Kurt

Kurt stumbled out of his room around eight in the morning rubbing his eyes and wishing that he could have at least one day where he could sleep in, but no. Between working on his Master's degree, internship, and part time job, he had little time for much else. He was surprised he even convinced himself that he had time to go out to Jericho last night. In reality, he didn't because his late night excursion took time away from working on one of two papers that was due next week. Now his entire day would be spent in the library at NYU and burying his nose in piles of books. He'd give himself a one hour break for lunch and leave by three in the afternoon because he had to get home and take a nap before going in for an overnight shift at his internship at ten o'clock.

"We're out of coffee," Puck stated when Kurt walked into the kitchen.

Kurt groaned. "It's okay. I'll get some on my way to the library."

"How was your night?" Puck smiled as he looked down into the pan he was fussing over with scrambled eggs.

Kurt groaned again. "A waste of time."

"Oh come on. There had to be plenty of hotties there for you to try and pick up. It must have been packed seeing as how it was Friday night."

"There were a lot of guys there, but I didn't want to be there in the first place. You made me go and I didn't want to go home with anyone. I had a couple drinks and talked to a couple people. Then I left."

"You are officially turning into an old man. You need to loosen up. You're in the best years of your life and you're spending them in libraries and coffee shops."

"That's because I'm working towards a better life. Do you think I want to be in the library at nine o'clock on a Saturday morning? You're burning your eggs, by the way."

"What's wrong with the life you have now?"

"Uh- besides the massive amount of school loan debt and no time to have a social life? Once I get done with my Master's I'll have a little more time, but then I'll be onto my PhD."

"What do you even need that for?"

"A doctoral degree? Noah, I'm a double major in Psychology and Sociology," Kurt admonished as if the answer was obvious.

"Doctor Hummel."

Kurt huffed, but smiled slightly and poured himself a glass of orange juice from the fridge. He grabbed a small container of fruit salad he made two days ago and walked both items back to his bedroom.

He put the container of fruit on a stack of books on his desk and picked out a piece of watermelon with his fingers, popping it into his mouth, then sucking the juice off the tips. He looked through his closet with his orange juice in hand. Kurt sighed at his collection of clothes. Certainly he had enough clothes to make a fabulous outfit, but he hadn't been shopping in a very long time and it bothered him a little that he let his love of fashion fall by the wayside. He loved his career choice to become a psychiatrist, but he missed his youth that was spent singing, gushing at designs in magazines, and dreaming of a better life where he was out of Lima and a Broadway Star.

But that's not how things worked out. He dropped that dream of stardom and picked up a career choice as a psychiatrist. Well, he really wanted to be a counselor for teens, which didn't require a PhD, but he figured eventually he'd move into psychiatry. His internship currently was as a counselor at a call in center. He took various calls and worked at different lines, which meant that he counseled many different kinds of calls. One line would be as a grief counselor, another would be as a relationship/marriage counselor where he offered advice to the caller, but his preferred line was to be in the room where he took care of the teen suicide calls. Those always made him feel better when he could talk someone off the ledge. He really enjoyed listening to everyone's story, no matter how horrible or silly the callers' problems seemed. Every call was different and special. To Kurt, every call was his high school friend, David Karofsky, calling for help.

David Karofsky was Kurt's former bully turned friend. They had a long, hard road together, but it crushed him when David attempted suicide. That brought them closer and ultimately what caused them to become friends. Kurt realized that David needed someone like him in his life. He needed support that he wasn't getting from anyone else and Kurt felt obligated to help, but he also wanted to help. Rachel told him once that David was forcing Kurt to be the better man in the situation and Kurt was under no obligation to help David after everything that he had done to Kurt. Kurt just waved away the comment and said that he wasn't being forced to be the better person, he just was the better person. It was because of David's suicide attempt that made Kurt want to be a counselor. He decided the moment he saw David in the hospital bed with a bruise around his neck, that he didn't want to see another child take their own life because life was cruel to them. If he could be there for a stranger that felt alone, maybe he'd help stop the number of teen suicide victims from climbing.

The internship was, thankfully, a paid one, but he didn't make nearly enough money to support himself on that salary alone, so he had another part time job as a Teacher's Assistant at NYU. Kurt was extremely grateful for his father, a congressman of Ohio. His dad's graduation gift to Kurt was a credit card that he said that Kurt could use for whatever he wanted, provided he never maxed it out, and his father would foot the bill. It only had a five hundred dollar limit and Kurt mostly only used it for groceries every now and then. Occasionally he used it to pay his cell phone bill, but that was only for emergencies. While he was very thankful that his father agreed to continue to financially support him, he didn't want to take advantage of the offer. Kurt figured that the trade off would be to return the favor one day and take care of his dad when Burt couldn't take care of himself.

Kurt found an acceptable, yet comfortable outfit that made him fit in with the other stylish New Yorkers, but still would make sitting in a library for the majority of his day that much more bearable. By noon he was, as expected, buried in books, periodicals, and notebook paper. He'd somehow misplaced his highlighter three times and his pen countless times, which often was pressed between his own lips, but forgot it was there, in the organized mess he was creating. Kurt looked at his piles, stacked them properly, and went to retrieve a "reserved" sign from the librarian, promising that he'll be back in an hour. He meant it too because if he was any later than an hour, he'd find all of his things that he left behind gone and he'd have to spend another hour trying to find them. After having that happen to him just once, he decided that it would never happen again.

He grabbed his bag and stuffed his notebooks, pen, and highlighter into his bag. He added his bottle of water to the bag and put on his jacket. It wasn't all that cold outside, but the thin jacket and light scarf suited the weather and the ensemble. Kurt decided on going to the coffee shop down the street and eating lunch there while he worked on putting some of his notes in order. He was very anal about his schoolwork. School was too expensive to let himself slack off. Good grades were the only option, so he worked very hard.

Once he was at the coffee shop, Kurt ordered the biggest size they offered for a non-fat mocha latte, bought another bottle of water, even though he had an unfinished one in his bag, and then grabbed a vegetarian hummus wrap as well. He had an apple in his bag and that was enough to satisfy him for the time being.

Twenty minutes later Kurt was buried in paper again. Only this time he had crumbs, juice from his apple, and hummus smudges to add on his notes. He took the last sip of his coffee, disappointed that it was the last sip because it was arguably the most delicious mocha he'd ever had. This particular coffee shop was, in Kurt's opinion, the best one to go to in the NYU area. Kurt was busy flagging particular notes with post-it color coded flags and that he'd sort through later when he was writing his paper. Each color was a different section of the paper. Red was relating to his hypothesis, green was information for his argument, blue was information against his argument, and yellow was neutral information that edged more toward his hypothesis and negated the anti information.

"Kurt?"

Kurt looked up from his work and saw the handsome bartender from Jericho that he met last night. He was dressed less provocatively: blue jeans, a white oxford shirt with thin purple lines, and a black, v-neck pull over sweater. The sleeves were rolled up neatly to his elbows. Blaine, Kurt remembered. "Hi. Blaine, right?"

Blaine smiled. "Yeah. How's it going?"

Kurt felt a little awkward. He knew nothing about this person other than he works as a bartender, he was hot, and he had a mutual disinterest in the man who hit on Kurt last night. "Um. Fine?" He said it like there was a right or wrong answer to how he was doing.

"You don't sound too positive about that."

"Oh. Um. No. I'm fine," Kurt said with more resolution. "Just busy."

Blaine's eyebrows went up, making him look surprised. "Oh! I'm sorry. I must be interrupting you. You're clearly working. I'll go." Blaine looked flustered and a little embarrassed.

"Wait!" Kurt's voice stopped Blaine from walking away. For as awkward as it was to talk to this stranger, Kurt wanted to keep talking to him. He was nice to look at after all and he was nice enough to come say hello. "I-I'm not that busy. And I'm supposed to be on a lunch break anyway." He hurriedly started to clean up the table of his things. "Sit. Please."

Blaine smiled again and sat down across from Kurt. "You sure? Cause if you're busy I can leave."

"No. Stay. Really." Kurt put everything back in his bag and hung the bag on the back of his chair.

"So, you're a student?"

"Yeah. Graduate Program at NYU. It's kicking my ass right now, but I'm in my final year, so… home stretch."

"How was the rest of your night?"

Kurt thought the question was odd because it was a little personal coming from someone who didn't know him. "Uneventful. Boring, really. I went home and fell asleep watching a movie."

"Which movie?"

"Shakespeare In Love."

"Oh I love that movie!" Blaine exclaimed.

Kurt scrunched his eyebrows together. "You do?" He was under the impression that Blaine was straight and every straight man that he knew had either hated that movie or never heard of it.

"Yeah. Gwyneth Paltrow is amazing."

"She is." Kurt noticed that Blaine didn't have a cup of coffee with him when he sat down. Odd, he thought. You'd think he'd have coffee in a coffee shop. "Can I buy you a cup of coffee? I'm going to order another one."

"No. Let me get it. You gave me twenty dollars last night and didn't order anything."

"Technically is wasn't my twenty dollars to give."

"Nevertheless. My treat. What can I get you?"

What is it with people wanting to buy me drinks these days? "Oh. Um. Okay. Non-fat mocha?"

"Coming right up." Blaine left for the front counter to order their coffee.

Kurt quickly took out his phone and sent a text to Rachel. K- you will NOT believe what I'm doing right now.

R- Sitting in a library among stacks of books?

K- I'm having coffee with the bartender I met last night.

R- OMG the cute one?

K- Yeah. He just came up to me and started talking to me then offered to buy me a cup of coffee.

R- You said he was probably straight. Is he?

K- I don't know. Hard to tell right now. I'll let you know soon.

R- What's his name?

K- Blaine

R- That's a sexy name.

K- Rachel!

K- He is hot though *blush* Okay I gotta go. He's coming back with our coffee.

R- Call me later and tell me everything!

"Your non-fat mocha, Sir." He put Kurt's coffee down in front of him.

"Can't get away from the bartender mode, can you?" Kurt smiled.

Blaine smiled back and rolled his eyes. "Guess not," he chuckled.

Kurt took a sip of his latte. "Mmm." He smiled when he swallowed the deliciousness of the coffee. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. I feel like your enjoying your mocha more than I'm enjoying my medium drip."

"It took me forever to find a caf� that makes lattes as good as these. Plus it's chocolate and you can't go wrong with that."

Blaine chuckled again. Kurt really liked when Blaine laughed, even if it was a little one. He smiled when he laughed and when he smiled, his eyes smiled too. Kurt couldn't help, but notice the amber color of Blaine's eyes. They were like warm honey.

Blaine sat back in his chair and sipped his coffee. "So, Kurt with no last name, who drinks non-fat mochas and Midori sours, what are you studying?"

"Double major in Sociology and Psychology. Wait, you remember my drink from last night? But you weren't the one who served me."

"It isn't hard to distinguish a drink that's neon green. I don't know of many… also I saw Jeremy making it for you. I was headed over to take your drink order, but Jeremy got to you first."

"Oh. You have a really good memory. You saw over a hundred people last night, yet you remember my face, my name, and my drink order. Blaine looked down, but Kurt could see the slightest of blushes. Kurt's heart started to flutter. Oh my goodness, he's adorable.

"How come you were there alone?" Blaine asked, trying to change the topic away from himself.

"Uh, my friends made me go out. They're afraid I'm turning into a hermit and think I might lose the ability to function unless I get out of the library once in a while."

"They made you go out, but didn't go with you?" Blaine cocked his head to the side like a curious puppy.

Can he be any cuter? "They're straight. The only other gay friends I have are also friends with my ex. Since I don't want to see or hear anything about him, I'm avoiding the situation all together."

"I know the feeling. I sort of ditched everyone associated with my ex too. He was too high maintenance for me."

"He?" Kurt asked. "You're gay?"

"Yes?"

"Sorry. I just thought you were straight because most bartenders at gay bars are."

Blaine smiled again. "Yeah, I know. I'm the only gay one at Jericho, so I guess I understand your confusion. I just thought it was obvious because I was trying to flirt with you."

Kurt grinned and blushed instantly. He swallowed and blinked his eyes really fast, trying to comprehend what Blaine just said. "Um…" He tilted his head down, not knowing what to say, and caught the screen on his phone. "Oh shit. I gotta go."

"You do?" Blaine asked. He had a tone in his voice that told Kurt that he thought it was because of him.

"Yeah. It's not you. I left a reserved sign on my table and if I'm not there on time, I'm going to lose my stuff and my table. I have, like, seven minutes to get there. It'll take exactly that long." Kurt stood up and grabbed his jacket and bag, not bothering to put his jacket or scarf on. He grabbed his coffee. "I'm sorry. I would love to keep talking to you, but-" He looked at his phone again. Six minutes. "Thanks for the coffee."

"Anytime."

Kurt didn't give himself any more time and took off running, leaving Blaine still sitting at the table. When he arrived back at the library he just caught the librarian approaching his table with a book cart. "Wait. I'm here." He was really out of breath and very thankful that he wore loafers and not boots today. The librarian left, looking annoyed that she had to make the trip over to his table in the first place. It wasn't until Kurt sat back down that he realized he hadn't asked for Blaine's phone number and he didn't know his last name.

K- I'm an idiot.

R- Why?

K- I had to leave in a flash and I forgot to give Blaine my phone number or ask for his.

R- OOO! So he's gay?

K- Yes and he was flirting with me!

K- But it doesn't matter because I have no way to contact him.

R- You know where he works… ; - )

K- *smiles* I do know where he works.