“You just need to loosen up more, that’s all I’m saying.”

The club was loud, dark, crowded and somewhat grimy. In other words, it was pretty much like every other nightclub Kurt had ever been to (and there had been a lot in the past six or so years). Fortunately for his image, he’d stopped bringing wet wipes to clean off his seat after getting literally laughed out of one of the clubs -- and on drag queen night, no less.

The idea of whose ass had already graced the seat he was currently perched on was not one Kurt liked to entertain for longer than two seconds. However, this peeved observation from his companion -- her name was Alison, she was dating his neighbor two apartments down and potentially his neighbor one floor up’s girlfriend and she was his go-to club buddy -- was even less pleasant.

“Loosen up,” he repeated, bouncing his heels on the floor, trying to resist the urge to cross one leg over the other. Old habits died hard. “You’re saying this to the man who’s been drinking -- and not just little pink martini’s, might I add -- and has probably shimmied against every single available and/or willing man in this club.”

“Yeah, but who’re you going home with?” Alison arched one drawn-on eyebrow and sipped at her drink, with the air of a woman who’d already won an argument. “Without any follow-through, that’s just vaguely slutty behavior, and it doesn’t count.”

Kurt rolled his eyes, shifting away from the woman and staring out at the dance floor. He liked Alison, he truly did. She reminded him of a friend from high school -- plain-spoken, blunt, just the tiniest bit vain (maybe “frenemy” would be a better word...) and, unfortunately, usually right on the money about things. He would be going home alone. Same as every other night.

“I must’ve missed the “loosen up definition” memo,” he muttered, trying his hardest not to sulk. Staying single had become more difficult without the “I need to focus on my studies” excuse. Most of his friends couldn’t understand why a young, available, attractive man (their words, not his) wouldn’t leap at the chance to have a boyfriend, or even a friend-with-benefits. And, to avoid spouting rom-com cliche’s (“My heart’s still broken from my high school sweetheart, thanks”), Kurt had resorted to just shrugging vaguely whenever he was confronted about his terminal single-ness.

“Hey, listen.” Alison scooted closer, wobbling on her stool, eyes bright from the music and the alcohol and the lights. She lived and breathed the nightlife, it seemed, drank it in, wallowed in it. Kurt wasn’t so lucky. All the glimmer and glamour seemed to bounce right off him, leaving him just as dull and lonely as ever. “A friend of a friend of mine knows a guy.”

Kurt arched an eyebrow. “Is “friend-of-a-friend” code? Is this one of your former hook-ups who feels like seeing how the other half lives? Because I am done being the token gay experience, thankyouverymuch.”

Alison scoffed, rolling her eyes and swatting his shoulder, making him lean away to avoid being gouged by her heavily manicured fingernails. “Shut up. He’s totally gay. 100% gay. Well. Maybe 89.5%”

“Have I told you lately that your ability to make up bullshit fractions while drunk is one of my favorite things about you?” Smiling sweetly and leaning in to kiss her cheek, Kurt tried to slide off his stool. He was tired, it was late and he had work in the morning. He didn’t want to hear about Mr. Probably-straight-or-at-the-least-bisexual-who-didn’t-mind-making-out-with-a-guy-as-long-as-he-moisturized.

But Alison caught his arm, lower lip stuck out in a pout. “Come on, baby, you’re so sad all the time. It depresses me. It makes me feel guilty for all the tail I get. Lemme fix you up, just this once? This guy is totally hot and educated and shit. He’s a businessman.”

Kurt feigned a gasp, setting a hand over his heart and pretending to swoon. “A businessman? Be still my heart. Will he wear his Armani tie when we make sweet sweet Wall-Street-style love?”

Alison giggled, then pulled a scowl. “Unfunny. So unfunny. And gross. Wall Street sex sounds totally un-hot.” Releasing Kurt’s arm and taking a long gulp of her drink, she batted her eyes beseechingly. “Just one blind date. One fling before you become a sad depressing little coffee drone. Pretty-please?”

Having never been able to resist sad-puppy-dog faces, Kurt sighed, shrugging into his jacket, then throwing up his hands in defeat. “Who am I to make you feel guilty about all the indiscriminate hook-ups you have? Fine. One date. What’s this guy’s name?”

With a delighted (and not a little triumphant) grin, Alison flung herself off her stool, embracing Kurt and leaving a very sticky lip-gloss-y mark on his cheek. “Yay! I win!” Then, pulling back and wagging a reproachful finger -- “Nuh-uh, no names. I don’t want you Googling this guy and finding out alllll about him. That’ll spoil the surprise.”

“He’s on Google?” Wallet, phone, keys -- check. A particularly embarrassing freshman-year experience with a leering locksmith and a very dirty payphone had trained Kurt to always check his pockets before leaving a club.

“Everyone’s on Google, sweetie.” Now that she’d achieved victory, Alison was ready for Kurt to stop spoiling her hook-up mojo. She blew him a kiss, which turned into a dismissive wave, adding as he rolled his eyes and walked away -- “Don’t you dare plan anything for Friday night! And iron your nicest clothes! Businessman, remember! Important businessman!”

Kurt waved over his shoulder, zipping his coat (from the Gap, because he was poor and working-class now, and because boys who lived in walk-up apartments in Brooklyn didn’t wear Steve McQueen) and stepping out into the still-frigid New York air. He raised a hand to hail a taxi, trying to downplay his already-racing thoughts.

It was a blind date. It didn’t mean anything. Granted, he hadn’t been on an official date since dropping out of college, but he was pretty sure he still remembered how to do it. Look nice, show up, split the bill, make polite conversation, get out of there as soon as possible. And then it’d be over and done with and he could focus on more important things (whatever those may be; becoming regional manager at Starbucks, perhaps?).

No big deal.

----------------------------------------------------------

[March 23rd, 2017, 9:13 AM]

“You have a date tomorrow.”

Office coffee was the worst. It was always either too strong or too weak. Blaine liked his coffee to taste like coffee, not water or cleaning fluid. Hiding the grimace and turning to face his father’s (well, soon to be his) secretary, he tried to find the hidden meaning in the words.

A date.

Him.

On a date.

...no, no hidden meaning. So Blaine just went with the tried-and-true: “What?”

The secretary, who was young and pretty and fashionably clad in Banana Republic from head to toe, pulled a bit of a frown. Blaine echoed it, trying to seem sympathetic and approachable. That was important. To judge the true character of a man, watch how he treats his subordinates, his father had said more than once. Right now he was attempting to treat the secretary as an equal who just so happened to work for him.

But apparently she wanted to treat him as a potential BFF -- they were practically the same age, after all. Recovering from his lackluster reaction, she smiled, fishing in her pocket and pulling out a piece of paper. “Because you said you missed going out,” she said cheerily, offering him the paper.

Blaine stared blankly at the paper, just as he’d stared at the secretary. She was apparently referencing a conversation he had no memory of. He honestly couldn’t remember ever having said more than three words together to her.

No...no, wait, it was coming back to him. The previous weekend, a late night at the office, a bottle of Chianti and --

“Oh! Oh, that.” Blaine laughed, high and shaky, waving away the paper like it was going to bite him. “No, no, I was speaking...uh...metaphorically.” Stupid, stupid, stupid. The only thing worse than drinking alone was drinking in front of employees. And he lost any and all filters when he was drunk -- he knew this from experience. He sincerely hoped there hadn’t been any experimental kisses this time.

Clearing his throat and swiveling back to his desk (in the office two doors down from his father’s, where he could see the inner workings of the company to best advantage. The wild and wonderful world of insurance claims) Blaine took a too-big gulp of too-hot, too-strong coffee and immediately began coughing up a lung.

Seemingly immune to the expulsion of his inner organs, the secretary’s shoulders drooped a little. “Oh. I just...I just figured that...well, I thought we were friends, and...and I wanted to help and...”

Friends. How many bottles of Chianti had he imbibed in the last six months? Thumping his chest to try and chase away the burning feel of the acidic coffee, Blaine forced a shaky smile. Then, because she just looked so depressed, he reached out and took the paper. “U-Uh, thanks. I’m sure Katie appreciates you coordinating this. I’ve been so busy lately, that --”

“It isn’t with Katie.”

This time, try as he might, Blaine couldn’t keep the blatant “what the hell?” look off his face, and the secretary blushed and fidgeted. “I mean. You told me...you know. That you’re not...” Here her voice dropped to a stage whisper, and she glanced around furtively, before finishing, “Just into girls.”

Splendid. She knew. Granted, the majority of the company probably knew, but that’s what this thing with Katie was supposed to fix. He’d take her to company dinners and parties, they’d be seen together, and no nasty rumors would circulate. Once Blaine’s position as head of the company was secure, they’d mutually and amicably decide to part and he could, in his father’s words, “date whoever or whatever the hell he wanted to.” But until then, Katie was his safety net.

Which was what Blaine tried to convey, in as tactful a manner as he could, because this was the 21st century after all, and relationships of convenience were very Regency England. But before he could appeal to the secretary’s Austen-influenced sympathies, she added, blushing a little, “And I figured since Kate goes out sometimes, it wouldn’t hurt for you to do the same. Just once or twice.”

That shut Blaine up for the moment, and he covered the instinctive wave of hurt by pretending to sip at his coffee. Of course. Of course. Katie was beautiful, charming and popular. He couldn’t expect her to just sit home and play Scrabble while pretending to date him. But this affirmation that the gossip columns had been right stung, just a little.

Sensing that she’d said or done something wrong, the secretary hesitated, then patted Blaine awkward on the shoulder. “I have a friend who knows a guy. He’s really nice. He went to that performing arts school, and I remembered you liked Cats that time the whole office went to see it...” She trailed off, then pulled her hand away and composed herself. “I-I’ll just call and cancel --”

“No.” Blaine interrupted, hand curling tighter around the paper, with an address and time -- 7:30, at a Chili’s in Soho. Nobody would expect Blaine Anderson to be at a Chili’s, with a boy. It’d be a nice escape, a way to get out of the flourescent-lit, toner-and-ink-scented office.

So he turned, offering a little smile. “No, I’ll go. It’ll be fun.”

The secretary smiled in relief, grinning and reaching out like she was going to...hug him or high five him or something. But she just patted his shoulder again, then turned and left, heels clicking merrily on the tile floor.

And Blaine sat back and sipped his coffee and tried to remember how Soho was laid out and resolved to start going to the Starbucks two blocks down, because this coffee was really gross.

----------------------------------------------------------

[March 24th, 2017, 7:37 PM]

What was the etiquette about late dates? Was it anything like the unspoken rule about late professors? After ten minutes you should just...give up?

I suppose it depends on how much you want the date, Kurt mused, folding his arms against the early evening chill and looking up and down the street, once again. He’d gotten to the restaurant -- which was a generous word for Chili’s -- fifteen minutes early, wearing appropriately casual-chic clothes: jeans, a sweater, shoes that didn’t involve velcro. He looked nice. His coworkers had said so as he left, albeit with a bit of a giggle in their voice. He wasn’t sure whether they’d been laughing at his clothes or the situation.

It was sort of a funny situation. As Alison had said, it was the day and age of Google and the internet, where nobody went out with anyone without knowing their entire life story. Blind dates were really a thing of the past.

Yet here he was, standing outside, shivering, waiting for a man whose name he didn’t know, who he’d only be able to identify by what he was wearing -- a brown jacket and a red bowtie, according to Alison, who’d texted him all the details. Truth be told, Kurt had almost bailed then and there (he was a little sick of bowties), but he’d been committed.

The question was how long that commitment would last.

Shutting his eyes and hopping from one foot to the other, Kurt tried in vain to summon up his first-date mindset. Casual, polite, friendly. Smile and laugh and sound somewhat intelligent. Talk about work, about his friends, maybe the tiniest bit about his family. Don’t slip up and talk about old boyfriends...well, old boyfriend, singular, a mistake he’d made an embarrassing amount of times. Nobody wanted to hear about that, and Kurt certainly didn’t want to think about it.

...but oh god, he was. He was thinking about it, without his consent, starting with the vaguest recollection that we never had an “official first date”, not really, just coffee every day and flirty duets every other weekend and of course the million imaginary situations I made up, none of which were as good as the real thing, as that first kiss, as that first time he touched me and it meant something and spiraling rapidly into oh god, I shouldn’t be thinking about him, not here, not now, now I’m going to meet Mr. Brown-Jacket-and-Red-Tie and all I’m going to see is--

“Kurt?”

When he opened his eyes, Kurt was almost certain that his fears had come true, that his imagination was replacing his date’s face and voice with someone else’s, that he was finally going insane. But no, there were wrinkles he didn’t remember, and there was an inch or two of height and a fading suntan and a maturity in those eyes that hadn’t been there the last time, the time they’d hugged each other so tightly after graduation, that night they’d kissed and touched and cried and whispered that they never wanted to leave that bed and he was so familiar and so different and so real that Kurt’s chest was aching and his eyes were stinging and his voice was embarrassingly, shamefully tiny and shaky when he answered --

“Blaine?”