CHAPTER 1

So nice to see your face again

Tell me how long has it been

 Since you've been here

There are days when I hate my job more than usual. Today is one of these days. Working with VIP customers may be profitable, but god, they can be such a pain in the ass sometimes, treating you like they own you just because of the numbers on their accounts. Add to it a boss who denies you leave for that particular week when there’s a festival you’ve been waiting for all year. Mix in the busty blonde from Business Accounts who refuses to believe you’re not interested and almost throws herself at you in her ridiculously low-cut top, whispering throatily that she has everything you need. Sure, you could ask her if she has a dick – but I happen to like my privacy. After all that, long hours of overtime just because your coworker’s poodle went into labor may just be the last straw. Thank god it’s Friday.

I hate my job. I hate it all the time, today it’s just particularly bad. I keep dreaming I will leave it one day and never come back, and I will. One beautiful day when I’ll be able to earn more than tips with my music. Or when I turn thirty, in five years, and my trust fund finally unlocks fully. Until then, I have to stick with banking.

Why do I do this if I hate it so much? Well, it’s the most logical thing to do when you have a degree in Finance. Minors in Music and Performance Arts don’t change much, even if you love music more than anything. You say I could’ve majored in it then? Not if I wanted my parents to support me at all. So now I have my own apartment in New York – a graduation gift, with no student loans and a small sum of money from the trust fund every month. Enough to live without counting every penny, but too little to leave the stable job. And here I am, financially comfortable, but completely unhappy with where I am in life otherwise. Music is my only savior. I play and sing, I write songs. There’s always something playing in the background at home. I attend more concerts, Broadway and off-Broadway shows than anyone considers normal. Sometimes I play and sing in cafes. These are my happy moments. You could say I live for these.

It’s almost nine when I turn into my quiet street tonight, leaving fresh footprints in the snow. On any other day snowflakes dancing in warm yellow light of the old-fashioned streetlights would probably make me smile, but not today. I’m cold, tired and hungry.

There’s someone sitting on the snow-covered steps leading to my building, hunched over against the cold. Probably just another homeless soul, a reminder that my life isn’t that bad after all. Judging by the amount of snow on his black coat, he must have sat here for hours. He must be freezing, poor guy. I’m just a few feet from him, ready to call out, get his attention, wake him up if necessary, to tell him of a shelter two blocks from here and maybe give him a twenty, when I stop, my eyes on a huge suitcase standing by his feet. I know this suitcase. I was there when it was bought, before going off for college. Then I saw it a week later, already decorated with silly little fashion-related doodles all over the top edge, to make it stick out in the airport. There’s no other like this, it’s absolutely unique. And it belongs to my best friend. Or maybe ex-best friend? Can best friends ever really become ex? Wouldn’t it counter their status as best friends? Not that I would really consider him ex-friend, no matter what. If anything, it’s him who might think that of me – he kicked me out of his life over two years ago, saying he didn’t want to see me ever again.

Kurt Hummel. I’ve known him since junior year of high school. We bonded over music and the joys of gay life in small-town Ohio. I tried to be a kind of mentor to him for a while, a gay Yoda as he called it jokingly years later, but when I realized he didn’t really need this, I gave it up and we became friends instead. We went to the same school for a while, and when he transferred back, we were already important enough for each other to stay in close contact anyway. When it turned out a year later that we were both admitted to NYU, it was a dream come true. We managed to get a dorm together and for the next three years we were virtually joined at the hip. Well, apart from classes – he majored in Arts and Fashion, being a real prodigy in fashion design. But other than that, we were always together – either in our room or out meeting other people, shopping, attending concerts and plays. We were constantly singing, solo or in a duet. We understood each other without words. People always asked if we were a couple and didn’t believe us when we said we weren’t. We were each other’s everything. Except lovers. Never that.

We were perfect together. Those were the happiest years of my life.

And then Kurt met him. Marcus. A slick, slimy fashion designer who insinuated himself into his life and ruined everything. Kurt fell for him, head over heels. I’ve never seen anyone fall so fast and so hard. I hadn’t understood the term madly in love before I saw this. Within a month Kurt moved in with this guy, into his penthouse apartment. Within two he left the internship that he got in one of the big fashion houses as the most promising fashion student of his year, and started to learn in practice, at his boyfriend’s company. Two weeks later he quit college to be able to travel to fashion capitols with Marcus and spend more time at the company. He never finished his last year. I hated that. I hated Marcus with all my heart. I tried not to show it too much, seeing how in love Kurt was, but sometimes I slipped. After one of those times, two years later, Kurt said it was enough, he didn’t want me in his life anymore. So I went. I was the last one of all his friends and family that still stuck by him then – he’d driven them away one by one since his move. I don’t know what happened to him – to them – after that, and there was no one left that I could ask. I tried keeping in touch anyway, calling every now and then, sending texts or emails, just to remind him I’m here if he wanted to stay friends after all. But apparently he didn’t, because he never answered.

And now here he is. Sitting on my doorstep, in the snow, with his huge suitcase.

I drop to my knees in front of him, bag forgotten on the ground, and touch his shoulders.

“Kurt!” Please be okay, please be okay…

He jumps as if electrocuted, lifts his head from where it lies on his knees. The light of the lamp overhead hits his eyes, that ever changing stormy sea of green-blue-grey that I’ve always loved, and he whispers, “Blaine. You’re here.”

Relief cascades through me, whooshing down from my chest.

“What are you doing here? How long have you been sitting on these steps? It’s freezing, for god’s sake, why didn’t you call?”

“I came here around six. I didn’t even know if you still live here, there was no one home. I would have called, but I don’t have my phone and I don’t know your number by heart. I just hoped you would appear or I don’t know what I’d do…”

“But what happened?” I don’t understand, he should be home, somewhere warm, somewhere safe.

“I need a place to sleep, just for two, three nights. I know that you have every right to say no after what I did, but I hoped… You are the only one who could still help me.”

“Kurt, of course, stay however long you want to, but what’s wrong? What about Marcus?”

“He’s moving to Paris. He kicked me out. Said he didn’t want me anymore.”

I embrace my best friend, there in the snow, hug him tight. Then I get up, grab my bag and his suitcase.

“Come in. You must be frozen stiff. I’ll run you a bath.”