Coup de Grace, Anne Waldman

When Blaine writes, he can taste the words as they form on his tongue and roll into the moleskin notebook where he always jots the beginnings. On good days, it is a good Merlot mixed with dark chocolate and a hint of cinnamon. Those days, when the words do not constrict in his chest cavity and the pages are not littered with the deep indentations of scribbled mistakes, are rare. After he graduated from the workshop, they were saline purging from the body, cathartic and relentless, wrinkling pages with frenetic energy. Lately, the words are acidic, vinegar and bile cramping in his stomach before leaving his body in choppy syntactical chunks, disconnected and dissonant. Those words are residue that lingers near his molars or the beads of sweat that clings sour at his hairline with other displaced thoughts. When he was younger, a student at Ohio State studying contemporary literature and business, poetry represented control, a closed fist of words that can become larger than the page. He fell in love with words at the syllabic level and how letters bounce off and crash into each other to create microscopic music. Now, line breaks, enjambment, hard stops, and syntactical manipulation is stifling with its complications and demanding need to be heavy.

Blaine spends the weekend, phone off, music blaring, handwriting each line over and over until some variation of the piece is scrawled through half of a spiral notebook. When he stops writing, it still itches under his skin, a rash and burn that aches bright in his joints. He finishes late Sunday night, emails the copy that actually made it onto his computer to Wes, his reader, and sits, empty, on the couch while Scott buzzes around the kitchen. His eyes are scratchy dry, shoulders ache tense, and limbs heavy with the lack of use.

A hand tangles in his hair. Lips press against his temple as the couch dips with additional weight. "I haven't seen you write like this in awhile. Tired, baby?"

Blaine hums a low groan, cracks his eyes, and nods into the space where Scott's neck meets his shoulder.

"Will you let me read it?" He strokes his hand down Blaine's side, a steady rhythm, warm and comfortable.

He sinks further into the couch, curling closer into Scott's side. "You hate poetry."

"I do not hate poetry." He pulls back far enough to dislodge Blaine's head from his shoulder.

Blaine blinks up at him. Head lulling on the back of the couch. "On our first date, if I do remember correctly, you said all poets were pretentious and self-absorbed."
"But I like you." He grins.

"Yeah, yeah. You can wait and hear it on Saturday." He pushes off the couch stretching his arms over his head. "I need left over Thai and sleep."

Scott follows him into the kitchen, wrapping his arms around Blaine's waist as he scavenges through the mostly empty refrigerator.

"I have a good feeling about this, Blaine," he says, lips brushing against the back of Blaine's neck.

Blaine sags against his solid heat as his food spins around in the microwave.

His voice is muffled in the confines of fabric and skin. "You are finally making it, baby."

Hands crawl under his shirt, stroking praise into his skin, but his chest feels too tight, combustible under the heat of wandering hands. He nods.

The invitation to read during Litquake came in Mid-August, lost and forgotten amongst the wreckage that is the first weeks of a new school year. Scott is the one that finds it tucked between miscellaneous bills, stained with what looks like coffee, a day before the acceptance deadline. That night, Scott takes him to Zut! followed by Vino, a wine bar with a patio that looks out onto the Fourth Street promenade, to celebrate. Everything is thick, hazy with warmth and the cloying sweetness of bougainvillea and Lavender. He is dizzy, pressed close to Scott's side, drunk off of Cabernet Sauvignon.

"Maybe this is a sign that you should concentrate on getting your career together and stop playing so many shows with your friends." Scott swirls the remainder of the wine in his glass.

"Scott," Blaine shifts away from the older man, "I don't want to talk about this right now."

"You are almost twenty-eight, Blaine. You need to start thinking about these things." He swallows the last of his wine.

"Not now." He crosses his arms over his chest, jaw clenching tight. "I'm done. Can we just go home?"

Scott flags the waiter down. "I have an early meeting tomorrow, anyways."

Later, when the night is grayer than dark, Scott will apologize, lips pressed to his temple and Blaine will forgive him.

During the week leading up to his reading, Blaine teaches his poetry classes about the history of oration, Maria Sabina, a Mazatec Shamaness from the late 1800s (died 1985) known for her chants, and her impact on the Beat Poets, the social and political importance of the City Lights readings in San Francisco that hosted the likes of Allen Ginsberg, Robert Duncan, Robin Blaser, amongst others as well as the Poetry Project at St. Mark's in New York, which saw he likes of the New York School Poets (John Ashbury, Frank O'Hara, Barbara Guest, Kenneth Koch, et cetera), and the fight against censorship. He assigns his composition classes an essay on protest and sociopolitical reform. Teaching grounds him, gives him something to focus his ragged thoughts on. When he was an undergrad, and then in his MFA years, he never thought he would love teaching as much as he does. Saturday comes in a slow drag and he spends the day alone, stretched tight, jittery in his apartment, the blinds drawn shut and Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, and Leonard Cohen set on repeat. He dresses in black – a black suit coat over a black button up with the top two buttons undone and fitted black trousers – and slicks his hair neat against his scalp. It gives him control, this meticulous attention to detail, makes him feel prepared as he leaves his apartment, leather messenger bag slung over his shoulder and heads up University to catch the F bus at San Pedro. He sits near the front of the bus next to an old lady knitting a fuzzy blue scarf moving easily with the shutters of the bus. Scott is leaning against the bus stop, ray bans settled on his nose, and slate gray suit pressed and wrinkle free, even after sitting through meetings all day. He straightens as Blaine descends the stairs, smile stretching wide across his angular face.

"You look gorgeous," he says as he wraps an arm around Blaine's waist and presses a kiss to his temple. "Ready to get some food? I'm starving."

Blaine nods and lets Scott direct him down the sidewalk and into the dim interior of Bec's (once, Beckett's) with its sleek modernism and dim lighting.

"I have had the pleasure working with our next reader at the UC Berkeley Summer Creative Writing Program where he taught the Poetry Workshop." Ryan Sloane, blonde and prep-school handsome, starts from behind the podium. "He attended Ohio State University where he majored in Business and Literature. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing from the Writer's Workshops at The University of Iowa where he was one of six awarded the Truman Capote Literary Trust fellowship. Currently, he teaches Introduction to Creative Writing and a Poetry Intensive at the UC Berkeley Extension and Composition at San Francisco State University. His work as appeared in several literary journals including: The Crab Apple Review, Glimmer Train, Granta, Lana Turner, n+1, and Zyzzyva as well as the New York Times. Camille Dungey, in an article for the Rumpus, described his work as 'literary and messy, discursive and lyrical. It is risky, large, and hugely compassionate.'" Ryan pauses, folds the official bio in half and pockets it. "Now that the official introduction is done, let me tell you a little bit about the real Blaine Anderson. On the weekends, he likes to pretend to be a rock star, complete with huge hair and the ability to shake a tambourine. He takes Berkeley Time to heart and is on record saying that showing up on time is abominable. Secretly, he thinks he is six feet tall and he will ignore anyone who suggests otherwise. When he was a kid, he wanted to be a pedestrian or a train depending on the day. His ability to get lost, with or without a functioning GPS, overshadows all of his other talents. If needed for blackmailing, there are pictures of him in leather pants and a pink, feather boa." Ryan pauses as laughter swells and refocuses his attention on Blaine's table. "In all seriousness, there are not enough words to describe how incredible Blaine Anderson is as a poet and, more importantly, as a person. I am lucky to be able to call him a colleague and a friend. Please, in his first Litquake appearance, lift your pints and welcome Mr. Blaine Anderson."

The sold-out crowd erupts into catcalls, wild applause, as Blaine slugs down the dregs of his Guinness and weaves through the randomly dispersed tables, rubber band bound manuscript tucked safely under his arm. At the stage, Ryan claps him on the back before taking his place at the bar.

"Ryan," he starts as he adjust the microphone down to his height, "you should know, as of yesterday, I have surpassed you on the number of hot chile peppers received on ratemyprofessor.com, thank you very much." Ryan barks a laugh raising his glass in a mock salute. Blaine turns back to the crowd, smiling as they settle. "I am not going to confirm nor deny the actuality of those so called facts Ryan so willingly described. Firstly, I need to thank the Litquake Foundation and Board for inviting me to read during this spectacular event. The Bay Area has such an amazing literary community and I feel blessed to have been absorbed into its rich history. It is also incredibly humbling to be reading with all of the amazing writers here tonight -- both Cal students and faculty, alike -- so, thank you, for sharing this stage with me." He flips through his manuscript, quickly shuffling the familiar papers until he lands on his starting point. "For those people who have been asking about my book, it really is coming. I promise." A chuckle ripples through the crowd. "The first poem I'm going to read is a formed poem, a sestina, which consists of six, six line stanzas and a three line envoi where the end word of each line in the first stanza is repeated throughout the other stanzas in a set pattern. In this instance, the repeating words are tattered, white, ceiling, exposed, loud, and leave. I wrote this as a kind of elegy for a person I knew in high school. He took his own life when I was a freshman in college. Instead of leaving a suicide note, he mailed those close to him a postcard and one of his favorite books. The postcard was the first time I heard from him since my freshmen year of high school. Anyways, this is the only poem that survived my undergraduate days. It was also my first published poem." He clears his throat, smoothes a hand down the smudged paper, and glances up at the audience.

"One Step Behind

Here I am -- too cold for a tattered
robe, inside cinder blocks, a white
wall. Warmth is pock marked ceilings,
the sunken couch with its exposed
parts, or the Telenovela babbling loud
for lost remotes. I leave,

it's half past noon, and the leaves
shimmy, a crispbrown, on tattered
winter limbs. Graffitied walls swim loud
down sidewalks, prismed pirouettes on white
cement bricks. I maybe drunk, exposed
in skin stretched tight over laughter, a ceiling . . ."

These words are familiar, salty in his mouth. So is the silent appraisal of the crowd. There is no hiding at readings, no way to code the words, or bury yourself in layers of sound and light. He knows how to measure his voice, disguise tremors as natural changes in pitch, even when his hands are shaking too much to hold the papers. He is still behind the podium, crowd black-eyed and polite, and he is so young again, forming words that feel alright on the tip of his tongue. This is why he always starts with this poem. It reduces him to trembling uncontrolled, leaves on fall trees.

". . . It tears, easily. I leave
the book inside. Will died today. It may have been last week. A white

postcard said, "I remember everything." Black ink on flatwhite.
I knew him, once, an angel-headed hipster, exposed
in lamp light, tender bodied and bruised young like the crunch of leaves.
Cars weave and stutterstart in the street. People crowd loud
on sidewalks. I am a step behind when the ceiling
falls in steel nimbus clouds, tattered

white chunks. The book is Howl, used spine bent, tattered,
loud with his mind, a camera lens, unbound by ceilings.
His favourite. With hands exposed to sleet, I leave."

When the last line ends, a hard stop, he finds silence stretches between corners, the shuffling of his papers loud in the stillness. At a table near the back of the room, Scott is staring at him, some specialty lager half drunk in front of him, head cocked, nodding absentmindedly at something Wes is saying. He offers Blaine a half smile.

He takes a sip of his water. "The first person to read any of my new pieces is my friend and forced reader, Wes. He is the type of person, who will look me in the eye and say 'Blaine, this is so sentimental that it is making me nauseated,' which is exactly what he said about the last lines in the first draft of this next poem. What came out of the various revisions is the closest thing to a love poem I have ever written. It's called,

There are Dishes in the Sink

You said yes
and I leave
mould in the gutter
with your shirtsleeves and buttons . . . "

By the time he finishes his last piece, his breath isn't catching or reverberating in his chest cavity, fingers are no longer clenching white against the podium edge, and the audience is drunk warm, smiling under the dim halos of light. A wall of sound gathers surrounds him, as he steps down from the spotlight on liquid legs. Ryan is waiting with a cold beer in his hand, eyes crinkling as he smiles full, before pulling him into a brief hug and skipping up the stairs onto the makeshift stage.

"Let's hear it one more time for Blaine Anderson." The crowd springs to life again as Blaine starts back to his tabled. "Our next poet is a student at Cal studying Comparative Literature and Sociology. Her poetry has been published in the University of California - Berkeley Poetry Review, First Ink!ing, * (Asterisk), and Din Magazine. She may look sweet and innocent but her work zings with low simmering anger and the beauty that comes from it. Her words are fierce, uninhibited, sensual, and desperately wonderful. Please welcome to the stage, Ms. Quinn Fabray."

The vines of fingers retreat from his back, around his wrist, those touches clinging and suffocating as the voices speak loud and bright around him, as the lithe blonde woman slips up the stage and takes over the light. Quietly, Blaine weaves his way back to his table, smiling at the few who still reach out to him. He slides into his seat, beer sloshing slightly. Scott's hand finds his thigh, squeezes gently, and Blaine relaxes.

"Oh wow, there are a lot of people here," Quinn starts, breathy with a lilting sweetness. "I would like to thank the board for allowing me to read tonight and to Ryan and T. Geronimo Johnson, for being incredible mentors and for not thinking that I am the weirdest person ever. Lynn Heijinian, who is not here tonight, is also a fundamental figure in my writing and I owe her everything. Also, I owe a lot to Kaya Oakes for making me read things I didn't want to read and not laughing at me for falling in love with those books. Finally, Blaine you are amazing. I first saw you read at East Bay on My Brain during Beast Crawl in June and your work never fails to make me shiver. This poem is called:

I Left Some Things

I made awful geldings
of all your collared polo ponies, and then I
buried myself in the sick of your sweater vests.
I want you to drive me into the still heat of orchards. . . . "

There is sadness, desperation in her writing that makes Blaine ache. He twines his fingers through Scott's, gripes sure, and watches the words fall apart in front of him. He stands for her when she is done, clapping hard. The last couple of prose writers (Daniel Alarcon, a visiting professor at Cal, Ryan, and Geronimo) read various passages from their up-and-coming books, all brimming with an eclectic flare of characters and a lyric, poetic rhythm.

Networking, he hates networking the most, Blaine thinks as he stands, back against the bar, nodding absentmindedly to the random woman, a big donator to Litquake and supporter of the arts, that has attached herself to his side. Like a lot of people, she wants to know how he does it. How do his words fit together? How does he think in those lines? Why does he write? He never knows how to answer those questions. His words are always there, in the back of his mind, jostling about until they spill out. He tells her as much. Tells her about the inbetweenness and the transit of his thoughts.

She stares at him for a few minutes. "A poet's mind is why I will never be a writer. You were wonderful, dear"

She leaves with a tinkling laugh, calling out to the next writer she sees, and he is alone again. Scott disappeared sometime earlier having spotted a familiar face in the crowd. The crowd shifts in its own rhythm, a fluttering pulse shimmying in the dim light. Someone settles in by his side. He sighs, runs a hand down his face, and turns with a smile. Kurt is there braced against the bar, head tipped towards the ceiling.

Blaine swallows hard and turns towards him. "I didn't know you were coming."

"I've known Quinn since high school." He says.

Blaine hums, eyes flittering to the blonde laughing at something Thad said. "She is really good."

He rolls his head towards Blaine. "It's hard for you up there, isn't it?"

"One of the first things you learn in workshop is to divorce yourself from your poem. You are not your poem." Blaine knits his hands together and watches the gentle waves of the crowd. "I was never very good at that."

Kurt reaches over, hand closing around Blaine's wrist. "So you may not be a high symbolist like Wallace Stevens but your work is human and messy and complicated." He blushes, drops Blaine's wrist, "at least from what I have heard. I didn't know you were a writer until tonight."

Blaine stares at him, eyebrows raised.

Kurt straightens, holds a hand out to the older man. "Hi. I am Kurt Hummel, Comparative Literature and Philosophy major with a minor in Theater at the University of California -- Berkeley."

Blaine grins and shakes his hand "Should I have gone up to you at the bar and said 'hi, I'm Blaine Anderson, poet extraordinaire, have you heard of me?'"

Kurt shakes his head. "You should come with a disclaimer: Poet, maybe slightly socially awkward, and may accidentally proposition/flirt shamelessly with someone even though I have a pretty boyfriend.' It will save you from a lot of miscommunications."

Blaine winces. "Sorry about that. I really was just trying to be nice and I thought you looked interesting."

"I shouldn't have reacted the way I did. Everything was kind of overwhelming." Kurt shrugs.

"I did get one thing right at the bar." Blaine bumps their shoulders together. "You are an incredibly interesting person."

Kurt blushes, ducks his head, smiling wide. "So what is this about an after party and where the hell is this orange house? I feel like it should be this exclusive club or something."

Blaine laughs loud and long until his eyes water and people turn in his direction.

Slowly people filter out, thinning noticeably as conversations drop off. Kurt leaves first, with Quinn, followed by his other friends. He finds Scott back at their table, Blaine's messenger bag slung over his shoulder.

He smiles as Blaine approaches. "Ready?"

"Did you have any fun tonight?" Blaine runs his hand down Scott's arms, squeezing his hand gently."

"Of course," Scott links their arms together. "I always love hearing you read."

Blaine waits until they are outside, under the neon skin of Shattuck Avenue. "Are you sure you don't want to come to the after party? You haven't been to one in forever."

"Next time, I promise." Scott swings them to a stop in front of the bus stop and straightens the lapels of Blaine's jacket. "You know I love you, right?"

"Yes, of course I do," Blaine says, thumb running over a sharp cheekbone, fingers splayed against his jaw. "Is something wrong?"

His hand covers Blaine's, curls around his fingers, and he presses a kiss to the center of Blaine's palm. "No, everything is fine. Remember, we have brunch with my parents at eleven tomorrow."

Blaine nods, eyes still seeking Scott's gaze. The F bus comes, squeals to a stop, trembling as hydraulics release to open the door. Scott presses a kiss to his cheek and disappears inside. He waits until the bus rounds the corner onto University and turns the opposite direction.

He walks to the orange house, up Bancroft, past the university, turning right onto Telegraph. Head shops melt seamlessly into vintage clothing stores, art galleries, psychics, coffee shops, and a whole slew of little ethnic restaurants. Blaine loves the griminess, the history of the cracked cement, the long mural stretching the length of Amoeba Records on the corner of Haste and Telegraph with its dedication to the power of the people and revolution. There's Moe's Books, four stories of new and used books, which was once a meeting point for the San Francisco Renaissance Poets as well as the Beat Generation. It was Berkeley's answer to Lawrence Ferlinghetti's City Lights in North Beach and, along with City Lights, they fought censorship in the Sixties by continuing to offer banned books. Think is tagged into the side of Peet's Coffee, about six inches and simple white, next to a Tax the Tea Party flier -- unassuming, in its reasoning, a kind of quiet protest. Soon, though, the businesses dissolve into residential houses, a little tattered and worn, but sturdy before they grow, change into sprawling estates, aristocratic and slightly out of place. Alone by the corner of the Sacks Coffee Shop, a man is playing Lithium with his holey guitar and desperate voice. I'm so happy 'cause today I found my friends. They're in my head. Blaine slows, watches the man in his tattered shoes rock and move to the music, content in the simplistic melody. The man cracks his eyes, Blaine smiles and drops a few crumpled dollars into the empty guitar case, and continues down the elm lined street. His voice follows him slowly melting into the white noise of traffic.

Everything is glitterhumid, a dense fog snapcrackling in the late night glow. There is slowness in nights like this one, where the people are scattered loud, dancing mostly drunk in the empty space of the backyard, and Blaine can melt into his uncomfortable plastic chair and watch. There is laughter and slurred words and red cups and Jeff is plastered to his side. He misses these nights of not caring, of looseness, when the weirdness of the previous week dissipates into the smoke of the fire and Nick is smiling again as he picks out an acoustic version of Kenny Loggins' I'm Alright. Thad is there, too, beating a rough rhythm on his cajon as Tina twirls by, pink cheeked and arms raised over head.

"I'm alright / nobody worry 'bout me. / Why you got to gimme a fight? / Can't you just let it be?" Nick growls from across the fire pit, voice floating rough over everyone's heads.

Jeff passes him a half-finished joint, sickly sweet smoke curling into his nose. He breathes in deep, lets the burn resonate within his lungs, and exhales, repeats, before another set of fingers are pinching the stubby length and removing it from his hands. His tongue feels thick, limbs slack, but his body is still buzzing with noise and need. Suddenly, Tina is in front of him, hands tugging persistently at one of his until he lurches onto his feet.

"Dance with me," she leads him to the only empty space in the tiny backyard where other bodies are tangling together in the vain attempt to control limbs.

But there is no need for control as they gyrate out of their bodies, heads thrown back in laughter. And Kurt is there, stealing Tina to tango cheek to cheek, breathless and giddy in the glow of music. The music dies down and they are still swaying with the night stuck in their ribcages, a growing warmth. He wants more noise, more beats, more music. He wants less weight, less skin, less bone. He wants to float but Kurt is slamming into his side, nose pressed cold to Blaine's neck as he giggles, and Tina is pulling them back to the fire, back to his body, back to gravity.

"I have a song to sing," she declares as she collapses next to Mike, "but I need my most beloved roommate to sing with me. This song is dedicated to the gloriousness that is the orange house and its lost boys." She settles Nick's guitar over her lap, strums a few inconsequential chords. "Kurt get your ass over here."

Blaine watches the way Kurt moves, a certain liquid ease that flows under skin and sinew, as he makes his way to his roommates side. He watches the way the younger man's eyes flicker over the group, a little reserved, before he turns towards Tina and settles into the smooth rhythm of the song. He looks younger, vulnerable with the fire throwing light and shadows over his face as he pulsates to the beat. Spine straight, he sits, hands rubbing moisture onto the fabric of his slacks.

"All we see are blue pastels and deep V-necks / so why don't we go somewhere we all know / where everyone we meet is strange like we are," Kurt sings, eyes slitting open as his voice settles rich and vibrant over the little yard. People are swaying with him, soaking up his voice and the simple song that expands within the confines of the night. Tina blends and harmonizes in the empty space between his notes. It is a little ragged, their voices slightly hoarse, words slurring gently, but Blaine feels it wash over him, a soothing balm for the tightness he feels invading behind his eyes. The song winds down, a natural slow fade until there is only silence.

Later, when the night is a green haze of late, Blaine no longer wants to escape his body. He is still even as the world tips and swirls parabolas around him. The fire simmers low, an unconcerned waning. There are only a handful of people left, mostly quiet, sitting in front of the fire or talking in low voices. Tina is strumming Nick's guitar, a mindless picking that rises and falls in smooth waves as she nods at whatever Mike is saying. Blaine shifts, peers into the dark recesses of the yard, and finds Jeff's bright blond head bowed forward. He can make out Nick's dark counterpoint, gesturing, as they close talk. Nick shifts into the half light and Blaine can see the tight line of his mouth, his furrowed brow. He watches the way Jeff's body curves around the darker man in an easy intimacy, so simple that it makes him jerk away and return his gaze to the weak flickers of flame in front of him, hypnotizing in their random manifestations. Eyes half-lidded, he turns towards the man slumped next to him, rumpled and drooping. Head lulling to the side, Kurt blinks up at him, corners of his mouth tipping upward in a soft, fuzzy smile. The world continues to tilt and he slides away.

The morning is burnt orange and lovely when he squints awake, fuzzy and cotton mouthed. There is a spring digging into his back and he is too hot with a dense pressure laying across his chest. He groans, stretches long, as his joints pop and protest against stiffness. The weight shifts with him, curling closer as a hand snakes its way under his shirt. Humming, he slips his eyes closed again, folding into the consuming drowsiness that lingers in a pinch behind his eyelids.

"You smell good," he says, burying his nose in soft locks.

"Hmm, you too," the man, whose voice is not Scott's rich tenor, sighs.

Blaine snaps awake, jerking into a sitting position as the other man tumbles off his chest landing in a heap next to him with a grunt. "Shit." He scrubs a hand down his face, swallows against the nausea. "What time is it?"

The body stirs next to him, sits up slowly. "Are you always this dangerous when you wake up, Anderson?"

He blinks at the younger man, still dressed in his crumple V-Neck and skinny jeans from the night before, smirking through his bleariness. "Fuck. I need to – Where's my phone."

Mike appears in the doorway in low slung sweat pants clutching two steaming cups. "Dude, here." He thrust the coffee into Blaine's hand. "Chill out, it's only a bit after ten and your stuff is on his char."

"Damnitalltohell," Blaine leaps from the pull out, coffee sloshing hot over the top of the mug. "I am so, so late. God, we are meeting his parents for brunch today. Kill me now."

"Blaine," Mike snaps as the other man lunges across the room and scrambles for his shoes. "You reek of pot. Go take a shower. I will get Thad to find you some clothes that will fit."

He pauses long enough to blink at the taller man. "This is why I keep you around."

"Where are you meeting for brunch?" Mike calls as Blaine leaps up the staircase.
"La Note, the French restaurant on Shattuck." Blaine's voice floats down the stairway. "Tell Thad business casual. You are my hero."

Fifteen minutes later, he is tumbling back down the stairs in too long trousers and a sweater a bit big about the shoulders. He slips his shoes back on without socks

"I texted Scott and said you would meet him at the restaurant," Mike says handing Blaine his phone.

He slips it into his back pocket. "I so owe you one, man"

"Don't worry about it but you do need to go." Mike says shooing him forward with his hands.

"Wait," Kurt says as he rounds the corner, a pair of red wayfarers in his hand. "I think you may want these."

"You are amazing." Blaine curls his fingers around Kurt's wrist and squeezes. "Let's get coffee sometime. I will text you."

The door slams behind and Blaine skips down the front steps.