It was Saturday, September 24 and Blaine was desperate for coffee. He hadn’t gone shopping in about a week, and he had run out of the tasty brewed beverage the morning before. If he didn’t get some within the next two hours, he was most certainly going to go into withdrawals, so he grabbed his keys off the hook next to his front door, and he left his apartment. He knew where he was going: The Lima Bean, the only good coffee shop in Lima. Sure there were Starbucks around, but they didn’t have the same feel, or the same price as the Lima Bean, so he usually refused to go to one unless absolutely necessary. Luckily for him the closest Starbucks was a mile farther than the Lima Bean, so he didn’t usually worry about it.

As he pulled into the parking lot of the coffee shop, he noticed one thing: it was packed. There were absolutely no parking spaces anywhere. He couldn’t find a single one, even driving around it for 10 minutes. Sighing, he left and parked a couple of blocks away and started to walk. When he got inside, there was a line of about 5 people waiting to get their orders, and luckily no one who hadn’t ordered yet. He gave his order to the barista (“I’ll have a medium drip?”) and looked around. There were no seats available. Every table was filled with college students or old couples enjoying their day. He groaned, just what he needed.

He had just decided to grab his coffee and go back home, when he saw a person who was engrossed in a book sitting at a table for two. Blaine smiled. This was the first time he had seen Kurt off school grounds, and he wanted to make the most of it. When his coffee was ready, he picked it up and quietly sat down across from Kurt who was engrossed in a book. Blaine looked curiously at the cover and saw that it was a play: Romeo and Juliet. Blaine hadn’t assigned that one for class yet, as they had just finished up a test the day before. He wanted to give them the weekend off, but apparently Kurt didn’t care to and was going ahead with the reading un-coerced.

It was the first day of Blaine’s freshman year of college at NYU. He was ecstatic. He was so ready to start anew and leave Dalton behind. Leave all the pain and all the hurt that plagued him for the past year and a half. Life after junior year had been horrible, especially since Jeremiah had just upped and left the school for another position somewhere else. No one knew where. No one knew why. Blaine had his suspicions, but was able to get nothing confirmed. After the breakup, Blaine’s grades started to drop dramatically; in AP Psych anyway. He was always skipping, and sitting in the back of the room, so far from Jeremiah when he absolutely had to be in the classroom. He skipped so much that when he took the AP test that May, he ended up getting a 1, which as anyone who has ever taken an AP test knows, is not a good grade.

This is why he was currently sitting in freshman psych. He learned from last time, not to sit in the front of the classroom, especially not knowing who the instructor was going to be, so he sat somewhere in the middle. The instructor hadn’t been announced during Registration, and even this morning when he went on the school’s website to see, it still said TBA. He was hoping it was going to be a female teacher. Someone he could talk to about psychology and not get caught up in another romance like he did… the last time he dealt with psychology.

He overheard some of his fellow classmates talking about the instructor. Apparently they know who it was.

“He has the most gorgeous hazel eyes; I’ve never seen anyone with such beautiful eyes.”

“Forget the eyes, have you see his hair? It’s a mop of wavy red hair that on any other person would look horrible, but he makes it work.” The two girls were gushing over him, and Blaine takes a deep breath. So apparently their teacher was a guy. Okay he could handle that.

“Excuse me?” He said, interrupting the two girls, they looked back at him, one of them smiled up at him. “You know who is teaching this class?” They both nod.

“Yea his name is… Well that’s him.” She points to the front of the class and Blaine’s worst nightmare has come true.

Kurt kept on reading for the next 10 minutes, not realizing that his teacher, and potential boyfriend was sitting in front of him, smirking the entire time. Once he paused to grab a sip of his coffee, he noticed a head of dark hair out of the corner of his eye. “What are you doing here? What if someone sees?” He whispers harshly, looking around and becoming increasingly worried with every passing second.

“Relax, Kurt. Look around, every other table is occupied. Besides if anyone asks we can just say we’re discussing Romeo and Juliet.” Blaine placates the younger man. Kurt just rolls his eyes, unable to figure out how anyone wouldn’t be able to see through that ruse.

“You really want to discuss class right now?” Kurt raised his eyebrow, which made Blaine chuckle.

“Not particularly, but if anyone were to ask, then we wouldn’t be lying.” Blaine pointed out, which Kurt had to give him credit for, so they discussed the play for a few minutes. Blaine finding out that Kurt had read the play 3 years ago for fun, and was just rereading it now to refresh his memory of it for class; even though Blaine had yet to assign it. Blaine mentioned that he had actually planned on giving it out on Monday which Kurt thought was ironic, but they shrugged it off. They continued talking about it for a little while; mostly about which characters they liked and why. Kurt preferred Juliet, though immature, she knew what she wanted. She knew she didn’t want to marry Paris, and even though she explained it away as not wanting to marry period, really it was her disdain for Paris that caused her dissention. Blaine preferred Romeo, the brave and quick witted man who showed no fear in his attempt to woo the young maiden. The irony of their situations was missed by neither of them.

It was now rounding out 2 o’clock and they had been sitting there talking for over 45 minutes so far. It was the first time they hadn’t had the reminder of their social inequalities forced in their face. Kurt didn’t have to remind himself that he couldn’t speak his mind while at school, and Blaine never once had to remind himself that the man sitting in front of him was 13 years his junior. Well, soon to only be 12 really, which Kurt reminded him.

“So, it’s only 3 days till my birthday.” Blaine nods, because the date has been engrained in his head, and he’s held a mental count down for the past two weeks.

“I know.”

“And you were serious about having to wait until my actual birthday?” Kurt asked in a hushed whisper. Blaine hangs his head and inhales deeply. How is he supposed to tell Kurt the real reason he insisted on the waiting period? How was he supposed to get Kurt to understand?

“Oh God no.” Blaine whispers. Both girls look at him strangely before turning around to pay attention to their instructor: Jeremiah Walton. Blaine couldn’t believe what was happening to him. The man that broke his heart—no, he didn’t just break Blaine’s heart, he ripped it out of his chest and used it for skeet shooting, was standing right in front of the room with a classroom full of eyes trained on his every move.

“Welcome to Psych 101.” He says to everyone, and they all take out notebooks to get ready for class. “I’m going to take roll, and then we’ll begin.”

Blaine’s name would be near the top of the list, if not right at the top. This wasn’t good. Blaine’s named was third down on the list. After Jeremiah checked off Mary Albano as being present, he stopped for a moment and asked for “Blaine Anderson?”

Blaine steadied himself and tried to say “here” without any cracks to his voice. It didn’t work.

This was the worst thing that could possibly have happened to him right now. Teaching his class once again, was the man who saw him at his most vulnerable. The man who made him so vulnerable. The man who used him for both business and pleasure at the same time with no regard to Blaine’s emotional wellbeing. Blaine gulped as Jeremiah went on to the rest of the students on the roll.

What was Blaine to do? He couldn’t just run out of the classroom. He didn’t want to make a scene. He couldn’t just sit there and pay attention to Jeremiah’s lecture, could he? Was it physically possible for him to sit there and listen to Jeremiah lecture for 90 minutes, without bursting into tears, or throwing up? Even though it had been over a year and a half since…it still affected Blaine horribly. He couldn’t think about Jeremiah without tearing up. He couldn’t go more than a couple of days without thinking about him at all, and even those gaps were few and far between.

So he sits there. He does nothing. He stares off into space, and does his best to drown Jeremiah out, intent on dropping this class the moment he was able to leave because there was no way he could last an entire semester this way.

“Kurt…”

“Blaine…” He bit his lip, because hearing his name from Kurt’s lips was like magic to his ears, it almost broke all of his self control and he wanted to just throw all of his preconceived notions of how their relationship would go out the window.

“Waiting until your birthday wasn’t just something I insisted on for my benefit, Kurt.” He whispered, not wanting anyone to overhear. Kurt looked at him curiously, unsure of what Blaine meant by that.

“And that means what, exactly?”

“I wanted to make sure you had time to think things through, to make sure that getting into a relationship with me is really what you want. Trust me, getting into a relationship with someone so much older isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, I know.”

“Are you trying to discourage me, or yourself?” Kurt asked, grabbing the book off the table, and picking up his coffee before standing up.

“I’m trying to do the right thing here, Kurt. I don’t want you to regret anything.” Kurt shook his head, unable to believe what he’s hearing.

“Blaine, I’m 18 years old,” he ignored the part about where he wasn’t 18 for another three days. “… and I may be young, but I know what I want. Do you?” With that he walked out of the coffee shop, calmly, but still bitter about Blaine’s insistence that they shouldn’t do what they were both desperate for.

Blaine was left sitting there to think about just what it was he wanted. He liked Kurt, he really did. But was he willing to go through another relationship as rocky and unstable as the one he went through in high school? Because that’s exactly how this one would be. It would be horrible for both of them if anyone found out about it, and even if no one found out about it, it would still make one of them, if not both miserable when it ultimately came time for it to end.

When he gets back to his dorm later that night, Wes is there, waiting for them to go to the dining hall, since it was almost 6 and they were both still boys, always hungry. But when Blaine entered the room, Wes noticed something was wrong. Blaine was pale white.

“Dude, what’s wrong?”

“Umm, I just saw the last person on earth that I would ever want to see.”

“Jessica Simpson?” Wes asked sardonically, but Blaine shook his head.

“No, Jeremiah.” He gulped, Wes looked at him questionably. Having never referred to his teacher by his first name, it took a minute but he went wide eyed.

“What do you mean? Where?”

Blaine collapsed on his bed. “He teaches here, at NYU. Oddly enough, my Psych 101 course that I just got finished dropping.” Blaine pulled his pillow over his face not knowing what the hell was going on with his life.

“This isn’t right. He shouldn’t be teaching.”

“No one knows what’s going on, Wes. No one knows what happened, so why the hell wouldn’t he be able to teach?” Blaine pulls the pillow so that it covers his mouth and he screams. “This is unbelievable.”

“Well at least you won’t have to deal with him this semester.” Blaine sits up and nods.

“That’s a relief at least. Doesn’t mean I won’t see him on campus, or around the city or…” Blaine was starting to get choked up and Wes got up and sat down on Blaine’s bed beside him and put an arm around his best friend who was quickly getting too worked up.

“It’s going to be okay Blaine. He can’t do anything to you anymore.”

When Blaine got back to his apartment, the door was unlocked. It alarmed Blaine a tiny bit, but not as much as it would others. His friends Wes and David frequently came by to ‘see’ him, when really it was to check in on him and see how he was doing. They would use a spare key that he kept in his mailbox. He opened the door and saw Wes sitting at the kitchen table, with the kitchen counter’s TV on. Blaine breathed a sigh of relief. “Wes, how many times have I told you, if you’re going to break into my apartment, at least lock it up when you close the door, that way when I come home before you leave, I don’t think I’ve been robbed.” Wes just rolled his eyes and got up to greet his friend.

“Hello Blaine.”

“What are you doing here, Wes?” Blaine asked, as he sat down in the seat opposite the one Wes had been sitting in.

“I’m worried about you Blaine, David is too. All you ever do is work and spend your nights at home alone. You need to go out and meet people Blaine.” Blaine sighed. Wes was early this month. At the beginning of every month Wes or David would come over and try to entice Blaine to go out to a bar with them to try and meet someone. They’ve even tried dragging him to the local gay bars in Lima, but it never worked. Blaine hated going to them as much as he hated being told he needed to date.

“Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine. I wasn’t sitting around my apartment today, was I?” He tried to prove to his buddy that he didn’t need to make new friends, or date but it was a lame attempt, they both knew it.

“It’s only 4 o’clock! What would you do if I didn’t come over?” Blaine thought about it for a moment, and shrugged.

“I don’t know. Read, watch a little TV. Cook dinner, all normal things, Wes.”

“All normal things for a 60 year old confirmed bachelor.” Blaine groaned.

“I’m fine, Wes.” He said a little more forcefully, but Wes didn’t back down.

“No, you’re really not. You need to go out and meet someone. You haven’t seriously dated since Jer—“

“Don’t say his name, in my home.” Blaine warns Wes, who shrugs.

“Well I was going to say Jerkface, but okay.” This made the tips of Blaine’s lips turn just slightly upwards. “I’m worried about you, man.”

“I’m fine, seriously. I have no desire to go out and bump and grind up against men I’ve never met before in my life, only to realize that all they want is a quick fuck in the bathroom and then I’ll never see them again. I’m fine doing what I’ve always done.”

“So you enjoy being alone?” Blaine almost growled out his frustration because he was really starting to get angry with this conversation.

“I’m not alone. Besides... I have sort of met someone.” Blaine was surprised when he said this, because he wasn’t planning on telling Wes, or really anyone about what was going on between him and Kurt.

“Really? Is he human?” Wes quipped which Blaine laughed at. It was nice to laugh.

“Of course he’s human. We’re just taking things slow. Neither of us wants to rush into anything.” Wes was grinning from ear to ear. He was so ecstatic for his best friend, because he had watched Blaine go through depression after depression between high school and college, then dropping out of college and starting up again. It took forever for Blaine to finally get back on track, and he loved that Blaine had found someone.

“Where’d you meet him? At work?” Wes raised an eyebrow. “Got an office romance going on?” Blaine couldn’t help but laugh at the idea of dating one of his colleagues; but then again dating a student is even worse of an idea even though that’s what this really as about.

“You could say that.”

“This is great Blaine! When can I meet him?” Wes asks, and Blaine shakes his head vehemently. He has no clue if and when Wes will ever meet Kurt. It certainly won’t be for the next 9 months, because the last thing he needs is for Wes to find out that he’s dating a student.

But he’s not dating a student, not yet anyway, and that’s when it hits him. He might have been trying to push Kurt away from him, trying to make Kurt see the dangers in a relationship between them, but it was foolish. Kurt wanted him, and there was no denying it. Blaine wanted him as well. The realization made him smile.

“When I’m sure the relationship is going to work. I don’t want you scaring him away.” Blaine says, still smiling.

It was Monday and Blaine’s AP English Literature class had just begun. Once they are all in their seats, he walks to the back of the room, and picks up the books he has stacked there. “For the next week, we will be reading Romeo and Juliet. I want you all to open to Act I, scene i, and we can begin.” When Kurt gets his book he opens up to the page indicated and when he does, a folded up piece of paper falls out. He looks at it, before opening it up and reading it.

I know what I want. 453-378-5371

He smiles to himself, and looks down at his book when Quinn looks over at him and asks “What have you got there, Kurt?”

Kurt just looks at her and shrugs. “Just a piece of paper left in the book from last year.” She accepts that answer, but Kurt sneaks a quick look at Blaine who winks at him, before refolding the paper up and slipping it into his pocket.