"Kurt? Kurt, babe. Kurt? Wake up."

Kurt groaned and snuggled deeper under his covers, waving away the voice disrupting his sleep.

Josh smiled and sat down beside Kurt, the bed shifting under his weight. He leaned down to brush a stray hair off Kurt's forehead, and then ducked down to whisper into his ear. "Babe, it's 9:00, why are you sleeping?"

Kurt blinked open his eyes slowly. "Josh?"

"Hi beautiful." Josh said with a smile, kissing Kurt on the forehead, "Wake up, I brought home some dinner."

Kurt sat up, furrowing his eyebrows. "I thought you said you were working late tonight?"

Josh laughed, "Did you have an appointment with your lover or something?"

Kurt's breath hitched, reaching for his neck, thankful the scarf was still wrapped around it tightly.

"C'mon, the food's getting cold. I ordered it from that Italian place you like so much." Josh said, hoping off the bed and headed out to the kitchen.

Kurt's eyes fell. Josh. Josh was perfect. That's how everyone described him. Everything about him from his deep brown eyes, to his strong jaw line, and even his fabulously sculpted chestnut hair, was perfect.

Kurt remembered the first time he'd met Josh, just three years ago—in the magnificent city, Paris. He was there to cover the biannual Paris Fashion Week for Vain. It wasn't unusual for him to see beautiful people—I mean it was fashion week, and there were drop dead gorgeous models everywhere. But Josh was different—he wasn't a model, but Kurt had thought he was.

"Excuse me but, may I ask who you're wearing? It's absolutely fabulous." Kurt asked, tapping the gentleman on the shoulder, gasping a little when he turned to face him.

"Oh? Me? Um, I'm actually not sure, my assistant picked this up for me last minute, and I didn't even have time to check." The stranger replied, looking down casually at his suit.

Kurt furrowed his eyebrows. "You don't even know whose clothing you're modeling?"

The stranger laughed, "My goodness. This is a first. I'm not actually a model."

Kurt could feel his cheeks go scarlet. "Oh. I'm—I'm so sorry."

"No. No, please, it's flattering. I can't help but noticing another American accent though." The man laughed, "Are you a spectator too?"

Kurt smiled. "Um, yeah, I'm the head editor, and founder of Vain Magazine actually. I'm here to cover fashion week."

"Wait—you're Kurt Hummel? Wow, I feel like I should've recognized you."

Kurt raised an eyebrow, "Excuse me?

"I'm Josh Peterson. I work over at the Parisian Dior office. I'm the head PR guy. I read the article you had in Vain last month. Very harsh. You know our designers have been slaving away, working nonstop on that winter line."

Kurt's flushed face went cold. He hated refuting with people who were offended by his critics. Kurt was brutally honest, but he was always honest ."Well it's not my fault. I write it as I see it—I know good fashion and that season's line definitely wasn't it," he snapped. Kurt turned to walk away when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Wait!"

Kurt turned around, flashing a glare. "Yes?"

"Look, I didn't mean to—I didn't mean to offend you or anything. I actually really like your magazine. And you're right, that winter line did suck. No hard feelings okay?" Josh said, flashing a charming smile.

Kurt raised an eyebrow. "Okay…"

"Here, let me buy you a drink or something, the show doesn't start for a couple hours, and—I don't know…it'll be fun."

Kurt smirked, who knew that 'drink or something' would result in completely missing that night's fashion show and spent back at Kurt's hotel—

"Babe? Come on! Food's getting cold!" Josh called, poking his head back into the bedroom and interrupting Kurt's thoughts.

"Yeah, I'll be there in sec." Kurt replied hastily.

It was only about 3 months after Fashion Week—3 months filled with constant web chats, long distance phone calls, and dirty emails, before Josh spontaneously decided to move toNew York to be with Kurt and only another year and a half after that, for him to propose.

"Do you want me to heat up your pasta? I know you don't like to eat it cold." Josh yelled from the kitchen.

"Yeah!" Kurt yelled back, slipping out of bed, adjusting the scarf around his neck one more time before slipping out the bedroom door.

Blaine cocked his head to the side, narrowing his eyes as he applied each individual brush stroke.

"Hold on, can you move your arm slightly lower?" He asked, peering past his canvas.

"Um, like this?"

"Perfect, hold it."Blaine said, quickly picking up his paintbrush to continue.

"Babe, I think your other pieces are fine, why are you doing another one? I was looking at some of the stuff in the studio earlier and I came across some new sketches, did you find a new model?"

Blaine's paintbrush froze. "Uh—which—which one?"

Danny laughed, "I don't know, I only saw a few sketches, besides you only colored in the eyes—do blue-greenish eyes ring a bell?"

Blaine's eyes darted back to his half completed painting. "Oh—that one."

"Why did you sketch it? I think that model would be gorgeous on canvas, don't you think?"

Blaine's eyes fell, looking down at his palette. He'd drawn those a couple weeks ago, a few days after the office incident at Kurt's. He couldn't bear to look at them much longer after drawing them and had just tossed them in a drawer somewhere—he'd completely forgotten their existence until now.

"You should've shown them to me earlier. That model—goodness, he needs to be painted." Danny said, shifting awkwardly in his sitting position. "Where'd you find him?"

Blaine shook himself out of his trance, "Oh, its not important."

"Can't match how we met, huh babe? This right now…what we're doing…really takes you back huh?" Danny said with a smirk.

Blaine rolled his eyes. "Shut up."

Blaine knew the way he and Danny met wasn't exactly the kind of 'funny story' people told at dinner parties. Blaine blushed just thinking about it sometimes, so the sheer idea of telling people—well, that was never going to happen if Blaine could help it.

"Come on Blaine, don't pretend you don't just love the way we met. C'mon…" Danny teased.

Blaine stared at his canvas inspecting it, completely ignoring Danny's teasing. He added a few more golden strokes to highlight his dirty blonde hair, and a few more dabs of green into his bright emerald eyes. The plain white shirt Danny was wearing hugged every curve of his perfectly sculpted body, and exposed a tiny sliver of his tanned midriff. Blaine rolled his eyes as he caught Danny still grinning wickedly from his modeling position.

"Shut up," Blaine said again, glaring over at Danny.

"If you want my body…and you think I'm sexy…" Danny began to sing under his breath.

"Danny I swear if you start going all Rod Stewart on me I will throw a bucket of paint on you while you sleep."Blaine hissed, feeling his cheeks turning scarlet.

"Blaine? Still? Come on…I don't know why you still feel embarrassed by this. I think we've reached that point where we can just talk about it and laugh it off."

Blaine gritted his teeth, feeling his cheeks growing redder. "I hate you."

"Love you too, babe."

Blaine groaned. He was never going to let that go was he?

Blaine could feel the sweat beads forming on his forehead as he peered past his canvas, the sound of Rod Stewart's vintage records playing in the corner of the room.

She sits alone waiting for suggestions,

He's so nervous avoiding all her questions,

His lips are dry, her heart is gently pounding,

Don't you just know exactly what they're thinking?

"Deep breath, he's just a model, just like any other—except this guy's nude. Yep. Okay then, calm down," Blaine muttered to himself as he mixed his paints on the palette. "You've been working with this guy for weeks now…why are you still freaking out?"

"You okay there buddy?" the blonde asked, raising an eyebrow, wondering what the dark haired painter was mumbling about.

If you want my body and you think I'm sexy,

Come on, sugar, let me know,

If you really need me just reach out and touch me,

Come on, honey, tell me so.

"Oh yeah, I'm fi—fine. Do you um, do you mind turning a li—little butt—bit!" Blaine stammered, he was practically sweating through his shirt, he could feel it.

"Um, yeah no problem," The model said, trying extremely hard to mask his smile. "Are you uh, feeling uncomfortable about this? Because—"

"No, no." Blaine said quickly, "Marcy ordered a nude, I'll give her a nude. I just—I've never—"

"Done one before?"

Blaine was blushing to his scalp by this point. Was it odd that though he'd been painting this guy for weeks, and yet this was the most they'd ever spoken?

"No—I have. I've just never…done a male nude before."

The model raised an eyebrow, peering at Blaine, who was trying his hardest to hide behind the large canvas. "Oh—I see," He murmured quietly, chuckling under his breath.

He's acting shy looking for an answer

Come on, honey, let's spend the night together

Now hold on a minute before we go much further

Give me a dime so I can phone my mother

They catch a cab to his high rise apartment

At last he can tell her exactly what his heart meant.

Blaine eyed his record player in annoyance. "You have got to be kidding me," he huffed wiping the beads of sweat off his forehead with the back of his head, smearing a streak of paint onto it.

Blaine dabbed on a few more strokes of paint, cocking his head to the side, reviewing his work. He furrowed his eyebrows together, and after one last streak, he placed the paintbrush down onto the palette.

"Finished,." Blaine whispered, letting a smile escape his mouth.

"Really?" the model piped.

Blaine smiled and looked up nodding, slightly startled at the naked man now walking towards him. "Erm…what are you—"

"I've kind of wanted to kiss you since the first day we started this, and now that you're finished, I'm going to do it."

"But I—"

Blaine could tell from the leering grin on Danny's face that his mind wasn't the only one wandering back to that painting session—or maybe the things that had happened right after the painting session.

Blaine grumbled. "You're lucky you're pretty."

"You obviously only like me for my good looks." Danny said with a smile.

"No, obviously I'm using you for your body…" Blaine shot back, grinning as he raised his paint brush back up to the canvas.

"Hmm…I'm okay with that."

"So why did you come back early tonight?" Kurt asked, moving his pasta around his plate.

"You act as if you don't want me here!" Josh replied, reaching across the dinner table to grab another piece of bread.

Kurt smiled weakly, "No, of course not, I just wasn't expecting you."

"Well, I've been working late a lot, being so far away from Pars is difficult. But I felt like I was being unfair to you. So I just dropped everything and came home."

"You're tired aren't you?" Kurt said, looking down at his plate.

"Hm?" Josh asked, looking up at Kurt with concerned eyes.

"Moving toNew York…I know it's difficult for you and everything I—"

"Baby," Josh began, "I would move to Zimbabwe if it meant I got to be with you." He reached out and took Kurt's hand in his, "Don't worry about it."

Kurt nodded. "Okay."

Josh got up and cleared the dishes off the table, walking them over to the sink. "So where'd you end up going last night with the whole road block thing?"

Kurt stiffened in his seat. "Oh, um, I just grabbed a cheap room at the Hyatt."

"Cheap room? Hyatt? Wow." Josh laughed, walking back to the table to plant a kiss on Kurt's forehead. "I can't imagine how you'd feel about staying in a motel or something."

Kurt forced a smile.

"Well I'm exhausted, I'm going to bed. You want to join me?" Josh asked, yawning sleepily.

"Actually, I think that nap earlier really helped. I think I'll get some work done before going to bed."

"And you call me the work-a-holic," Josh raised an eyebrow, smiling. "Just don't stay up too late."

Kurt nodded and watched Josh disappear into the hallway.

Oh gosh.

Blaine had gotten midway on his painting before Danny had to bolt of for another modeling gig.

"I'll call you later okay babe? Sorry I got to go, I'm already twenty minutes late." Danny huffed throwing on a jacket.

"Yeah, go. Call me when you get home."Blaine replied.

Danny hastily planted a kiss on Blaine's cheek, and bolted out the door.

Blaine sighed and shuffled back into his studio. Ignoring the mess he'd left in the living room, and the half finished painting in the center. He scanned the room, trying to remember where he'd left those sketches.

He glanced around before finally spotting a few loose papers lying in an open drawer. He removed the sketches, moving his fingers to rub his temple. He'd never actually gotten around to shading them in—only coloring in the eyes, and the hair on a few of them.

"Damn it."Blaine took a deep breath and reached into his pocket once again, taking out the tiny scrap of paper with the phone number scribbled on it.

Blaine's fingers punched in the number and raised the phone up to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Kurt? It's Blaine."

"Oh. Blaine."

"Kurt we—we…"

"We need to talk about this don't we?"

"You left so quickly I just—I don't know."

"Yeah, I get it."

There was a long pause, neither side knowing quite what to say.

"Kurt, you said you loved me." Blaine said quietly, breaking the silence.

"I know."

"And—and you said you didn't regret it?"

"I don't."

"Well, I didn't get a chance to say it but…I don't regret it either."

"Blaine this isn't right but last night…it felt…"

"Right?" Blaine could hear Kurt's voice hitch on the other end.

"Kind of, yeah."

Blaine removed the phone from his ear for a moment, squeezing his eyes shut, and contemplating whether or not he should say it or not.

"Kurt…I can't stand not being with you. No matter how hard I try, I can't stop thinking about you, even after the thing at the office. Even if we say that we'll stay away from each other or whatever, I know I won't be able to. I'm always going to chase after you, now that I know that you're here. I—I know it's wrong but I just can't let you go like that."

There was silence once hear Kurt's uneven breaths on the other side. He didn't hang up, that had to be a good sign right?

"Blaine, it's not that easy." Kurt finally replied, his voice trembling

'What isn't?" Blaine replied softly.

"Everything."