“Bethany, get down from there!”

“Make me!”

Blaine Anderson silently curses his baby sister. He certainly doesn’t remember being so bratty when he was her age. She’s only eight years old and already she’s proving to be a bigger pain in the ass than he ever was. Or is.

Whatever.

Currently, eight year old Bethany Anderson is on a mission to climb to the very tippy top of the playscape, the roof of which is definitely not meant for such bold expeditions.

“Don’t make me tell mom.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Bethany retorts. “She loves me better.”

“She does n-”

“You’re going about that all the wrong way.” A new voice, a voice that’s high, clear, and particularly pretty, sounds from Blaine’s side. Blaine turns to see that the voice comes from a boy he’s seen once before, on the day they moved in. To Blaine’s surprise, the boy isn’t talking to Blaine at all, but to his sister who is still busy attempting to climb on the roof of the playscape. “You’ve got to put one foot on the railing and then put the other on top of that pole to lift yourself.”

Blaine’s a bit too preoccupied gazing at the new boy’s profile in the afternoon sunlight to realize that he’s giving his little sister advice on how to do exactly what he wishes she wouldn’t. The boy’s skin is pale and smooth and he covers his eyes with his hand to block out the sun as he watches Blaine’s sister climb. His legs are wrapped up in a light pair of jeans that look far to warm for such a summer day, but Blaine can’t stop staring at the way they hug his hips in the best way possible.

“It worked!”

Tearing his eyes away from the boy at his side, Blaine looks back up at Bethany who has successfully completed her mission and is standing on the edge of the roof, hands braced on the pyramid-shaped tip to keep herself from falling.

“I did it!”

“Yes, you did,” Blaine placates, rolling his eyes at his sister’s antics. “Now get down before you fall and break your neck!”

“You never let me have any fun!”

“We have plenty of fun. Get down.”

“Sorry,” the new boy says. “I had to help a fellow rebel.”

“At least you told her how to do it properly before she tried it on her own and cracked her skull in the process,” Blaine relents. “She never listens to me.”

“Little sister?”

“Of course.”

“I’m Kurt,” the boys introduces himself. “I think I live down the street from you.”

“Yeah, I saw you when we moved in last week. I’m Blaine.”

“And the mountain climber?”

“Bethany,” Blaine growls in response, catching sight of his sister when she finally climbs back to earth and decides it’s more fun to crawl up the slide rather than go down it. “The bane of my existence.”

“I doubt that. You’re out here with her, after all.”

“Only acting on orders.”

“Ah.” Kurt nods in response. “Must be nice, though. To have a real sibling, I mean. I’m stuck with a stepbrother who I used to have a crush on.”

Oh.

Oh.

“And how’s that working out?”

“Let’s just say that you never really know someone until you live with them. My crush died quickly.”

“Does he leave his jockstraps everywhere?”

“It’s disgusting,” Kurt replies with a shiver in repulsion.

“That’s brutal,” Blaine empathizes. He takes a chance in saying, “Glad none of my crushes became my stepbrother. Talk about killing the romance.”

Kurt eyes him speculatively before his gaze turns into something akin to approval. “Yes. Yes, it does.”

Once again facing the playscape, Blaine sees Bethany crawling across the top of the monkey bars. Why can’t she just swing on them like a normal person? She always has to be doing the opposite of whatever anyone tells her. It drives him crazy.

“Have you lived here long?” Blaine asks.

“All my life,” Kurt supplies with a sigh. “In a month we’re moving two blocks over, though. Thank god. I’ll have my own room again.”

“No more jockstraps?”

“Precisely.”

“I guess you’re busy packing everything, huh?”

“It’s maddening,” Kurt informs. “I never realized how much dust a house could gather. It’s so stuffy in there, with the boxes and everyone running around like we’re moving tomorrow. So I decided to go for a walk.”

“You spend a lot of time here as a kid?”

“A fair amount. I usually only came really early in the morning or way later in the afternoon, though. I wasn’t really one for…playing well with others.”

“Wait, let me guess,” Blaine says. “You were the schoolyard bully?” Even as he says it, though, it doesn’t sound like an appropriate title for the boy with the fey face in front of him.

“I was one of the bullied, sadly. Children apparently don’t understand the fashion concept of a bowtie.”

“You wore bowties?” Blaine wonders, the sound of the sentence curling up with emphasis on the end in a way that people usually coo ‘awww’. “That’s adorable. I approve. You have my approval. Bravo.”

Kurt looks to blush against the afternoon heat, ducking his head in either embarrassment or humility.

“I just preferred tea parties to tricycles.”

“Both have merit,” Blaine offers.

“I’m hungry.”

Blaine glances down to see Bethany standing in front of him, arms crossed, as if she’s personally offended by the lack of food in the vicinity and like it’s all Blaine’s fault that he doesn’t carry a grocery store in his back pocket.

“Go eat some grass,” he says flatly.

“I’m not a cow!”

“So go home and eat.” He’s frustrated now. Blaine is finally making a new friend and of course Bethany would interrupt that, of course she would.

“You have to come with,” Bethany insists.

“Beth, we live right there,” Blaine reminds her, pointing across the street, the house in view on the other side of the playscape.

“I’m not allowed be at home by myself!”

“I don’t want-”

“You just wanna stay so you can make him your boyfriend,” Bethany teases with a mischievous smile. “You’re all smiley. And you only get really smiley when you think a boy is pretty.”

“Ohmygod,” Blaine breathes in a whispered rush, immediately placing his hands on her back and steering her in the direction of the house. “Not every guy I meet is boyfriend material. We’re leaving.”

“I’m hurt,” Kurt interjects, a saucy grin stretched over his lips. “Not boyfriend material?”

“I didn’t – I meant – she-”

“Why are you turning so red?” Bethany asks. “It’s not even that hot out!”

“We’re leaving.”

Blaine shoves Bethany along, forcing her to face forward and not turn back until he realizes that he just left Kurt behind without so much as a goodbye. When they reach the curb, Bethany runs inside and Blaine finally turns to see Kurt standing in the exact same place as he was before, arms crossed and hip cocked.

Like he’s waiting.

He steels himself, heart fluttering too quickly in his chest, and shouts across the street.

“Can I have your number?”

“Not if I have to yell it across the street!”

“Shit,” Blaine mutters to himself, looking over his shoulder to make sure Bethany is still inside before he makes his decision and jogs back over to Kurt. “Do you, um, have a pen?”

“No,” Kurt says and Blaine’s heartbeat falters, “but I do have my phone. Considering this is the age of mobile devices and nearly every middle class and upper class American has one and all.”

Duh.

Idiot.

“Oh, right.” Blaine brushes off his stupidity and Kurt fishes his phone out of his pocket.

Blaine doesn’t know how he can fit anything in pants that tight. He digs his phone out of his back pocket as well and they swap numbers, Blaine’s mind giving a silent cheer when he sees Kurt’s name now listed in his contacts.

“I have unlimited texting,” Kurt supplies.

“Cool.”

“…So text me.”

Blaine stares back blankly.

Oh!

“Yeah. Yes. Yeah, I will. Thanks.”

At that moment, Bethany decides to lean out the front doorway and shout across the street.

“I want a grilled cheese!”

Why? Why does she have to ruin everything?

“I gotta go,” Blaine says apologetically. “I’ll text.”

“You’d better.”

“Blaine! I! Want! A grilled! Cheese!”

“Jesus, I’m coming!” Blaine calls, rushing back to his house, hoping she hasn’t tried to use the stove herself while he was busy…

…getting Kurt’s number.

Okay, so maybe Bethany didn’t ruin everything.