It was the summer before his senior year at McKinley High. School had been over for a few weeks and Kurt could finally feel himself starting to relax. He was no longer under the constant threat of locker shoves and slushie facials from that Neanderthal Karofsky and he no longer flinched at every loud, unexpected noise. He'd fallen into a routine of shopping with Mercedes and Rachel, helping his dad at the garage and working on his vocals. He was going with New Directions to Nationals again if it was the last thing he did. But this year, they would win and the rest of McKinley would finally respect them.

He'd just dropped Mercedes off after their latest shopping excursion and returned home to begin sorting through his closet, weeding out items from this past year he was unlikely to wear again. He had to make room for the new winter collections, after all. He'd been mindlessly singing along to the Lady Gaga song on the radio when the DJ announced a brand new song by a brand new artist. Kurt paused in his sorting, always curious about what new music was coming out. The song started out pleasantly, a lone guitar strumming a light melody… and then came the voice: it was light and easy and sounded so carefree. It wasn't Kurt's usual taste in music, but something made him stop and pause to give the song his full attention. It was unlike anything Kurt had heard in a long time. In this day and age of over-processed and auto-tuned music, this was raw and stripped down. It was a little folksy, a little bluesy, and it had a relaxed edge to it that immediately captured Kurt's attention.

It was a love song, as most pop songs were. However, devoid of any identifying pronouns it was just as easy for Kurt to imagine this Blaine person was singing to him instead of the girl who was probably the intended subject.

As soon as the song was over, Kurt jumped on the internet and tried to dig up any information on Blaine Anderson that he could, and try to find that song so he could load it onto his iPod to play over and over again. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to find. There was a very barebones page on the official website his label had probably set up. There was hardly any personal information, only a simple bio stating that Blaine was from Ohio (which was quite surprising) and that he was about to turn seventeen years old. Though disappointed that there weren't any interviews that may have more insight into Blaine, Kurt was not disappointed when he clicked on the Gallery section. Blaine was absolutely gorgeous.

He had dark curly hair, styled with way too much gel that Kurt immediately wanted to wash out. He was wearing a suit in most of the pictures, though some were more formally styled than others. He looked like he could have stepped straight off the silver screen in the day of Cary Grant. Dapper was really the only word Kurt could think of to describe him. Then he saw the gallery entitled "Live." He clicked and was immediately left speechless at the pictures that greeted him. As charismatic as Blaine seemed in the formally posed photos, these live, candid shots were even more amazing. He was sweaty, his eyes closed as he sang, cradling the microphone close. He had on a short-sleeved black button down shirt that looked like it was absolutely soaked with sweat complemented by a red and white striped bowtie and… were those green suspenders? It should have looked completely ridiculous, but somehow it all just worked. There was something in the live pictures that belied the seemingly proper persona the official pictures hinted at. Kurt was definitely intrigued.

Then, a light bulb went off. If there were pictures of a live performance, there were bound to be videos. He immediately pulled up YouTube and entered Blaine Anderson in the search bar. The first video that came up proclaimed to be from a show at The Roxy out in Los Angeles and from the thumbnail appeared to be the same show as the pictures. He clicked on it and the two seconds it took for the video to start loading seemed to take an eternity. Blaine introduced the song as one he wrote when he was fifteen. So, really, not too long ago. But it was still more than anything Kurt had done at fifteen.

Watching the video, Kurt was absolutely mesmerized. The song spoke so strongly of everything he was currently feeling – the loneliness, the contradictory nature he often felt of wanting people to notice him but at the same time remain invisible. And yet, the song seemed to be ray of light peeking out of the clouds and illuminating the same feelings in everyone. But that just makes me a dumb human, like you, Kurt sang along as he watched the video for the tenth time. The more he watched, the more enamored he became of Blaine. He was such an amazing performer. He put everything he had into the song, hamming it up for the crowd when he could and then bringing it all back down to the music. He was like an old Hollywood star come to life.

Kurt eventually paused the video and picked up his phone.

"What's up, Boo?" Mercedes answered.

"Mercedes," Kurt said breathlessly, still staring at his monitor, Blaine frozen in musical rapture. "I'm in love."

Mercedes came over to Kurt’s house the next day and the two spent the morning scouring the internet for anything they could find on Blaine. She agreed with Kurt that he was definitely cute and the song was great. She also had much more impressive Google-Fu and was able to find more videos and pictures of Blaine for them to ogle.

They found a few more videos from the show at The Roxy, including the single from the radio. There was also an incredibly moving rendition of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. Kurt had never been one much for that holiday, but he was considering changing his mind after hearing Blaine’s version of the song. What Blaine did to close out the show completely blew Kurt's socks off. He sang a stripped down, acoustic version of Katy Perry's Teenage Dream. It should have been absolutely ridiculous, but Blaine was just so earnest and honest in his performance that Kurt was mesmerized. And the growl that came out of his voice in certain places had a warmth settling low in Kurt's stomach and just made him want to do… things to Blaine. Things that usually involved darkness and hushed tones and maybe those skintight jeans and hands that Blaine was singing about.

Kurt snapped out of whatever trance he had been in when he heard Mercedes laughing at him.

"What?" he asked.

"You have got it bad, Kurt," she said with a smile.

"Can you blame me?"

"Hell, no," she replied with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh, please. It's a harmless celebrity crush," Kurt said lightly. "He's bound to be straight anyway, so he'll just be added to my fantasy fodder with Johnny Depp and Paul Walker."

"I still don't know what you see in Paul Walker."

"It's mostly the car thing," Kurt said dryly.

"So, it's not Paul Walker you have a crush on. It's Officer Brian O'Conner."

Kurt just shrugged in response, turning back to the computer and the pictures Mercedes had found. There was one group that looked like they were probably more official promotional photos. They had Blaine in front of a plain, white backdrop posing with various musical accoutrements – microphones, speakers, guitars and the like. These were much better than the other ones, Kurt thought to himself. The styling was much more relaxed and his hair wasn't being held down by 100 pounds of hair gel.

"He is very cute," Mercedes commented. "And the boy is definitely talented."

"That he is," Kurt sighed.

No matter what he told Mercedes, he couldn't help wishing that perhaps Blaine was different. There was certainly nothing in the little information they had found so far to even hint at what his orientation might be. The few love songs were devoid of any gender specific pronouns and Kurt couldn't help holding on to the one glimmer of hope he had that maybe Blaine could be like him. There was just something there, right on the edge of Kurt's brain, tickling at him like the beginning of something. All he knew was that Blaine was going to be very important to him

Over the next few weeks, Kurt's life consisted of working at the garage when his dad needed him, letting Finn win at Call of Duty when his other friends were busy and obsessively stalking searching the internet for anything he could find on Blaine Anderson. He'd set up a Google alert that emailed him every article posted that had anything to do with Blaine. The first week or so was mostly repeats and rehashes of everything he'd found previously. But, slowly, new information started showing up from different sources.

Blaine was born and raised in central Ohio and had attended the Dalton Academy for Boys in Westerville before leaving for Los Angeles. That was just two hours away from Lima. Kurt couldn't believe he'd been so close! He wondered if they'd ever managed to cross paths without ever knowing. He had a younger sister and was of Filipino and Irish heritage. His favorite food was Snickers and his favorite drink was Dr. Pepper. When Kurt saw that Blaine had been part of the glee club at Dalton, he wondered if he had still been with the group when New Directions competed against them at Sectionals last year. Kurt had been so nervous about the solo that Mr. Schuester had assigned him that he hadn't paid much attention to the other groups that had performed. That would definitely be an interesting coincidence.

At the end of June, he came home to an alert from Rolling Stone in his inbox. The message promised an article in their mid-July issue that was to be the first full and complete Blaine Anderson interview with "all the scoop you could want to know." It would coincide with the release of his first album and the singer's seventeenth birthday.

Suddenly, July couldn't arrive fast enough.