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“This is a bar.”
“A karaoke bar,” Rachel said, heels clicking against the sidewalk.
Kurt pulled her to a stop with a hand hooked around her elbow. “Rachel, I just want to go home and eat the entire cheesecake I may or may not have bought this morning.”
“I heard some of the other NYADA students talking about this place,” she said patiently. “You need to make more friends! Blaine’s going to have everyone back in Lima to take care of him. This is me, taking care of you."
With much more strength than Kurt remembered her having, Rachel gripped his hand and pulled him across the street to 'Callbacks’.
"We’re not even old enough to drink,” he reminded her, shucking his coat as a woman wailed off-key on the small stage. “Who let her on stage?”
It didn’t take long for Rachel to lose herself in Brody’s attention, flicking her hair over her shoulder and laughing too loud. Kurt wasn’t jealous; while Rachel had had months to get over the shock of Finn ending their engagement, she was still angry enough at him to move on swiftly, if only for the sole purpose of being spiteful.
Kurt pushed himself towards the bar, wincing as an elbow caught him in the side. “Excuse me?”
The bartender disappeared down the other end of the bar. He tried fruitlessly to wave her down. “Hello?”
“Two rum and cokes, please."
Kurt startled as someone spoke behind him, holding a hand just over his shoulder. He turned, eyes catching on blond hair, blue eyes and a broad grin.
The man held out his hand. "You’ve got to be firm with them,” he said, his voice rich and deep. Kurt really hadn’t known that accents were a thing for him. “I’m Adam by the way.”
“Kurt.” He took Adam’s hand, flushing at the way his skin felt electric from the simple touch of this guy’s fingertips against the inside of his wrist.
The arrival of their drinks was a fortunate reprieve.
“For you,” Adam said, nudging the other glass towards him. Kurt knew better than to take a drink from a stranger but this one had come straight from the bartender.
“You’re buying me illegal alcohol? You don’t even know me.”
Adam sipped his drink and pulling an exaggerated look of contemplation. “I know your name is Kurt, you’re not above the age of twenty and when I saw you across the bar you took my breath away.”
“I-oh.” Kurt took a large gulp of his drink, wincing at the watery chill of the coke and the afterburn of rum.
Adam leaned in close, mouth quirked with a half-smirk. “Too much?”
“Bad break-up,” Kurt replied, lifting one shoulder in a self-conscious shrug. “And yes, a little much but I’m sure you’re regretting buying me that drink right about now.”
Adam smiled. “I’ll be the judge of that.”
–
The second time Kurt met Adam at Callbacks, he asked him to dance.
“Oh. No. No no.” Kurt shook his head. “No, thank you.”
“I’m thrilled that you’re being so polite about it, but you’re still turning me down.”
Kurt looked around the bar with a grimace. “It’s really…bright here. I’d rather just listen to Melanie Walsh dutifully massacre another rendition of 'Proud Mary’.”
A bemused expression briefly crossed Adam’s face before he hooked a chair by his ankle and pulled it up close to Kurt.
“So tell me, why’d you come to New York City?”
–
Run-ins three through six involved shots and a half-sloshed version of twenty questions.
Kurt discovered Adam hadn’t gotten into NYADA on his first try either- and shared his quiet outrage that Rachel had been granted a second chance audition.
In return, he told Adam about New Directions- how long it had taken them to get to Nationals and the romantic politics that had nearly torn the glee club apart.
The seventh time, they’re both leaning against each other, still shaking from laughter. Brody was celebrating landing a dancing gig and everyone was pleasantly getting buzzed. Kurt paused, the laughter fading from his smile. “I forgave him. Everyone said I needed closure and that it would make me feel better but I don’t. I just feel like I gave in.”
Adm pressed his shoulder firmly against Kurt’s, grounding and sympathetic. “You don’t feel even a little bit better?”
“Before, I was angry. Sad. Disappointed. Heart-broken. Now I can’t be any of that because I said it was okay. Now I’m just hollow.”
Adam smacked a kiss on his cheek, startling Kurt out of his gloomy thoughts.
“Now, you’re drunk. Possibly enough for you to venture out onto the dance floor?”
Kurt squinted down into his drink. “Ask me again next time.”
–
The eighth time was in celebration.
“I got in!” Kurt said, waving his letter frantically through the air. He stopped after a moment, smoothing out the wrinkles from his clenched fingers.
Adam handed him his drink. 'I’m not surprised- your audition was mesmerizing.“
Kurt stared at him. "You saw it?”
Adam took the letter from his hand, folding it along the seams before he tucked it neatly into the front of Kurt’s vest. “Why did you choose that song?”
There were a lot of answers to that question, answers like ’it’s a classic’ or 'I wanted to show off my lower register this time’. There were also answers that dug a little deeper and showed a little more of Kurt than he was comfortable with.
Answers like 'I just want someone to trust me to not let them down’ and 'you forced me to care again because you never tried to tell me I had to be okay’.
“Dance with me.” Kurt said, low and breathy.
Adam silently put their drinks aside and pulled him into the dimmest corner of the dancer floor.
Kurt gave him an experimental shimmy. Adam pulled him close instead, laughing as he kept his arm wrapped tight around Kurt’s waist.
“This is hardly a dance.”
“Did you really think a dance was all I was asking for? All this time?”
The beat of the music quickened, the dance floored crowded as Kurt slipped his arm up around Adam’s neck, sly intent in the swing of his hips.
Adam slipped his hands down low, fingertips gripping at the crease of his thigh, the bend of his hip. “You’ve been holding back on me.”
“Had to keep you interested somehow.”
“Yeah, just smile at me.”
The air was hot between them as the song drew to a close. Adam’s palms were twin points of heat against his hips, Kurt felt hyper aware of every twitch of those fingers, of the building ache in his belly.
Adam’s cheek pressed against his. “I’ll dance with you until they throw us out. If you want me, if you want more, you have it. If you want me to back off, I will. All you need do is say.”
Kurt closed his eyes, heart pounding and body throbbing. He felt alive, he felt powerful and triumphant. He felt wanted and wooed and wanting.
It wanted to keep this moment, make it last.
“I sang that song about you,” he said, over the beat of the music. “Mostly for myself but you were a part of that. Of course I want you.”
Adam pulled him in, kissed him quick and firm before leading them both out of the bar and into the city street.
–