From that day on, Blaine and I spent a lot more time together. Most mornings before school, he and I would meet at the Lima Bean for morning coffees and the occasional muffin when Blaine could actually convince me to eat one of those delicious calorie factories. On the weekends, we spent half our time at the library picking out books and the other half lounging in the park next to the lake, reading our books or reading to each other.

It was all very relaxing. Sitting in the shade of an overgrown oak tree, listening to Blaine tell me about the misadventures of Helena and Lysander in the realm of fairies or the how Dr. Frankenstein created his monster.

A few times in those weeks, Blaine would come over to my house. My dad and Carole were very nice to him (upon my begging for them to behave). My dad was very accepting of him for the get go, which I would never really admit to, but it made me so happy that my dad liked him. Carole was always happy to see Blaine too and would cook up grand meals for us when he visited. And when he or my dad weren’t looking, Carole would flash me a knowing smile. I would blush to my roots because Carole knew. Of course Carole knew, we had been talking about boys together since I was sixteen, so of course she knew when I had a crush on someone. Maybe even before I could admit it to myself.

When dinner and polite conversation were over, Blaine and I would watch movies in my room (with the door open, by persistence of my father) or just sit around and talk. And that was nice. It was different because I was so used to just listening to what Rachel had to say. But Blaine was so interested in my life and what had happened to me as a child and what my mom was like and what fashion designs I had come up with that week. It was all so surreal.

And he told me about his childhood and his little brother and his friends from home and I was just so interested in him and his life that all I could do was hope for more.

We would practice for Nationals together too. But Blaine always, no matter how much I resisted, took the harmony and I always took the melody. We would sing to each other all the time, enjoying each other’s voices. And boy could Blaine sing. Even if he was just taking the backing vocals, I couldn’t help the shivers I got every time that boy opened his mouth.

Was this what it felt like to be a Leading Lady?

This, of course, was not without interruption from Rachel. If she texted me or called me or asked me to do something with her, I would oblige. It was my job as a wingman, after all. But this didn’t sit well with Blaine. And it wasn’t even my leaving him or canceling our plans that seemed to bother him, it was that I was doing these things because of Rachel. I didn’t understand what his problem with her was.

About two and a half months into Blaine’s transfer, I was standing at my locker, trying to pick out an appropriate cardigan for Rachel to wear over her blue dress.

“Honestly, Rachel, who told you that bright orange would look good with that dress?”

“Did Quinn pull a prank on you?” Tina asked from the other side of me.

Sometimes Rachel’s fashion sense physically pained me when I saw how little she knew about even the most basic fashion trends.

“I saw it in a magazine on your coffee table, Kurt!” she pouted.

“Yeah, honey, I think that was probably a College Sports magazine,” I said, taking my head out of my locker to look at her.

“So?”

“Honey, that’s one of Finn’s. You were probably looking at a Syracuse Basketball uniform or something.”

“Yeah? And? If Finn likes it, then I don’t see the problem.”

“Finn likes the sport or the team,” Tina chimed in, “Not the colors. He doesn’t have a choice in that.”

I looked up at Tina with a smile. What would I do without her?

“I guess that makes sense,” Rachel mused.

“Ah-ha! Here we go!” I exclaimed. From the back rack of my locker, I pulled out a light yellow, half sleeve cardigan. “This will complement your dress perfectly, Miss Berry.”

She took it from me with a smile, sliding out of the orange monstrosity and into the new sweater. Tina took her sweater from her and gave it to me. I made a mental note to torch the thing later.

“Ah! Much better, you look wonderful!” Tina grinned at her Leading Lady. Rachel did a spin for her, making the skirt flair.

“Tina!”

The three of us turned to see Mike Chang making his way down the hallway with a grin. Tina grinned from ear to ear as Mike leaned down to kiss her in greeting. She turned to Rachel with a questioning eye.

“You go ahead, Tina. I’ll meet up with you at lunch,” Rachel said.

With Rachel’s blessing, Tina and Mike headed to class together.

As I watched them, I couldn’t help but be a bit jealous. Tina and Mike were perfect together and were head over heels in love. I wished I could have had something like that. And not just with anyone.

With Blaine.

“Hey, Kurt! Guess who?” called a voice. I knew who it was but I turned anyway.

Nicky stood behind me with his equally giant friend, Kieran. Both of them held a slushie in each hand.

I put on the bravest face I could. I knew what was coming. “Hello, boys.”

“So the last time we slushied you, Hummel, we got reamed out by your hag’s boyfriend,” Nicky started.

“Finn talked to you about slushie-ing me?” I couldn’t believe it. Finn had actually come to my rescue? Finn had actually cared about me and-

“No. Berry got in the line of fire last time.”

Nope. He only cared about Rachel. My mistake.

“And he told us to make sure we never slushied his girlfriend again,” Kieran added.

“But he didn’t say anything about me,” I finished for them.

“Hey, Hummel, your reputation stands. You are a pretty smart kid,” Nicky sneered. “Now, so we up hold our end of the deal. We’re going to make sure none of this ends up on Berry.”

Kieran and Nicky then reached their arms up above me and dumped their frozen death drinks straight on top of my head. They were right about one thing, by dumping it directly on me, they didn’t get any on Rachel who stood by watching this all happen.

I began to shiver; four direct slushies to the head is much worse than one quick one to the face or chest. This way, they sunk in more.

“How’s that feel, Hummel?” Nicky asked, pleased with himself. Kieran high fived him in triumph.

“Aw, man!” I said through chattering teeth. “Maris! Cherry again? You’ve got to switch up your game! Maybe go with blue raspberry next time? It would match my eyes better.”

Maris huffed out and angry breath. Clearly he was less than pleased with my reaction. “Fuck you, Hummel,” he barked, turning on his heel and heading down the hallway.

“Rain check!” I called after him. “But thanks for the offer!”

“Kurt,” Rachel started, only now just starting to approach me.

“Rachel!” Ah, and there was Finn, the brave knight come to his damsel in distress. He ran right past me and straight to his girlfriend, taking her small shoulders in his massive hands, checking her over. “Rachel, are you alright?”

“I- I think so,” she mumbled. “I was so scared.”

She hugged her boyfriend tightly, putting on the theatrics for all to see.

With a sigh, I tried to pick the slushie out of my hair but two things kept me from doing so. First, there was no way you could pick out that much frozen sugar, I would have to wash my hair. And second? I was shivering so hard at this point that I couldn’t even raise my arms up to my head. My eyes were mostly closed due to the sugar dripping into my eyes. It had never been this bad before; it was like the ultimate brain freeze. I started to slouch against the lockers, sliding down into a fetal position.

If I lock in my heat, I can warm up, right? No, no that’s not right.

Maybe my frozen state was messing with my logical thinking.

“Kurt? Oh my god, Kurt!” The voice of an angel called because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? The voice of an angel. “Kurt, what- what happened? Kurt!”

The angel knelt down and took me by the shoulders not worrying about getting the red ice on their hands. But why? Why would the angel do that? Maybe it was to stop my violent shaking, though it did little to help. But why? No one ever helped me in these situations. I guess that’s what angels are for, helping you when no one else will.

“Kurt, look at me. Look at me.”

And I did. Those warm golden eyes, that tanned skin, that adorable curly hair, that bright light surrounding him. That was no angel; that was Blaine. But maybe Blaine was an angel. That would explain a lot.

Yup, the slushie was definitely affecting my thoughts.

“What the fuck happened?” Blaine snapped. Well that rules out the angel idea; angels don’t swear, right?

“He got slushied,” Rachel said. “Nicky Maris and Kieran Campbell did it. They poured it on his head and left. That’s when Finn came to my aid.”

“Your aid?”

“Yeah?”

“You look untouched,” Blaine said, his eyes narrowing.

“Well she was scared!” Finn piped in, “And she’s my girlfriend, I have to protect her.”

“Kurt’s you brother!” Blaine spat. “Look at him! You should care about him and his well-being! Not just brush past him and rush to someone who is perfectly fine!”

“But-” Finn stuttered.

“I’m disappointed in you, Finn. I would expect this from Rachel-”

“Hey!”

“-Even though you’re not related biologically, blood is thicker than water.” Blaine took off his jacket and placed it on my shoulders. “Come on, Kurt, I’ll help clean and warm you up.”

With that, Blaine pulled me to my feet and into the nearest bathroom, leaving my ever clueless and currently very confused stepbrother behind.

He sat me down on one of the sinks, running hot water in another and then moved out of my sight. I was so confused, the cold messing with my ability to think. Blaine returned with paper towels, running them under the sink and pressing them to my face. With his other hand he extracted the drying red sugar and dye out of my hair. When almost all of it was gone, Blaine moved me beneath the hand-dryer and turned it on. I felt an instant difference. The hot air rushed around me like a warm cocoon.

“I’m so sorry, Kurt. This shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry, I should have been there,” Blaine said, returning with more paper towels to wipe me down. I looked at him with hooded eyes but did not say a word. His face was flushed deep pink as he dabbed at my chest. Why was he helping me? Overhead I heard the bell ring for the next period. Blaine laughed dryly, “I guess we’re going to be late to our next classes, huh?”

I nodded.

In all honesty, I was feeling much better having the hand-dryer on me and the slushie out of my face.

“Thank you,” I all but whispered.

He smiled at me with one of those smiles that made my heart hurt. “You’re welcome.”

He pulled me to my feet but didn’t let go when we stood up. I looked at the hands between us. His strong tanned hands holding mine; pale and thin. I knew I was blushing, but in that moment, I couldn’t care less. He didn’t say my name to get my attention and I didn’t say his; we just stood in silence. When I finally looked up, he was staring right into my eyes.

Blaine was so good to me and I still couldn’t figure out why. What had I done to deserve someone like Blaine? Despite everything I had been made to believe, he made me feel like I could accomplish anything.

“Blaine-”

“Do you want to meet my family?” he blurted out.

My eyes widened slightly. Well this was new.

“Your family?”

“Yeah, I- my mom and I were talking the other day at dinner and she mentioned that I had been at this school for almost three months now and we’ve been friends all this time and she’s never met you. Then my dad said that he wanted to meet this “elusive Kurt Hummel” that I was always talking about.”

Blaine was always talking about me?

“But you don’t have to, if you don’t want to!” he said in a hurry. “I just thought maybe you would want to come to my house for dinner or something and then I could show you my room and maybe we could watch something on Netflix or whatever. But you don’t have to! You don’t have to feel pressured to-”

“Blaine!” I finally said, squeezing his hands. He looked down at our hands then back up at me, a blush high in his cheeks. “I would love to meet your family.”

“You would?” he squeaked. He actually squeaked with excitement. This boy was too much.

“Of course I would. Why wouldn’t I want to meet the people who raised you?”

“Oh, Kurt, this is fantastic! I’ll have to call my mom right a-” He stopped dead.

“Blaine?”

“We’re late for class!”

“Shit!” I said, scrambling to clean up our mess.

“Wait, wait, what about your clothes?” Blaine asked, as he threw away a pile of paper towels.

“Blaine, I’ve got a whole department store in my locker. Once we finish up here, you head off to your class and I’ll change.”

“Right, right, okay,” he agreed, spinning around in circles. I had to admit, I liked frazzled Blaine. “I’ll talk to you later then, yeah?”

“Yes. Call me when you have plans about dinner with your family?”

“Yes! Yes, definitely. I’ll see you later.”