School started the following day.

Kurt’s day would normally begin with opening the shop and working for an hour or two before going to McKinley around nine or ten o’clock for his first class. On this day, however, he had to go to McKinley in the early morning to pick up his schedule and textbooks. Mark agreed, with much grumbling and grousing, to open the shop in Kurt`s place. Kurt's dad had gotten home late the night before from a date with Carole, and seeing as business in the morning didn’t really pick up until after ten a.m. anyway, he decided to let his dad sleep in.

Mark would most likely bitch about it later, but, oh well.

Kurt sifted through the contents of his wardrobe, glad to finally get the chance to wear something more fashionable then his work overalls. He had begun to feel like he was living in them.

Thank goodness he had nine pair.

After laying out several outfits on his bed, complete with shoes and accessories, he started the task of trying each ensemble on. It was a lengthy process which consisted of holding individual pieces up to his body and seeing how each combination looked in both natural and artificial light. After going through the finalists one last time, he made his selection, deciding to kill it in indigo skinny jeans, a fitted button down shirt, and a Marc Jacobs scarf draped over the back of his neck with the ends tucked into his favorite midnight black peacoat. If he was going to spend the day ignoring Blaine Anderson and his motley crew, he was going to do it in an outfit that kicked some serious ass.

He gazed at his reflection in the mirror, touching up his hair, taming stragglers here and there. Then he stood back to get the full effect. He needed to see exactly what he would be saying with this first impression.

`Hello. My name is Kurt Hummel. I am a rising star and I am so much better than this.’

Kurt smiled.

Perfect.

As luck would have it, the first person Kurt saw when he walked through the double-doors was Blaine Anderson, surrounded on all sides by his crew, walking down the hallway, headed right for him. They walked four across down the narrow hall. Students and some teachers actually moved aside to let them through. By the expressions on the faces of the crew’s many admirers and by how eager everyone was to make way for them as they passed, it was easy to tell that this group essentially ruled the school. Kurt groaned beneath his breath. He refused to be impressed.

Kurt was a California native. Compared to California; Lima, Ohio was small time, and no one could convince Kurt any different.

That included Blaine Anderson.

Among the awe struck student body, Kurt noticed many faces that had been in the business park the night before – faces that had seen Kurt get wagered away. They probably figured that he belonged to Blaine now. Great. More people who thought of him as an object and not a person. Well, that was not the case last night, and that was definitely not the case now. Kurt was willing to go to great lengths to stay as far away from Blaine and his crew as possible.

Kurt saw Blaine`s eyes stop on him, open wide, and travel down his body with a look of appreciation on his smiling face. Kurt may not want anything to do with Blaine, but he still preened silently, especially when Blaine`s eyes reached Kurt’s swaying hips and his jaw dropped. Kurt refused to make eye contact, weaving quickly away when Blaine reached out a hand to stop him.

"Yo, Hummel!" Puck raised his hand in a wave, but Kurt pointedly ignored him as well. Puck shrugged it off. It was kind of a cold move, but Puck didn’t hold it against him. He knew Kurt had other things going on.

Kurt continued down the hallway, searching for the main office, when he saw the group of bruiser jocks in red jackets coming his way...otherwise known as his ‘welcoming committee’.

***

Blaine had hoped he could catch Kurt in the hall before school. It was Kurt’s first day, so he’d most likely be lost. Blaine could take the opportunity to help him out and hopefully mend fences at the same time. Blaine needed to talk to him; he needed everything to be ok. He couldn't erase the sound of Kurt crying from his mind. It haunted him all night long. When he saw Kurt walking down the hallway - smooth, confident, sexy as hell - Blaine felt relieved. He was sure everything would be alright from here on out, and that they could simply fall back into their easy friendship (a friendship with the possible promise of more) without any other bumps in their way.

That was pretty difficult, though, when Kurt wouldn't look at him – when he wouldn't even acknowledge that Blaine existed. Blaine reached out to him, longing to touch him, to hold him, but Kurt moved out of reach. He sashayed down the crowded hallway, working his hips in a way that drove Blaine crazy. Kurt probably knew it did, too. On top of that, he was walking headlong toward a pack of jocks, their hulking leader Azimio holding a Slushie in his hand.

Slushie facials were a special form of bullying, exclusive, it seemed, to McKinley High School. It was a running joke in their general vicinity of Ohio. Everybody knew about it but no one did a thing to stop it. It seemed that Slushies weren’t on the list of things perceived by the district to be a weapon, so there was nothing the administrators would do. Even though the bullying had lessened overall throughout the years, the new kids could usually expect one Slushie to face at the beginning of the fall semester.

Blaine pictured it all in slow motion – the ice cold liquid jettisoning into Kurt’s face, dripping down his cheeks and his neck, clumping in his hair, ruining his clothes. Blaine turned to race after him, to catch him in time and pull him away, or intercept it if he had to. Either way, he was determined that Kurt would not be Slushied. If he stood up for Kurt, Azimio would know that Kurt wasn't just any random new student, but that he was part of Blaine's crew. Everyone knew that Blaine’s crew was untouchable at McKinley. Then Kurt would be safe.

Blaine may have failed Kurt once, but he wouldn’t fail him again.

But Santana grabbed Blaine’s arm and yanked it hard, sending him flying backward.

"Let me go, Satan!" Blaine growled as she dug her nails into the leather arm of his jacket, holding on tight.

"Let him get a Slushie to the face," Santana said. "Serves him right for being a loser!" she yelled louder so that Kurt would be sure to hear. Blaine pulled his arm free but he was too late. He saw Azimio grinning like a fiend, the rest of the pack snickering in anticipation, raising the Slushie, preparing for the toss...

***

Kurt had an eye trained on the bastards in the red jackets lumbering down the hallway. As soon as Kurt saw the cup, he reacted. Without even turning his head or averting his gaze from the path ahead of him, he flicked out an arm, smacking the bottom of the cup and overturning its contents in the opposite direction, splashing the jock square in the face. The students in the hall, who had all stopped to watch the new kid get iced, exploded with laughter.

Santana smirked, mildly disappointed but genuinely impressed.

"Or, there's that." Santana shrugged, took Brittany's hand, and walked off in the opposite direction.

Puck put his hands on Blaine's shoulders and squeezed lightly.

"See," Puck said, "Hummel's a big boy. You don't have to run to his rescue." Puck patted Blaine on the back as he walked passed, followed by Sam and Finn, who repeated the pat-on-the-back gesture as they headed to class. Blaine watched Kurt until he turned the corner and walked out of sight.

"But what if I want to run to his rescue?" Blaine muttered glumly, followed by a heavy sigh.

***

Blaine discovered he only had one class with Kurt, since Kurt took mostly AP classes and had no first period class, and that was AP Literature. Blaine tried to sit in the seat next to Kurt, but every time Blaine sat down, Kurt would get up and move. Sit, move, sit, move – they continued the dance until their teacher, Mr. Kingsley, intervened.

"Give it up, Anderson. It's obvious Hummel doesn't want to sit next to you. Go find another seat and take it."

The whole class tittered and laughed – someone even balled up a piece of paper and launched it at Blaine’s head, but Blaine didn’t have time to be annoyed. He had to find a way to get through to Kurt.

By the time the school day came to a close, Blaine had struck out a few more times in his attempt to get a word with Kurt. Blaine became desperate to talk to him. He thought he could catch Kurt at lunch, but when the bell rang, Blaine couldn't find him anywhere. Blaine thought for sure that Kurt would join Glee Club, considering he had been attending Pace and he admitted that he sang. Blaine set up the chairs and made sure the only available one was right beside him. After the final bell, he saw Kurt peek in the window and was sure he would come in. Kurt scanned the room through the square pane of glass in the door, taking in all the members of the McKinley Crew, plus a few other students. His eyes fell on Blaine staring back at him, waiting expectantly with his hand resting on the only empty chair. Kurt sighed deeply, then turned and walked away. Seeing the expression on Kurt's face made Blaine realize that Kurt probably would have joined Glee Club - probably would have enjoyed it, too - if not for Blaine and his stupid bet. Blaine had an urge to chase after him but Mr. Schuester, the choir director, started the class. Since the group had to prepare for Sectionals and Blaine was their lead soloist, he had to stay.

Blaine stopped by the garage after school, braving Burt’s wrath by showing up in his Mustang, but as soon as Kurt saw Blaine pull up, he ducked into the office. Blaine watched Kurt leave, knowing he wasn’t going to turn around and come back out. Blaine bowed his head and drove away, Burt's eyes following him as he left.

Burt trailed after his son and found him sorting through the file cabinet, pulling out random files, rummaging through their contents, and then shoving them back into the drawers. Burt didn’t have a clue what his son could possibly be looking for.

"Do you want to tell me what that was all about?" Burt asked.

Kurt didn't stop his busy work and he didn’t look up to meet his father's eyes.

"I don't know what you mean," he replied, his voice clipped, but his father could still hear heavy emotion behind it.

Kurt closed the drawer he was looking in and brushed passed his father.

"I mean,” Burt continued, not letting his son get away just yet, “you spent almost every minute with that boy since we moved here, and now you run away when you see him coming." Burt walked much slower than Kurt. He limped a little, favoring his right leg - a side effect of a procedure he had done months ago. He only caught up to his son when Kurt stopped to fill the wiper fluid on an old Bel Air.

Burt watched his son, bent over the car, focused on his work. The job was menial; it in no way required the amount of attention Kurt was giving it, but Burt knew Kurt needed the work to distract him from something else. That was obvious.

That something had to do with the boy in the black Mustang – Blaine. Burt was sure of it.

"Kurt…" Burt put a hand on his son's shoulder, "is there anything we need to talk about?"

Kurt put down the bottle of wiper fluid. He knew his dad was trying to help, but he couldn't look at him. Back in California, Kurt would have never dreamed of lying to his father in any way, shape, or form. But since they moved to Ohio, he had lied over and over about where he was, what he was doing, and who he was with. If he looked into his father's eyes, Kurt would be done for. He'd have to tell his dad the truth about fixing the Dalton cars, the street racing, the bet...and his feelings about Blaine.

Besides getting grounded for life for disobeying him, telling his dad about his feelings would make them even more real and right now he wanted them to go away.

Kurt took a deep breath and tried to think happy thoughts, but his go-to happy thoughts were about New York, NYADA…and Blaine.

"There's nothing to talk about, dad,” Kurt said. “Nothing at all. It’s been a long day. That’s all.”

Another lie.

Burt sighed. He knew his son. He knew there was something eating him inside.

He also knew not to push.

"Alright." Burt patted Kurt's shoulder. "But you know I'm here if you need to talk, right?"

Kurt nodded, not really listening. He kept nodding even after his dad had walked away.

***

Blaine tried to get his crew to take their cars to Kurt's shop to get something done - a tire rotation, an alignment, or something simple like an oil change. Blaine even offered to pay, but they wouldn't go.

There weren't any races during that week because of the start of school. Now that neither crew brought their cars by the shop, Kurt closed up at the normal time and went home - his evenings completely free. Every night, Kurt took out his trusty calculator and went over the numbers again and again. Even with the money he had saved from what Dalton paid him, he had nowhere near enough. He considered getting a second job, or running away all together.

Right now, running away was looking really good.

On Friday night, Blaine texted Kurt more than a dozen times, asking where their mechanic was. He told Kurt that Mike had slipped a belt, Finn had popped a tired, and Puck had fouled a fuse. The guys didn’t really, but if Kurt had texted Blaine back that he was on his way, Blaine sure as hell would have sliced Mike's belt, popped a tire, and yanked some fuses.

Kurt didn't text Blaine back, not even to say, “Fuck off, asshole! I’m not interested.”

Blaine began to think that Kurt would never forgive him, and a piece of his heart broke away.

***

Kurt sat all alone in his Eclipse, gazing down on the business park from the overlook of an abandoned quarry. Usually, Friday nights in the Hummel household were reserved for family dinners – a tradition dating back to when Kurt’s mother was alive - but his dad had bowed out in lieu of taking Carole on a date to some restaurant called Breadstix. Kurt felt a bit jilted but he couldn't really be mad. In fact, he felt tremendously guilty. If he hadn't skipped so many dinners over the course of the summer, his dad wouldn't have thought that Kurt had stopped caring.

But Kurt did care.

Kurt listened to the cars racing below, saw them shoot out in all directions as the races started and finished, and wondered where Blaine's Mustang was in the mass of lights and the low rumble of engines. He thought about going down there and getting lost in the crowd in order to catch a glimpse of the boy and his black car, but then he wondered if it would be as pathetic as it sounded. Kurt fought back tears as he remembered the first day down at the races and how everything had started to feel right again, like he had found somewhere else he could call home.

His life had changed so many times in a few short months, and home was long gone.

Kurt wiped the tears from his eyes and started his car. He was through torturing himself. It was high time he got back to his mission...the one where he graduated high school, flew off to New York, and never looked back.

***

Blaine flew through the straight away and crossed the finish line, sliding to slow his car’s momentum. He pulled up to his crew, all of them running to congratulate him after his third straight victory of the evening. Blaine cut his engine and climbed out through the window, chest bumping Puck and receiving a half-hug from Sam. Arms reached out to him, eager to touch him. He smiled and laughed, bumping fists and shaking hands. He looked up at the sound of an engine turning over and stopped mid-breath, his eyes searching over the crowd in time to see two signature HID headlights turn and blink out like stars in the darkness.