CHAPTER TEN

LATE WEDNESDAY NIGHT

KURT

The walk to the diner was awkward, mainly because James tried to clutch onto my arm with a death grip. As we approached the door, he opened it for me and I nestled into a seat near the window. James sat across from me and looked dejected at the menu that I placed in front of him.

The waitress came by and poured us both some coffee before turning her attention to one of the back tables. The minute she left, I looked up at James who was still sulking and staring out the window. I took a sip of my coffee, breathed in deep, and started.

"James, I want to start off by saying that I'm really sorry about how all of this turned out. I really enjoyed our date and it's been nice to get to know you, but I can't be with someone who isn't out right now. Not..." I couldn't bring myself to finish the sentence.

He turned his attention back to me and I could practically see the thoughts and questions he had for me behind his eyes. "I still don't understand. You said something about William. Who is that?"

I sighed. This was going to be a long night.

"When I came out when I was 15, I resigned myself to be single for a long time. Ohio wasn't exactly bursting with gay men, so I figured I wouldn't find a guy until I was in college. When I first moved to New York and started going to Parsons, I met William - a guy who went to school with my roommate Wes. He was an international business major and had a lot of classes with Wes, so he was around our apartment a lot. After a few weeks, we ended up hanging out with just the two of us before William asked me on a date. I was pretty surprised that he asked me out since I had no idea that he was gay - despite me thinking that I had the best gaydar in New York City - but I accepted because I really enjoyed spending time with him and we had become close. We really hit it off romantically and we became exclusive after a month or so. It felt like things were finally falling together for me; I was living in New York City, I had a smart, attractive boyfriend, and I was working toward a degree in something I loved.

"A few months after we were together, William and I decided to spend summer in New York - him at an internship with Time Warner and me taking summer classes to continue to hone my design skills. Since Wes would be gone, we decided that he could sublet Wes' room while he was out and it would give us even more time to spend together. At first he stayed in Wes' room, but after a few weeks our relationship... progressed... and we ended up staying in my room together night after night. It was really nice - I would come home and we'd get dinner ready, talk about our days, mess around sometimes, then we'd wake up together the next morning. It felt very domestic and I was in heaven.

"Around July 4th, William told me his parents were coming in town from Colorado. By this point, we'd been together for about 7 months and we were at the stage where meeting the parents seemed like a natural step. I was thrilled to meet his parents since he really valued their opinion in everything in his life, so I wanted to be sure that they'd like me too."

I had to stop the story to fight back the tears that were bubbling up. I hated this part of the story.

"But the day before his parents came to visit, he started to act really strange. The clothes that he placed in my closet were moved into Wes' room and he even moved his toiletries and other products into our second bathroom - like he was trying to really give off the impression that we were roommates rather than together like... that. When his parents arrived, things only continued to get weirder. Despite cleaning the apartment for what felt like days and moving his stuff around, he didn't invite his parents to the apartment when they first arrived. He would meet his parents at a restaurant or some tourist attraction and I wouldn't see him again until very late in the evening. When he came home, he looked exhausted and would go crawling into Wes' bed each night and would be gone before I woke up most mornings. After the fourth night of him being gone for hours on end, I asked him why he hadn't invited his parents to see where he was staying and he shrugged and said it never came up.

"One day, probably the sixth day into his parents' trip, I woke up and went out to make myself breakfast and found William's parents sitting on the couch. I quickly introduced myself to them and told them how much I heard about them, but they said they had never heard of a Kurt being friends with their son. I remember dropping the coffee cup that I was holding onto the ground and the coffee splattered everywhere and his mom started muttering something about her white linen pants being ruined, but I didn't care. The guy I was dating, having sex with - hell, falling in love with - hadn't even told his parents who I was."

The tears I held back were now trickling down my face. James sat silent, face contorted in a mixture of confusion and sadness.

"I don't remember much of their time in the apartment after that. I remember William coming in from somewhere once he heard the coffee cup drop; trying to salvage the situation and helping his mother, but I could barely see anything through the tears and my mind just couldn't comprehend anything else. I've never felt like less of a human being than in that moment. I had introduced him to my family, we had started talking about having a future together - but the two people he valued most in life didn't know I existed. With his parents admitting that they didn't know who I was, it was like he was trying to deny my existence. And you lying to your boss about how you met me just brought that feeling up again. I'm not saying that you're him, James, but I can't go down that path again. I can't have you denying who I am to your business partner. I can't do it," I said, tears free falling from my eyes.

After a few moments of silence, I heard him clear his throat. "I understand. And I really am sorry, Kurt. It's just all so new to me and I don't know how to handle it - being out, being gay, telling people. I can't force you to feel like you should give me a chance - and I really wish you would - but I see why you can't." I heard his voice hesitate before he tentatively asked, "if you don't mind me asking, what happened after his parents left?"

I hiccuped as I tried to regain my breath. "He came back at some point during the night because I could hear him shuffling around, but I stayed locked in my room. He tried to come and talk to me but I wouldn't open the door - at least not that night. The next day, I decided I wanted to understand why he'd done what he did. He explained that he wasn't out to his family and that he hadn't come out to anyone until he moved to New York. He said something along the lines that New York was his 'gay haven' since he could be who he really was here. But the moment his 'real life' was involved, it was like he resorted back to this 'straight' version of himself - and he described himself as that; 'straight William.'

"It wasn't the fact that he wasn't out that was the problem to me, it was the fact that he was lying about who he was and, by default, he would have to lie about the fact that I was his boyfriend. I wanted to be able to be open about my boyfriend and if I was with him, that wasn't going to happen. I told him that since he had already moved his belongings into Wes' room that he may as well take the next step and move them out of the apartment altogether and find somewhere else to spend the rest of the summer.

"I spent the next couple of days with my friend Rachel, who was living here at the time, to give him time to get his stuff out. I told him to be sure to take all the photos of us when he left as well. I went back to my apartment after 4 days and it was as if he was never there. I spent the rest of my summer just taking more classes and spending time with my friend Rachel and her friends at NYADA. Once Wes came back from vacation, he found out on the first day of classes that William had transferred to another college out of state and that was that; a clean break."

I dried the last of my tears as I clutched my coffee cup and took a big sip.

James reached across the table and lightly touched the hand that I had on the table. "Thank you for telling me," he said. "I know it must have been hard to deal with a relationship like that. The fact that you didn't totally bitch me out for being... well, me... means that you're a saint." I laughed. "And I truly do wish we could keep dating, but I don't think you want that."

I shook my head, indicating that I didn't.

He sighed. "And that's okay." James squeezed my hand for a moment before bringing it back to his side of the table. "But, do you think we can still go shopping some time?" he asked, small smile on his face.

I grinned for the first time that night. "Of course - as friends." He nodded, acknowledging that he knew that would be the case. "But let me warn you," I continued, "you have no idea what you've just signed up for."

BLAINE

I sat on the couch, eyes intent on Conan on the TV in front of me, still feeling discontent after my dinner of leftover Pad Thai and part of a tub of cookies and cream ice cream. As soon as the stand-up comedian came on the show, I clicked the TV off and groaned as I stared at my reflection in the TV. What I saw was a man with hair going in every direction thanks to laying on the couch's arm, tie loosened at the neck and buttons half undone, clutching a pillow to my chest, surrounded by empty take-out boxes and a pint of ice cream. This was not exactly how I pictured spending the night after getting such great news from Clark. Rather than being excited and celebrating with my friends, I was sitting on my couch wallowing in the fact that I wanted to share my good news but felt like it was going to fall on deaf ears. Not that my family and friends wouldn't be supportive, it just wasn't the same.

God, I was lonely. But was there really anything I could...

My eyes flickered to my laptop that I left sitting on the coffee table in front of me. Oh, right. NYC Date. I had forgotten about it with all of the hubbub around the signing and, well, life.

I doubt Santana would be mad at me if I finalized my profile early, I thought to myself as I opened up the laptop and logged into the website.

As I hit enter, I my phone started ringing from the other room. I jumped off the couch and ran past the divider in my studio apartment into the bedroom area and looked at the screen before answering.

"Hello Cooper," I said with a grin.

"Hey little brother! How's it shakin'?"

I laughed. Cooper had the weirdest catch phrases. "Not too bad, I guess."

He scoffed. "Well something clearly had to happen if you texted me to call you ASAP when I was off work. Is everything okay?"

"Of course everything is okay. If it was an emergency, I would have just called you. Or your publicist. Or... well, I would have gotten a hold of you somehow if it was really that important."

He paused. "Okay... so... what do you have to tell me? Oh my god, do you have a boyfriend?"

"Cooper why do you assume that I would have a boyfriend? Why is that the first thing that you'd think I'd have to tell you?" I chuckled. My brother was slightly ridiculous when it came to my love life. I think it was because he felt guilty for not being there when I was a teenager, leaving me to talk to mom or some friends from Dalton about the guys I had crushes on. I think he was trying to make up for lost time, which in Cooper World meant practically suffocating me with questions about the guys I was into, sending me emails of hot guys that he'd met in LA, and offering to set me up on blind dates all the time. It was sweet, but too much sometimes.

"A guy can hope, I guess. Okay, B. So dish."

"Well, I got some great news at work today and I felt like I was going to burst if I didn't talk to someone about it!"

He laughed. "Well I'm honored that you chose me. So what's the big news?"

"Well, did I ever tell you about the band Atticus Finch?" He was silent, so I assumed I hadn't. Geez, I don't talk to my brother enough. "Okay, so Atticus Finch is this band from here that plays a kind of indie rock multi-instrumental fusion, I guess. They're hard to explain. Anyway, I found them at a gig in Brooklyn and told Clark about them and I guess I sold them up enough because Clark green-lit them recording an album with Rialto."

"B! That's amazing!"

"Well that's not even the best part. He called me into his office today after work and was talking about how I do great work at the label and how he wants me to go to Atlanta this weekend to meet with a record producer for Atticus Finch. He wants me to meet THE Jeremy Reed, Coop."

"Uh, who's that?"

"Dear Jesus, how are we related if you don't know who that is? Okay, Jeremy Reed is the number one record producer of indie bands in the country. He's worked with a ton of indie artists for decades and he's basically my music icon," I rattled off to him.

"I thought your icon was that chick that sang 'I Kissed a Girl'?" he asked.

"Get a grip, Coop. That was so high school. And besides, even in high school it's not like I was obsessed with her. You know I listened to anything and everything - she just happened to be on rotation a lot because she was on the radio like all the time."

"Okay, okay - I surrender. Geez B. No need to get upset. Okay, so this Jeremy Reed is a big deal and you'd have to go to Atlanta to work with him or something." I could tell Cooper was trying really hard to understand my excitement, but he really wasn't into music like I was. Now, if I had been geeking out about JJ Abrams, he would understand. But Cooper didn't really get the whole music industry.

"Yes. Well, that's not even it," I continued. "Clark said he wants me to go to Atlanta to work with Jeremy Reed - which is awesome - but he said he also wanted to have him play more of a mentoring role with the hopes that with me under his wing, I'll be a producer as well."

"Holy shit Blaine! I mean, I don't exactly know what it means to be a record producer, but I know you've been talking about that since you were in high school."

"Exactly. It could really change things for me, ya know? It's thrilling and exciting and terrifying all at once."

Cooper laughed. "The best things in life usually are all of those things - at least at first."

I sat in thought for a moment. "Yeah."

I heard Cooper's voice hesitate on the other end. "Blaine, what's going on? I mean, you sound thrilled at this whole producing thing, but... normally you'd be acting like a crazy person with good news like this. But, you just - I don't know - don't seem like your all is in the moment. Are you worried about how this will all shake out?"

I sighed. "No, that's not it. It's just..." I paused, trying to figure out how to articulate what I was thinking. "I was so excited when Clark told me about meeting Jeremy Reed and the possibility of becoming a record producer with Rialto, but I felt like I didn't have someone to talk to about it."

"Blaine, you know you can always talk to me. And mom and dad will be so thrilled to hear about it when they come back. And I know you have tons of friends that-"

"That's not what I mean, Cooper. I wish I hadthatperson; the one person I could share my everything with. A guy that will be proud of me for this, who'd cook a celebratory dinner for the occasion and who I'd have by my side at all of the events surrounding this signing." I stopped again to push back some tears that were threatening to expose themselves. "I'm just so lonely, Coop."

"I can only imagine, Blaine. You're such a loving and kind-hearted guy - you're the kind of person who loves to be in love."

"That makes me seem like I'm just fawning after guy over guy and throwing around 'I love yous' with reckless abandon," I said, slight hurt in my voice.

"That's not what I mean. You just have so much of yourself to give, you want to share it with someone else. So far, you've done that with mom and dad and me and it's been fantastic. Knowing that I have you in my back pocket as my support system has really gotten me through some rough stuff. You are such an awesome guy and I'm so lucky to have you in my life. I really lucked out genetically - and I don't just mean with my killer good looks," he added with a laugh. "But now it's time for you to share that with someone that you choose to make your family - someone that you'll fall in love with. And Blaine, you've always been a bit of a romantic. Sure, you're afraid of saying the wrong thing a lot and you over-think things way too much, but you are a romantic guy and you haven't been with someone in a while. It's only natural that you're itching to get back in the game. You're ready to share your love with someone."

"You're right. I mean, I do want to get back in the game. And I guess I am a romantic." I sighed. "Do you think it'll happen for me, Cooper?"

"Do I think what will happen, bud?"

"I don't know - love, romance, that guy that I've been dreaming of having in my life?"

"I don't know for sure, but I certainly think it will. But if anyone deserves to have that in their life, it's you."

I beamed. Cooper could really be a smothering, self-centered jerk sometimes, but he really knew how to be a great brother. "Thanks, Cooper." I started laughing as I dried the tears that had fallen down my face. "Well, today has certainly been quite the day; from signing a record deal, to hearing about a potential promotion, to practically having an emotional breakdown with my brother... who knows what tomorrow will hold!"

Cooper laughed as well. "You certainly have had quite the day, little brother. But I'm glad to have been included in your whirlwind agenda. Now... have I told you about the really hot guy who's playing my character's co-worker? I think he'd be perfect for you."

I groaned. "Cooper, how to you always go from kind and loving to a complete tool in under five seconds?"

"It's a gift, B."

I laughed. "Alright, so who is this guy?" I asked. As Cooper began to ramble on with another daft attempt to set me up with yet another one of his co-workers (who lived thousands of miles away, I might add) I shut the lid on my laptop, ignoring the website I'd left open on my laptop... for now.