?”

“He wouldn’t let me see the check,” Kurt says. “The menu didn’t even have prices.”

Rachel whistles, nudges Kurt with her elbow and grins. “He must really like you.”

Kurt shrugs, takes another sip of his coffee, and sets the mug down. All the signs point toward Blaine genuinely liking him, but Kurt’s still afraid for a catch, for the other shoe to drop, for him to wake up and this all be a very elaborate dream. Men like Blaine don’t just do things like this without wanting something in return. But it seems like all Blaine wants is a shot at them, to see if that spark could be kindled into something roaring and everlasting.

“I think he does,” Kurt replies, slowly, carefully choosing his words. “I’m just—guys don’t usually buy thousand-dollar scarves for me because they matched my eyes.”

“Blaine said that?” Rachel sounds positively giddy. Kurt nods, raising an eyebrow, and Rachel’s grin grows even wider, sly and knowing this time, and Kurt shrinks back in his seat.

“What?”

“He wants to be your sugar daddy, doesn’t he?”

“I—I, um…well…” Kurt flushes scarlet, staring down into the milky brown depths of his half-drank coffee, and feels the heat of Rachel’s gaze on him. He hadn’t thought about it that way, in those terms, but hearing Rachel say it, Kurt knows she’s right, that that’s what Blaine wants, and it makes him feel oddly…proud, in a sense. “Blaine may have—he said some…things, more or less, and made some, uh, promises that I kind of…agreed to.”

“I knew it! God, if he wasn’t gay I’d be so jealous right now.”

“But we really like each other!” Kurt defends quickly. “He’s funny and smart and charming and so gorgeous. He holds doors open for me, and walks me to my front step…he even kissed me goodnight.”

“Oh my god, so he was…?”

“My first kiss?” Kurt smiles fondly at the memory, his lips tingling again. “Yeah.”

“Does he know?”

Kurt swallows hard, shakes his head, and feels that same roiling apprehension, that nervousness and fear. “No. We didn’t really bring that up, and I didn’t want to tell him. Not yet.”

Rachel frowns. “Don’t you think you should at least tell him soon? That’s kind of a big thing, Kurt, and it’s not like you two are the same age. He might want more before you’re ready.”

Kurt waves it off, but he knows she’s right. “I’ll tell him when I’m ready. Besides, he texted me last night after he dropped me off.” Kurt bites his lip to hide his smile, runs his thumb over his phone in his lap. “He asked if the kiss was moving too fast, and when I told him no, it was perfect, he said he didn’t care how slow we moved, just that he was happy it was with me.”

Rachel awws, eyes big and misty with tears, and places her hand on Kurt’s on the table. “I know I said it before, but I mean it this time. Keep him.”

Kurt’s phone buzzes, and when he sees Blaine’s name on the lock screen, his heart quickens and flips. The text isn’t much, just a sweet good morning, my prince :), but the knowledge that there is someone now, someone besides Rachel and his family, that’s more than enough. “I think I might.”

----

“If you could choose one Broadway show to see right now,” Blaine begins over the phone that evening, his voice tinny and echoing in Kurt’s partitioned-off room, “which one would it be?”

Kurt pauses in trying on ties for his outfit tomorrow, staring at his iPhone on the bed. “What do you mean?”

“Purely hypothetical, of course. I want to know your taste in fine entertainment.”

Kurt laughs, shakes his head and settles on a bloodred tie that will go great under his black, silver-pinstriped jacket and against his slate-gray oxford. “Well, Wicked has always been one of my favorites. I sang ‘Defying Gravity’ in high school in an inter-glee club competition—don’t ask, it was a nightmare and I lost to my best friend—and when Rachel and I first got here we went down to the Gershwin and just stood there staring up at it, seeing it for the first time in person, and it was so amazing because it was real.”

Blaine doesn’t say anything right away, and Kurt busies himself by putting away the colorful heaps of discarded accessories and outfit pieces. When he’s done, jittery and still running on I could screw all of this up in an instant because I’m a stupid kid who doesn’t know how to act around guys that like me, he asks, hesitantly, “Blaine?”

“I love Wicked,” Blaine replies. It’s soft, and it sounds like he’s smiling.

----

A letter arrives the next day at work with Kurt’s name on it. He knows it’s from Blaine before he even sees the slanted handwriting, and he wonders why Blaine is sending him anything in the first place. Regardless, he waits until he’s on his lunch break to open it, and the minute two heavy pieces of paper fall from the torn envelope, he’s glad he waited until he was alone because he’s sure the scream he’d just let out wouldn’t have been appreciated by anyone.

On the surface of the table tucked into the corner of the lounge lie two fourth row, orchestra center tickets for tonight’s performance of Wicked. Tickets Kurt’s only ever dreamt about holding in his hands. Tickets he thought he’d never see.

He’s having trouble breathing, short, staccato breaths and muted gasps, and he keeps touching the tickets like he’s expecting them to vanish, or for Ashton Kutcher to pop out and declare him Punk’d. He’s going to see Wicked. He’s going to see his first Broadway performance ever—and, oh god, Rachel is going to kill him. She’s going to hate him so much.

He lifts up one of the tickets, his hands trembling, and lets his eyes stray to the price for only a moment before he’s back to tracing the name over and over. He blinks, and still it says Gershwin Theatre. He blinks, and they’re still there. He blinks, and his phone rings, and he doesn’t even look at who’s calling before he answers and breathes out, “Blaine.”

“Surprise.” Blaine’s voice is that same special softness that it had been last night when he’d said that he loved Wicked.

“Blaine, this isn’t—I can’t—I mean—”

“I’m going to take you being speechless as a good thing,” Blaine teases. “I like making you speechless.”

“Blaine, you can’t just…I can’t…”

“You said you wanted to see Wicked, right?”

“Well, yes, I’ve wanted to see it for years, but, Blaine—”

“Then it’s settled.” Blaine’s voice is finalized, and Kurt knows that arguing will be completely useless. “And we can get dinner afterward.”

“Blaine.”

“Relax,” Blaine says, laughs, and his deep chuckle makes Kurt’s skin burn hot, makes him ache in ways he’s never felt before. “The menu has prices this time. I promise it’s nothing extremely fancy.”

“Something tells me that, also adding in the keyword ‘extremely,’ your idea of fancy is a lot different than mine.” He looks down at the tickets again, worries his lower lip and tries not to feel too giddy. “Do I even want to know how you got such good seats on such short notice?”

“I have connections,” Blaine says mysteriously. “And they’re all legal, in case you were wondering.”

Kurt smiles fondly, looks down at the grain of the wood. “I wasn’t, but thanks for the clarification.”

Blaine doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Kurt appreciates the silence on the line, comfortable and surprisingly cozy, like the soft sweater you wouldn’t think would fit but does. It gives him a moment to soak everything in, to ponder of the now, what this all means and what the future could hold. When Blaine finally does speak, it’s hushed, unsure. “Are you happy?”

Is he happy? Kurt’s sure he bypassed ‘happy’ a few days ago. He still feels like he’s somehow taking advantage of Blaine (god only knows what an outsider’s perspective might be of the two of them), but there’s something about the way Blaine had just asked that question that makes Kurt think that, maybe, what this is, whatever it is so far, what it could bud and bloom in to, could become more. More than Kurt’s ever imagined, more than he can take, he doesn’t know. “I can’t remember the last time I was this happy,” he whispers, knows immediately that it’s the truth, that he’s always felt some sort of despair, a niggling, insistent dark cloud that was always just there. “Thank you.”

“Thank you.” Kurt doesn’t know what Blaine’s thanking him for, and he doesn’t ask when Blaine only says those two words and doesn’t clarify. Instead, Kurt dwells on the soaring feeling in his chest, centered around his heart; on the way that he’s smiling even when he’s completely unaware. He’s not longer a single Pepsi bubble: he’s a hot air balloon, floating higher and higher with no pop, no explosion and crash, in sight.

----

“You have to tell me everything.” Rachel pokes Kurt’s shoulder hard, and Kurt winces.

“Ow. Jeez, Rach, calm down,” Kurt says, carefully tying and straightening his bowtie. Rachel stands behind him in the mirror, hands on her hips as she watches, then hands Kurt his slim black vest. He shrugs it on, buttons it up, and bites his lip, searching the patterned button-down, the vest, the simple bowtie, and the tight black pants. It needs something.

On his dresser gleams a pin, silver scissors and a chain, and Kurt picks it up, affixes it to his vest, and takes a step back to appraise. It’s out there, but simple, and Kurt’s been dying to wear this shirt for weeks now since he got it from a leftover comp box at work.

“You look good,” Rachel gushes. “Blaine’s going to be watching you the entire evening, not the performance.”

Kurt’s phone beeps, and he looks at it, sees that it’s a text from Blaine. “They’re here.” He holds his arms out, and Rachel flings herself into his hug, squeezing and knocking the breath out of him. “Oh—I wish you could come, too.”

Rachel pulls away, rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “No you don’t. You may think you do now, but once you see Blaine you’ll forget all about me.” She winks, and Kurt flushes, ducks his head to hide his smile. He grabs his coat and buttons it up as he rushes out of the building, too excited and nervous to wait.

Blaine is standing outside the car again, dressed in slim black pants and a heavy gray overcoat. His hair is gelled back a little more this time, and he looks solemn as he stands there, hands clasped and covered in sleek black leather gloves, but the moment Kurt steps outside, collar turned up against the wind’s brisk chill, his face lights up.

Kurt bites his lip when he stops in front of Blaine, reaches a shaky hand out to brush against the wool of Blaine’s coat. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Blaine’s smile crinkles the corners of his eyes, and Kurt notices that one sideburn is graying faster than the other. “Your nose is red.”

“It’s cold.”

Blaine chuckles; then, without warning, he’s leaning in and kissing Kurt’s cheek, and Kurt feels his jaw drop, wants to bring a hand up to touch the warm circle where it feels like there’s a brand. “That it is. Come on, Roy wants to say hi.”

He opens the door, but before Kurt can step in, Blaine’s grabbing his wrist gently and leaning back in, and this time his lips brush Kurt’s ear. It takes everything in him not to moan, to fall to pieces or melt like jelly. “This is becoming incredibly redundant, but wow, Kurt, you look stunning. How have I gone my entire life without ever meeting someone like you?”

“With those lines it’s no surprise.” But Kurt smiles as he says it, looks at Blaine through half-lowered lashes and wonders if he’s being maybe too coy. He swallows his fear and grabs the back of Blaine’s neck, pulls him in for a kiss, and the surprise has Blaine’s lips soft and pliant under Kurt’s, but he keeps it simple, chaste, and parts to say, “You look as suavely handsome as ever, Mr. Anderson. Now let’s go before I freeze to death.”

----

Kurt is only slightly ashamed to admit that he’d spent about half of the performance watching Blaine in between being amazed at actually seeing everything on stage the way he’d seen through grainy YouTube videos, but much better quality and a lot closer. He notices little things about Blaine this way, like the way he clenches his jaw when he tries not to cry (but Kurt had taken his hand during the last ten minutes of the second act, and Blaine had squeezed back), the way his lashes look when he blinks, the soft wave of his hair and the slight bump of his nose all cast in muted, silhouetted profile.

Before the lights had gone down they’d been looking at Kurt’s Playbill together, Blaine pointing out people he knew, or productions he’d seen, and his hand had again found Kurt’s thigh, farther up toward the apex of his hip this time, and Kurt had sucked in a breath, hadn’t exhaled until he’d absolutely needed to, but Blaine hadn’t flinched. He didn’t move his hand until fifteen minutes into the production, and Kurt had felt the warmth, the press, for the rest of the evening.

He’s shocked and slightly terrified about how much that makes him want more. He’s never been on a true date, much less a second one, and he’s definitely never had anyone pay such close attention to him before like Blaine does. Blaine makes sure that Kurt has what he needs, offers his jacket when he thinks Kurt looks cold, gives him a smile at just the right moments and always, always knows when to kiss him. Kurt’s still a little more reserved, fresh from oppressive Ohio, but Blaine has lived in New York for years, and slowly he’s helping Kurt come out of his shell and realize that the world is changing and it’s okay.

This feels like more than a second date, if Kurt wants to be honest. Already they’ve developed an intimacy that far surpasses anything Kurt’s ever had, and when they leave the performance that night, Blaine’s arm around Kurt’s waist as Kurt sniffles and dabs at his still-damp eyes, he feels inexplicably at home in that moment.

Roy is waiting for them at the curb, and he gives Kurt a knowing smile through the rearview mirror when Kurt slides into the backseat, smiling and shifting toward the warmth of the seat warmers. Blaine slides in, his knee knocking Kurt’s, and there he keeps it until Roy stops fifteen minutes later in front of a homier-looking restaurant.

“I feel like we’re taking advantage of him,” Kurt says after he and Blaine climb out, casting a backwards glance as Roy expertly glides back out into traffic.

“He’s a driver,” Blaine says, but he says it lightly, and Kurt shivers with delight when Blaine reaches between them and seeks out Kurt’s hand, twining their gloved fingers together. “It’s kind of his job. And he doesn’t mind it, I promise. We’ve been friends for a long time, and, truth be told, I overpay him for what he does. But his kids are great and his wife makes the best carrot cake rolls.”

“I think I’ve found your weakness,” Kurt teases, turning his head to see Blaine practically salivating. “You’re lucky that I love to bake.”

They’re led to a table by a waitress who looks from them to their clasped hands, blinking in momentary surprise before neutrality settles back in, and Kurt’s hackles rise for a few seconds before he forces himself to remember that couples like him and Blaine—both gay and age-differentiated—aren’t that uncommon in New York.

When he sees the menu, however, he groans and almost wishes that there weren’t any prices. “You are such a liar,” he says, scanning the items. “If my meal the other night was anything like this—”

“You don’t want to know what your meal the other night was like,” Blaine says dismissively, flipping through the laminated pages. “But it doesn’t matter to me. I’ll say it again: don’t worry about it. I said I was going to treat you right, didn’t I?”

Kurt slouches in his seat, then sits up straight. Blaine has a point, and he knows it, but letting go like this is still difficult. He’s staring at a fifteen-dollar appetizer, sitting across from a man who’d taken him to his first Broadway show, had unknowingly given him his first kiss, and who’s willing to do anything to make him happy. Most sane people would take it and run, not asking any questions. Kurt, however, isn’t most sane people.

He startles when he feels Blaine’s hand on his own, and he looks up. Blaine’s tie is askew, and Kurt longs to fix it. His lips are wet, like he’s just been licking them, and Kurt longs to kiss him. Before Blaine can say anything, Kurt smiles. “Okay.”

And that’s all he needs to say. Okay. Blaine’s face lights up, and Kurt does lean over then, carefully, and kisses him, letting his hand run over the gel-stiff bumps of Blaine’s hair. This is him giving in, accepting Blaine and Blaine’s ideas, his propositions and whatever else he can present to Kurt. This is him running with it for once, latching onto that thin, delicate thread of happiness when it dangles and refusing to let go.

And after dinner, when Blaine’s Town Car hums at the curb and he stops at Kurt’s front step, Kurt kisses him again, hand on Blaine’s jaw and fist tight in the lapel of Blaine’s coat. He deepens it slowly, tilting his head and letting their lips slide together, and he feels the near-imperceptible tightening of Blaine’s fingers in his hair. When he brushes his tongue fleetingly across Blaine’s lower lip, Blaine’s back-of-the-throat groan prompts him further, emboldens him to slide his tongue into the damp heat of Blaine’s mouth for the first time, and he stiffens only slightly when Blaine tugs him closer, their bodies flush together as they kiss until Kurt’s lips are as numb as his ears.

“I really like you,” Blaine breathes when they part, breath puffing out white in front of him before being whisked away by the wind. His eyes have darkened slightly, hazel diluted down to a deeper brown, and his lips are red, and Kurt thinks, wide-eyed, I did that. Blaine’s thumb is gentle where it brushes Kurt’s cheekbone, and he wants to keep it there, wants Blaine to never stop touching him.

“I really like you, too,” Kurt whispers.

“I feel like I should have done something more extravagant, maybe something that involved heating or a glittery present to make your eyes light up, but I kind of like this.” Blaine kisses him again, but pulls back when Kurt tilts his head and lifts his chin. “It feels spontaneous and young.”

“Ah, age jokes. I’m starting a notebook just for you, so be prepared.”

Blaine just laughs. “I thought that when I hit forty, I’d finally cease to be surprised at the turns life can make. I’ve seen a lot, and I’ve done a lot. I’ve met a lot of people, too, but none I’ve ever wanted to do this so badly to.” Kurt’s lips part in a cut-off gasp when Blaine tugs him forward by his lapels, and this kiss is more heated, deeper, and Kurt squeezes his eyes tightly shut, clings to the back of Blaine’s coat and lets himself be swept out like he’s caught in the tide.

Blaine parts with a gasp, and on that same exhaled breath he asks, “Will you be my boyfriend?”

“Yes.” Kurt doesn’t hesitate, and he kisses Blaine’s lips, the chilled tip of his nose, his cheek. “Yes, of course, Blaine. I’d love to be your boyfriend.”

“You’ll have to update my Facebook for me, though,” Blaine says, and his eyes glint in the yellow streetlight. He grins, pulls Kurt in for a kiss just because he can. “Too young for me and all that, you know. Electronics are way too advanced for someone of my age.”

“That joke doesn’t work when you have an iPhone, silly,” Kurt teases, but his grin grows wider, if possible, and stretches his frozen cheeks almost painfully. He throws his arms around Blaine’s neck, breathes in deep the spice of his cologne and aftershave. They kiss until Roy honks and Blaine parts sheepishly, his lips slick with Kurt’s saliva, and Kurt’s so hopelessly addicted to this man already, past head over heels and into flat on his back.

“Better get back to your dad,” Kurt says, smirking, and Blaine parts with one last kiss before he’s gone. Kurt stands in the stoop long after the car has disappeared, wonders how he’s going to tell Rachel, how he’s going to tell everyone. He jumps up and down a few times, squealing quietly, and stares up at the sky as he bites back his grin.

He has a boyfriend.

Chapter Text

To Kurt (1:45PM):
What are you doing?

To Blaine (1:50PM):
Going through lists of accessories for Isabelle for the next issue. Ugh. And there’s this amazingly adorable fox brooch from Les Nereides Nobles Betes that puts the fox shirt I have to shame.

To Blaine (1:51PM):
But enough about me. What about you? How does the wonderful Blaine Anderson spend his days? Sipping champagne under the blue skies? Having his back massaged by beautiful, shirtless men?

To Kurt (2:00PM):
A lot of phone calls for meetings, actually. No champagne and cute men for me.

To Kurt (2:03PM):
Well, except for the one I’m texting… ;)

To Blaine (2:06PM):
Blaine, what am I going to do with you?

To Kurt (2:20PM):
Do you want to come by my place tonight?

To Kurt (2:21PM):
I’m so sorry if that came across as really forward, but as much as I love taking you out, I want to take you home, too.

To Kurt (2:22PM):
But not like that! I just mean I want you to see my place.

To Kurt (2:23PM):
Wow I’m sorry. I’m really out of practice.

To Blaine (2:26PM):
Blaine, it’s fine. If it makes you feel any better, I laughed. But in a purely good way, of course.

To Blaine (2:26PM):
And I’d love to see your place.

To Kurt (2:32PM):
Great! We’ll pick you up at six. And dress in something comfortable. I’m ordering a pizza and we’re gonna do this boyfriends thing right by cuddling on the couch and watching a movie.

To Kurt (2:32 PM):
btw are you a pepperoni or a mushrooms kind of guy? Because I think that if you don’t say mushrooms this relationship might not last.

To Blaine (2:34PM):
I love mushrooms, silly. But I think I’d be happy eating anchovies as long as it was with you.

To Kurt (2:35PM):
:) it’s a date then, Mr. Hummel.

“Who are you texting?” Isabelle asks in passing as she glides by into her office, the lingering scent of Trésor sweet and heady behind her. “And if you have the accessories list done, email it to me, sweetie.”

“Okay.” Kurt smiles down at his phone, stares at the words in the blue and gray chat bubbles until they blur, and says, in a whisper he’s sure Isabelle doesn’t hear, “My boyfriend.”

——

Kurt’s sure he’s going to throw up. Rachel’s gone—out with Brody again, he remembers with an eye roll—and he’s alone as he waits for Blaine to pick him up. He’d been completely cavalier about it when he was texting Blaine, but now that he’s home and doesn’t have projects or phones or discussions to distract him, it’s really sinking in where he’s going twenty minutes or so.

Being invited over to your boyfriend’s house for the first time probably wouldn’t be a big deal for others, but for Kurt, who’s never dated and who’s never been to someone else’s own apartment, it is. Just a year ago, if someone had invited Kurt over he would have had to meet their parents, too. But Blaine has an apartment—an empty apartment, Kurt thinks with a gulp, and he feels his palms sweat. He wipes them on the soft cotton of his yoga pants, then wonders of he’s too dressed down.

Blaine had said comfortable, but Kurt could maybe be taking it to a different level. What if Blaine shows up dressed to kill, and then there’s Kurt, looking like he’s on his way to an afternoon of classes at NYU. He bolts up from the couch and runs to his room, sifting through racks of clothes urgently as he tries to piece together a decent outfit before Blaine texts to tell him he’s here.

It’s ridiculous; Kurt rationalizes as he nearly falls while pulling off his pants to slip on a pair of looser-fitting jeans, to be this worried. He and Blaine are already dating—a thought in itself that makes him squirm happily and grin like an idiot—so why should he be this worried?

He’s older, a little niggling voice says as Kurt grabs a soft, slightly-oversized sweater and slides it on. He’s experienced. And he could have anyone he wanted—but he chose you, and you don’t want to screw that up.

And he doesn’t. He wants to prove to Blaine that he isn’t just some wide-eyed kid, that dating Blaine isn’t going to be for personal gain. Kurt had meant it when he’d told Blaine that he was happy, and he thinks he’s always going to mean it. He doesn’t need trinkets or dinners or Broadway tickets: he just needs Blaine.

His phone dings across the room just as he’s slipping on a pair of shoes, and he almost wishes that Rachel were here to calm him down as he lunges for it, unlocking it and fixing his hair carefully with one hand.

To Kurt (6:01PM):
Your chariot awaits, my prince :*

That’s new, the kissing face, and Kurt remembers that he can kiss Blaine now, whenever and wherever he wants, because they’re actually dating. He smiles, laughs, and quickly texts Blaine back, grabbing his jacket and keys, leaving a note for Rachel on the fridge, and running out of the apartment, doubling back when he remembers that he’d forgotten to both lock the door and shut off the lights.

Blaine is just outside the car, as usual, bundled up in a thick scarf, navy blue pea coat, and low-key jeans. When Kurt sees him he grins, forgetting all dignity and poise as he runs toward Blaine, flinging his arms around Blaine’s shoulders as he kisses him, Blaine’s lips soft and pliant and slightly damp under him. Blaine’s hands flail for a moment as he regains his composure, and then they go around Kurt’s waist.

Blaine’s eyes are still closed when Kurt pulls away, lips still slightly pursed, and it’s another moment before Blaine blinks, smiles, and Kurt thinks he could watch the crinkle of Blaine’s eyes, the little secret curve of one side of his mouth, all day. His hands tighten on Kurt’s back, and he sways them lightly side-to-side. “Well, hello, beautiful. I missed you, too.”

Kurt hides his smile in the soft cotton of Blaine’s scarf, and inhales deep, breathing in spice and floral. He wraps his arms a little tighter around Blaine’s neck, moves his head to press his lips to the soft skin just under Blaine’s jaw, and feels his stomach flutter pleasantly, his heart palpating like it’s been jumpstarted. “I’m hungry.”

The rumble of Blaine’s laugh echoes in his throat. “Let’s go, then.”

——

Knowing that Blaine has a lot of money and seeing it are two very different things, and Kurt isn’t proud of the way his jaw drops when the elevator finally stops at the very top floor—Blaine’s sprawling, floor-to-ceiling windowed penthouse. It’s like taking a step into a magazine: the floors are highly-polished dark cherry wood, a sprawling spiral staircase leads upstairs, the kitchen is modern stainless steel full of enviable, top-of-the-line appliances, and the living room hosts a full set of plush-looking white suede furniture and a huge flat screen TV mounted into the wall above a gas fireplace.

“Welcome home,” Blaine says, the door clicking shut behind him, and his voice carries, echoes. Kurt stands still, feels the drop of his jaw as he stares at the glittering New York skyline. “It’s a bit too modern for me,” he admits with a touch of embarrassment, “but I make it work. Personally, I like the bedroom the best.”

He walks past Kurt as he says this, throwing a wink over his shoulder, and Kurt inhales a gulp, wondering if it’s appropriate to stare shameless at Blaine’s ass as he hangs up his coat and scarf in a hall closet a few feet away. “It’s…nice,” he croaks out, shrugging off his coat and putting it in the closet with Blaine’s, and even the closet is huge and easily three times the size of his own back at home in Ohio.

“Roy went to pick up the pizza,” Blaine says as Kurt cranes his neck to look up at the recessed lighting and high ceilings. “Do you have a movie preference?”

Kurt snaps himself out of it, shaking his head and hugging his arms tight to his torso. He smiles, and suddenly he’s giddy again, his initial shock worn off. He bites his lip, steps forward onto the thick, plush, cream-colored rug in the center of the floor. “I’m not picky. To be honest, I’ve been too busy for the past few months to even really know what’s out in theatres.”

“Mm, well,” Blaine says, draws it out and opens his arms, and Kurt goes easily, letting himself be pressed close to Blaine’s chest, “lucky for you I’ve got Netflix.”

Kurt cups Blaine’s cheek, marvels at the feel of black-and-gray stubble under his palm, and looks into his eyes. They soften, searching, and they fall down for only a second before back up to meet Kurt’s. He can’t get over this easy intimacy, the way they can stand so close, and he leans in, brushing his lips against Blaine’s because he can, because it’s still new and Kurt gets the feeling that it’ll always feel this new.

“How lucky,” Kurt murmurs, and he’s so close he can count the individual freckles on Blaine’s nose. “How lucky that I can…do this.” And he kisses him, slow and languid like time has stopped just for them. Blaine laughs, Kurt can hear the huff of breath; feel the stretch of a smile. Kurt places his hand on the back of Blaine’s head, holding, pressing, as their lips slide and his body warms pleasantly, the faint fire of arousal throbbing low and still bearable just under the surface of his skin.

The pizza arrives ten minutes later, and they end up watching Pretty in Pink because Kurt’s never seen it, something, Blaine says, is a tragedy all in its own. Kurt doesn’t pay much attention as they curl up together and eat, paper plates with greasy, cheese-bubbling pizza on their laps. Kurt eyes the red sauce, then the white couch, and says, skeptically, “Do you think we should be eating here and not, you know, your awesome kitchen?”

Blaine carefully lifts a slice to his mouth, bites off a piece and shrugs. “You aren’t a messy eater, and I’m not a messy eater, so I think we’ll be okay.”

“But what if something happens?”

“Then we either flip the cushion or I get a new couch. Either way it’s win-win.”

Kurt fights back a smile, takes a bite and licks sauce off his thumb. He catches Blaine watching and lets his smile bloom, turning it into a mischievous smirk as he lifts a piece of mushroom off and eats it, carefully licking his fingers afterwards. “You’re such a boy.”

Blaine raises an eyebrow, wetting his lower lip. He looks from the TV, to Kurt, then to the half-eaten piece of pizza on Kurt’s place. “What, because I’m willing to flip a couch cushion if it gets dirty, or because I’m staring at my boyfriend as he licks his fingers?”

Kurt’s breath catches in his throat, and he shivers. He’s never seen that predatory look on Blaine’s face before, sultry and desiring, and he fights back the urge to whimper. “Maybe a little bit of both.”

Kurt just now notices how Blaine’s Ralph Lauren polo falls open at the throat, exposing the hollow, a faint hint of dark chest hair, and he aches to reach out, to touch and have and take. Blaine leans forward, sets his plate on the large glass coffee table, and Kurt follows suit. The TV plays in the background, but images of Molly Ringwald and Jon Cryer fade from Kurt’s mind.

“Tell me that again,” Kurt whispers as Blaine scoots closer. Blaine’s hand is on the back of his neck, then, firm and supporting, and he places his other on Kurt’s chest, shifting to one knee on the couch as he gently lowers Kurt down.

Kurt grabs Blaine’s hand as he rubs it lightly along his chest, and with a soft, cut-off voice Blaine murmurs, “Boyfriend.”

He says, in that same soft voice, “Is this okay?”

Kurt lifts up, propping himself up on his elbows as Blaine lowers himself on top of Kurt. “Yes.”

Kurt clutches at Blaine’s shoulders, pulling him down closer as he works Blaine’s lips open with his tongue, drawing back to nip, suck, before kissing him again, hard and deep and desperate. Blaine shifts on his knees, and Kurt spreads his legs, hooks one around Blaine’s thigh. Blaine’s stubble scratches his cheeks and he giggles, squirming at the tickle-then-burn, and he slides his hands down Blaine’s back, over the dips of his spine and stopping just above the waistband of his jeans, and he takes a moment to realize that this is the first time he’s had the heavy weight of another man pressing on him, pinning him down and grounding him.

He gasps when Blaine kisses down his cheek, then his neck, and he has to bite his lip to keep from moaning. He’s never had anyone kiss his neck before, and he hadn’t been prepared for how it would feel, like even the slightest press is hardwired to drive him crazy. Blaine’s tongue drags, hot and wet, and his teeth are sharp when he nips, and Kurt bites hard on his lip, whining and pressing hard to the back of Blaine’s head.

Blaine slides back with a drag, a hungry inhale of air, and he kisses Kurt deep and sound, pulling back just enough to murmur, “Don’t be quiet, baby. Let me hear you.”

And hearing the pet name, the husk to Blaine’s voice, the swollen red of his lips and the flush of his cheeks, is what brings Kurt back to reality. “Stop,” he gasps, an Blaine immediately pulls back, sits up, putting space between them as Kurt pulls himself into a sitting position, ignoring the uncomfortable ache between his legs as he gingerly situates himself.

“Did I go too fast?” Blaine asks anxiously, worrying his lower lip.

Kurt shakes his head, runs a hand through his hair and closes his eyes. He tips his head towards the ceiling, counts to ten and looks back down. Blaine’s brows are furrowed in worry, and his salt-and-pepper hair is in slight disarray from Kurt’s fingers. It makes Kurt smile, proud that Blaine looks disheveled because of him.

“You were fine,” Kurt assures, and he takes Blaine’s hands, smiles. “I just…we should talk before we get carried away. Not about sex,” he quickly adds when he sees Blaine open his mouth. “Not yet. Right now I kind of…I think I need to know more about you before me. You said you’d been engaged before, right?”

“It wasn’t serious,” Blaine replies dismissively, but Kurt knows better.

“You were engaged,” Kurt presses, and he makes sure to leave no room for argument in the tone of his voice. “That’s serious.”

Blaine sighs, retracts a hand to rub at the back of his neck, and suddenly he does look his age, forty and world-weary, and Kurt honestly doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone as handsome as Blaine. “I’d never been in love,” Blaine says simply. “We were serious, and I think I loved him to the point I even asked him to marry me, but it just wasn’t right. He didn’t make me feel. He didn’t make me want to come home, want to have someone else beside me in bed every night. He didn’t make me want to try, and that’s when I knew that maybe I wasn’t in love, maybe I was just trying so hard to find love that I was willing to make it up and settle. Jeremy was a great guy, and what I did to him was horrible.”

Kurt scoots closer, frowns, and is shocked to find tears misting in Blaine’s eyes when he lifts his head. “Hey,” Kurt murmurs, reaching out to cup Blaine’s cheek. “He doesn’t blame you, does he?”

Blaine shakes his head. He offers Kurt a wan smile, and asks, “Have you ever been in love?”

It’s a moment before Kurt shakes his head, but he does, and then Blaine’s gentle fingers touch his wrist and he’s turning his head, placing a kiss to the tender underside, and Kurt shivers, body crackling and sparking like he’s just been flipped on.

Kurt wants to kiss Blaine so badly, then, wants to make him forget every bit of pain he’s ever felt, and he does, hopes that the gentle press of lips conveys what Kurt isn’t sure his muddled brain could come up with the words to say. But Blaine looks grateful when he pulls away, and they settle against the back of the couch, pizza forgotten as Kurt holds Blaine close and counts his breaths. He’s never had anyone to hold while watching a movie before.

——

A few days later another package arrives for Kurt at work, courtesy of Kenny. His name is written in Blaine’s slanted handwriting, and the mailing envelope is small and light. Kurt shoos Kenny away, practically shoving him out of the office, and only once he knows he’s safe from Kenny’s prying eyes does he open the package.

There isn’t a note, just a small, tissue-paper wrapped object. Kurt lifts it up, notices the diaphanous quality of the paper, the small, sooth edge of something metal under his finger. He tears it carefully, unwrapping the paper slowly with soft, rustling noises until, finally, a wooden pin of a fox falls to his desk.

Kurt doesn’t need a note, because, despite a throwaway text with an offhand comment, Blaine had remembered the pin that Kurt had liked, hadn’t even needed to ask what it looked like to get it. He knows he should yell at Blaine—he didn’t really need the pin, and it was close to two hundred dollars—but he also remembers the promise to himself to not complain, to just go with it and be happy for once.

Like Blaine had planned it, the pin goes perfectly with the camel-colored sweater and light gray scarf Kurt’s wearing today, and he pins it easily to his scarf, tilting it up to look at the blue eyes of the fox, the white enamel of his tail and underbelly markings. When Isabelle comes by, she stops, stares, and Kurt knows she recognizes it. She doesn’t say anything, though, and only gives him a small smile that tells Kurt she knows that something is up.

Kurt bites the inside of his cheek as he gets back to typing more memos.

——

“Finn called last night. He asked how you were doing.”

The words wake Kurt up faster than the meagerly strong coffee in front of him, and he snaps his head up, looking at Rachel with rounded, alarmed eyes. “He what?”

Rachel leans against the counter, her own mug of green tea in her hands. “Yeah, while you and Blaine were out. He wanted to tell me how coaching the New Directions was going and we started talking about New York. And then he asked if you were there. Said something about how you haven’t called home in a few months.”

Kurt’s mouth feels dry. Rachel has a problem keeping things to herself, and at the moment she’s the only one who knows about Kurt and Blaine’s relationship. He hasn’t called home because he knows his dad will ask if he’s seeing anyone, and the last thing Kurt wants to do is lie. He’d wanted to hold off, maybe try to find a way to gently break the news to him and Finn and Carole. It’s still too much, too new and unstable, to go around announcing it.

“What did you say?” Kurt finally asks, swallowing past the lump in his throat. He pushes his mug away, runs his hands through his hair. His heart pounds hard, and Rachel’s initial silence tells him everything he’s already been dreading. “What did you do? Rachel, what did you do?”

“I—I told him you were seeing someone,” Rachel replies, sounding shocked. “I thought you had already told everyone.”

“No!” Kurt gets up and starts pacing the floor. His stomach knots, roils, and he has to take deep breaths to calm himself down. “I wanted to wait. Just because you approve of me dating Blaine doesn’t mean that my family will.”

“But he’s a nice guy—”

“Who is twenty years older than me! How do you think that looks to other people?” Kurt’s voice gets shrill, panicked. “You’ve met him and my dad hasn’t. I just—I wanted to wait for the right time, and then you had to go and fuck it up, Rachel. Why can’t you ever mind your own goddamn business?”

Rachel stares, slack-jawed, and Kurt doesn’t care, doesn’t even give her a second glance. He’s being harsh, he’s aware of that, but sometimes Rachel doesn’t think, and though she may have good intentions she oversteps more often than not, and now is one of those times when he wishes that she’d just ask before acting.

His phone has been on silent since he got home last night, and he hasn’t checked it yet, wanting to at least get some coffee in him before reading any texts he might have from work or from Blaine. Now he dreads walking toward his bedroom, afraid of what he’s going to find when he gets there.

The floorboards creak behind him, and his anger swells anew as he sets his jaw and turns around. Rachel is standing there, looking upset and nervous. “Do you think your dad called?” she asks in a quiet, timid voice. She wrings her hands together, shuffles on slippered feet. Kurt almost wants to hug her and apologize for yelling, but not now.

“I don’t know,” he says, slow and measured. “But I think I’d kind of like it if you left me alone right now, Rachel.”

She’s out of the apartment in ten minutes, mumbling something about grocery shopping. Kurt notices after she’s gone that she left the list pinned to the fridge and left her wallet on the kitchen tale. He doesn’t text her.

He hovers above his phone, staring at it before picking it up, afraid to unlock the screen and see what messages he has from Finn, from his dad, from Carole. From Blaine. His throat closes up at the thought of Blaine and their date last night where Blaine had taken him ice skating at Bryant Park. He remembers, with fondness and that same warm feeling in his chest, how he’d tripped and nearly fallen, but Blaine had caught him and nearly fell over himself. He’d kissed Kurt, then, too, dipped him low while their cold-numbed noses brushed and their wind-chapped lips stayed pressed together until Kurt had had to pull away to gasp for air. He remembers the gleam of Blaine’s eyes in the light, the slight smattering of five o’clock shadow on his cheeks and jaw, the flattering lines in his face.

In his hand his phone rings. Kurt stares at it like he’s in a dream, letting it buzz and over and over, his dad’s name at the top of the screen, before he finally answers it. “…Hi, Dad.”

Burt’s voice is unapologetically explosive when he answers. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Dad, calm down, please,” Kurt begs. His palms prickle with sweat, and his voice begins to edge into hysteria. This is not how he’d wanted it to go, how he’d wanted his first phone conversation with his dad in months to begin. “Your heart—”

“I don’t give a damn about my heart, Kurt. What I do give a damn about, however, is finding out that my son is dating someone twice his age after not hearing from him in over two months. And from Rachel of all people!”

“Dad, Blaine’s a really good guy.” Kurt feels the sting of tears prick at his eyelids, and he grips his phone tighter, starts pacing the floor. “He really likes me, and I really like him. He makes me feel special, like I’m the only person who exists in the world when we’re together. No one’s ever made me feel like he has, Dad.”

“It’s sick!” The words come as a slap to Kurt’s face, and he feels his jaw drop, feels the warm-wet heat of tears slide down his face as his chin wobbles and his lower lip trembles. Those were the words he’d been so afraid to hear all those years ago before he’d come out, and he’d never thought that, after his father had accepted him, he’d ever have to hear those words directed at him in any way. “This guy is a forty-year-old creep, and I refuse to let you keep seeing him. Kurt, you’re not even twenty yet, you have no idea what people can do—”

“I love him!” It comes out as a tear-thick shout, wobbly and unsteady and cracking in the middle, and the moment that Kurt says it on the fly he knows that it’s the truth, knows that what he’d been feeling, bubbling quietly under the surface like magma waiting for the volcano to finally erupt, has been love this whole time, possibly from the moment he’d bumped into Blaine at Louis Vuitton. He’s in love with Blaine.

There’s a dense pause, silence, then a heavy sigh. Burt sounds resigned when he speaks again, and it’s softer, quieter, though some of the acid is still there. “Does he know?”

Kurt falls to the couch, rubs his hand over his face. “I haven’t told him yet. I—I wanted to be sure before I did. We’ve only been on five dates”—and have made out in his ridiculously expensive penthouse more times than I can count—“and I don’t want to ruin anything. I don’t want to lose him.” He says that on a whisper, a breath.

The speakers crackle for a moment before Burt speaks again. “I still don’t approve of this, Kurt. What if he’s just using you, luring you in? You’re in New York now; there has to be other available guys out there.”

Kurt shakes his head. “No. I don’t want anyone else. Blaine is…he could be it, Dad. He could be the one for me. I know that it’s unconventional, and I know there will be problems, but I feel like I’m kind of already prepared for that since I’ll always have problems because I’m gay.”

Burt’s chuckle is slightly reluctant, and Kurt suddenly feels inexplicably weary, bone-deep exhausted, for no reason, like a weight he’s been holding up has finally been lifted and he’s feeling the strain for the first time. “I just want you to remember that when you’re thirty, Kurt, he’ll be fifty. And when you’re fifty, he’ll be seventy.”

“I know, Dad.”

“And you’re prepared to take on responsibilities if this thing gets serious?”

Kurt smiles to himself, rubbing at the heavy cotton of his sweats. “I’d do anything for Blaine.”

Burt sighs, and Kurt can imagine him taking off his baseball cap to rub his head. “You really are your mother’s son, Kurt,” he says softly, and Kurt breathes in sharp, blinking at the sudden sting of tears. “She always knew what she wanted, and she’d do whatever she could to get it.”

Kurt doesn’t say anything in reply for a moment, mulling over words in his head, and he hesitates slightly before finally saying, “I really want you to meet him.”

“I know I should rip this guy a new one for even thinking that it was okay to put his hands on you in the first place,” Burt begins, “but I haven’t heard you this excited since you got that internship deal.”

“So you’ll meet him?”

“I can’t be held responsible for anything that happens when I do, but…yes. Carole, too, though she’s a little more positive about it than I am.”

Kurt only just resists the urge to squeal. “Blaine will be so excited.”

Kurt thinks he can hear Burt mumble something like “should be nervous” under his breath, but he ignores it. It’s not going to be easy, but Blaine’s a charming man, and a businessman at that, and Kurt knows his father will come around sooner or later—though he’s hoping sooner. He pushes his phone closer to his ear, says, “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you, too, kiddo. Promise me you’ll be safe, all right?”

“I promise.”

“And tell his Blaine kid that he’d better be a goddamn gentlemanly saint when I meet him.”

Kurt laughs, feels homesick fondness for his dad. “He’s a regular Humphrey Bogart, charming lines and all.”

It isn’t until they hang up, Kurt sprawls across the couch to stare at the ceiling, that he has to somehow tell Blaine how he really feels. Though he rationally knows that he should have nothing to worry about, there’s still that never-quite-dormant feeling of fearful inadequacy lurking.

“I love him,” he says out loud, letting his voice carry and echo. His fingers drum on his chest, and every time he says those three little words, it gets more and more real. “I love Blaine Anderson.”