CHAPTER 3

A week after Thanksgiving, Blaine was preparing for a gig, joking and laughing with the other band members in a back room of the under twenty-one club where they played each Friday night.  A few minutes before they were due to start their first set a waitress poked her head in, asking what they wanted up on stage to drink.  After taking orders for six bottles of water, she started to leave then, turned back and said, “Oh, Blaine, there's a couple of girls out here who said they're friends of yours.  They wanted to know if you had a minute before you started.”

Blaine went out to find Rachel and Santana seated at a table near the stage, to the side where his keyboards were set up.  They exchanged quick hugs and both slipped him napkins with requests.  He took them with a laugh and promised to try to work them into the sets.  As he made his way backstage, he wondered how Rachel would handle sitting and watching a performance she couldn't participate in; it should be interesting. 

Kurt told Adam that they needed to meet Rachel and Santana at an under twenty-one club.  They had begged him to go with them, and it had been so long since they'd all gone out together.  He didn't ask if it was okay to bring Adam.  They hadn't seen each other all week because of work and school, and Adam really wanted to be with him, so he just combined his plans with the girls and Adam's desire to go out.  They found the girls in the crowded club, and Kurt wondered at the strange look they gave Adam.  True, he didn't usually hang out with Adam with them, but it wasn't really that odd to bring Adam along, was it?  Just as they reached the table, one of the club employees announced the band.

“I heard this band is really good!”  Rachel gushed.  Okay, Rachel was enthusiastic about a musical act that didn't involve a legendary performer or herself; a little out of character, but not too weird.  Kurt wondered why everything just felt so strange.  The band ran up onstage, and he looked up and locked eyes with the keyboard player.  And then he knew.  Throwing a bitch-glare at Rachel and Santana, he grabbed Adam's hand with one hand, and placed the other on the back of his neck, pulling him in for a deep, dirty kiss.

Blaine's eyes narrowed, and he quickly turned and murmured something to the other band members.  They nodded their assent, and Blaine took his mic off its stand and moved to center stage.  The song didn't need piano or keyboards, so the rest of the band would back him.  The guitars began to play softly, slowly, behind him, and he began to sing.

Well it's over and gone

Babe tell me the truth

Don't try to lie about it

Someone else has been with you

Judas couldn't hide it

Any better than this

The secret's out darling

Betrayed by a kiss

Well it's right here with us baby

Though it really can't be seen

It's the smell of his seduction

And it makes it hard to breathe

A tender touch can hit you

So much harder than a fist

Not a single word was spoken

You've been betrayed by a kiss

Where did we go wrong

Blow the candle out

How'd a love so strong

Learn to fill a house with doubts

How long have I been so blind

And been the odd man out

Now the truth is so hard

We choose to lie

Shout out our denials

Till the tear ducts have run dry

No one's there to cover up

The last track that you missed

It's an intimate moment

To be betrayed by a kiss

Tender lips can hit you

So much harder than a fist

It's a damnable heartbreak

To be betrayed by a kiss[1]

The hurt was evident in Blaine's voice throughout the song, and as it ended he said to the applauding audience, “Thank you so much.  If you'll just indulge me for a few minutes longer, I have one other special song I'd like to do, and then we'll pick it up a bit and get you dancing.”  He moved back to his keyboard, placed his mic in its stand, and began to play.

Getting up late

Working all day

An occasional date

Everything is okay

But up in the attic

Something's undone

It's like static in the stereo on my favorite song

You're a stone in my shoe

Just a stone in my shoe

And I keep walking ‘round

Going through the motions

Looking for an ocean

So I can throw away this stone in my shoe

Closing the bar

With a bunch of old friends

Then home in the car

Scotch in the den

Flipping through photos

Watching memories fly

A Polaroid flash that's burned in the edge of my eye

You're a stone in my shoe

Just a stone in my shoe

And I keep walking ‘round

Going through the motions

Looking for an ocean

So I can throw away this stone in my shoe

I'll be walking along

Humming a tune

When a scent or a song

Or the sight of the moon

Opens the wound

At the tear of a stitch

And pretty soon my heart starts to twitch

You're a stone in my shoe

Just a stone in my shoe

And I keep walking ‘round

Going through the motions

Looking for an ocean

So I can throw away this stone in my shoe

Working all day

Laughing at jokes

Paying the bills

Visiting folks

There's a dull ache

A tear in my eye

Living everyday like there was something I

Forgot to do

It's like a stone in my shoe

Did I turn off the stove

Did I put out the cat

Oh, no, it's something much bigger than that

It's like a stone in my shoe

Talking ‘bout you, babe

You're a stone in my shoe[2]

As the song finished, Blaine dropped his head for a moment and blinked back tears.  Kurt hadn't left while he was singing, and so now he probably had a pretty good idea how Blaine felt.  He took a deep, shuddering breath.  He couldn't fall apart on stage.  In the last month, he'd become the band's de facto front man, and had been offered a permanent position even after Ann came back.  He had to pull it together and give everyone a show.

Mike walked up to the center mic and shouted, “Okay, people!  On the dance floor! Let's get this party started!”  The band began to play the opening to Raise Your Glass.  Blaine took a deep breath and began to sing again.

                The rest of the evening went well.  Blaine tried very hard to ignore Kurt and Adam, who spent much of the evening dancing.  At least they danced to the fast songs.  Whenever the band began a slow song, Kurt would lead the way off the dance floor and take the time to get a drink or check in with Rachel and Santana.  Blaine was thankful that their dancing seemed fairly innocent, with a minimum of grinding, unlike many of the other couples on the floor.  During a set break around eleven o'clock, Rachel and Santana told him goodnight; Rachel's babysitter had a midnight curfew, and their apartment wasn't close, so they needed to leave.  Kurt and Adam left shortly before midnight, and Blaine relaxed for the first time all evening.

* * *

Kurt and Adam boarded the subway on the way back to the apartment Kurt shared with the girls and the baby.  Kurt never wanted to go to Adam's apartment, so he wasn't surprised when Kurt turned down his offer to go to his own much closer apartment.  He was glad that Kurt let him accompany him to his apartment, instead of going home alone; he knew it was silly of him, but he was protective and Kurt still looked fragile to him, despite the muscles he had developed lifting girls in dance classes.  And somehow, tonight, he looked even more fragile and vulnerable than usual.  Adam had no idea what to expect.  Until Rachel had had her baby, seeing Blaine at the apartment meant there would be sex, but Blaine hadn't been around since then.  He didn't know if it was the constantly squalling infant that kept him away or some other reason, but Adam was starting to miss him, if only because it meant that Kurt maintained the distance between them.  He didn't know whether or not seeing Blaine performing at the club tonight would have the same effect as Blaine being at the apartment, but he hoped so.  Once they arrived at the apartment, Kurt paused at the door, seeming to war with himself for a moment, before inviting Adam in.  Hope surged in Adam's heart; usually, if there was no sign of Blaine, Kurt told him goodbye standing in the doorway.

“Come here,” Kurt told him, walking slowly to the couch.  “Sit.”

Adam sat, a feeling of trepidation beginning to creep over him.

Kurt began to talk.  “Look, Adam, I don't want to hurt you, but this isn't working.  I think we both know it, we've both known it for a while.  And if we keep trying to make something out of nothing, we're just going to end up hurting each other.”

“But, Kurt, we enjoy spending time together, enjoy doing things together,” Adam protested.

“Adam, you're a great friend.  And I do like spending time with you and doing things with you.  But I don't have romantic feelings for you.  I think you know it, too.  And you wanting me to have those feelings for you, even me wishing I could feel that way about you, doesn't make it happen.  I'm not saying we can't still be friends, or that we can't still do things together.  I hope we can.  But that's all we're ever going to have.  Do you understand?”  Kurt said.

“No,” Adam shook his head, “Kurt, we can back off the romantic stuff for a while, promise not to make love for a while, let's just give it a little time.”

Kurt closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then shook his head.  “I'm sorry.  It's not going to work.  I'm going to bed.  You can stay here as long as you need to.”

Adam stayed on the couch, shell-shocked and confused, until Santana came out of Rachel's room, where she had been helping Rachel to get the baby back to sleep.  Looking up at her with a bewildered expression, he said, “Kurt broke up with me.  I don't understand.  I don't know what I did wrong.  He promised me he was over Blaine, promised me that I wouldn't be the rebound.  And now-“

Santana looked at him with sympathy.  “Let Auntie Tana explain it to you, because this is right up my alley; actually, it's my specialty.”  At Adam's desperate nod, she continued, “First of all, you and Kurt, it was never really going to happen, because there's only ever been one person in this world for Kurt, and that's Blaine, and there's only been one person for Blaine, and that's Kurt.  They were always meant to find each other and be together.  And Kurt may have told you that he was over Blaine, Hell, he might have even convinced himself there for a while.  But he was never even close to over him.  And, just like he promised you, you were never the rebound.  You were the revenge.”

As she spoke, she pulled him from the couch, gently directing him to the door.  “Now go home, go to bed, and get up tomorrow ready to look for someone who can love you, because Kurt isn't that person; he never was.”

[1] The Kiss by Radney Foster, from the album See What You Want to See, with one word changed to make it appropriate to sing to a man.

[2] Stone in My Shoe by Don Henry from the album Flowers and Rockets, with one word changed to make it appropriate to sing to a man.