Part Four

"Rachel's postponed our flight home," Kurt said softly as Finn drove them back to their family home. "She's decided she missed her dads a lot and wants to spend some time with them."

"Well, that's good for you, isn't it?" Finn asked, a crinkle appearing in his forehead as he looked over at Kurt in confusion. "I mean, you could go looking for this Blain guy again. We won't be back here again until November for Mr. Schue's wedding and you wouldn't be able to find him in New York."

"Finn, we are not having a discussion about this," Kurt insisted, turning his head away from his stepbrother and gazing out at grey streets and a greyer sky. "I don't care how much you want to lecture me, I am not discussing that part of my life with my stepbrother."

"I don't want to lecture you, come on, I'm not Rachel!" Finn exclaimed, shooting an affronted look at him. "I just seriously want to know why you did it. And don't tell me you just wanted to be loved, I'm only buying that when I'm so drunk I pass out thirty seconds later on Puck's feet."

"I was just…curious," Kurt said carefully. "I've never had a boyfriend, no one I've liked has ever liked me back or even been the right orientation," Finn shifted awkwardly in his seat at Kurt's words, reminding them both of a time that seemed so long ago, "and I've never even watched any of those movies." Finn sniggered quietly to himself at Kurt's choice of words.

"But if you just wanted to have a one-night stand, why a prostitute?" he asked, truly curious. "Why didn't you just get Puck or Sam to give you a lift down the gay bar and pull there?"

"Well, because anyone halfway acceptable there would be so drunk they couldn't walk and that place has the worst reputation in the world," Kurt replied scathingly. "Plus, getting Noah or Sam to give me a lift to a gay bar? That's just weird and overstepping the boundaries of our friendships." He sighed heavily and explained, "I hired him because that profession demands that they treat a client right, and who's to say some random guy I picked out in a bar would respect my boundaries or even ask what I wanted?"

"Who says a prostitute is going to respect you any more than a random hook-up?" Finn retorted in frustration. "Those guys are paid to fuck, Kurt, paid to do whatever the hell they want to people and then fuck off before the next morning. If I had been there, I would never have let him get near you."

"I approached him, Finn," Kurt said icily. "I asked him, don't start thinking because I'm more flamboyant than anyone else you know that I'm not a guy with male needs. Look, if you want the honest truth, I wanted to lose my virginity before Christmas and a no-strings-attached fuck seemed the best way to do it."

"If it's no-strings-attached, then why does Mercedes seem to think you're like in love with him or something?" Finn asked with a slight note of triumph in his voice. "The whole point of hiring a prostitute is sex, payment, and never seeing each other again. That's how it works in the movies."

"My life isn't a movie, Finn, no matter how amazing it could be as one," Kurt snapped bitchily, tiring of his brother's idiocy. "And I'm not in love with him, I just wasn't anticipating how much I would enjoy the sex. And he was very good-looking. If I ever met him again, and he would even speak to me after the way I treated him, I would do it all again in a heartbeat."

Finn gave him a confusedly concerned look as he pulled into their parents' driveway to be greeted by Norris barking loudly and scrabbling at the front window with his oversized paws, overeager to greet them. Sighing heavily, Kurt slammed the door unnecessarily hard when he climbed out and shoved the door open, ignoring the excitable little puppy as he bounded up to me and stomping up the stairs angrily, crashing his door shut demonstratively. Like he was a fifteen year old who'd been denied the chance to go out partying.

"Kurt! Don't slam the door!" Burt shouted in a friendly, fatherly reminder. Having hardly seen him since he'd arrived in Ohio late in the night on Saturday and gone through worse emotional turmoil that he could have thought possible in just over forty-eight hours, Kurt just snapped.

"I'm nineteen years old and living in New York, you can't talk to me like I'm a child anymore!" he screamed before slamming the door so hard dust shook free of the doorframe. He threw himself down onto the bed, growling out a horribly frustrated noise into the floral-smelling sheets.

"Kurt, sweetie, are you alright?" Carole asked softly, pushing the door a bare few inches open and poking her head through the gap, her face set in an expression of affectionate concern. "You never yell at me or your dad. And Finn looks like Norris when I go into the cupboard and don't give him treats, so I'm guessing you yelled at him too."

"I'm sorry, I just couldn't help it," Kurt mumbled into the duvet. As he felt Carole's hand on his back, rubbing in soothing circles, he sat up, wiggling his toes against the floor and avoiding meeting her eye. "I'm just frustrated and I didn't bring my work out with me and Rachel's being crazy over this wedding and I still can't find a boyfriend and I just…" He flopped back over into the bed, groaning into the cotton.

"Are you having boy trouble?" Carole asked sweetly. "You know, you can talk to me. Finn's been emailing me constantly about how bad he feels about Rachel and how much he misses her and how much he wants her back. Honestly, I'd love to talk about something other than Finn's feelings for Rachel."

"Okay, maybe you can help me," Kurt finally said, sitting up straight and smoothing his jeans over his legs. "But first, please forget that you're my stepmother and pretend you're just a friend I'm telling this to." Carole smiled and nodded and Kurt closed his eyes as he recited an edited version of his Sunday afternoon, Sunday night and Monday morning. "I met a guy on the streets and before I knew it we were kissing in the back of a taxi and we went to a hotel and I thought it would just be a one-night-stand without any complications but when he had to leave on Monday morning I didn't want him to go and we had a fight and now I know he wouldn't listen to me if I met him again and I think I've sort of developed…feelings. For him."

"That sounds like the plot of one of those stupid romantic comedies all the teenagers are addicted to seeing these days," was Carole's first thought on the matter. At Kurt's withering look, she continued, "Sweetie, what you do now depends of what you feel for him. If you want to pursue a relationship, you'll have to find him again and get him to forgive you. I never considered you to be the type who would manage to get in far too deep with just a hook-up."

"It's exactly what my dad warned me about," Kurt said pathetically. "With two guys you've got two people who think sex is just sex except I'm the girl in this situation because I'm the one who agreed to just one night and ended up with feelings and, God, if I ever saw him again I'd drag him in way too deep and he couldn't do that with me because of his job and…oh, this is such a mess!"

"Kurt, sweetie, I think you really need to take a step back and separate your feelings for him from the sex with him," Carole told him gently. "I know you might think you're in love and you want to plan your wedding and do all that fairytale stuff, but you could just be mistaking something about the sex for falling in love. I know how easily you can mistake a little crush for falling in love."

"God, relationships are difficult," Kurt whined, flopping back down into the duvet. Carole chuckled quietly and patted his shoulder, though she didn't make a move to leave him to his thoughts and his analysing of everything Blaine had murmured in his ear into the sensuous velvet night.

"You really like this boy, don't you?" Carole asked softly, massaging his back soothingly, sounding almost wistful in her words. Kurt inhaled sharply, the image of Blaine's shining golden eyes filling his mind and breaking through all logical thought, the memory of their lips pressed oh-so-sweetly together almost making him cry at the idea that he had quite probably ruined any relationship they could've had.

"Yes, I like him, and I want to see him again in a less…um, sexual environment," he finally confessed, to both Carole and himself. It was perhaps a terrifying concept, that he liked Blaine, but indeed an inevitable one given his romantic history and the way Blaine had held him and touched him and kissed him.

"And is he worth fighting for?" Carole questioned, raising an eyebrow at him and sounding almost like a teacher asking a ridiculously obvious question. "Is he worth getting past this 'fight' you had?"

"Well, maybe I might think he is-"

"None of that, Kurt, either he is or he isn't," Carole said immediately, holding up a hand to halt his stuttering. "So? Is this Blaine boy worth it or isn't he?"

"Yes, yes, he is so worth it," Kurt finally answered, daydreaming of having a boyfriend, a boyfriend he could walk down streets holding hands with and dance with at weddings and take as a date to the parties his friends threw and smirked over when they asked if he wanted to invite a plus one.

"If that's the case, then, sweetie, you should fight for him," Carole pointed out as if it was the final word in their little discussion. "You shouldn't give up and just let him go. You find someone you truly want to fight for only a few times in your life and you shouldn't let the opportunity to have something that honestly makes you happy just pass you by."

"But how do I fight for him?" Kurt asked desperately. "He wouldn't listen to me if I tried to see him again and I don't have a phone number or an address or an email or any way of getting in touch with him other than face to face."

"Well good, because you need to make sure he knows how you feel and if you tried to do it over cyberspace or the phone I would personally tell Blaine all your embarrassing baby stories," Carole threatened, smirking to show exactly how serious she was. "If Blaine accepts you feelings and comes to you he was always yours, if he doesn't and he runs away from you he never was yours in the first place." She smiled at him. "Okay, sweetie, I'm gonna make some tea, you want anything?"

"Just coffee, please," Kurt decided softly, wiping the scant tears from his eyes. "And don't give me food or I'll be drowning my sorrows in the biscuit tin like I'm Finn in the middle of girl trauma."

"Speaking of which, I need to go downstairs and make sure he hasn't eaten us out of house and home," Carole said, standing up. "Just think about it, sweetie. If he lives here you only have so long before you and Rachel are back in New York. And I want to see you happy, Kurt. Finding happiness with a boy who loves you as much as you love him."

"I don't love him," Kurt mumbled into his pillow. As Carole left, hiding a smile, he thought of the possibilities. Finding Blaine on the same ordinary street filled with ordinary people, paying him the money he owed him from their meeting, buying him dinner in lieu of an apology, and finally getting down on one knee, so to speak, and speaking the words he could only dream of saying in reality: I love you.

He could have a boyfriend. A real, honest to God boyfriend who would take him out on dates and let him bury his head in his shoulder during horror movies and pass him tissues when he cried over The Notebook and hold his hand while he drove. He could have goodnight kisses at the door and be walked to the door after a late-night date and maybe move on to makeout sessions in the backseat of a car and then, eventually, when the time felt right, whisper during a particularly heated moment that he wanted to go all the way and then the sex would come, but it would be more than sex, it would be making love.

Kurt deliberately stopped his train of thought when he started to reach the realms of a proposal, a big wedding with everyone they loved, adoption papers signed, a baby brought home, growing old together with arms wrapped around each other and mopping up each other's tears at their oldest child's graduation.

"Oh God, I am in love," he murmured to himself, rolling over and staring up at the luminous stars glued to his ceiling, bought for him by Brittany when they'd first moved in, as a housewarming present that she had repeated for his, Rachel and Santana's apartment in New York. "Christ, it's miserable."