"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."

"I thought I was ready for a relationship. I was very, very wrong." Blaine sighed. "Do we have to talk about this now? Nothing even happened with Jeremiah."

"It wasn’t just him though, was it?" Kurt asked. "What about Rachel? Don’t try to tell me that was nothing. I got to watch you slobber all over her."

Blaine didn’t understand why Kurt kept bringing up things that had happened months ago. It was like he was determined to have a fight. "Look, I was going through a bad time and I wasn’t making good decisions."

Blaine had been determined to have fun at Rachel’s party. He needed to have fun. Rehearsals for and the actual performance of the Warblers’ "Lonely Hearts Club" show at Breadstix had kept him going through Valentine’s Day, but since then he’d had little to distract him from thoughts of what a stupid, miserable loser he was. He spent most of his free time moping in his room.

Even his roommate Tyler, who was a nice enough guy but unlikely to win any awards for perceptiveness or sensitivity, had noticed that something was wrong. He was packing up his lacrosse gear one afternoon when he suddenly turned to Blaine and asked "Hey, did you lose your choir thing?"

Blaine sighed. "That’s not until next month."

"Oh." Tyler scratched his neck. "Did Kurt break up with you?"

"What? I’m not dating Kurt."

"Because he broke up with you?"

"No! I was never dating Kurt! We’re just friends."

"Sorry." Tyler found his gloves under the bed threw them into his bag. "It’s just that Kurt hasn’t been around lately, and I was wondering if that was why you were being all emo."

"I am not being emo."

"Okay dude, whatever." He zipped up his bag and grabbed his lacrosse stick. "I’ve got to get down to the field. You’re not going to kill yourself or anything while I’m gone, are you?"

"I’m fine, Tyler. Really." Blaine forced a smile. "I’ve been feeling a little down, but it’s not a big deal. I’m actually going to a party with Kurt on Saturday." Blaine hadn’t seen much of Kurt over the past few days, but he had taken this invitation to mean that there were no hard feelings.

"Sounds awesome."

As it turned out, the party started off more awkward than awesome. Blaine had accepted Kurt’s invitation without realizing that Kurt himself had not technically been invited. They followed Finn into Rachel’s house and were greeting with a polite but strained "Kurt, Blaine, I wasn’t expecting you guys."

"Kurt’s been blackmailing me ever since he saw my browser history," Finn said. "He kind of insisted on coming."

Blaine understood that Rachel would be concerned about having the Warblers’ lead soloist at a New Directions party so close to Regionals. "I’m totally off the clock right now, Rachel. I’m not a Warbler, I’m just Blaine. I’m not even wearing my uniform."

He had carefully selected a casual outfit for the party, although once he got a good look at what Rachel was wearing Blaine wondered if he should have worn a costume instead. She had on a lacey sea foam green maxi dress, so this was probably supposed to be some sort of Seventies theme party. Looking around the basement Blaine didn’t see anyone else in vintage clothes, so he figured he was okay with what he was wearing. He felt kind of bad for Rachel, though. It must suck to plan a theme and have all your guests ignore it.

He felt even worse for Rachel when people started to leave almost as soon as they’d arrived. To be honest, he also felt bad for himself. Blaine wanted this to be a good party. He didn’t want to go back to his dorm and stare at the wall until Tyler put him under suicide watch. Fortunately, Rachel agreed to abandon her drink ticket plan and bust open the liquor cabinet. Someone cranked up the music, and before long everybody was drinking and dancing.

Blaine hadn’t planned to have more than a couple of drinks, but after his first game of Quarters it was hard to keep track. Drinking also gave him something to do while Kurt was talking to other people. Blaine had met all of the New Directions members at Sectionals and the football championship, but he’d really only hung out with Mercedes, Tina, Rachel, and Finn before. He wasn’t even sure of some of the other people’s names. Blaine wasn’t shy, it was just weird being at a party where everyone else knew each other a lot better than they knew him.

They all seemed friendly, though. Puck slapped him on the back, poured him a big rum and Coke, and said "This is how we do it in Lima!" Blaine and Kurt danced in a group with Mercedes, Tina, and Tina’s boyfriend Mike. Aside from being a fantastic dancer, Mike was a really funny guy. He kept telling hilarious jokes that Blaine would struggle to remember later. After a while Tina and Mike started kissing and Mercedes and Kurt went off to talk in the corner, leaving Blaine to dance by himself.

He wasn’t alone for long. One of the blonde girls (Quinn? Brittany?) threw her arms around his neck and said "You look like a puppy."

"Thanks. You look like a girl," Blaine replied, because this seemed like a clever thing to say.

"Do you play Quidditch?" she asked. "Because that would be so hot."

Blaine wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly over the music. Maybe she’d asked if he played cribbage, although it was hard to believe anyone would find that sexy. "I’m sorry, what was that?"

"Do you play Quidditch?" she repeated. "I bet you’re a Seeker, because you’re small. Are there cheerleaders for Quidditch? I used to be a cheerleader, but Coach Sylvester wanted to explode me so I quit. Is Kurt your cheerleader? He can sing in French. I don’t know how to do that, but I can kiss in French."

It would have been difficult for Blaine to come up with a response to this even if he’d been stone cold sober. The best he could manage under the circumstances was "Uh huh?" At least he was pretty certain which of the blonde girls she was now. Quinn was blonde, but Brittany was really blonde.

Her identity was confirmed when Artie rolled up and said "There’s my girl!" The color-coded chart that Kurt had prepared for Blaine before the party indicated that Artie and Brittany were a couple.

Brittany squealed "There’s my boy!" and leaned over to kiss Artie. This did indeed appear to be a kiss of the French variety. Blaine decided he’d leave them to it. He didn’t see Kurt around, so he went to get another drink. He flopped down on one of the couches, sipping his rum and Coke and bobbing his head to the music.

"Hey there, Eyebrows Mc...Hairgel," said a voice right beside him. He turned and saw the Hispanic girl leaning on the arm of the couch. He remembered her name was Santana, like the band. "How’s everything with the Wankers?"

"Warblers. I’m a Warbler." Kurt had warned him that Santana could be a little abrasive. "Evil" was the actual word he had used, but Kurt also thought cargo shorts were evil so Blaine wasn’t sure how concerned he should be.

"Well Mister Warbler, I’ve got a question for you. About your school." She paused, and Blaine wondered if this was going to be Hogwarts related. "Is it true that all the guys there are gay?"

Blaine laughed. "I wish. There’s not really that many of us."

"But you don’t get beat up or anything? No one makes fun of you?"

"Nah, everyone’s cool."

Santana leaned closer and lowered her voice. "Is there a school like that for girls?"

"We’ve got a sister school, Crawford County Day."

"All the way in Crawford County?" She seemed disappointed.

"Yeah. Why, are you interested?"

"No! I was just curious. Hey, whaddaya think of my boyfriend?" She pointed at Sam, who was still playing Quarters. "He’s hot, huh? Hotter than Puck, right?" Blaine felt something warm drip onto his shoulder. He thought for a second that Santana was literally drooling over her boyfriend. Then he looked at her and saw that she was crying.

"Totally hot," Blaine agreed, since this seemed the polite thing to do. Santana wiped her face on her sleeve and stumbled off to join Sam. Blaine saw her grab him by the shirt and kiss him.

Actually, Blaine didn’t think Sam was all that hot. He was just your typical tall, gorgeous football player, like practically every other guy at this party. Even Artie was somehow a football player. Kurt apparently didn’t even know any guys at McKinley who weren’t football players. All these great big football players had someone to kiss tonight, except maybe Finn. His status with Quinn had been marked in yellow for "uncertain" on Kurt’s chart. Guys like Finn probably didn’t stay single for long, though.

Blaine shook his head. He could have stayed at Dalton if he wanted to sit around and think depressing thoughts about how easy things were for tall, gorgeous straight guys. That was not going to bother him tonight. Nothing was going to bother him, because this was a party and he was partying. He drained his cup and went back to the bar to pour himself another rum and Coke, without the Coke.

After that things got kind of blurry. Blaine was feeling good, though. He told one of Mike’s jokes to Rachel, and she laughed really hard even though he couldn’t remember how it was supposed to end. He saw Santana do a body shot off Brittany, which was the sort of thing he’d only seen on MTV Spring Break before. He danced and he knew his moves were awesome.

He was dancing when he noticed Kurt talking to Finn. Blaine thought Finn looked sad, maybe because he didn’t have a girlfriend despite being really tall. It was good that Finn had Kurt to talk to. Kurt was a really sweet guy. Blaine decided to help cheer Finn up. "Hey! It’s so cool that you and Kurt are brothers! Right? Brothers! Wow! You’re so tall!"

"You having fun, Blaine?" Kurt asked.

"Yeah! This is the best party ever!" He threw his arm around Kurt and they almost fell over, which was hilarious because Blaine wasn’t even drunk. He knew he wasn’t drunk because if he were drunk he’d know that he was drunk.

He was trying to explain this to Kurt when Rachel got up on the stage and called for a game of Spin the Bottle. This seemed like an excellent idea to Blaine, because he really wanted to kiss someone. He hadn’t kissed anyone on Valentine’s Day. But there was no way he wasn’t getting kissed tonight if they played Spin the Bottle. That was the rule. You didn’t get to pick who you kissed, but you got to kiss them for sure.

Rachel wouldn’t have been his first choice, but Blaine didn’t feel disappointed to see her crawling towards him. "Blaine Warbler," she slurred. "I’m gonna rock your world."

And she did. Blaine had never been kissed by a girl before, but it was better than he’d expected. Surprisingly good, really. Someone was chanting "Deep, deep, deep!" and people were clapping and he didn’t want to disappoint them, or Rachel, so he kissed her back as hard as he could.

"Your face...tastes awesome," Rachel said. Blaine was glad his face tasted awesome. "I think I just found a new duet partner!"

This was the best idea Blaine had heard all night. Better than Spin the Bottle, even. Singing was his favorite thing and he’d wanted to try out Rachel’s stage the moment he saw it. She cued up Human League’s "Don’t You Want Me" on her karaoke machine, an awesome Eighties song that Blaine totally knew. He started singing, and Rachel joined in. She was such a good singer and they sounded great together. It was so much fun to sing and dance with Rachel.

That was the last thing Blaine remembered about the party.