Kurt shivered, and Blaine moved closer to him on the porch swing in order to wrap an arm around his shoulders. “Cold, baby?”

“A little,” Kurt admitted, letting his head rest on his husband's shoulder. “Thank you.”

“For warming you up?” Blaine laughed. “We can go inside, if you want.”

“For making me feel so much better tonight. And no, I'd like to stay here a while longer. When we get to the last one, maybe we could go up to the study and finally work on the rest?”

“Can you believe that in eighteen years we haven't found a single day to do it?”

“Yes,” Kurt said, after a pause to consider the question. “Between work, and the kids... We've just never stopped, have we?”

“I wouldn't change anything, though. Would you?”

Kurt motioned as if to shake his head, before thinking better of it and nodding. “One thing. I'd erase the entirety of the 2024 spring/summer season and the 'triumphant' return of harem pants.”

Blaine threw his head back and laughed, filling Kurt with such a sense of warmth that he wished (as he often did) he could somehow turn that laugh into liquid, decant it into a glass vial and hang it next to his heart.

“You know,” Blaine mused, edging even closer and running his fingers through the fine hair behind Kurt's ear, “we could stop here.”

Kurt swatted him away half-heartedly. “You know the rules,” he reminded his tenacious husband. “And don't try to justify it by arguing that I said we could stop, because I say that every time. Rule one?”

“Coop's right about you, you know,” Blaine replied, dodging the question and letting his fingertips drift along the line of Kurt's jaw, “you would have made a fantastic lawyer.”

“Nice try,” Kurt said, expertly arching an eyebrow. Long-sufferingly, Blaine rolled his eyes.

“Fine. One: The Book is, at all times, to be taken seriously—with the exception of funny memories. Two,” Blaine recited, counting off on his fingers, “once we start looking through, we keep going until we reach the end. Three: no skipping, because every memory is important in its own way.”

“And four?” Kurt prompted, after a long pause.

“I'm not sure I recall a fourth,” Blaine muttered, shifting in his seat and pulling back his arm.

“Blaine.”

“Four,” Blaine huffed, “no trying to have sex with you until we're done. Which is completely redundant tonight anyway because I seem to remember you telling me you weren't in the mood.”

“A man can change his mind,” Kurt replied, the mischief in his eyes dancing behind the blue. Blaine groaned, dropping his head into his hands. “You're such a teenager.”

“You're fifty years old, and you're still as hot now as you were at seventeen. Can you blame me?”

“No,” Kurt conceded, the humor dancing in his eyes. “You know how happy you've made me, right?”

“As long as you know how happy you've made me. Even through the bad times,” Blaine countered, gaze sliding to the photograph to which they had just turned. It was innocuous enough; Kurt's chin rested on Blaine's shoulder, both were wearing tentative smiles and Blaine held up a black business card with a look of hope peeking through the storm in his eyes.

“For better or for worse. We didn't need to be married for that to already apply.”

The way Jerry's eyes had narrowed had set him on edge from the very beginning of their meeting, and Blaine had had no doubt that from his vantage point in the very center of the restaurant, Jerry had seen Kurt kissing him good luck and goodbye. He'd certainly been enthusiastic about Blaine's talent and open to his thoughts and desires for his career path. He was impressed by the resume detailing theme park gigs, National Show Choir Championship wins and music tech qualifications. But they soon fell into talking about Blaine himself; moreover, what sort of image he wanted to present.

“I don't, um... I don't want to present an image of myself, Jerry. I want to present me. I write songs and play music because I love it, and I'm good at it,” Blaine said, with no trace of ego.

“As true as that may be, it's something you'll need to think about. As soon as someone makes it big, people start wanting the details. They want everything. For instance, are you dating anybody?” Jerry asked, sitting back in his seat and looking pointedly at Blaine.

“I'm engaged, actually,” he replied, face impassive despite already knowing where the conversation was about to go.

“The guy I saw you with outside,” Jerry supplied, and Blaine nodded in the affirmative. “Well. As long as you can be discreet about it, I don't see it being a problem.”

“Discreet?”

“You know, when they interview you and ask you questions about your personal life—and they will—just exercise your better judgment. Don't give anything away,” Jerry answered, his tone almost conspiratorial.

“And what if I was engaged to a girl?” Blaine asked quietly, his stony expression clearly unsettling the headhunter.

“Hey, I don't have a problem with it. My brother's gay and he's been happily married since they changed the laws. But with a talent like yours, you shouldn't limit your market so early. The industry's still got a long way to go,” he said.

Blaine relaxed a little, glad to know that Jerry was at least sympathetic. To an extent.

“No,” he said, after a long pause. Jerry smiled, looking satisfied, as if Blaine had been agreeing with his earlier sentiment. Shaking his head, Blaine continued, “no, I can't accept your offer. I'm sorry, and I'm truly grateful, but I put so much of myself into what I do that I can't compromise myself and still be the best that I can be. It wouldn't be fair, to myself or to Kurt. I wouldn't do that to him.”

Jerry inhaled deeply, before expelling his breath in a heavy sigh. “Okay, kid. I can respect that, especially when I think of everything my brother's gone through.”

“Thank you.”

“Just make sure to give me a call if you change your mind. I really think there's a gap in the market for someone like you.”

It's the right decision. Blaine thanked Jerry for lunch as he moved away from the table, and repeated the words over and over to himself, finding in them a rhythm of truth. He pushed his way out of the doors to the restaurant, and was nearly blinded by a chorus of flashbulbs. Instinctively, he raised a hand to shield his eyes, stopping dead in his tracks and blinking fiercely.

“Mr Anderson, Jessica Westwood from the Associated Press. Can you offer any comment on the buyout of Anderson Shipping?”

“What? I don't—“

“What are your feelings on the scandal that's ruined your father's company?”

Blaine lowered his hand, and found himself surrounded by a crowd of reporters and photographers, cameramen and sound technicians, all clamoring and reaching across one another to get to a better vantage point.

What the fuck is going on? he thought, helplessly.

“Mr Anderson has no comment,” Jerry's voice came from next to him. Blaine could have cried with relief as Jerry pushed through the crowd and lead him into a waiting town car. He could hear nothing except the click-click-click of multiple shutters over a roar of questions and demands about job losses, scandals, and FedEx. So much for 'silent partner'.

“Thank you. You didn't have to do that,” Blaine said, grateful that through his shell-shock, his sense of propriety remained intact.

“So you're that Blaine Anderson,” Jerry said heavily, a pitying look in his eyes. “Tough break, kid.”

“What were they talking about? Nothing's going on at the company; Coop would have told me.”

“Where have you been the past few—oh, right,” Jerry cut himself off, realizing he knew exactly where Blaine had been. “Look, I don't know how long it's been going on, but the news broke this morning.”

He handed Blaine a copy of that day's New York Times, and Blaine felt the oxygen slowly draining from his every cell as the headline screamed at him from the front page.

“You really had no idea, did you? Shit,” Jerry muttered, rubbing his hand over his face as the car rolled smoothly to a stop outside Blaine's building. “You gonna be okay, kid?”

“Can I take this?” Blaine asked, holding up the paper as he opened the car door. Jerry nodded with a wave of his hand. “Thanks, thank you. For lunch, and the ride.”

He probably didn't need to slam the car door as forcefully as he did, but he didn't dwell on it as he rushed inside the lobby and straight over to the elevator bank.

Kurt was pacing the hallway, phone in hand, as Blaine stepped through the door to their apartment. He tossed the newspaper down onto the end table and covered it with his jacket. He couldn't—wouldn't—believe any of it until he got Cooper on the phone. Numbly, he rifled through the neat stack of thin packages next to Kurt's peace lily, feeling the telltale outline of jewel cases contained within, each brown envelope unceremoniously stamped 'UNSOLICITED MAIL: RETURN TO SENDER'.

“Blaine? How did it go?”

Kurt sounded almost frantic, and Blaine waved his hand dismissively.

“Didn't take it,” he muttered, eyes downcast. “For all intents and purposes, even though he was sympathetic, he wanted me back in the closet. I have to call Coop.”

“Cooper's here,” Kurt said quietly, and Blaine rushed into the living room, Kurt right behind him.

Blaine had witnessed various incarnations of stressed-out Cooper over the years. He'd seen him worried and angry at his bedside after the Sadie Hawkins dance. He'd seen him tired and over-worked when he came home from school at the beginning of the summer. He'd seen him drunk and wrecked after Olivia had walked out on their three-year relationship without a backward glance. But he'd never before seen his big brother like this: deep frown lines around his mouth, sitting hunched in on himself in a battered suit with his tie yanked loose, eyes darting between Blaine and McQueen, who was curled up in his lap and purring obliviously.

He looked exhausted. Broken. Old.

“You look like shit,” Blaine said, moving to sit on the couch opposite.

“Good to see you too, B,” Cooper replied without his usual easy humor or warmth.

“Coop, what the hell's going on?”

Cooper was silent. He pinched the bridge of his nose and ran both hands through his hair, exhaling deeply. Blaine didn't even realize Kurt was sitting next to him until he felt soft, slender fingers sliding between his own.

“Cooper, I was practically mobbed by a bunch of reporters less than fifteen minutes ago, so I swear to God if you don't tell me—“

“The company's fucked, Blaine.”

“What happened to us being bigger than FedEx? Coop, just—what the hell's been going on?”

“Accounts payable fraud. It was the board, they bribed the accountants. As far as we can tell, it started just after Dad passed,” Cooper continued thickly. “I guess one of the accountants slipped up or missed something, because the auditors picked up on it and then there was an investigation and... there it all was.”

“How much?”

“Millions. We haven't been able to quantify it exactly, but... We think somewhere in the region of fifty million.”

Blaine closed his eyes, white hot rage coursing through his veins. How dare they? How dare they steal from the company, from my father's company?

“Those of us left have had meeting after meeting and crisis talk after crisis talk. We've had consultants and lawyers and God knows who else coming around,” Cooper said, his tone lifeless and resigned. “But we're just having to face up to the fact that we can't recover from this. The amount that they managed to take, how much it's going to cost to try and recover it—if we even can... We've done everything we could and it hasn't been enough.”

“So what happens now?”

“Somehow, FedEx caught wind of what was going on and want to buy us out. We're sinking under our own debts and they still made us an incredible offer. We're taking it, Blaine,” Cooper finished, quietly.

The ensuing silence was all-encompassing, and pressed uncomfortably.

“The audits happen in April,” Blaine said slowly, continuing before Cooper could respond, “and with an investigation... It must have come out in May. June at the latest.”

Cooper was silent for a moment, guilt underwriting his entire body.

“Yes, but you have to understand—“

“You've known about this for months—for months—and you didn't tell me? I had to hear it from the New York fucking Times!” The pressure gauge was climbing dangerously fast, heading toward that red zone where everything faded in a haze of rage and feet pounding on cement and punchbags and destroying beautiful somethings.

“Hey, we've been lucky that it's stayed out of the papers this long! Thank God for Andrea is all I can say,” Cooper retorted, and McQueen jumped down from his lap, stalking over to Kurt and curling around his legs. Andrea, Blaine knew, was Cooper's personal assistant—a formidable, slightly severe-looking woman in her mid-twenties who seemed to know everyone who was anyone.

“Is that the only reason you're here? 'Story's being printed, might as well let Blaine in on it'?”

Cooper glanced briefly at Kurt, who Blaine realized had been silent for their entire exchange. He was sitting forward with his elbows on his knees, clasping tightly onto Blaine's hand.

“How can you be so calm about this?” he asked.

“I—it's a lot to take in,” Kurt replied, eyes looking anywhere but Blaine.

As further realization came over him, Blaine pulled away.

“Kurt... Please, please tell me you didn't know about this.”

“Blaine—“

Blaine wrenched himself away from the hand that Kurt had reached out, moving to stand by the side of the couch, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. “How could you—I've been back nearly two months.”

“Blaine,” Kurt repeated, standing up and approaching him slowly, “I... I don't have enough of an explanation, and I'm sorry for that. While you were away, you just seemed so fragile. Some of the days I got to talk to you, it sounded like you were barely holding it together. And then when you got back, I... You were so happy to be home again, and I was so happy to have you home, that when I thought about telling you I—I just couldn't let myself ruin it all.”

Blaine shook his head. He knew Kurt's words made sense, and if it were some insignificant little thing, it wouldn't matter. He would be able to just let himself be held together for a while, and then pick himself up, dust himself off and carry on. But the fact of the matter was that this wasn't some insignificant thing. This was his family's generations-old company going up in smoke, and he'd been kept in the dark about it.

Kurt took a step closer to him, raising his arms until Blaine stopped him with a soft press of fingertips to his chest.

“Don't,” he muttered, fixing his stare upon the fabric of Kurt's shirt. “I can't even look at you—either of you—right now.”

“Blaine—” Cooper began, but Blaine cut across him hotly.

“Don't you dare, Cooper. Don't you dare. You spent the better part of three months hiding this huge, life-changing thing from me.”

He needed to get out of the apartment, needed to rediscover the feeling of solid ground beneath his feet. Ignoring both Kurt and Cooper's protests, he swept into his studio, grabbed his guitar and slung it over his shoulder, the body settling with a hollow thud against his side. Donning a dark pair of sunglasses and grabbing his keys on the way out, he ignored the smattering of disturbed packages falling onto soft hallway carpet and slammed out of the apartment.

Blaine felt like he hit the ground with the wind knocked out of him as soon as he left the building, and picked the direction that, for whatever reason, seemed like it wouldn't suck the most. Any sense of logic had officially deserted him. He walked briskly, moving on autopilot as he thought about being eleven years old and just discovering the internet. He had driven his father crazy with his habit of sending packages all over the world. Candy bars to pen pals on the east coast. Mix tapes to friends across the Atlantic. Boxes stuffed full of comp books and pencils to the Red Cross for kids in Africa. He stopped abruptly in the street and fought the urge to flip off the businessman who cussed him out as he barged past. The memories were too much, and as he found his feet again he started cycling through chemical formulae in his mind. It never failed to remind him of those first weeks back at Dalton, with Wes by his side as his mentor, coaching him through his worst moments with repetitions of elements and compounds.

Kurt's eyes sparkle and light up, and I wonder if he'll ever know this silly, gum wrapper ring isn't just a promise of 'always', it's a promise of 'I'll always be there to take care of you and catch you when you fall'.

Aluminum silicate: A L two O five Si.

Fencing and fighting; football and fixing up cars. Every 'f' that makes a man; no room left for failure, foregone conclusions or fucking other men.

Magnesium metasilicate enstatite: Mg Si O three.

Kurt's first mock collection at NYU: straight lines and muted colors. It's a wasteland in the form of ready-to-wear, full of howling wilderness and the bereavement of winter. It's the first time he tells me that his clothes tell a story.

Potassium hydrogen tartrate: K H C four H four O six.

Dad's eyes on me when Cooper tells him he wants to be a lawyer instead of taking over the company; he doesn't even need to tell me that it's all up to me now.

Strontium tellurate: Sr Te O four.

Before long, Blaine found himself wandering through Central Park's Shakespeare Garden, and snorted derisively at the irony of it all. Somewhere in those last four letters, prefaced with Elizabethan quotes about love and devotion and defying odds, his fiance had started keeping things from him. Game-changing, life-altering things. As hard as he fought against the ignorant, heteronormative stereotypes that some tried to force upon gay couples to make more sense of them in their own prejudiced minds, from an early age he'd been instilled with a need to have the ability to provide for those whom he loved. It was archaic, sure, but was it really so wrong?

“Blaine, hello?”

Blaine whipped around at the sound of the voice, and he saw Stuart sitting on a semi-circular stone bench with four other guys, all of whom had guitars. He pasted on a bright smile and self-consciously rubbed at his neck.

“Hey guys,” he greeted them. “Sorry, I was miles away.”

“No kidding,” Stuart said, idly turning over a plectrum between his thumb and forefinger. “Heard about what happened. You feel like jamming with us for a while? We're just hanging out for a while before we have to go back to the studio.”

Blaine considered the question for a moment. He could feel the need to play, to take out all of his anger and frustration and sheer despondency on the strings of his guitar simmering beneath the surface of his skin. “Sure,” he replied, crossing the paving stones and leaning against the edge of the bench to swing his guitar around to rest against his abdomen. “Anybody got a spare pick?”

“Here,” said one of the guys, tossing across the thin piece of white plastic. Blaine grinned when he saw 'The Levels' emblazoned across it in simple, black text.

“I don't think you've ever been introduced to the guys, have you?” Stuart asked, and Blaine shook his head. Since being back from working on the ship, he'd been down to the recording studio a couple of times with Jeff, mainly to watch him play, and on one occasion he and Jeff had stood behind the window, sipping at beers while watching The Levels recording songs for their first studio album. Stuart pointed at each of the guys in turn. “Meet Tyler, Lee, Freddie and Noel.”

“I'm Blaine, good to meet you,” Blaine introduced himself, shaking each of their hands in turn.

“Blaine's one of Jeff's friends from the prep school days,” Stuart noted affectionately.

“Another rich boy trying to make it in the big, bad city, huh?” Tyler intoned, and Freddie jabbed him in the side.

“Ignore him, he's a bipolar existentialist with no filtering system,” he said, and the other guys laughed.

“And that's on his good days,” Noel added, only fueling the laughter.

“Noted,” Blaine said, resting once more against the end of the bench. “So, what are we playing?”

They spent half an hour cycling through some classic Kings of Leon and Mumford & Sons, both of which were close to the band's own sound, Stuart and Blaine singing while the band backed them up. Whenever a passerby would stop and listen for a few minutes, Stuart would switch out of his relaxing-with-friends mode and launch straight into his front-man persona, standing up and seemingly taking on a different skin as he sang for them. To Blaine, it all felt like an incredibly refreshing and welcome escape from the Greek tragedy into which his day had descended; playing music for the love of it and for the hell of it, just because it was a beautiful day and they wanted to create.

“Hey Blaine, play us something of yours,” Freddie said, and Stuart nodded.

“Jeff said you wrote some pretty intense stuff in your senior year, feel like showing us?”

Blaine thought for a second, and then settled upon the very first song he'd written, sometime after September when everything was wilting leaves and chill breezes. “Okay, sure. Why not?”

Quickly, he ran through the lyrics and chord progressions in his mind, making sure he remembered them in the correct order. He was proud of this song, and the way Kurt had kissed him after Blaine had played it to him on Christmas Day that year evoked such a strong connection to it that he always wanted it to be perfect.

“It was never gonna be easy
And now you're close enough to touch
Time ticks to the beat of a melody
It could be too little or way too much,” Blaine sang, his voice strong and sure. As he sank further into the embrace of clean, rhythmic acoustics, he heard Stuart join in and provide a second strain to the music.

“You're the Sally to my Harry
But you're slip-slipping away
And I know where you are going
But I wish that you could stay

“The clocks are upside down
The clocks are upside down

“Now my days turn into metronomes
Full of flats instead of you
We're reduced to static overtones
Is this something we should do?” He faltered a little, then. It was the most honest and telling part of the song; that he'd started having those ugly, unwelcome doubts so soon after Kurt had left was something he'd always be ashamed of.

“I'm the Harry to your Sally
But you're still leaving today
And I itch to ask you, beg you, baby
Baby won't you stay?

“The clocks are upside down
The clocks are upside down.”

Lee joined his guitar with theirs, picking out the melody as a refrain, and Blaine smiled. It had only ever been him and his guitar or piano, and while that wasn't something he wanted to change when thinking of a potential career, he had to admit that there was something incredibly satisfying about working with and taking on board the creativity and direction of others. As he began the final verse, Stuart hummed a harmony that complemented Blaine's vocals.

“What happens to our patchwork squares
When these moving ends won't meet
Familiar stairs and what? Now? Where?
And are we sure where this will lead?

“The clocks are upside down
The clocks are upside down
The clocks are upside down
The clocks are upside down.”

As he strummed the song to a close, the band applauded him and Stuart clapped a hand on his shoulder. “That was awesome.”

“You have a great voice,” said a woman from behind them, and Blaine turned around. She was tall, blonde, and impossibly well-groomed; she looked like she'd come straight from the set of a movie. She shifted the tray of coffees she was holding from one hand to the other, before stepping forward. “I'm Lisa Bristow, the band's manager.”

“Great to meet you,” Blaine said with a friendly smile as he shook her hand. “And thank you.”

“Are you signed?” she asked.

“No, though I'm hoping to change that,” he replied. After handing off the tray of coffees to Lee, she reached into her pocket and produced a business card with a flourish. Blaine took it, thumbing over the corner and admiring the simple, matte black finish adorned with the Interscope logo and Lisa's contact details.

“Something wrong?” Lisa prompted, when Blaine said not a word.

“Not wrong, no. I just—I'm gay,” he blurted out, and Lisa's expression softened. “And I'm not willing to go back in the closet.”

“Honey, we represent Lady Gaga,” she said matter-of-factly. “She's about as vocal about gay rights as they come. And we haven't asked Stuart here to hide who he is. The industry's changing. Slowly, but it's happening.”

Blaine smiled, finally allowing the warm, comforting hope to settle in a corner of his mind. Interscope hadn't been one of the labels to which he'd sent a demo, wanting to start out with small and independent labels as well as scheduling the meeting with Jerry. “Okay,” he breathed, pocketing the card. “Thank you, I'll—I'll definitely call.”

“You'd better,” Lisa instructed with a wink, before turning to the band. “All right, guys, don't want to be a stick in the mud but we've got places to be.”

After the band had left the garden, Blaine stayed awhile longer, experimenting with the melody of a song he'd been working on ever since getting back. He reclined against the cool stone of the bench, letting the last of the tension drain from him, and stayed there until the sun cast everything in its setting glow.

*

Blaine let himself into the apartment quietly, seeing as he did so that Kurt had picked up the packages he'd so uncaringly blustered by when he'd stormed out earlier that afternoon. McQueen sat by the end table and fixed him with an imperious stare as he hung up his jacket next to Kurt's.

“Don't look at me like that, little mister,” Blaine said, wagging a finger at him. McQueen simply turned and padded away down the hall. The smell of something wonderful and mouth-watering met him as Blaine followed the soft tinkling of McQueen's bell, and his stomach growled loudly in anticipation. He rounded the corner and stepped inside the kitchen, and could see the stress evident in Kurt's shoulders as he leaned over the stove top and stirred at a red sauce, the smell reminding him of dinner dates back in Ohio.

“Hey,” he said, tentatively pressing himself against Kurt's back and hooking his chin over his shoulder, hands resting on Kurt's hips. Kurt almost melted against him, every slight shift in position or turn of his head screaming relief.

“I'm sorry,” came Kurt's whispered apology, set against a background of soft bubbling as the pasta boiled. Blaine pressed a kiss into the side of his neck, and Kurt shivered a little.

“It's okay,” he replied. “I'm sorry, too. I overreacted. I know you were just trying to protect me. You went about it the wrong way, but I know why you did it.”

Kurt turned to face him, shame and guilt evident in the thunder cloud gray of his eyes. “You didn't overreact. Don't ever apologize to me for feeling the way you feel,” he said heavily. “I should have told you, or Cooper should have told you. You shouldn't have had to find out like that, and I'm sorry.”

Blaine breathed deeply, leaning his forehead to Kurt's. “It could have been anyone, anyone other than FedEx.”

Kurt smiled tightly, and he brought his arms up to rest across Blaine's shoulders. “How about we boycott them from now on, on principle?”

“That would be petty, but incredibly satisfying on some level,” Blaine admitted. “How was Coop? When did he leave?”

“A little while after you did. He looked like someone kicked his puppy, but I think he's relieved that you know, now. He said he'd call you tomorrow.”

“I'll call him later, I don't want to leave things like this. Things were so much easier when we were kids and reading comic books in the tree house.”

“I know, baby,” Kurt said. “Where did you go?”

“Central Park. I bumped into Stuart and the rest of the guys from the band, and we jammed together for a while,” Blaine told him, and reached into his pocket for Lisa's business card. “And then their manager showed up, gave me her card and told me to give her a call.”

Kurt took the card from him with wide, hopeful eyes. “Interscope? Blaine, are you serious? They represent—“

“Lady Gaga, I know,” Blaine interrupted with a grin.

“Baby, you have to call her. You're going to call her, right?” Kurt asked with barely contained excitement.

“I'm going to call her,” Blaine assured him.

Later that night, once they had eaten dinner, washed the dishes and were lying tangled up together on the couch, Blaine reached for the remote and muted the television. Wordlessly, Kurt reached behind him and passed Blaine the phone. It was nearing eight p.m., which was late to be calling a business number, but Blaine was so anxious doing this for a second time that he would prefer the most likely result of calling at that time of day: voicemail.

“Wait,” Kurt murmured, pulling out his iPhone and holding it out in front of them, resting his chin in the crook of Blaine's neck. “This could be your big break; I want us to remember it.”

Stiffening his trembling fingers, Blaine held the card up next to his face and matched Kurt's smile. Click!

“Okay. Okay, I can do this,” he said. Nervously passing the cordless phone from one hand to the other, Blaine leaned back against Kurt, taking a deep breath as Kurt began gently kneading his shoulders—courage. Thumbing one last time over the corner of the business card, he finally relaxed beneath Kurt's fingers, and dialed.