"I always thought you were cute."

"Cute but not hot, right?" Kurt snapped.

"Kurt, I am very, very attracted to you. Would I want to do what we were doing a minute ago if I wasn't?" In fact, Blaine would have been happy to get back to what they'd been doing a minute ago.

"Maybe you're just horny."

"That too." He could hardly pretend that he wasn't. "But not for just anyone. For you."

Kurt sat down on the corner of his bed, across from where Blaine was sitting on the couch. "So, what made you decide I was sexy?"

"It's not something I decided."

"I know you didn't think I was sexy three months ago. What changed?"

"I just didn't think about you that way then." Blaine shrugged. "We were friends."

"Don't give me that. You thought about me that way long enough to decide I was so not sexy that I needed special coaching before Regionals."

"Kurt, everything I said when we were working on 'Animal' was about the routine. It was just too much. I mean, you were doing Lady Gaga hands and everything."

"They're called monster claws," said Kurt.

"Monster claws, okay. Does that sound sexy?"

"Lady Gaga is sexy."

"Lady Gaga is scary."

"Blaine, if you're going to insult Lady Gaga then there's no point continuing this conversation."

That sounded like banter again, but Blaine decided not to push his luck. Kurt could be a little defensive about Lady Gaga even when he was in a good mood. "Sorry. Let's just say I was looking for something a little less…theatrical than Lady Gaga for Regionals. Sexy in a more natural way. I knew you could do it because you did such a good job when you helped me rehearse 'Baby It's Cold Outside'. You were really convincing."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "I was convincing because I was already in love with you, stupid."

"I didn't know." And he hadn't. He hadn't had any idea.

"You didn't care."

Blaine leaned forward and put his hand on Kurt's knee. "I cared about you so much, Kurt. I just wasn't ready to be in a relationship yet."

Kurt brushed his hand away. "You mean you weren't ready to be in a relationship with me. You were ready for what's-his-name at The Gap way back in February."

As Valentine's Day approached, Blaine reflected on how much he'd grown up since he'd been at Dalton. He wasn't the na�ve fifteen year-old who'd transferred because he couldn't face another day at in the public school system. He was popular, he was sophisticated, and he was ready for a real relationship.

That was what he'd thought, at least.

Ironically, it was Blaine's friendship with Kurt that made him decide that it was time to find a boyfriend. He and Kurt had such a good time together. Blaine had plenty of friends at Dalton, but it was nice not to have to hold anything back for a change. To be able to touch Kurt's hand or give him a friendly shoulder rub and know that it wouldn't make him uncomfortable. To be able to talk about men's fashion, or Broadway shows, or the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell as much as he liked, without having to worry about boring a straight friend with too much "gay stuff".

As much as he enjoyed spending time with Kurt, Blaine figured it would be even better to have a boyfriend too. Someone to do all the things with that he did with Kurt, plus all the things he didn't do with Kurt. Someone a little older, preferably. Someone with experience. More experience than Blaine, at least. Not that it would take much.

He met Jeremiah while checking out the big after Christmas sale at The Gap. Blaine was holding up a burgundy cardigan when he heard someone say "That color would be great on you."

Blaine turned and standing there was one of the hottest guys he'd ever seen. He was just Blaine's type, too: tall, slim, blue eyes. His nametag said "Jeremiah", which Blaine suddenly felt was the coolest name in the world.

"I used to have one like this, but I lent it to my roommate and he managed to spill coffee all over it," Blaine said.

"Well, if you want a replacement, these are 75% off." God, he was gorgeous. "You can't do better than that."

Normally Blaine would have agreed, but he could think of things a lot better than a discounted sweater right now. "Do you really think it's a good color for me?" he asked, in a shameless attempt to draw out the conversation.

"With your complexion? Yeah, definitely," Jeremiah said. "It would wash me right out."

Blaine decided to go for it. "I don't know, I think you could make it work," he said with his best sell-it-to-the-judges smile. "My name's Blaine, by the way. I hate to keep bothering you during your shift, but would you like to grab a cup of coffee when you're done? My treat."

"Okay, sure." Jeremiah smiled, and Blaine wondered why The Gap was wasting him as an assistant manager when he could be one of their models. "I get off at six."

Much, much later Blaine realized that Jeremiah never would have agreed to go for coffee in the first place if he'd known Blaine was still in high school. When Blaine mentioned Dalton at Starbucks later that evening, Jeremiah said "Oh, you go to that boarding school. When you said you had a roommate, I thought you were in college or something. I guess I'm a lot older than you are."

It didn't occur to Blaine at the time that this was Jeremiah's gentle way of saying "Don't get your hopes up, jailbait." Blaine had quipped "Maybe we should have asked for a senior discount," and Jeremiah smiled again, probably thinking that Blaine had understood.

He hadn't understood anything. He'd have coffee with Jeremiah for the second (and last) time at the beginning of February and go on to get him fired right before Valentine's Day. All for the sake of a romance that only existed in Blaine's head. He had been infatuated with someone who wasn't merely uninterested but who thought of him as a kid.

"Blaine, let's just be clear here," Jeremiah said outside the mall. "You and I got coffee twice. We're not dating. And if we were I'd get arrested, because you're underage."

He didn't even raise his voice. He smiled and patted Blaine on the shoulder before he walked away. Why did he have to be so nice? It might have been easier if Blaine could have accused Jeremiah of overreacting, but he couldn't.

Blaine had no one to blame but himself. He could have just written Jeremiah a note or something, but no. He had to make a spectacle of himself. Worse, he'd dragged the Warblers into it. He'd persuaded them to break with over eighty years of tradition to help him serenade someone they'd never even met. For their reward, they got to witness Blaine's epic humiliation and be threatened with a ban from The Gap if they didn't leave immediately.

That wasn't even the worst part. The worst part came the next day, when he discovered that he'd been leading Kurt on the entire time.

Blaine had been complaining about the Valentine's Day decorations in the Lima Bean and berating himself for being such an idiot about Jeremiah when Kurt cut in. "You and I, we hang out, we sing flirty duets together, you know my coffee order. Was I supposed to think that that was nothing?"

Even then Blaine hadn't gotten it. "What do you mean?" He'd thought that maybe Kurt was upset because they were such good friends and yet Blaine hadn't confided in him about Jeremiah sooner.

Kurt could barely look him in the eye. "I thought the guy that you wanted to ask out on Valentine's Day...was me."

Blaine hadn't expected this at all. He knew he wasn't Kurt's type. That first time he'd taken Kurt out to lunch, after their less than successful confrontation with Karofsky, Kurt had mentioned that he had a thing for football players.

"Why did it have to be Karofsky?" he'd said, stabbing at his Greek salad. "All those times I wished that some nice, hot football player might turn out to be secretly gay, but no. It's got to be the biggest, meanest, ugliest, dumbest, hypocrite of them all. Why couldn't it have been Sam, or...someone like that?"

"Who's Sam?"

Kurt blushed. "Just this guy in my glee club. When I first met him I was sure he was gay. I guess it was mostly wishful thinking. He's got a girlfriend now. He does bleach his hair though, even if he won't admit it." He paused long enough to pop an olive into his mouth. "Anyway, he's a really sweet guy, kind of a dork, but really, um, good-looking. He was Rocky in our production of The Rocky Horror Show."

"Wait, you did Rocky Horror?" Blaine was astonished. "Like, at school?"

"Yeah, it was going to be the official fall musical," Kurt said with a grin. "It was Mr. Schuester's idea. Things got kind of crazy though, and it was cancelled. We only did one performance, for ourselves."

Blaine had insisted on hearing the whole story, partially out of curiosity and partially because it seemed to cheer Kurt up. They didn't discuss hunky football players again, but Blaine thought he understood what sort of guy Kurt liked. Seeing Sam Evans perform at Sectionals confirmed it. Kurt went for tall, athletic guys, preferably with blond hair.

There were plenty of guys like that at Dalton. At least one was gay, although Blaine hoped Kurt wouldn't get involved with Logan. Not that Blaine had anything against Logan. Not really. He just didn't seem right for Kurt. Too quiet. Too WASP-y. Still, there were other guys out there. Kurt was so cute and funny, Blaine was sure he'd be able to find someone.

Aside from being the opposite of tall, athletic, and blond, Blaine hadn't considered himself as a potential love interest for Kurt because of the special nature of their friendship. He wasn't going to take advantage of a boy who looked up to him.

Who he'd encouraged to look up to him.

Who he'd encouraged to look up to him even though it was becoming increasingly obvious that Blaine's judgment could not be trusted.

Blaine had only had coffee with Jeremiah twice and he'd thought that meant something. He'd had coffee with Kurt tons of times. He'd bought Kurt lunch when they'd only known each other for a couple of days. He'd taken Kurt to see Rent. He'd assumed Kurt knew he was just being friendly, but he should have seen how easily it could all be misinterpreted.

As soon as Kurt told him he'd been expecting Blaine to ask him out on Valentine's Day, Blaine knew he had to reject him. It was the only decent thing to do.

He told Kurt the truth as best he could. "I really am clueless...I don't know what I'm doing. I pretend like I do...I'm not very good at romance. I don't want to screw this up."

What he didn't say, not out loud at least, was "Maybe I'm not meant to have a boyfriend. Maybe I'm just bad luck." Because the Gap Attack wasn't the first time Blaine's romantic ideas had led to disaster. It wasn't even the worst. Jeremiah had lost his job, but at least he'd been able to walk away. Isaac hadn't been so lucky.

Isaac hadn't been a particularly close friend, they mostly knew each other from English class, but he was the only other out guy Blaine had known at his old school. He was the first person Blaine had ever seen in real life wearing a freedom ring necklace. He wore it every day. Sometimes Blaine would notice him absentmindedly hooking his fingers through the different colored rings, or sliding them back and forth on their chain.

Blaine had thought it would be fun for them to go to the Sadie Hawkins dance together. To have a real date. To show everyone that they weren't ashamed of what they were. That the gossip and insults weren't going to stop them from doing all the regular teenage stuff that other kids did. Isaac thought it was a great idea. "Oh my God, should I buy a dress?" he laughed. "This is going to be hilarious."

Blaine didn't like to think about that night. He did his best not to think about that night. There was no point thinking about that night, because it couldn't be changed and he was never going back to that school again.

When he did think about it, when he couldn't help but think about it, he would wonder if he would've been better off getting his head slammed into a brick wall too. The concussion had left Isaac with no memory of the attack. "It was like I fell asleep dancing and woke up feeling like hell," Isaac told him later, when he asked Blaine to explain what had happened. "I didn't even know where I was."

Blaine would have preferred not to talk about it, but Isaac deserved to know that it wasn't a fair fight. It was three against two and the other guys were so big. They were so much bigger than Blaine and Isaac. They ran off after Isaac finally slumped to the ground, probably because they thought they had killed him. Some girls started screaming and one of the chaperones finally came outside, too late to do anything but call an ambulance on her cell phone.

The paramedics insisted on taking Blaine in the ambulance with Isaac, although he'd kept saying "Just let me go home. I want to go home." Blaine wasn't hurt that badly. He had some bruises, a cut on his forehead, and a cracked rib. The cut bled a lot but wasn't deep. It only needed a couple of stitches. It didn't even leave a scar. The cracked rib hurt like crazy and kept Blaine from singing for a few weeks, but that was the worst of his injuries. He didn't have a broken arm like Isaac. He didn't have a ruptured eardrum and a black eye and a busted lip like Isaac.

Isaac did not ask, and Blaine did not know, why they had gone harder on him. Maybe it was because Isaac was more flamboyant. Or maybe it was because he'd kept trying to get up again. Once Blaine hit the ground he'd stayed down.

He'd stayed down for a long time, in a way. Even after he was at Dalton and felt safe in his day to day life, Blaine had been reluctant to get involved with anyone romantically. Contrary to rumor Dalton didn't actually have that many gay students, but there were a few. Blaine had made a conscious choice not to pursue any of them.

He wasn't going to pursue Kurt, either. Especially not Kurt. As the Gap Attack incident had reminded him, there were too many things that could go wrong.

Fortunately, Kurt took the rejection well. He took it so well that Blaine figured he couldn't have been that interested to begin with. After all, Kurt had only said that he'd thought Blaine was going to ask him out for Valentine's Day, not that he'd wanted Blaine to ask him out for Valentine's Day. It had all been a misunderstanding. They were just friends.