"I take it you like Katy Perry?"

Blaine snapped his gaze up from where he had been strumming his guitar to the door, and then laughed as he noted the smirk on his roommate's face as he leaned into the doorway.

"I was just messing around with an idea for an acoustic version," he said, lifting the guitar a few centimeters, as if Jake hadn't noticed, and then grabbed up a pen and began scribbling in the notebook in front of him. "Katie Perry, is that with an -i-e, or--"

"K-a-t-y."

"Y. Got it, thanks. I didn't know who was singing, since someone didn't bother to label the mixes he gave me."

"Sounds like a right bastard to me," Jake replied and Blaine laughed.

"Nah, he's a pretty chill guy, actually. So how've you been, man? Or better question, where have you been? I haven't seen you since you made these mixes for me."

Jake grinned dopily and sat at the foot of Blaine's bed before falling back against the black- and blue-checked quilt.

"I have been sleeping with a goddess," he said profoundly, and Blaine rolled his eyes.

"And here we go," he said softly, his tone full of irony, and he put his guitar aside to focus on his friend.

"Does this goddess have a name, perchance?"

"Santana," he breathed out on a sigh, and Blaine paused.

"Santana Lopez?"

"Yeah..."

"Isn't she with that Puckerman kid?"

"That's in the past, my friend. Now, it's all about the Jakester."

"Oh, god," he muttered and laughed softly.

"I am in love, man."

"No kidding?"

"I swear, this is the real thing."

Blaine eyed him a moment, taking in the haze of his dark eyes, the peaceful, contented smile on his face, and said, "Twenty bucks and an hour alone with your X-Box says it's not."

He watched in delight as Jake shot upright on the quilt and proceeded to glare at him.

"How dare you. You doubt my love?"

Blaine's grin amped up a notch as he shook his head. "Yours? No. Santana's? I'm afraid to say that I do."

"What foul words are these?" he cried, standing on the bed now. "You may say what you will of me, my friend, but to speak ill of my lady? It shall not pass. I challenge thee to a Left 4 Dead duel!"

"Accepted," Blaine nodded immediately and stood to shake his hand. "But I'm still betting that twenty plus an hour, no matter the outcome here."

Jake's eyes were burning with outrage, and it was all Blaine could do not to laugh as he jumped off the bed and stalked out of his room, growling something unintelligible beneath his breath. He followed quickly after into the living room and sighed happily. Despite the weather, and the fact that he was up before noon on a Saturday, this was turning out to be a pretty good morning.

And maybe kicking Jake's ass in a few rounds with of zombie-killing might keep Blaine's mind off of the utterly beautiful, yet utterly unattainable, Kurt.

~ + ~ + ~ + ~

"You can fix this. You can fix this."

Kurt winced, at both the pathetic whine to his voice, and the slush that was slowly soaking into his brown leather boots. He didn't know first-hand, but he had heard that there were places in Montana where the snow would pile high, the air would chill to thirty, even forty below zero, and you would be a fool to walk outside with less that three layers of clothing. In Billings, however, winter weather seemed to operate a little differently.

Today, for instance, though it had been snowing heavily all morning, the air was a warm twenty-nine degrees, the ground was slick with half-melted snow, and, besides his feet, Kurt felt perfectly comfortable in his skinny jeans and a mid-thigh sweater, with fingerless gloves and a deep burgundy scarf around his neck. The chill was still enough that there was a distinct rosy glow to his cheeks as he walked back to his dorm, but there were worse things than looking like an elf at the North Pole.

He and Quinn had talked for an hour longer, discussing all his options, and he was still no closer to finding a solution to his problem than he had been when he first discovered it. Because, really, how did you explain that sort of thing? Most people probably wouldn't have referred to their best friend as their girlfriend in the first place. Of course, the circumstances were weird; his best friend also happened to be the mother of his child. But Kurt had never once used the term 'baby mama' and he wasn't about to start now. It was insulting, to him, and to Brittany, and just thinking the term made Kurt feel like white trash, and that was something he absolutely was not.

But what could he say, then?

"Sorry for the confusion, but I'm actually gay, so would you like to go out sometime?"

Um, no.

He shook his head and stamped his feet as he entered the dorm enclosure. Though it was still outside, and built somewhat like a motel with the entrances to each room all outside, the maintenance and groundskeeping staff did a very good job of keeping snow and ice off the paths, and Kurt didn't want to ruin their hard work. Speaking of hard work, a little voice in his head began, but he shoved it aside, ignoring the thought that told him he should turn around and go back to the practice rooms as he had originally planned, but something told him that he wouldn't be able to focus much on the piano in this mindset. He had once told Finn that he had never missed a piano lesson, and even after Sunny had been born, he hadn't. Practicing was different from lessons, however, and while he felt guilty, he couldn't bring himself to turn around.

Especially not when he realized that the pulsing music he had heard as soon as he entered the compound was getting steadily louder the closer he got to his room, and was, it appeared, actually coming from his room.

"Thank god it's the weekend," he muttered, and fished his keys out of his pocket. He pushed open the door, and the sound got exponentially louder, and a small smile curved his lips as he recognized Carly Rae Jepsen on the stereo. "Britt, I know it's a Saturday, but--"

"Before you came into my life I missed you so bad!"

"I missed you so bad!"

"I missed you so, so bad!"

Kurt could only stare at the scene before him. Their normally immaculate living area was covered in confetti, streamers hung from the ceiling, and a large cake was sitting on the coffee table, several pieces missing to reveal the marble coloring within the pink- and blue-frosted outside. There were several glasses on the table as well, plus a large bottle of what he saw, to his relief, was sparkling cider on the surface beside the cake. He dimly noted the large duffel near his feet, and the red purse with black hearts scattered across it, but what held his main attention was the three girls dancing around the room, and singing at the top of their lungs.

Brittany, still in pajamas with her hair in two ponytails and a wide grin across her face. Sunny, in that blue princess get-up he had made her for Halloween, with what he would have sworn was glitter on her face and hair. And lastly, in a pleated mini and blouse, hair curled and topped with a red beret, the glamorous and effervescent Rachel Berry.