Kurt wasn’t sure how, but somehow he and Blaine became friends during the next weeks. It was actually a wonderful way to spend July in his father’s garage. It was still hard for Kurt to completely trust Blaine, so he hadn’t really opened up yet but Kurt knew that the time, when he’s going to have to tell Blaine more about himself, wasn’t far away anymore. Blaine was caring and lovely, not pushing him, just being around. There were some really sweet moments, that made Kurt smile, just like then, when Blaine asked, if he had changed worse anything between Kurt and Burt.

They knew each other’s location all the time, trough the texting. Their lunches became longer and it seemed to Kurt, that Burt didn’t even mind, if they were away from work too long, as long as they were together. They talked hours through the phone about music and books, before they realized, that it was almost midnight and they should probably get some rest, before returning to work.

It was the last Saturday of July and they were eating dinner at Breadstix after seeing a movie. The movie-dinner thing was quite new to them, but neither of them felt uncomfortable, since they were too busy with talking about the movie.

“Kurt?” a woman’s voice sounded suddenly out of nowhere. Kurt recognized it with a second.

“Mercedes!” he hailed, a little too loudly and nervously. The girl was standing not so far away from them, Sam right behind her, both of them kind of sad looking. They had obviously just finished with dinner. Kurt tried to stay calm, as he looked at Mercedes and then to Blaine, who swallowed awkwardly. “Meet my.. friend, Blaine,” Kurt said then. “Blaine, these are Mercedes and.. Sam.”

Kurt wondered for second, why Sam and Mercedes were having dinner together, but he really couldn’t think about it much longer, since the awkwardness in this situation lasted.

“You’re from New Directions too, right?” Blaine asked as he and Mercedes shook hands, really, really lazily. Mercedes examined Blaine suspiciously.

“You look really familiar..” Sam decided to speak a second later. “Aren’t you the lead singer of the Warblers?”

“Uhm, yeah,” Blaine answered with a weak smile. Kurt thought that meeting his competitors was a still a bit uncomfortable for Blaine. Or maybe it was just weird, because he and Blaine were sitting behind the same dinner table.

“Blaine.. works in my father’s garage for the summer,” Kurt explained to Mercedes’s questionable look.

“Oh,” Mercedes signed. “Uhm, how are you?” she turned to Kurt then. “I haven’t seen you for a while..” They hadn’t seen each other since the ending of the school year.

“I’m.. getting better,” Kurt said. “Yourself?” he peeked at Sam, who was still trying to make himself invisible behind the girl.

Mercedes turned a bit for a second to take a look at the boy before answering. “Could be better.”

Silence followed, when Kurt was trying to read something out from Mercedes’s and Sam’s weird faces and Blaine just let his eyes hit his almost empty plate.

“Okay,” Mercedes exhaled then with a high pitch. “We’re going to go then.. It was nice seeing you.”

She turned her back to Kurt, as they started walking away, when suddenly Kurt stopped them.

“Mercedes!” he shouted, then stood up and walked over her. “I know that I’ve been quite.. off but I’d really liked to make it up.”

A faith smile appeared on girl’s face and that made Kurt’s heart swell. He really missed her. “I’d like that,” she said. “Give me a call some day..”

“Sure.”

“See ya, Kurt.”

“Bye.”

“Somebody special?” Blaine asked, when Kurt returned to their table.

“Yes,” Kurt smiled, feeling even better now. “You could say that.”

“So how was the date?” Burt asked when Kurt arrived home that evening.

“It wasn’t a date, dad,” Kurt answered. “We’re just friends.”

“Yeah, right,” Burt uttered under his breath. Kurt decided to ignore that.

“I met Mercedes, at Breadstix,” Kurt stated then, witch was a bit weird, because he hadn’t talked with Burt about these random things for a long time.

“Did ya?” Burt surprised and looked away from the tv for a second to watch Kurt. “Well keep that up, and I will release you from the garage work.”

Kurt’s heart stopped. He wasn’t sure, if he wanted that anymore. Or did he..?

On Monday, Kurt had to cancel his regular coffee with Blaine and asked his dad the morning off, so he could meet Mercedes at Lima Bean.

“You can take the whole day off,” Burt had told him.

“So tell me about you and Blaine, are you like.. together?” Mercedes asked, when they sat down.

“Really, Mercedes? Really? We haven’t seen each other for two months and that’s the first thing you ask?”

“And whose fault is that?” Mercedes gushed.

“Sorry,” Kurt signed and took a sip of his coffee.

“But seriously, what’s with you and Blaine?”

“How do you know, that he’s even gay?”

With that Mercedes choked. “Wait, he is?”

They both started laughing. Like really laughing, Kurt had missed that.

“We’re just friends, ‘cedes,” Kurt said, when he could breath normally again. “But please explain me, why did I see you and Sam together.. again.” Theme change, yes, that’s what Kurt needed. He really didn’t want to talk about Blaine right now.

“Oh, we were kinda like a.. thing over the summer.”

“You two dated?” Kurt mumbled, although it really wasn’t a big surprise. He had suspected it.

“Yeah, but he’s family is moving now, so..”

“Oh.”

“I guess nice as it lasted,” Mercedes smiled with a memory.

“Is that.. what you were talking about on Saturday? You both looked really pale.”

“Yes, we decided that this would be our last dinner together. He’s probably driving away right now.”

“I’m sorry.”

Mercedes shrugged sadly.

It was the ending of the hard week. There has been a lot of broken cars and a lot of cleaning in garage, so Kurt was spent, tired and although he was quite fine with hanging out with Blaine, he still missed his safe room, where all he could do is sleep.

Blaine had been busy with his work that this week had only been about few lunches together. Although he and Mercedes had texted a few times, they hadn’t met again. So Kurt was alone again. And it didn’t take long, before he remembered the comfortable feeling, that his room gave it to him.

“So do you let me off the hook?” Kurt asked Burt in Friday, when they were closing the shop. Blaine  and Finn were  already changing clothes, so he and Burt were alone.

“Off the hook?” Burt didn’t understand.

“Do I have to keep working here?”

“Oh,” Burt signed then. “About that.. I think you should keep working until the school starts.”

“What?!” Kurt exhaled. “Are you serious? Why? You said that if I keep up hanging out with Blaine, you would release me!”

An awkward silence followed, since Kurt could feel somebody else looking at them, feeling .. shocked.

“Is that the only reason, why we’ve been hanging out?” a different kind of voice echoed behind Kurt.

Kurt turned and looked at Blaine’s golden and disappointed eyes. He didn’t even notice, when Blaine and Finn had returned.

“What?” Kurt stuttered in confusion. “No, Blaine.”

But Blaine didn’t gave Kurt a chance to explain, as he turned his back and walked out of the garage.

5. August:
19.24
To: Blaine
Blaine, please, let me explain. It’s not what you think.

21.11
To: Blaine
I really don’t want to do it over texting, so could you please at least answer my calls?

22.22
To: Blaine
So they say, that if you make wish over 11.11, 22.22 or 00.00, it will come true. .

22.23
To: Blaine
I don’t even know why I texted that, but guess, what my wish was..

23.14
To: Blaine
Dammit, I have nothing else to say right now, than I’m sorry for what you heard and it’s not what you think. And I’d really liked to talk with you because I have so much to tell you and god I really need you to listen.

6. August:
00.56
To: Blaine
I can’t sleep.

“Give guy a break,” Burt told Kurt next morning. “Let him be, he will talk to you. He can’t ignore you forever.”

“It just drives me mad,” Kurt gushed dramatically as he forcefully hit the fork into the omelet. “That’s completely not what I meant and I can’t even tell him that. I mean, I could text him the whole story, but that’s just..” Kurt shut up. He couldn’t continue. He couldn’t tell his father about the real reasons, why he tried to resist the urge to text Blaine the whole story. He couldn’t.

And Burt didn’t push. He just left it.

8. August:
13.17
To: Blaine
Okay, that’s it. I can’t stand it anymore and I can’t wait until tomorrow, so I guess I don’t have an option. I like you, Blaine. I like you a lot. And I didn’t want to admit it at first, because the biggest crushes always end up with some kind of heartbreak for me and after that year, I don’t like to share my feeling with anyone. But I like you and that’s why I hanged out with you.

13.18
To: Blaine
That’s why I came for movies and dinners and lunches and coffees. That’s why. This is the whole story and I hate to tell this over some stupid text.

“Kurt,” Burt said with a voice that meant bad news. It was Sunday afternoon, hours after Kurt’s last text to Blaine. “Blaine called. He quit the work.”

“Oh,” Kurt’s heart fell. That could only mean one thing..

Kurt knew that he wouldn’t have much sleep tonight.

“So last time we met, we didn’t have a chance to talk about that Blaine guy,” Mercedes winked, as they were standing on the coffee line on Monday morning.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Kurt signed sadly. “Besides, I don’t think I’ll ever see him again anyway.”

“What?” Mercedes exhaled. “Why? I thought you too were friends.”

“Well you know me.. we are friends and we didn’t talk to each other for two months.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. ‘Oh’. I’m good at pushing people away.”

Mercedes’s eyes narrowed weirdly.

“Well.. do you like him?”

Kurt swallowed before answering. He just wasn’t sure, if it was safe to answer.

“Yes,” Kurt said then, feeling his heart lighten up a little, since he could share it’s heaviness.

“Like.. Really ‘like’? Like boyfriend like?”

“Yes, Mercedes, like really like. I like him a lot. I had a hell of a year and the summer hadn’t been any different, if there wasn’t Blaine. You know my dad wanted me to see a psychologist and then we started hanging out and everything went so much better. I mean I liked him from the start, but it wasn’t easy, since I’ve had some trust issues. And he’s been the light in the dark. And now he heard me saying something.. really bad to my dad, and he completely misunderstood it.“

“Have you tried apologizing?”

“Yes, of course, but he doesn’t answer my calls or my text.”

“What about your feelings? Does he know about them?”

That’s where Kurt’s heart fell down, to a dark and lonely place that made it broke.

“Yes, he kind of does. I .. um, texted about them yesterday, but he didn’t answer and then quit work, so here I am.”

“Oh, Kurt,” Mercedes signed with the sorry.

“So you can guess where it leaves me to,” Kurt continued, very nearly crying. “God, it’s like going through this crushing-Finn thing again. Starts with this friendship kind of thing and ends up with calling me fag and leaving me crying.”

“I’m so sorry, Kurt,” Mercedes said then as she pulled him into a hug.

“Sorry..” Kurt heard someone else whispering. He couldn’t see who it was, until Mercedes let him go, so Kurt could turn and watch as Blaine hurried outside.

“Oh my god, how long was he here?!” Kurt almost hiccoughed.

Mercedes didn’t answer, just simply looked at him in silence and that was enough