It took me awhile to get everything hauled back to my cabin and unpacked. Honestly, it took me a lot longer than I wanted it to. I was chomping at the bit.

I will admit that I’d missed Blaine a lot. A whole lot. And from the actual, live hug I’d gotten in greeting, it seemed like Blaine might have felt the same way.

Since my brain has to over analyze everything, I hoped that contact might mean that just the few days of my absence had the growth Schue wanted. I hoped that Blaine taking that step where other people could even see it meant that he’d started to have the same self-confidence around other people that he’d developed when it was just the two of us.

Finally, I had all my stuff settled enough to stop agonizing over this and just go find the group of campers, a.k.a., talk to Blaine.

I took a few extra deep breaths as I walked across the fields towards where the Cabin 3 kids were involved in a ‘just for the fun of it’ game of soccer. I couldn’t afford to be too disappointed if all my greatest hopes hadn’t come to pass. That would just be silly, and, honestly, I don’t think I’m that huge of an optimist.

The less insanely competitive of the campers waved my way as I approached Rory and Blaine on the sidelines, sinking down to sit in the grass beside Blaine.

“So, what did the rugrats managed to get up to in my absence?” I asked. It seemed a safe enough entrance into conversation.

“Seth officially hasn’t cried one bit the whole time.” Rory stated, eyes not leaving the game. I’m sure out of the three of us, he was the one best able to ref this game. By far. “I think we can pretty well consider his homesickness cured. He even got a letter from his mum and read it with not one teardrop.”

“That’s progress.” I replied with a rather happy sigh. “I hate tears. I always feel so awkward with a crying kid. I always just want to push them towards Finn. Or you.” I nudged Blaine gently with my elbow as I said that.

Blaine grinned over to me, sticking his tongue out in response. “Oh sure. Foist all the sobbers off on me. I see how it is.”

Rory laughed lightly. “At least he’s not foisting them off on me. I approve.” He glanced between the two of us for a moment before adding, “If you two want to go for a walk or whatever and catch up, I can easily handle this for a half hour.”

Were we really that obvious? What exactly had I missed?

Apparently it was nothing too bad because Blaine stood with a light blush on his cheeks, and offered me a hand up. I took it with a look up that was probably a bit surprised then nodded towards Rory. “Thanks. We won’t go too far. Yell if you need us.”

He waved off that suggestion and the two of ambled silently over towards the woods and the creek that ran behind the sports fields.

Neither of us said anything, just walking in companionable silence until we found a downed tree to sit on, facing the slight ravine of the creek.

Eventually, I just had to break that silence or we’d just spend our half an hour staring at nothing together. “Are you having a good week so far?” Yes, I’m obviously a rocket scientist of conversation.

“I came out to Finn and Rory.” That was not at all the response I thought my question might get from Blaine.

I didn’t want to say anything that he could interpret as negative in response, so I went with simply, “Oh?” hoping that he’d continue on.

“I don’t even quite know what made me do it. We were all sitting around on Monday night in their room after the kids were asleep. It was Finn’s night off, but he claimed he wanted to get extra sleep out of it. So we were just shooting the breeze, talking about family actually. Rory mentioned that his older sister lives with her partner in Dublin, and I know that Finn can’t be that homophobic if he thinks of you like a little brother. I guess that made me comfortable.” Blaine reached down to grab a twig from the ground, picking dried leaves off of it.

I just listened, nodding and making the sort of noises that I hoped showed I was paying attention but wouldn’t interrupt.

It must be working alright, because Blaine continued. “So later on they were talking about what movie stars they thought were the hottest. When they turned and asked me, I was honest. It felt… really freeing. I like not having to hide. I think they were probably kind of surprised, but they were really cool about it.”

“Good. I know what you mean about the feeling free. Even though most people just assume about me, it’s still nice to not feel like I need to watch what I say.” I turned a bit to look at Blaine. “You just seem happier. More confident. I noticed it as soon as you said hello.”

“I do?”

“You do. Two weeks ago you never would have come up to say high to me in public. You’d have made me initiate everything.” I pointed out.

“Huh, I guess I would have.” Blaine snapped the twig in half. “Maybe my dad was right in sending me here no matter what his actual intentions were. I feel so much less afraid than I did when I got here. I was just nervous every moment, waiting for the next blow or harsh word. I still have moments like that, but they’re just moments. Most of the time, I’m just happy. The kids are awesome. I’m making some great friends. On top of it all, there’s you.”

My heart sped up in my chest at the end of that sentence. I had to take a deep breath before I could even get words out to continue the conversation. “Me? Aren’t I becoming one of those great friends?”

“I feel like you’re becoming more than that.” Blaine said softly, tossing the twig pieces toward the creek so he could turn to face me. “I don’t want to rush into anything, but I can’t help it. I like you.” Blaine paused for a moment to make a face. “God, that sounds so much like a fifth grader.”

“Do you like me? Check yes or no?” I joked lightly before reaching over to put a hand on Blaine’s knee. “I don’t want to rush into anything either, but the feeling is entirely mutual.” I could just feel his muscles relax beneath my hand as I admitted that. “I didn’t want to push you into anything you’re not ready for, but that’s kind of a mutual thing, too. I’ve never had a boyfriend. I don’t really know how to go about doing this. I’m afraid that I’ll do something to screw up our friendship.”

A smile lit up Blaine’s face even at that last admission. “We’ll take it really slow then. Not push anything that either one of us isn’t ready for?”

I nodded, letting out a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. “I think that sounds like a good plan. Would it be rushing things horribly for me to kiss you? At least once?” I asked timidly. I’d been repressing that urge for so long. It seemed kind of like a miracle that I might actually be allowed to let these feelings free.

Blaine nodded, opening his mouth to respond before he must have thought better of it. Instead, he leaned forward cupping my cheek with one hand to press a kiss to my lips.

I very much approve of the initiative. I also very much approve of sweet, lingering kisses. Butterflies fluttered down in my stomach as I leaned in towards Blaine. Even as we pulled our lips apart, I wrapped my arms around his neck, resting my forehead against his. “Alright. That might just be the most perfect part of my summer so far.”

“I’ll admit that does great things for my ego.” Blaine joked lightly. “That was definitely worth taking the risk. Could we just stay here, right like this, forever?”

“Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure there’s a whole group of kids that we’re going to have to help Rory get to bed soon. Otherwise, I’d be up for the whole ‘turn into trees if necessary to stay in this moment forever’ thing.” It sucked to pull away, but I knew I had to. Otherwise, I’d be tempted to shirk duties just to stay connected to Blaine. This time, I was the one that stood, offering my hand to Blaine to help him up.

Blaine took the help, but he didn’t let my hand go once we were standing, entwining his fingers into mine. “It’s going to be hard to hide this around the campers, isn’t it? And the staff. That would be one way to come out.” There was definite nervousness coloring Blaine’s tone at that thought.

“We’ll do whatever makes you comfortable. The hard part for me will be not telling Mike. And Sam.” But mostly Mike. He’s always been the one I tell just about everything to. “You’ll come out to who you want in whatever way you want. Don’t let me be the one pressuring you for any reason. If you feel like that’s happening, tell me? I’m not perfect. I’m so far from perfect.”

Blaine leaned over to press a quick kiss to my mouth to cut off the rambling I’d started. “I promise I will. When I’m ready to tell more people, I’m sure Mike will be high up the list of people I’ll feel comfortable sharing it with. In the meantime, maybe you could talk to Finn, if you need to?”

I regretfully pulled my hand out of Blaine’s warm grasp as we came to the edge of the clearing. “If you’re comfortable with him knowing everything, I’d like that.” I turned to see Blaine’s nod before fully stepping out of the woods to grin over towards Rory. “You managed to keep them all alive without us!”

It was the next evening before I had a chance to really talk to Finn. It had been a wonderful day. Part of that might have just been my mood. I’d had a wonderful trip out into the wilderness doing one of my favorite things. As soon as I’d gotten back, I’d had another wonderful trip into woods a bit less wild and done something that could easily find a spot on my list of favorite things.

It was no surprise that I was in a great mood today. Classes had gone well. I’d had fun in a period off snagging Mike, Nick, and Blaine to go out in canoes, ending up with a splashing war. I maintain that Blaine and I won, since we didn’t flip our canoe. At least it was late enough in the day for the water to have been refreshing for Mike and Nick?

We’d even managed to get the kids to bed at a reasonable hour tonight. Rory was off, and Blaine had a training meeting with the CITs that would probably lead into some structured fun activity until too late for him to be stopping by here.

That left Finn and I with the guys after dinner. It’d been a cabin night, and we’d taken the boards from windsurfing out without the sails. The guys had a great time ‘surfing’ on the fairly calm lake. That also apparently wore them out quite well, because after a chapter read aloud from Harry Potter, all was quite in the boys room. We didn’t even have to go back in to shush anyone or tell them that it was time to turn out their flashlights. I think that might be a first for the whole summer.

Finn and I had made our way back towards the counselor room. Technically, I was off duty now and could have headed back towards my cabin. I’d had precious little time this summer to just chat with Finn, though. We’d spent so much time together, but so little of it was one on one. I was going to make the best of it so I curled up on the empty bed as Finn moved to sprawl out on his.

“Have you heard for sure yet when you’re moving in here?” Finn asked, kicking off his sandals, letting them fall wherever they landed on the floor.

I resisted the urge to put Finn’s flipflops away properly, but moved to pull off my own Chacos. “A week from Saturday was the last I heard.” I set them down neatly on the floor. “So we’ll be in cabins a full week before Parent’s Day. It’s going to be so weird. I’ve shared a cabin with the other JCs for so long. I don’t know what I’ll do not waking up next to Sam and Mike every day.”

“I see how it is.” Finn teased, tucking his pillow behind him to rest against it. “I see how Rory and I compare. I do remember that though. It was odd for the first week or so, way back when. It made me so much better prepared that next summer though.”

“Oh yeah, I get the point in the transition. I’m just not completely sure whether I’m looking forward to it. No matter how nice Rory is.” I wrinkled my nose over, teasing back by leaving Finn out of things. “And I won’t have Blaine downstairs.”

“Mmhmm. Blaine.” Finn raised his eyebrows, smirking over. “How are things going with Blaine?”

“Oh my lord. Am I really that obvious?” I said, before realizing that if I wasn’t, I’d just given myself away. Oh well. I had planned to tell Finn everything, after all.

“You’re not super obvious, but what you are missing, Blaine makes up for.” Finn grinned over. “He looks at you like a hopeful puppy dog half the time.”

“He does?” I didn’t give that long to sink in before I just sighed happily. “Please don’t tell anyone, because he’s not completely comfortable being out to everyone yet, but things are going really well. Last night we talked about everything, like how cute he is. We decided to take things slowly, not rush ourselves.”

Finn nodded along, with a proud look on his face. As if this had anything to do with him at all. “I told him you’d be open to his feelings.” Alright, maybe the fact that Blaine broached the subject with me did have something to do with Finn after all.

“You did? Blaine didn’t tell me that.” I’d have to decide later how I felt about Finn interfering. Right now, I was just happy. Happy with everything. “So we talked, and then he kissed me. It was… perfect.”

“Good, little bro. You deserve some moments of perfect in your life. You both do.” I must have made some kind of questioning face over to Finn at that because he waved a hand. “I know that people have been shitty to you in your life. I wish I could be there to tell them off. Blaine might not have said as much, but you can just tell that some people have been at least as shitty to him.”

I nodded my head. I could easily see how someone could tell that just from interacting with Blaine. Especially the Blaine of a week or two ago. He’d come so far in just the few weeks of camp. “Sometimes it feels impossible. To believe that I can really have so many good things in my life. Sometimes a week as wonderful as this has been seems like it must be a dream. I’m not the guy who gets to kiss the cute boy. I’m the guy that gets taunted with slurs and thrown into lockers until my back is black and blue.” I grabbed my knees pulling my legs up towards my chest.

“You shouldn’t have to be. No one should have to be that guy.” Finn shook his head before admitting. “I didn’t always stand up for people like I should have in High School. I don’t think my school was as bad as yours, but there were times I looked the other way or walked the other way. I regret it now. I wish I could go back to my sixteen year old self and tell him to take his head out of his butt and be a man.”

“We can’t turn back the clock and change things, no matter how much we want to.” I tucked my head down on my knees as I looked over. “I could be very after school special-like and tell you that it’s what we do today that matters and makes a difference. It has made a difference to me. No matter how much I wished that someone at school would even act like they saw what was going on, like I wasn’t invisible, I’ve always known that I have friends from here that I can call up or Skype with and just rely on. Now Blaine has that, too. Plus, he only lives a couple hours from me.”

“Finally someone in your neck of the backwoods?” Finn joked, lightening up the mood.

“Har, har. But that means I can visit him sometimes. It doesn’t have to be just a summer fling or a friendship over the phone.” I paused for a moment, narrowing my eyes. “I’ll just have to make sure I don’t frighten him away with the first trip to the mall.”