I awoke the next morning more excited for a cup of coffee than I’d ever been. I kept thinking back to the previous night – the date night – and smiling like a madman. I couldn’t help but think about Kurt constantly, through every step of my morning routine. When showering, I wondered which body wash would smell best for Kurt. When gelling my hair, I wondered how Kurt would like my hair to look. When shrugging my Dalton blazer on and tying my tie around my neck, I wondered if I would meet Kurt’s impeccable dress standards.
Everything I was doing was for Kurt. And I loved it.
Jeff saw I was practically bouncing around the room and just snorted every time I stopped to check my phone for the time.
“Dude, calm yourself, you won’t be late.”
“Can’t take a chance, though, can I? I’m meeting up with my boyfriend,” I would reply with a wink, a small shiver of excitement and a very, very wide smile.
After a while, Jeff just stopped responding, saying nothing except a ‘good luck’ as I danced out of the room on my way to the coffee date. The coffee date with Kurt. The coffee date with Kurt, my boyfriend. My head was filled with excitement. There was an ongoing conga line and balloons and steamers and a chimpanzee, though I don’t know why the chimpanzee was there, that seemed a little random. And odd. Why do all of my daydreams include chimpanzees? I thought.
I was pondering my chimpanzee daydreaming tendencies while walking to the coffee shop. Or, running, rather, since I desperately wanted to get there before Kurt and get everything ready. I wanted to take that World’s Best Boyfriend title and make it mine.
It appeared as though Kurt had the same idea as I did, as we reached the door to the coffee shop at the exact same time. I was obviously deeply entrenched in my daydreaming when Kurt noticed me and brought me back into the moment.
“Hey!” He greeted me warmly, opening his arms to give me a hug.
“Chimps are funny,” I replied without meaning to. Shit, inside thought, Blaine! You idiot! “Chimps are funny? What the hell were you thinking?”
“....Chimps are funny?” Kurt’s arms dropped to his side as he began to laugh hysterically.
“I say, ‘hey’, and you say ‘Chimps are funny?’ What the? You’re so.... crap, Blaine, I can’t breathe.”
Kurt’s outburst of laughter brought me back into the present, and I realised that he was bending over and clutching his stomach so much he would probably fall over.
“I mean, hi!” I tried to recover and begin a normal, human conversation with Kurt, but it just wasn’t happening any time soon.
“CHIMPS ARE FUNNY! I don’t know why that’s so funny but IT JUST IS! OH MY GOD!”
“Come on, Kurt! Don’t be mean! I was daydreaming!”
Kurt’s laughter stopped as he turned to me with an amused look on his face.
“Daydreaming about chimps?”
“...well... I don’t know... I usually just daydream about things and chimpanzees somehow make their way into the daydream.”
“...Blaine Anderson, you are so special.”
“Good to hear,” I grinned, wanting to give my boyfriend the greeting he should have had.
“How are you?” I asked, wrapping my arms around his waist and pulling him in for a close, warm hug.
Kurt responded with enthusiasm, wrapping his arms around my neck to hug me back.
“I’m very, very good. You?”
“Same.”
We stood there in that very position for a minute or two before finally breaking apart. Neither of us wanted to – well, I didn’t want to. Being there with Kurt in my arms just felt right. There was no other word for it.
“Coffee, Mr Hummel?” I asked, taking his hand in mine and opening the door with my freehand to usher him inside.
“Why thankyou, Mr Anderson,” he replied with a cheesy grin, stepping inside the coffee shop.
The minute we walked into the warmth of the shop, we entered into a fun argument over who was buying coffee.
“I’ll get everything, Kurt. Do you want to grab our table?”
“Blaine, I’m buying this morning. You should go get the table.”
“...Kurt, I want to buy you breakfast. Let me buy your breakfast.”
“Are you serious? You take me out on the most amazing date, you pay for dinner, you pay for every single coffee date we have... just let me buy for you this morning.”
“Nuh-uh. Deal with it, Kurt. I’m buying for you.”
“But-“
“Remember our deal? I buy coffee and breakfast, and then you buy me a cookie. Then we’re even.”
“Blaine, a $20 breakfast order is different to a $2.99 cookie with M’n’M’s.”
I squeezed Kurt’s hand and leant in to whisper in his ear.
“You’ve already given me more than I could ask for.”
With that, I let go of Kurt’s hand and leapt forward to the counter to make our order. I heard Kurt laugh a little as he walked towards our table and claimed it for us.
I ordered the usual, remembering that Kurt was fawning over the croissants last time, and remembered to get the lids, sugars, napkins and stirring sticks. I loaded the tray with our breakfast and set it down carefully onto our table.
“Thank you, Blaine, you’re too sweet.” Kurt said gratefully, picking up his mocha and stirring in a Splenda.
I pretend to flip my hair back and said, “Oh you!”
I sat down at the table, unloaded the tray and distributed the napkins, lids and stirring sticks between the two of us.
“So how’s the coffee?” I asked Kurt, still giddy from what had happened the night before.
“It’s good, it’s good, though not as good as the lasagne from last night.”
“You’re seriously comparing coffee and lasagne? They’d kill you in Italy for that.”
“Hush you! I was just casually attempting a segue, thanks for ruining it!”
“Oh, I see how it is. You wanted to talk about our date last night. It must’ve been horrible if you’re dwelling on it,” I teased Kurt, knowing that it’d take a few seconds for it to hit him that I was just messing with him.
“What?! No, I loved the date! Every second of it! I loved it- You’re messing with me aren’t you? You tease, Blaine Anderson!” Kurt leaned over to punch me in the arm, albeit quite gently.
“I know, I know. I just wanted to hear you say that you had a good time.”
A look of concern appeared on Kurt’s face as he reached over with his free hand to cover my hand with his.
“You know I had a good time. There’s nothing to be worried about, it was perfect... What’s wrong?”
It was the moment I realised how I’d been so protective of every moment I had with Kurt. The rushing to buy coffee, the nervousness before asking him out, the compulsive need to spend every possible second with him... it all added up. I didn’t want to lose him. That’s what I was afraid of. Call me stupid, but given that I’d finally found someone so amazing, I was unconsciously doing whatever I could to protect our relationship.
“Well... I guess I’m just second-guessing... Don’t worry, just me being stupid,” I tried to laugh it off and cover it up by taking a sip of my medium drip, but Kurt knew me better than that.
He squeezed my hand and held on even tighter than before and looked me straight in the eyes.
“Blaine. You never ever have to be afraid to tell me something. I’m always here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I know,” I began, knowing that I was about to tell Kurt exactly how I felt even though I hadn’t even realised what was going through my mind until a few seconds prior.
“I guess I feel like... like this is all to perfect. That’s it’s a dream, you know? That... that in any moment, I could wake up and none of this is happening.”
Kurt put his mocha on the table and put his other hand over mine so that both of his hands were holding mine tightly. He looked at me with those beautiful blue eyes and said softly,
“This isn’t a dream. This is all happening. And it feels like a dream, because everything feels so perfect. But trust me. It is happening. And you don’t have to worry about anything, because I’ll always be here, okay?”
I gazed back at Kurt, fighting some small tears in the corner of my eyes and just wanting them to disappear. I nodded slowly, and attempted a faint smile in compensation for the words that I just couldn’t speak.
“Why don’t we go for a walk? Just us.”
“Okay,” I managed to reply, extracting my hands from Kurt’s to put the lid on my coffee and get ready to leave. Kurt did the same before standing up with me and putting his arm around my back and walking out of the coffee shop with me.
We found ourselves just walking along the cobblestone path aimlessly, just the two of us. Kurt’s hand fell from my back as it reached for mine so that we were holding hands, like a true couple would, as we walked around the school grounds.
We came to the end of the path, which was situated behind the tool shed on the very edge of campus. No one came near here, so it was quiet, peaceful, and beautiful from the night’s snowfall.
Kurt turned to face me as we stopped walking, and reached for my free hand with his (we’d finished our coffees and disposed of the cups on our walk).
“You make me so happy, Blaine,” he whispered, pulling me in closer so that our chests were barely touching.
“You make me so incredibly happy, Kurt,” I whispered back, resting my forehead on his.
Kurt leant in closer, pulling our hands in between us. He brought his chin close enough to softly rest his lips on mine, kissing me tenderly. We broke apart for a second before moving in to kiss again, and though it wasn’t as urgent and forceful as our kissing had gotten on our date, it was still passionate. It was soft, it was beautiful and so right.
I’d known I’d loved Kurt from the moment I met him. ‘Love at first sight’, if you will. But it was that moment, much like the moment back in the park, that I knew just how much I loved him.
We broke apart again, our foreheads resting on each other yet again, and we stood there together. We didn’t speak, we didn’t move. That moment was all we needed.
That was, until we heard the distant sound of the school bell signalling we had ten minutes until homeroom started.
“Damn it,” I said, “I really don’t want to leave and do schoolwork right now.”
“I know what you mean,” Kurt said, squeezing my hands, “this is perfect.”
“I suppose, there’s one plus.”
“What’s that?”
“I can walk around with you, hand-in-hand, and tell everyone you’re my boyfriend.”
Kurt lifted his head and smiled at me. “I really, really like that word.”
With that, we walked back to the other side of campus to begin another day’s worth of school, hand-in-hand. There were many high-fives of encouragement from people we knew, teasing jokes from our friends and the Warblers, inappropriate songs from Jeff and gavel-banging from Wes. Kurt and I were smiling and laughing non-stop. Everything was good.
We had to separate for classes, but we always managed to meet up again at our lockers between each lesson. We made it through the entire day, soaking up every minute together and thinking of each other when we were apart. It was hard, at the end of the day, when I walked Kurt to the car and had to say goodbye for the day. But a soft kiss and a warm hug with the promise of coffee the next day was all it took to gain composure.
I walked back to my dorm room, opened the door and found Jeff sprawled across his bed, doing his homework.
“Hey,” I said, removing my scarf, coat and blazer and putting them on the hooks by the door.
“Hey man,” Jeff replied, not taking his eyes off his work. “You’ve got a package or something. I put it on your bed.
I walked slowly towards my bed, wondering who would possibly send me a package. There was a little brown box resting on my pillow, without a name or return address or any indicator as to who sent it.
I opened the package hesitantly, and inside was a pack of twelve chocolate and M’n’M cookies with a brief note attached to the top of the packet.
We’re not even yet, but this is for you - for the coffee dates, for our actual date, for the courage and for everything.
Kurt xo
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said, my face unable to hide the massive burst of admiration I felt upon seeing the cookies and reading the note.
“What’s up? What is it?” Jeff asked from the other side of the room, taking his eyes off his work to look at me in confusion.
“It’s Kurt... I can’t believe him...”
There was a moment of silence too long not to be considered suspicious. I finally took my eyes off of Kurt’s perfect, precise handwriting to look at Jeff, who had a massive, cheesy grin on his face.
“What now, Jeff?”
“IT’S KURTIEBEAR CUDDLE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“Kill me now.”