Ushering him out of his seat the second their last class of the day was over, Rachel grabbed Kurt's hand and all but dragged him to the subway and onto the train home. When he was finally no longer being marched through the streets and was instead sitting on the train, he pulled his hand out of Rachel's grasp.

"What's all this about?" he asked her for the third time.

Instead of answering him Rachel reached over and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

"Hey! What are you-?"

"I'm telling Tim that you can't manage coffee later as you are busy with coursework, but you'll be able to meet up tomorrow," she told him, typing out the text. "You need to sort this out, Kurt this is serious. I don't want to see you mess things up with Tim or lose what you have with Blaine."

Kurt stared at her. "Lose what I have with Blaine?" he repeated. "Blaine and I are barely friends! We've only spoken a few times!"

Rachel said nothing to this, just finished tapping out the text on his iPhone and sat with the phone in her hands. When she noticed him looking at his phone with raised eyebrows she said, "I need to wait until we're off the subway so I can send the text."

Kurt left her to it and they sat in silence for the journey home, Kurt bracing himself for whatever Rachel had planned for when they were back in their apartment.

As soon as they entered the apartment, Rachel sat him down on the couch and took a seat on the armchair, positioning it so that she was directly opposite facing him across the coffee table. She watched him for a moment, her expression serious and Kurt fidgeted under her stare.

"Do you still like Tim romantically?" she asked in a low voice.

Kurt gave a small, weak laugh. "What is this? An intervention? The Dr. Phil show?"

"Just answer the question, Kurt."

"I-" Kurt stuttered, stumbling over his words before managing to blurt out a response. "Yes, yes I do."

Rachel's eyes narrowed. "You don't sound so sure."

"I do still like him," he said firmly. "I've had a crush on him since we first met him – you know that."

"Yes, but that was before Blaine came into the picture."

"What picture? Blaine and I aren't even friends! We've only talked a couple of times!" He fought the urge to leap to his feet.

Rachel continued to keep her gaze trained on him. "I know that, but you've been interested in Blaine for months now, since near the beginning of semester. You gush about him to me a lot more that you do about Tim; you rush out of the apartment to the subway station to see him, whereas before you left at the last possible minute; you have this huge smile on your face when you talk about him; you blush at the sound of his name, Kurt this is more than just a casual acquaintance."

Kurt opened his mouth to speak several times, but was unable to come up with a response. He bit his lip as he watched Rachel's expression soften. "I've never seen you like this before, Kurt," she said quietly. "I've known you for years now and not once have I seen you act like this and I don't think you understand what it means."

Kurt just stared at her: his breathing rapid, his hands starting to shake, and his head filled with white noise.

"Kurt, I think you might be falling in love with Blaine," she said softly.

Kurt clutched at his sides just below his ribcage, the fabric of his shirt bunching up in his hands. "How can I be? I barely know him; you can't fall in love with someone you don't know." He clutched harder at his sides as if trying to keep himself together. "I don't believe in love at first sight, that's just based on what a person looks like."

A small frown line was appearing between Rachel's eyebrows. "That's not exactly-"

"And even if it were possible to fall in love with someone the first time you lay eyes on them, then surely it would only happen if a relationship would be possible? Blaine might not even be gay."

"But he might be," Rachel said quickly. "And, Kurt-"

"I don't believe in it, Rachel and you're wrong about my feelings for Blaine." He stood up. "Tim is my boyfriend and Blaine is just a guy I want to be friends with. Can a gay guy not have friends who are guys without being interested in dating them?"

Rachel looked upset. "No, Kurt that's not what I-"

"Just- Just drop it, Rachel." He spun on his heel and strode out of the room and into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him and leaning against it. Unclenching his fists from his shirt, he dropped his hands down by his sides, let his head fall back against the door, and closed his eyes.

Kurt hurried through his usual routine the next morning and left the apartment in record time. As he walked along the street to the subway, glad that the weather was improving and he no longer had to huddle up in his coat to keep warm, he ignored the sound of Rachel's voice in his head saying that he rushed to the subway to see Blaine; that he was looking for more than friendship with him.

He was at the station before Blaine and spent a few minutes eagerly searching the crowd for him until, with a huge smile spreading across his face, he saw him heading towards him with a matching smile on his face.

"Morning!" Blaine greeted him cheerfully when he reached Kurt's side.

"Morning, how was the rest of your day yesterday?"

Blaine adjusted the strap of his satchel. "It was pretty good."

They talked about their day for a few minutes, and then Blaine asked him what his plans were for Spring Break which started next week.

"I'm going home to Ohio for the holidays to spend time with my family. I go home every holidays, I miss them when I'm here," Kurt replied.

Blaine was staring at him with wide eyes. "You're from Ohio? Me too! Where about?"

"No way!" Kurt's own eyes widened in shock – it was almost scary how much he had in common with Blaine. "I'm from Lima."

"Westerville," Blaine said, sounding stunned. "We only live an hour or so apart." He gave his head a small shake. "I'm spending the holiday's home as well."

"I can't believe how close we live. What high school did you go to?" Kurt asked.

"Dalton Academy, it's a private all-boys school."

Kurt shook his head in disbelief. "I was going to transfer there during my junior year, but the tuition was pretty expensive so I persuaded my Dad and Step-mom to just let me stay at McKinley."

Blaine blinked at him. "Wow, if you had transferred then we would have met a lot sooner."

'Before Tim,' the thought entered his head completely unbidden and it shocked him more than the news that he and Blaine lived only an hour away from each other. He shoved the thought to the back of his mind, not wanting to dwell on it.

"If we're both going home for the holiday's then-" Blaine hesitated, a light flush on his cheeks as his eyes darted nervously up to meet Kurt's. "Ma- maybe we could meet up for coffee or something – if you want to."

Without having to think about it, Kurt smiled at him. "I'd like that."

Blaine's nervous smile widened and he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. "Here," he said, handing Kurt his phone. "Put your number into my contacts and we can arrange a time and place to meet up."

Kurt quickly added his number to Blaine's phone and then gave Blaine his own phone so that he could give Kurt his number. His heart pounded when Blaine passed his phone back and he looked down at the screen to see Blaine's name.

"Sorry I'm so late," Kurt sat his coffee down on the table and dropped into the chair opposite Tim. "Rachel wanted to stay back after class for one more run through of the song, but it ended up being more than just one and then, well, you know what she's like," Kurt finished.

Tim reached across the table and took Kurt's hand, squeezing it lightly. "It's fine, I was going through this script so I barely noticed that you were-" he checked the time on his phone, "twenty-five minutes late."

"Sorry," Kurt said again.

Tim grinned mischievously at him. "Do I get an apology kiss?"

Kurt rolled his eyes, but complied, leaning across the small table and placing a quick kiss on Tim's lips.

Tim pouted. "That was it?"

"I was only twenty-five minutes late; I have to be more than half an hour late for you to get more than that."

"Well, I actually got here five minutes early…"

Kurt shook his head, smirking. "Nice try."

Tim pouted again, but Kurt just shook his head at him and took a drink of his coffee. "I'm immune to pouting, Rachel has tried it on me for years, but it never works."

Tim sighed. "Fine, you win, I give up." He fiddled with the coffee stirrer lying on the table next to his coffee cup. "What are you doing for Spring Break? I was thinking we could go out to-"

Kurt shook his head and interrupted whatever plan his boyfriend was about to reveal. "I'm going home for the holidays, so I won't be able to do anything with you, sorry."

Tim looked crestfallen. "Are you going to be there for the whole holidays?"

Kurt nodded. "You know how close I am to my family, especially my Dad, I miss then a lot when I'm here which is why I spend as much time with them as I can," he explained at the sight of the disappointed look on Tim's face.

"I understand," Tim said in a small voice, looking down at the coffee cup between his hands. "I just hoped we would be able to spend more time together, we're both so busy during the semester that we don't get to go on a lot of dates."

"Yeah, it sucks, but it can't really be helped."

"I guess I'll just have to phone my Mom and let her know I'll be coming home for the holidays. She'll be happy with that." Tim raised his head to give Kurt a small smile.

"Don't you want to go home and see your family?"

Tim shrugged. "Sure, but I'd rather spend time with you."

Kurt couldn't think of anything else to say to this, so he just smiled and changed the subject to the script lying on the table which Tim had been reading when he arrived.

Kurt sighed and rolled his eyes when he read the content of the message. He closed the text without replying and tossed his phone aside, throwing it a little harder than he meant to so it landed at the far end of his bed. Rachel walked into the room from the living area just in time to see this.

"What's wrong?"

Kurt didn't look up from the clothes he was carefully packing into his suitcase. "It's nothing," he said shortly.

Rachel started edging towards his bed, her eyes on his phone and Kurt rolled his eyes, dumping a pair of jeans he had just folded into the case. "Tim has turned into a whiny pain-in-the-ass since he found out that I was spending the entire holidays at home."

Rachel froze, swivelling on the spot until she was facing Kurt. "What?"

Kurt sighed again. "He keeps sending me texts moaning about how he won't get to see me for a whole week and how he had hoped we could do all this stuff together blah blah blah." He knew he was sounding more aggressive than he really felt, but he was really sick of how Tim was behaving at the moment. He was glad he was leaving for Ohio tomorrow and would get some distance from him for a while.

Rachel didn't say anything for a moment and the room was filled with the sounds of Kurt pulling clothes from his closet and placing them in his case after folding them neatly.

"I didn't think Tim was like that, I thought he would understand that you want to see your family."

"So did I," he said, slamming a pair of boots down next to his case with more force than necessary. "He said he understood, that he was disappointed, but he knew I really wanted to go home, but he obviously didn't mean it." His phone beeped again and he jumped to his feet. "Can't he give it a fucking rest?" He snatched up his phone and, upon seeing that the text was from Tim, snorted in disgust and deleted it without reading it.

He stomped back over to his case. "You would think he couldn't survive seeing me for a few days the way he is acting – and don't say that's sweet!" he pointed a finger at Rachel who took a step back. "Because it isn't. If he really cared about me then he would know why I have to go home and wouldn't whine about it all the time."

He continued in this vain for a minute longer until Rachel backed out of the room. "I'll leave you to your packing," she said, disappearing from the doorway.

Kurt was still grumbling about Tim under his breath whilst he continued packing when his phone beeped again. He grabbed his phone, planning to switch it off so he couldn't hear Tim's incessant texts arriving, but stopped with his finger hovering over the button to turn his phone off when he saw the text alert on his screen.

1 new message from Blaine

His heart skipped a beat and he opened the text with trembling fingers.

Back to good old Ohio tomorrow! What time is your flight? There's a coffee shop I used to go to when I was at Dalton that we should go to when you have time – their coffee is to die for. See you soon, hopefully!

All his thoughts of and frustration at Tim disappeared from his mind and his face split into a huge smile as he fell back onto his bed and began to type out a reply to Blaine.