Chapter One

The sun was filtering through the blinds, its hot rays hitting Blaine’s naked skin. He stirred in his sleep, feeling the weight of someone else in his bed. His head was pounding. The loud noises coming from downstairs were not helping his predicament. That was one of the downside of living in a loft: no walls to block out sounds.

“How you can live in such a messy place, sweetheart, is beyond my understanding,” a gentle voice came from below his room. He sighed; his mother must be in his kitchen, cleaning up dishes.

Blaine started to get up, trying to remove the other boy from his side without waking him up. It was quite a usual occurrence for his mother to walk into his place while his conquest was still there. He still remembered how embarrassing it had been once when Charlotte had come in and Blaine and his partner for the night were still fucking against the wall near the front door. Of course, his mom had acted as if she had only seen them kissing, but the other man had pulled out of Blaine so fast they had both slipped on the floor, leaving them in a mess of naked limbs on the cold parquet. After that, his mother had helped them both back on their feet and insisted that they have tea together so she could properly meet the man she believed was her son’s boyfriend. If the other man had not been freaked out before, he had then bolted out, stark naked, without a word. Charlotte had come next to Blaine and patted him on his shoulder saying that he could still introduce his lover some other time. Needless to say, she never got to have tea with that man.

“Blaine, don’t tell me you’re still in bed!” she started climbing up the stairs, “It’s almost noon.”

Her son ran out of bed and in his haste, his feet got tangled in the sheets and he fell face first on the floor. The loud bang woke up Alex. Blaine remembered learning the boy’s name while he was thoroughly fucking him into oblivion a few hours before.

“Il se passe quoi?” Blaine heard the boy mutter, as he sat up in the bed and looked around him. Then he noticed the other man on the floor and his cheeks went red.

“Oh, I see that I’m disturbing you sweetheart,” Charlotte had just entered the bedroom and looked a bit flushed herself. “What’s your name young man?” she asked the still barely awake boy.

“Mum, not now,” Blaine whined, “Can you go back downstairs, please?”

She ignored him and sat herself on the bed next to the naked boy. Well, she couldn’t actually see he was naked since his lower half was still under the covers.

“You’re French?” she asked him with a big smile on her face. To her, this situation was a usual occurrence.

“Putain…” the boy swore under his breath.

“Now, that is no way to address a lady,” she chastised Alex, shaking her finger disapprovingly at the boy. “Tes parents ne t’ont pas appris les bonnes mani�res?”

Alex looked at her unsure what to say. He turned to Blaine who had disappeared through the bathroom door leaving him alone with this crazy woman. He was still naked for Christ sake!

“Je me casse,” Alex said as he got up, not caring anymore that the woman could see his ass. He searched for his clothes through the mess, ignoring the rest of Charlotte’s words as she continued to talk. Once he had gathered all of his belongings, he bolted downstairs where he dressed himself.

Charlotte waved at him from the top of the stairs as he left without looking back.

“Mom!” Blaine came back to his room and glared at his mother. “Do you always have to do that?!” he said in an exasperated tone as she just kept smiling.

“You’re glad I came in, really. I know that you always struggle to get rid of your partners. And when it’s not me, you call Sebastian to the rescue.”

Blaine did not want to admit how true this statement was. Instead, he ignored her and went downstairs. He walked to his kitchen when he heard his phone ring. He picked it up and groaned when he saw who was calling.

“Thad, hello!” he greeted the other person with a forced cheerful tone.

His mom walked to the counter and started cleaning up the mess so that she could find some free space to cook.

“Of course, I’ve almost finished it,” Blaine muttered.

He walked to his laptop and opened some kind of software.

“No, really, you don’t have to…”

He was interrupted by a loud knock on the door. He started to tell Charlotte not to get it but she was already walking towards the door.

“Blaine, that is rude and not the way I raised you,” she chastised him before she let their visitor inside.

“Mrs. Anderson,” Thad greeted her with a big smile, “how lovely to see you!”

“Oh Thadeus, you always know how to make an old woman blush,” she replied, a bit flustered.

Blaine let out a groan and tried to ignore them.

“Blaine! My man!” Thad walked inside and pulled the other man into a hug. “I hope for your sake that the piece is done,” he added just loud enough that only Blaine could hear him. The musician nodded and broke their embrace.

Thad smiled and walked to the laptop. He stared at it for a few minutes then turned to Blaine with a glare. Blaine mentally cursed himself for leaving the project file open. It was clear that his piece was not completed yet.

In the background, Charlotte said something about needing to be somewhere and left them with a loud kiss on each of their cheeks.

“Blaine,” Thad started in a tone that never failed to worry Blaine. “You are aware that we have the meeting with Marc Ericksen in…” he checked his watch, “less than two hours.”

Blaine shrugged, trying to appear unaffected by this. He had actually nearly finished the piece, but there was just a little something missing. Mind you, having to compose a thirty-second jingle for a stupid Yogurt ad was not the most inspiring job.

“Blaine,” Thad sighed as he closed the laptop with a clapping sound, “you know that this is our last chance to sell the music for a company this huge in the country, right? Ericksen is really demanding and I hope for your sake that you’ll manage to compose something before we meet him.”

Blaine nodded, too intimidated to form any words.

“If we don’t get this contract, you’re fired,” Thad concluded and walked out of the loft.

The young musician slumped against the door and gave himself a minute to take this all in. Then he surged to the laptop and tried to complete his piece.

An hour later, he was holding his sheet music proudly as he walked up the stairs to meet up with the rest of his working team. He was about to walk over to Wes, who was the only colleague he considered a friend, but then he noticed Thad looking in his direction. The other man sent him a look that clearly said you better not fuck this up.� Blaine nodded confidently, showing off his piece with a smile. Their silent exchange was interrupted by the arrival of Mr. Ericksen and the rest of his team. He walked right to Thad and shook his hand as a greeting. Blaine shared a look with Wes; they had their own nickname for the man: “Assholeksen”.

Mr. Ericksen led them all to the room where they would demonstrate their project for the company.

They played the ad without the music first. Then, Mr. Ericksen asked Blaine to hand him the music. He looked through it with an unreadable expression. Then he asked his assistant to play the ad again but with the tune added in this time.

Blaine held his breathe the whole thirty seconds that the piece played. When it was over and all the lights were back on, he chanced a glance in Ericksen’s direction. Once again, the man’s face told him nothing. Then, he turned to Thad who, like him, was trying to gauge the other’s man’s reaction.

“Is that it?” Mr. Ericksen asked them as the demonstration was over. He turned to Blaine and met his gaze. “This needs more notes,” he added as he nearly threw the sheet music back in the composer’s arms.

“More notes?” Blaine asked, confused.

“Yes, you know, these little black and white things that you draw on lines and that create music,” he answered in mocking tone.

Blaine flushed as the rest of the room laughed at the joke. The young man caught Wes sending a sympathetic look in his direction but his friend did not dare say anything to defend him.

As Ericksen and the rest of his team walked out, Thad came to Blaine and said,

“You better work on this and have a new piece ready for tomorrow morning.”

“I’m not fired yet,” Blaine pointed out, feeling a need to piss off his superior even more.

“I’d be careful if I were you. That man has the power to have you on the black list of all the companies under his name. That would mean you would never get any chance to even compose for a movie soundtrack since he owns most of their labels and his name is highly respected by all the others.”

Blaine did not answer. He just took off with his music under his arm. He ran down the stairs not paying attention to anyone around him.

Once in the street, he found it was raining buckets. Great, he thought, this was just great. He looked around for Trent, the guy who was supposed to take care of his car, but he was nowhere to be found. He turned to his old convertible and noticed that the roof was only half up. He groaned and waited in the rain until Trent, who had his keys, returned.

Behind him, a young man came out struggling with a pile of files and his ringing phone. He cursed in French as he realized that it was heavily raining.

“C’est quoi cette poubelle?!! Comment mon taxi va-t-il pouvoir se garer si cette �pave est dans le chemin?!”

Blaine turned to look at the other man who was clearly talking about Blaine’s car. It was not a piece of garbage. He was about to tell that to the other man when suddenly, the stranger slipped and fell with all his files flying around him. Blaine tried not to laugh because this must have hurt. Instead, he bent down, started gathering the papers that could still be salvaged from the rain, and handed them to the man who was still on the wet concrete. Blaine held out his hand for the stranger to take but he ignored him and pushed himself back onto his feet without even thanking Blaine for his papers.

The musician turned back to his car, wondering if he could maybe come back and pick it up later. He did not want to stay here one moment more. The whole morning had been a series of disasters and now this annoying man was there cursing at him in French again. Something flew right at the stranger’s head and Blaine winced in sympathy. The guy was irritating but somehow Blaine felt guilty, as he recognized it was his car keys that had hit the other man. He bent down to pick them from the ground and stood back up.

Blaine had not realized how close he was standing to the other man. Nor had he noticed how stunning he was. For a short moment, it felt like everything stopped. The world grew silent and a quiet music started to fill the atmosphere. The other man looked right in his eyes.

Wow. Blaine was speechless at how they looked. They were not just blue; there were nuances of grey, green and even gold around the irises. Then the man smiled and Blaine felt the music intensify in his head. It was taking over him completely. After a few seconds, he returned the smile and he could swear that the other man’s eyes started to twinkle.

The moment was broken when Trent yelled at him that he was sorry he had forgotten to put up the roof of the car. Blaine kept looking at the beautiful stranger who was still smiling, before turning to Trent to tell him that it was alright.

Blaine gestured stupidly with his keys and towards his car trying to suggest that he could give a ride to this man whose name he did not know.

The stranger wrinkled his nose in disgust as he laid his eyes on the car.

“So that’s yours?” he asked, speaking in English for the first time.

Blaine loved the sound of the man’s voice now that he was no longer yelling profanities in French. It was such an improvement and Blaine wanted to hear more.

“Yeah,” he replied with a shrug. “It’s no taxi but it gets me where I need to be, plus it’s vintage,” he added with a smile, well aware that his car was old.

“It’s a piece of garbage. I’d rather be walking, thank you very much.”

Blaine’s smile fell. The stranger started walking towards the road. Just as he reached the edge of the sidewalk, a bus passed by and drove right into a puddle sending dirty rain water and mud on the other man who shrieked as he got completely soaked.

Blaine walked over to him, trying not to laugh, because seriously, this was just a bit clich� now, and said,

“Come on, now you can’t get any lower. You might as well climb in my ‘piece of garbage’so I can give you a ride home.”

The soaked man turned to him and Blaine smiled softly, offering him his hand.

“My name’s Kurt by the way.”

“I’m Blaine.”

Kurt reached for Blaine’s hand and let himself be led to the car. He tried to ignore thoughts of what his friends would say if they were to see him now.

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��������������� The ride to Kurt’s place took a good thirty minutes. They both remained silent for the first ten minutes. Then Kurt started panicking over some meeting in a few hours that he had to get ready for. He mentally cursed his assistant Brittany for scheduling it on his afternoon off.

“You really can’t drive any faster than this?” Kurt whined, looking at his watch and glaring in Blaine’s direction. They were so slow that even a bike had passed them by as they took the next turn.

“I told you it was vintage. I don’t want to wreck it.”

“Right,” Kurt huffed in annoyance.

“At least you’re a bit drier now,” the musician said, stopping him from laughing as Kurt turned to look at him. He looked like an adorable drowned kitten.

“Are you always this funny?” the other man asked in a clipped tone.

“Only when they’re cute,” Blaine replied, focusing back on the road.

Kurt turned as his cheeks flushed. He let himself wonder about the man sitting next to him.

Kurt was having one of the worst days. His ex-husband had stormed into his office yelling about some worthless work team. He had also told Kurt that he needed him to be present for another banquet that night so that he could play their charade as usual. The young man hated that he still had to pretend to be Marc Ericksen’s husband for the image of the company. Kurt wanted out but he knew that it was not an option. So he had greeted his teeth and forced a smile on his face as he had accepted Marc’s invitation for the event. Then his assistant had fucked up with his meeting schedule. There were days he wanted to fire her but he owed a friend. Kurt had then run down the stairs hoping that Brittany had thought of calling him a taxi. Of course then it had been raining cats and dogs, no taxi was in sight and he had met the annoying man whose car he was in now.

Kurt had first thought that Blaine was just an irritating person who would jump at the occasion to laugh at all his misadventures with the rain, the keys and then the bus soaking him with dirt and water. Kurt bet that Blaine would have laughed at him had he realized who he was. He had seen Blaine a few times with Thad talking with Richard, his ex’s associate. The other man was probably among those who never missed an opportunity to mock Marc and give him ridiculous nicknames. Blaine clearly had no idea who Kurt was though, or he probably would never have offered him a ride.

As annoying and overbearing as Blaine had seemed to him, Kurt could not shake the curiosity he felt about him. Something had happened on that sidewalk. For a short moment, Kurt had realized how gorgeous the other man was with his dark brown curls and his hazel eyes with specs of gold. But not just that, it had felt like everything else around them had stopped. For a minute, Kurt had felt like he was in some old clich�d movie and that some cheesy song played in the background as their eyes had met for the first time.

Kurt was intrigued by this man. Something felt wrong at the thought he was working for a company like Ericksen: Art et Divertissement. Surely, someone like Blaine saw how pointless it was to be an employee for this company. Then again, maybe he was only doing it for the money; although Kurt doubted the job Blaine must have would pay well.

After twenty more minutes, they had arrived at the street where Kurt lived. Blaine stopped the car near the sidewalk and cut the engine.

Kurt started gathering his files in his arms and let himself out of the car.

“Thank you for the ride, even though I’m convinced it would have been faster if I had walked.”

There was no venom in Kurt’s words anymore. He was just joking and genuinely grateful for Blaine’s help.

The musician had been too distracted by how stunning Kurt looked in the sun now that the rain had stopped a few minutes before to even noticed what sort of neighborhood they had driven into.

“Holy shit! You live here?!” he exclaimed as he took in their surroundings. They were on a beautiful residential street and clearly an apartment there must be really expensive. Even with all his life savings, Blaine would never be able to afford to live in such a place.

“Yeah, my place is on the second floor over there,” Kurt replied, ignoring Blaine’s stunned expression, and pointed to one of the buildings on the left of the street. “I should be going.”

Blaine nodded and climbed back in his car after helping Kurt with his files. They shared one last look before the other man walked towards his building. The musician kept looking at him until he was gone then he turned on his radio and laughed as he heard the first chords of “As Time Goes By” start playing. As a kid, he had confessed to his mother that if he met someone when this song was playing then he would fall in love with them.

Blaine sighed as he turned the volume up and started the engine again. He was about to pull into the road when he saw Kurt running towards him. The man was breathless. He climbed back in the car and smiled. Blaine was completely taken by surprise when Kurt pulled him in a deep kiss. It lasted until the song ended.

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