After spending the remainder of his Saturday night doing homework and exchanging the occasional text with Kurt, Blaine was looking forward to a fairly quiet Sunday – yes, he still had some homework he needed to finish, but that wasn't enough to keep him busy all day long. However, as soon as he was done, his phone rang.

Kurt.

Since they'd seen each other less than 24 hours ago, Blaine was slightly surprised by the call. Then again, perhaps this was what people who were dating (even if they were keeping it a secret from everyone else) did. And Blaine couldn't say he was entirely opposed to hearing Kurt's voice again – quite the opposite, really.

He didn't manage to get one word out before Kurt started talking. Feeling slightly overwhelmed, Blaine listened to his boyfriend (boyfriend!) ramble about how he'd been an awful friend to the girl who was supposed to be his best friend at McKinley (Blaine suddenly remembered the phone call Kurt had gotten while he'd been fixing Blaine's car weeks ago), so he'd be taking her out for dinner later that day, and would Blaine like to join them?

"She doesn't know we're together," Kurt assured him, "but she does know we're close, and she wants to meet the person I've been blowing her off for so often lately." He truly sounded sorry and, despite the circumstances, Blaine smiled.

"Are you sure about that? Wouldn't she prefer to just have a night out with you, without me there? Especially if you're trying to make up for the fact that you've been blowing her off to hang out with me instead. I can imagine she might be holding quite a grudge towards me by now."

"She was actually the one who suggested asking you to come along," Kurt said, sounding a little doubtful now. "I suspect she'll try to grill you about the nature of our relationship, or what exactly your intentions with me are, or something like that – just like the rest of the group will do when they meet you, mind you."

"The Warblers are the same way," Blaine replied, relieved that, from the sound of things, Kurt could not get too angry at him if Blaine's friends would try to defend his honour or whatever they liked to call it, if Kurt's own friends were planning an interrogation as well. "Yeah, sure, I'll come. It sounds like fun."

Kurt then explained that dinner would be fairly early, seeing as they did have school the next day, and now Blaine would have to drive back to Westerville afterwards. Blaine felt grateful for that, and he promised Kurt he'd be at Breadstix – which seemed to be Lima's fanciest (and only) restaurant – on time. That left him with a couple of hours less to spend with his friends, so he figured he'd best make the most of it.

As he'd sort of expected, this meant hanging out in Wes' room with the lot of them, playing all sorts of video games – just like they usually did during the weekend when they were out of homework to do or just needed a break. Blaine briefly wondered what Kurt would think if he knew – though he was bound to find out sooner or later – about the Daltonites' favourite way to waste time. He couldn't dwell on the thought for too long, as someone would probably realise something if he kept this up.

Soon, however, Blaine noticed that he should go back to his own room to get dressed for the night – he didn't think Kurt would approve if he showed up in his uniform, which he'd put on that morning because he didn't feel like going through his casual stuff. When he slowly made to get up, though, Wes frowned at him.

"Where are you going, Blaine? It's nowhere near dinner time, right?"

Jeff checked his watch. "No, it's not. Is something wrong?"

Blaine shuffled on his feet. "Nothing's wrong. It's just… Kurt asked me to hang out."

"Again?" David did not look impressed. "You're spending all your time with him nowadays, are you sure you're not dating?"

Hoping that he wasn't blushing too much, Blaine shook his head, trying to be convincing. "No, we're not dating. Um… his best friend requested to meet me."

"Oh?" Jeff asked, suddenly very interested. "So can we request to meet Kurt, too?"

"I've already told you, you'll all meet him at Sectionals," Blaine reminded him. "I'm not meeting all his friends, just one."

"So bring along one of us!" Jeff exclaimed, bouncing up and down on the bed. "It'll be fun!"

"I don't want to scare them off," Blaine replied, inching towards the door.

"Who's his best friend?" Jeff was on a roll now, and Blaine was somewhat glad Nick wouldn't be returning until later that night.

"A girl called Mercedes," Blaine responded, figuring that they wouldn't be able to do much with that information. "I don't know much about her, though. Perhaps after tonight."

Now, Jeff's eyes were positively gleaming. "You should really bring one of us along! We could have a double date!"

"Let's not do that," Blaine said carefully. "Maybe some other time, alright?"

Jeff obviously did not agree with this, and neither did the other boys. In the end, they kept Blaine long enough for him to have to hurry to leave in time, without having time to even change his clothes. He just hoped that Kurt wouldn't be too harsh on him for not changing before coming to the restaurant – or about the fact that his hair was, in fact, plastered down on his head again.

As he walked downstairs, towards the parking lot, Wes stalked along, giving him some last minute tips on how to avoid and evade questioning about the Warblers' Sectionals performance. Blaine let him talk, figuring that that was easier than trying to tell Wes that set lists would not be why the two McKinley students had asked for him to join them tonight.

When he arrived at Breadstix, Blaine was exactly on time. He didn't see Kurt's car yet, but then again, maybe his friend had driven them here. He walked inside and indeed, his eyes instantly found Kurt, who was sitting across from a girl Blaine suspected was Mercedes. Naturally, Kurt was dressed to the nines, and Blaine squirmed inwardly about the fact that he had not been able to change earlier. He'd have been much too late if he had, though, since he hadn't thought about what to wear earlier that day. He should really work on that.

"Hey," he greeted Kurt as he reached the table, smiling slightly at his boyfriend. As Kurt smiled back at him, Blaine turned to the friend. "Hi, I'm Blaine."

The girl stared at him incredulously for a moment before taking his outstretched hand. "Hey, Blaine. I'm Mercedes. It's nice to meet you."

She sent Kurt a look Blaine couldn't quite decipher, but Kurt ushered him into the booth before he could ask. There was an awkward silence for a moment, and Blaine felt like he was interrupting something – which he probably was. As he shifted in his seat slightly, Kurt squeezed his hand briefly before letting go as quickly as he'd latched on, so Mercedes wouldn't notice.

"So, Blaine," the girl began, eyeing him critically, and Blaine knew what was coming. "I have to ask, are you Dalton boys not allowed to ever take off that uniform? Or don't you… own any other clothes?"

Kurt shot her a look, but Blaine just smiled apologetically, kind of amused about her horrified tone. "Sorry about that. We're allowed to wear casual clothes outside of school hours, but not many boys do so. It's easier to wear the uniform, and many boys don't have much other clothing to work with. You're right, though; I was planning on changing before coming here, but my friends weren't intent on letting me go so easily, so in the end, I had to hurry to be here in time even without changing beforehand."

"Hasn't Kurt ever been late because he had a fashion emergency?" the girl asked, ignoring her friend's glare like a pro. When Blaine didn't immediately reply (as he couldn't recall such an event ever having taken place), she added, "He normally has a lot of those. Neither of us would've blamed you if you'd been a bit later because you had to get out of that uniform."

"She's right," Kurt agreed, "but there's nothing that can be done about it now, so let's just enjoy the evening, alright?"

Mercedes looked between the two boys disbelievingly. "Okay," she started, glancing at Blaine, "what have you done to my friend?" Turning to Kurt, she continued, "The Kurt Hummel I know wouldn't have stopped bothering him about the uniform the entire night, and now you're just dropping the subject? Like that?"

Kurt made a non-committal noise before sighing. "Look, Mercedes – we can't tell him to drive all the way back to Dalton and then back here just because he's in his uniform, right? I'm sure he got the message and I'm sure it won't happen again. Right, Blaine?"

Dutifully, Blaine shook his head. "I'll keep it in mind," he promised. "The next time you see me, Mercedes – provided you don't come to Dalton and not counting Sectionals – I'll be out of uniform."

"We do need to go shopping for some new clothes," Kurt mentioned. "From what I've seen and heard, you don't own that much."

Again, Mercedes glanced at the two of them, now with a thoughtful expression on her face. Blaine hoped she wouldn't figure them out; after all, from what Kurt had told him, he regularly took his friends (mostly female, but still) on shopping trips all the time when he didn't approve of their wardrobe.

Kurt seemed to realise this too, as he quickly started talking about something that had happened in his English class a few weeks before.

o-o-o-o-o

By the time the three of them got their food, Blaine could see why Kurt and Mercedes were such good friends; they were almost hilariously alike and different at the same time, which, in Blaine's eyes, was quite a feat. He was enjoying his evening, though he couldn't help but think that he and Kurt were sometimes excluding Mercedes from the conversation; it soon became obvious, though, that whenever he said something about this, Blaine himself would not understand the next part of the conversation, as Mercedes would start talking about school or their friends or a mutual experience next. Only when they started discussing music (which, Blaine knew, they had tried to avoid for the first part of the night since that topic came dangerously close to that of Glee clubs and competitions), there was a real three-way conversation.

As they discussed the pro's and cons of various music genres, someone suddenly walked up to them. "Blaine! What a surprise to see you here!"

Somewhat annoyed, Blaine looked up; Mercedes and Kurt did the same. "Nick?" Blaine exclaimed disbelievingly. "What – why are you here?"

"We're on a date," his friend replied, gesturing to Amanda, his girlfriend, who was standing next to him.

"I didn't know either of you lived so close to Lima," Blaine said, frowning.

"We don't," Amanda responded, shrugging, as she threw Nick an annoyed look. "For some reason, though, he insisted we come here. So here we are."

"Did Jeff call you?" Blaine asked suspiciously. He wouldn't put it past his friends to send Nick after him. After all, he had a better excuse to be in a restaurant than most of their other friends did.

"No, he didn't," Nick defended himself.

"Was it Wes?" Blaine asked. "Or David?"

Nick groaned silently, and Blaine cast a quick glance to Mercedes and Kurt – Mercedes was watching the exchange a little confusedly, while Kurt was looking on with more interest. "It was Wes," Nick confessed. Looking at Blaine's companions instead, he grinned – Kurt especially was met by a slightly frightening smile. "You must be the famous Kurt," Nick said, looking Kurt up and down. "Awesome, I feel like I know you already with all the time Blaine spends talking about you."

Mercedes snorted and, after stealing a glance at Kurt, turned to Nick. "He does that too?" she asked. Gesturing towards her best friend, she added, "It's so hard to get Kurt to shut up about Blaine sometimes. I think I can write Blaine's biography by now."

Blaine and Kurt, both reddening at an alarming speed, looked at each other, horrified. Yes, they did know how the other felt about them, but that didn't make this situation any less embarrassing. This was exactly what Blaine had feared would happen when the two Glee clubs would meet, and he didn't like it at all.

"Nick," he interrupted his friend and Mercedes, "why did Wes send you here?" He had a vague idea of what Wes' reason was, but he wanted to hear it from Nick.

Nick shrugged. "He and the other guys were kind of offended by the fact that one of Kurt's friends got to meet you, but none of us had met him so far. It's almost like you're ashamed of us." He pouted for a moment before continuing. "Since they had no reason to drive two hours to follow you here, other than wanting to meet Kurt, they asked me to do that and give them a report as soon as I'm back at Dalton."

At that, Kurt asked Nick, somewhat uncomfortably, what would be in that report. Blaine glared at Nick for making his boyfriend (though Nick (hopefully) didn't know that bit) uneasy, and Mercedes and Amanda exchanged exasperated looks.

When Nick finally left, dragged to a free table by his girlfriend, Kurt looked at Blaine, wide-eyed. "Is he really going to tell the rest of your friends about me?" he asked.

Blaine nodded apologetically. "Sorry," he said. "I doubt he'll have anything bad to say, though," he tried to appease Kurt, though he wasn't sure if it worked. "They're all incredibly curious about you."

"The same goes for our friends, about you," Mercedes told him, clearly trying to hold back a smile.

"You're going to give them a full report as well?" Blaine asked, and Kurt sent her a disapproving look.

"If anyone asks, I won't hesitate to answer," she responded semi-diplomatically.

o-o-o-o-o

The next morning at breakfast, Blaine had to suffer through his friends asking about Breadstix, Kurt and Mercedes, and also through Nick expressively talking about what he'd witnessed and what he thought of Kurt. Thankfully, Nick was mostly positive about the boy (the only real negative thing being that Kurt had 'obviously' not noticed yet what a cute pair he and Blaine would make), even going as far as to tell the other Warblers about how beautiful he was, for a boy – not that Nick would know because he wasn't gay, or so he said.

All in all, Blaine was glad that the first contact between one of his friends and Kurt had gone fairly well. Plus, he himself and Mercedes seemed to get along just fine, too. Maybe they would be okay.

Later, as he walked to his first class, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Looking around swiftly, he took the device out and glanced at the screen. Kurt, again – but a message this time.

He proposed! My dad and Carole are getting married next weekend!