“Sorry Dad!”

Kurt sighs and straightens up, stretching his back out with a few loud pops. He watches his daughter hurriedly clean up the spilled fruit, careful to avoid ruining both her dress and freshly painted nails.

“You’re feeling like Elizabeth today, aren’t you?”

Elizabeth just smiles in response. She reaches down the counter to grab the wet rag and throws it on the floor. Pulling her mug closer to her, she leans against the island across from Kurt. “No make-up, so not entirely.”

“Liam will be surprised,” Kurt says. “The last time you wore a dress was the first day of ninth grade.”

She takes a sip of her morning tea, a knowing look in her eyes. The pair of them have a connection that nobody else can put their finger on. It’s something about their relationship as father and daughter that they never take for granted.

“Morning, Kurt,” a third voice says and Elizabeth looks up to see her father’s latest boyfriend come strolling into the kitchen.

Kurt clears his throat and gives the other man a pointed look.

“And Elizabeth,” he amends, kissing Kurt on the top of his head.

It’s no secret in the Hummel residence that Jack, Kurt’s latest boyfriend, doesn’t particularly like Kurt’s baggage … which includes Elizabeth. Still, he had let Jack move in and it makes Elizabeth feel obliged to at least be cordial towards the other man.

“Good morning to you, too, Jack. I hope you had a wonderfully pleasant sleep,” Elizabeth replies with a tight smile and glare at the pair of them.

Jack frowns. “Oh, I’m sorry, did Kurt’s screams keep you up last night? Because I’m pretty sure that was payback for last Saturday night.”

She huffs a sigh. “I’m still a virgin, thank you very much. I don’t get inappropriate when I know other people are trying to sleep on the other side of the very thin wall.”

“Buy a pair of earplugs.”

“Buy a muffler.”

Kurt slams his hand down with a loud smack. “Would the two of you quit it? I’m not in the mood. Act your age, not your IQ. Please,” he adds, taking a long sip of coffee.

Elizabeth finishes her tea and sets the mug in the sink by the bowl she had dropped earlier.

He watches her carefully. Her broad shoulders are tightened with stress, her hands nervously twisting the fabric of her paisley print frock.

“You’ll be late,” Kurt softly says, ignoring Jack right behind him. His daughter’s already been upset once today. She doesn’t need it again. She’s emotionally fragile, just like Kurt had been during his high school years. As much as he had tried to avoid it, he knew some of what she was going through having been raised by only one parent.

She turns around and he can see the anger in her eyes. Jack would definitely be hearing about it later. He jerks his head towards the elevator.

He’s suddenly very thankful penthouses were designed to be big and spacious.

“I’ll talk to him, okay?” he starts off as she hikes her backpack up onto her shoulders.

“It’s not just that,” she replies, looking down at her brown flats. The arms of her jean jacket have risen up a little; the charm bracelet her mother gave her for her sixteenth birthday glints in the light from the chandelier right above their heads.

“I’ll add it to the conversation list,” he promises. He pulls her into a tight hug, kissing her hard on the forehead.

She bites her lip, not wanting to say the nine words dancing on the tip of her tongue. It’ll just make Kurt upset. “I have to go.” She pulls out of Kurt’s arm with a smile. “Time to go ring in senior year!”

When the elevator doors ding shut, Kurt lets the frown work itself onto his face. He’s still wearing it when he returns to the kitchen.

Jack’s leaning against the kitchen island with a bowl of cereal in his hands and Kurt finds himself watching him not for the first time since they got together seven months ago.

It’s hard to not notice all the imperfections. His hair isn’t curly or dark enough, his eyes the wrong shade of hazel. Kurt’s the short one and has been silently relegated to the permanent position of the little spoon.

He might be forty-five, but things like who got to be the big spoon are still important to him. His sex life will be ending soon (a scary, morbid thought) and he doesn’t know of any elderly couple that is able to cuddle in bed on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

“Could you at least pretend to like her?” Kurt wearily asks.

Jack jumps slightly, setting his bowl down on the counter next to the sink.

“So, you know, I’m ignorant to the fact that the two most important people in my life don’t get along,” he continues, resuming his seat.

“I’m sorry,” Jack mumbles.

“Why do you not like her?” Kurt asks, slightly tilting his head. He’s never gotten a straight answer out of Jack about this and it worries him. While Jack holds a high candle for being Kurt’s boyfriend, his daughter trumps anyone currently in his life and the thought of anyone not getting along with her is hard to shake.

Jack opens his mouth to explain when Kurt’s phone rings. He holds up a finger and takes the call.

It’s his panicked assistant. The fabric for Rachel’s dress hasn’t come in yet and they needed to start making it today if they were going to get it done in time for the proper fittings and tailoring and have it ready for the benefit she was hosting in a few months.

“I’ll be there in ten,” he says before ending the call. He gives Jack a pointed look. “We’re not done with this conversation.”

Jack nods but Kurt doesn’t see it as he takes off for the elevator.

——

“Thanks for helping me, San.”

Blaine collapses on the newly assembled couch, face-planting into one of the many dark purple pillows that litter it.

He would call this ugly and possibly even tacky.

“My high school best friend moves back to New York without a single person to help him move all his shit. I felt like I had to,” Santana replies. She sits on the edge of the coffee table and rubs Blaine’s back a little bit.

His dad used to do that.

“But it took all weekend,” Blaine counters.

She shrugs. “I don’t care. The wifey’s out of town for Nat’s dance competition and she took Star with her. I would’ve ended up doing more laundry and house-cleaning than allowed in a single week. This was more productive.”

“Why didn’t I keep in touch with any of you?” Blaine wonders aloud, shifting to face his old friend. “It just seems so … unlike me.”

Santana presses her lips together. She opens her mouth a few times but nothing comes out.

Him.

“I think New York held some very bad memories for you,” she finally settles on. “I would’ve cut off all ties with anyone if I had been you.”

“Yeah, but you’re a bitch,” Blaine teased.

She laughs. “Parenting has calmed me down. I found a grey hair the other day, Blaine. That shit’s not supposed to happen for at least another fifteen years!”

He would be complaining about that.

“It’s okay.” Blaine sits and nudges her knee with his foot. “I’m in the middle of my mid-life crisis. A-list musicians don’t suddenly take a year sabbatical to focus on their personal life and move across the country.”

“What personal life?”

They dissolve into laughter.

It’s true, though. In terms of boyfriends and significant others and a love life, Blaine Anderson has been pretty vague in interviews about it. Why? Because it doesn’t exist. There were a few rebound guys but on his thirtieth birthday, he pulled a Brian Kinney and tried to convince himself that even though his was thirty, some guy out there must still want him.

The ego-boosting lasted for a few years until he realized his career was falling by the wayside and if he died tomorrow, he’d be sorely disappointed in himself for being more focused on fucking than singing.

Blaine has to laugh at himself about it; otherwise, he’d become depressed that he feels like he wasted twenty years of his life, pining over a man that woke up one morning and decided he didn’t love Blaine anymore.

That’s what it felt like to him.

Santana’s phone beeps at her. “Britt says hi, by the way, as do the girls.”

“I wanna write back to them myself,” Blaine playfully whines, reaching for Santana’s phone. He leans too far and falls partially into her lap, his knees hitting the hardwood floor. She leans too far back and they topple over each other into a giggling pile on the floor.

“It’s not like a day has passed,” Santana murmurs as Blaine taps out his reply to Brittany. Only now does he realize just how much he’s missed everyone from high school. He still has his college friends, but a lot of the New Directions crew, who all stayed close with each other, stopped talking to him after the divorce.

The few who did (Santana, Tina, Mike, and Sam) were blatantly ignored after Blaine moved out to Los Angeles to finally pursue his music career. Stuck in the middle between over the hill and half a century, Blaine sorely regrets ignoring them. The four were willing to put up with getting ostracized by him just to keep their friendships with him still going strong.

He feels like an idiot who continues to take everything in his life for granted.

“There you go,” Blaine says, handing the phone back to Santana. He untangles himself and stands up with the help of the couch. A bad car accident ten years ago left his spine slightly misaligned — nothing big enough for the doctors to correct but just enough to annoy him.

It makes sex difficult.

“You keep disappearing on me,” Santana notes as she takes his offered hand. “Where are you going in that head of yours?”

“Places that hurt,” Blaine says. He glances at his now fully stocked kitchen. “Lunch?”

Santana shakes her head as she follows him. “He’s got a boyfriend and a kid and a stable, thriving career. He doesn’t need you fucking anything up.”

Blaine slams the bread down on the counter, pain and anger in his eyes. “Don’t you think I know that? Every event I’m invited to, he’s the only designer not on the list of people who want to create yet another look-a-like-every-other-penguin suit for me. Bologna or turkey?”

“Whichever.” Santana’s got her lips pressed together again and she’s giving him that look that reminds him so much of the same look a pair of glasz eyes used to hold.

“Bologna it is,” Blaine mutters, opening the fridge with a bit more force than was necessary.

He works in silence for a little while, Santana catching and sending texts to Brittany who was driving up from Philadelphia.

When Blaine speaks again, it’s soft and he slides a plate across the breakfast bar towards Santana. “I’m not here to win him back. My turn is over. I had it and it blew up in my face and while I regret not working harder at making things right, part of me knew it was over.”

They fall silent again, eating in their own thoughts. When she finishes, Santana hops off the stool and stretches her arms above her head. Blaine takes it as her cue to leave, her work with helping him move all done. He walks her over to the door.

She reaches over and pulls up the leather cord around his neck from the back. On it is a simple gold and silver ring. If she turns it to the right angle, she knows she’ll find Forever etched on the inside. “You have a lot of regrets, don’t you?” she muses.

“Go home, Santana,” he chokes out, his hand flying around the ring and shoving it back down his shirt.

So she does.

——

There’s a caf� on Waverly that serves the best medium drip coffee Kurt can find in Manhattan. Every day at three, he takes a half hour break from his office work whether it be payroll or designing a piece, walks several blocks down to the Wave Caf�, orders his usual medium drip, puts a packet of sugar in it if he’s feeling moody, and sits by the window, enjoying the world he sees through the window.

It’s calming, familiar, a routine he fell into twenty years ago.

The anniversary is coming up, he suddenly realizes that particular Monday afternoon. Or rather, what he calls the Deathiversary.

Twenty years since he signed the final document, the signature that would make it permanent.

That was the only day he let himself really remember. Elizabeth knows to make herself scarce and whichever boyfriend he’s with suddenly finds himself ignored for a whole twenty-four hours.

He makes a mental note to tell Jack to go book a hotel room for that night.

It’s a day of despair, really, for Kurt. He bottles up all of his hatred and pain and love and misery for that man just to let it out for one whole day.

The old Dalton sweatshirt that miraculously still smells like him comes out of the box in the back of the closet that has his name written all over it and he wears it around the whole day.

He drinks nothing but drip coffee all day and makes himself cookies, though they’re not shaped like Cupid.

Pretty in Pink constantly plays in the background and he finds himself mouthing along each time he hears Molly Ringwald on the television ask What about prom, Blane?

He falls asleep in the sweatshirt, surrounded by a pile of used tissues that litter the bed and listening to a playlist he saves for that day. It includes Blackbird and Candles and Dancing Queen.

He’s an idiot and so, so stupid for giving that up. He knows it and he tries not to think about it except on the Deathiversary.

The bell above the caf� door rings and it snaps Kurt out of his thoughts. He looks up, mostly out of habit, and his breath catches in his throat.

Standing there, looking older but not different at all, is the man he was just thinking about.

His cheeks flame bright red and suddenly he feels like a teenager again, flipping between hoping his crush does and doesn’t see him. The drink in his hand falls to the table; the clang, though barely heard by his neighbor, rings loudly in Kurt’s ears.

He keeps his eyes trained on the other man, watching him order, pay, get his coffee, and then suddenly stop, looking around.

Kurt looks around as well and realizes that literally the only open chair is the one in front of him. Damn popular Manhattan caf�s.

He ducks his head before he thinks he’s spotted, becoming more interested in a napkin dispenser than he ever has in his entire life.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” a voice above Kurt starts and it takes all of his willpower not to run away, “Or intrusive or anything of that nature, but do you mind if I sit here?”

Kurt knows there’s nothing he can do to avoid this anymore. Slowly, he lifts his head up to meet Blaine’s curious gaze.

“Kurt?” Blaine whispers. Kurt can see the onslaught of emotions run across Blaine’s face (and wow has he become more unguarded since he moved to California) and his heart breaks just a little bit more.

“I can go—”

“Stop,” he whispers, grabbing Kurt’s wrist as he tries to move past him.

And he does. Blaine’s physical touch has always had that effect on him.

“I’m sorry, it’s just….”

“Shocking?” Kurt supplies, sitting back down.

Blaine tentatively takes the chair opposite Kurt with a nod.

“Manhattan is a big place,” Kurt murmurs.

There’s an awkward beat before he picks the conversation back up.

“How’ve you been?”

“Good. LA’s much warmer than here. You?”

“Fine.”

The stiff, truth-hiding game they’re playing isn’t them and Kurt can feel himself aching for things to be comfortable between them again, as impossible as it may be.

Kurt checks his watch and realizes that he’s five minutes late for work. Maybe that awkward beat was longer than he thought.

“If you need to go—”

“I do, actually.” Kurt’s smile is apologetic. “We can catch up later if you want…?”

“Yeah,” Blaine breathes and it’s obvious to an outsider that both are excited and relieved and trying not to show it. “Um, do you need my number?”

Silently, they exchange phones. Neither is surprised (more elated, in fact) to find they were never deleted and quietly keep that information to themselves as they update their numbers and slide them across the table to each other.

“It was… It was good seeing you,” Kurt says more to himself.

“Yeah,” Blaine agrees.

Kurt stands, fingers wrapped firmly around his coffee cup. “I’ll call you or something.”

“Okay.” Another awkward beat. “See you later, I guess.”

He nods. “Yeah, see you.”

When he walks past, he smiles to himself when he catches a whiff of a grande nonfat mocha coming from Blaine’s general direction.