Over the next several weeks, Kurt threw himself into his work, rehearsing relentlessly and working especially hard on his acting, which sometimes took a back seat to his singing. He thought about Blaine constantly no matter how hard he tried to distract himself. Most of those thoughts made him smile, but some set him to worriedly chewing on his lower lip until he tasted blood.

Nights were the worst. When he lay in bed at night, he was flooded with memories of Blaine. Blaine smiling and winking. Blaine warm and enticing. Blaine panting and moaning. His body yearned to be back in his arms.

At the same time, Kurt obsessed about what might happen if he agreed to Blaine's request. They hardly knew each other, and two weeks was a long time to spend with someone with whom you're not entirely compatible. The alternative--that they were very compatible--was almost worse.  Kurt would travel around the United States paying the rent by singing in one mid-sized town after another. Blaine would jet around the world playing concerts and doing television interviews and fending off the advances of one beautiful man after another. Or maybe he wouldn't fend them off.

Kurt still wasn't sure if he could entirely trust Blaine, and he wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to.

The old worries were all still there, and every day Kurt invented new ones.

He had to admit to himself, though, that he liked being with Blaine. Blaine made him smile, he made his laugh. Blaine was sweet and caring. Kurt thought back to the time on the plane when Blaine reached out to him and gave him what he needed, even though he was a complete stranger. Shouldn't you want to spend more time with someone like that?

Each time Kurt decided to forego the trip and simply go home, he got a message from Blaine. Few of the messages actually contained words, but those that did were simple observations (Saw the cutest squirrel at the gelateria!) or travel updates (Finally in Perugia); most were photos--photos of shoes.  

At first Kurt thought that maybe Blaine was sending pictures of his own feet, but he soon realized that Blaine was frequenting sidewalk cafés and stalking well-dressed men with his iPhone like a stealth paparrazzo. He sent pictures of A. Testoni blue fringed oxfords, Bruno Magli platinum wingtips, and Silvano Lattanzi lizard loafers. One particularly surprising and somewhat blurry photo appeared to be the Pope's red Prada slippers.  When Blaine changed hotels as he traveled from city to city, he also sent photos of the bidet, which made Kurt giggle.  

Not once did Blaine press Kurt to make a decision about Sirmione, but when Blaine sent Kurt the photo of the handmade black and red Stefano Bemer dress oxfords with the message, “These had to be made for you,” Kurt decided he would have to be crazy to pass up any time he could spend with someone who understood him so perfectly.

He was going to Sirmione. He and Blaine could wander the cobblestone streets in the small medieval peninsula, smell the rosemary, and stare out at Lake Garda.

But when he picked up his phone to tell Blaine, he couldn't quite bring himself to do it. He would tell him later.

The bed was massive and white and there were so many pillows that Kurt could barely see beyond them. Blaine laid a hand on Kurt's face to stroke it, and Kurt wanted to reach out for Blaine, but he couldn't move his hands. They were both naked, and Blaine's eyes were intent on Kurt's as he ran his hand down Kurt's ribs to his hips. Strong arms circled Kurt from behind and a hand began to stroke Kurt's cock. Kurt realized he wasn't alone with Blaine in the bed; there were too many hands. “Come with me,” whispered Adam, stroking and stroking in that familiar way. Blaine reached down for Kurt's balls and he squeezed gently, but Kurt felt it in his heart, not lower. Blaine's lips captured Kurt's, and Kurt found himself drowning in the kiss as Adam pressed against his back and kept whispering, “Come with me.” Kurt was right on the precipice, but he couldn't come because there was too much noise and it was too wet. Blaine shifted away from Kurt's mouth, and his eyes were white and his lips were smeared with blood. He fell away from Kurt, and Kurt saw that there was blood everywhere, staining the white sheets and puddling under Blaine's body. He wanted to scream and reach out for Blaine, but he couldn't move. Adam kept stroking relentlessly, chanting, “Come with me, come with me,” but it was too painful, and there was too much sound, and Kurt knew that he couldn't. Then he realized the noise was his own maniacal laughter.

Kurt sat up sweating, his heart pounding. He pulled a pillow to his chest and waited for his breathing to calm. He looked at the bedside clock. It was just after eleven.

He threw off the covers and padded into the shower to wash the fear sweat from his body. By the time he was toweled dry, he was wide awake and still disturbed. He threw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, not caring much how he looked, then he grabbed his keys and wallet and walked out of the apartment.

He wandered the dark streets of Verona, not caring where he was going, at first, but as he approached the edge of the commercial district, he suddenly knew his goal. He turned down one street and then another until he saw the light spilling onto the slate sidewalk from a small wine bar.

As he entered the bar a swarthy twenty-something barista looked up and smiled. “Buona sera, Signor Hummel!”

“Buona sera,” Kurt mumbled, gesturing to the small, upright piano sitting in the corner.

The barista nodded happily, reaching over to switch off the stereo.

Kurt walked to the piano and sat down. He had taken up piano playing in college. It was required, actually, but Kurt was happy and surprised that he had a knack for it. He had come to this wine bar many times, and he had developed a rapport with the barista and his partner, the owner, who were young and beautiful and absolutely enthralled with opera. When they discovered that Kurt was a countertenor, they pestered him relentlessly to sing until Kurt finally agreed to sit at the piano and belt out an aria or two. After a while, it became a regular routine for Kurt to come to the bar and sing and play, and the baristas repaid Kurt by pouring him all the best wine and charging him house wine prices.

Kurt always sang classical pieces, sometimes opera, sometimes madrigals, but tonight there was something else he needed to play.

The barista looked up as he heard Kurt play the soulful introduction. Then Kurt sang, “A long December and there's reason to believe; Maybe this year will be better than the last…” The song was mournful and slow and full of sorrow, and Kurt's voice was filled with longing and loss. As he sang, “The smell of hospitals in winter; And the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls,” tears began to course down his face. As he got to the end, his voice was cracking, and Adam's face was swimming before his eyes.

“I can't remember all the times I tried to tell myself; To hold on to these moments as they pass. And it's one more day up in the canyon; And it's one more night in Hollywood; It's been so long since I've seen the ocean; I guess I should.”

When he finished, the barista sat a glass of Valpolicella on the piano and pulled Kurt into his arms. He whispered, “Mi dispiace,” into Kurt's ear as he hugged him tightly. I'm sorry.

As Kurt left the bar, the final chorus repeated in his head, “It's been so long since I've seen the ocean; I guess I should.”

Kurt realized that he needed to say goodbye to Adam. He would keep the memories; how could he not? But he needed to move on, and he owed it to himself to see what would happen with Blaine. As he walked home, his steps were lighter than they had been in a long time.

Days later, when Kurt returned home from his penultimate performance at the Arena, he was exhausted but triumphant. It had been his best performance, to date, and as the audience filed out of the ancient stone stadium, he caught sight of the eminent opera critic, Michael Tanner, among them.

Kurt had one last performance scheduled eight days from that night, and he planned to spend his time between rehearsals packing up his apartment, arranging for his house sitter in Atlanta to extend his stay, and finally letting Blaine know that he would meet him in Sirmione. He still hadn't told Blaine, and he wasn't sure what was holding him back now that the decision had been made. He knew his house sitter—a Georgia Tech graduate student—would happily stay in Kurt's Decatur condo rather than return to the rundown apartment he shared with three Chinese engineering students, so he wasn't worried that he had left these arrangements until the last minute.

Kurt still wasn't entirely sure that two weeks with Blaine was a great idea, but he decided to throw caution to the wind and take a chance. Worst case scenario was that they ended up hating each other, and Rachel and Kurt could spend the rest of their days mocking Blaine bitchily every time his face appeared on television or in a magazine.

Tired, but too keyed up to sleep, Kurt flopped on his couch and turned on the television. After rejecting a re-televised soccer game, some bad porn, and a German talk show, he settled on BBC. He figured a nice, slow-newsday commentary served with a British accent was just the thing to send him straight to sleepy town. An incomprehensible story on the economy, complete with commentary from two World Bank analysts and someone from the G8 started his eyelids fluttering.

Then an announcement permeated his sleep-hazed brain and Kurt sat up straight in his seat.

“In Rome today, Postmodern Tourist front man, Blaine Anderson, was rushed to hospital after collapsing on stage at a concert in the Circolo degli Artisti. Hospital representatives have refused to comment, but a spokesman for the band told BBC-London that Anderson has yet to regain consciousness, and a serious illness is suspected.”

Kurt pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs. He sat like that, rocking back and forth, until sunlight crept into the apartment.