Kurt put a hand on the small of Blaine's back and escorted him over to the hotel bar. Blaine put his bags down and slid onto the barstool next to the one in front of Kurt's now melted drink. Kurt ordered a fresh drink (Makers Mark on ice) and Blaine ordered a different whiskey.

Kurt quirked an eyebrow, “Double Dickel on the rocks?”

“Hey,” Blaine protested, “I like Tennessee whiskey,” then his cheeks flushed a pale pink, “and I like movie lines.”

Kurt smiled and raised his glass, “To The Wonder Boys.”

“The Wonder Boys,” Blaine clinked his glass with Kurt's and took a small sip. Then he swiveled his barstool so he was facing Kurt, “You said this trip would only work if we were totally honest with each other, so I want to do that. I'm so sorry I blew up at you, Kurt. I'm not a complete psycho, but I acted like one.  You kind of hit a nerve.”

“So I gathered.”

“It's just that I've spent six years being accused of never taking chances, and I guess I felt like you were calling me a coward.”

“Of course I wasn't.”

“Yeah, I get that, but that's how it felt, and maybe I worry that deep-down I am. Anyhow, I over-reacted, I lashed out at you, and I was wrong. Please forgive me.”

Kurt dropped his head down into his arms that were folded on the bar and groaned. Then he rotated his face in his arms so that he was looking at Blaine with one eye. “I wish you hadn't done that.”

“Asked for your forgiveness?”

“No, not that—of course you're forgiven, not that there's anything to forgive—but I wish you hadn't been honest, because now I have to be honest with you.”

Blaine took another sip of his whiskey. “It's your rule.”

Kurt sat up straight again, took a deep breath, and swirled his cup so that the ice cubes moved round and round. Then he turned and looked at Blaine, “You hit a nerve, too. What you said about me using sex to keep people at a distance…” Kurt put his drink down on the bar and stared into it, “…I do that.” He forced himself to turn his body and his eyes back on Blaine. “I don't know what happened to me. I remember a time when I thought that the height of romantic intimacy was the touching of finger tips. Now I have sex with people to avoid being intimate with them.” He couldn't keep eye contact anymore, so he swiveled back to his drink, “Maybe I need therapy.”

“When did you have sex the first time?”

“That's kind of personal.”

Blaine flushed a little and scratched his neck with a finger, “Yeah, I know, and you don't have to answer, but, please?”

Kurt nodded, “Full sex? Anal sex? Okay. Um, I was…let's see…a freshman in college.”

“Was this before or after Finn died?”

Kurt thought about it for a moment, “Well, I started dating Adam—he was my first—before Finn died, but I don't think I slept with him until after.” Kurt paused again, “No, it was definitely after.”

“And you said your mom died when you were young, too, right?” This had come up in one of their many conversations while traveling.

“Yeah,” Kurt dragged out slowly. Then he narrowed his eyes, “Are you trying to say that it's Finn and my mom's fault that I'm such a whore?”

Blaine shook his head, “I prefer to think of you as friendly.”

Kurt threw his head back and barked out a laugh. “Okay, friendly. You're saying I'm friendly because of Finn and my mom?”

“Kurt, I haven't known you that long, and I'm hardly a psychologist, but it seems like a lot of people really close to you have died, and I can see why you would find a mechanism to push people away. I'm not sure why it's sex, but no one can blame you for putting up walls.”

Kurt took a long drink of his whiskey, “I know why it's sex, I think.”

Blaine waited for Kurt to go on. “I think most of my life, and certainly during my teen years, I've felt powerless. I was this small, effeminate boy who could put his nose up in the air and pretend he didn't care what other people thought, but I couldn't do anything about the guys who shoved me into lockers or threw me into dumpsters or laughed at me behind my back. I couldn't have stopped my mom's death or Finn's, and that was a whole other layer of powerlessness. Sex gives me power that I can't get from my size. I have the power to attract men, and I have to power to give them what they want, or take it away. It's up to me. I usually choose to do both.”

Blaine raised one eyebrow and his lips quirked up on one side, “I guess that gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘power top.'”

Kurt clinked his glass against Blaine's and chuckled, “I am definitely that, I guess, in more ways than one.”

The men sat and drank in companionable silence for a few minutes, and then Blaine said, “Put your hand on the bar.”

Kurt's eyebrows rose, but he complied, placing the palm nearest Blaine on the bar top.

“The other way; turn your hand over.”

Now Kurt was intrigued, so he turned his hand so his palm was facing upward.

Blaine dragged the tips of his fingers across the pads at the tips of Kurt's fingers. Then he trailed his index finger down Kurt's pinky and across his palm. In a soft voice he said, “The touch of fingertips is still intimate, Kurt. Can you handle it?”

Kurt didn't answer for a long time, and Blaine kept up the fingertip touch on Kurt's hand while he waited for Kurt to answer. Finally, Kurt curled his fingers up and threaded them through Blaine's fingers. “We should get ready for the theater,” he said quietly.