“I guess,” said Blaine. The whole plane ride back, Kurt tried desperately to make Blaine smile, but to no avail. Blaine spent most of the journey drifting in and out of sleep on Kurt’s shoulder, trying to make up for his lack of sleep the night before.

“Are you hungry?” asked Kurt. “I can make you something.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Blaine.

Kurt shook his head. “I’ve never seen you react so neutrally to an offer for food.” He poked at Blaine’s slight stomach protruding over his jeans. Blaine protested and covered his stomach with his hands. “What if I make you something fun? Like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Would that cheer you up?” asked Kurt. It was his last push.

Blaine blushed, then nodded. Kurt left him standing by the door with a kiss to his cheek and waltzed into the kitchen to start making Blaine a sandwich. “Where’d I get such a nice fianc�e?” Blaine called after him.

“You’re lucky I’m so tolerant.” He pulled a jar of peanut butter from the cupboard and a jar of grape jelly from the fridge and set to work.

Blaine walked up behind Kurt and snaked his arms around his hips, resting his chin on Kurt’s shoulder. He never liked being short, but as long as he could do this, he didn’t mind as much. He stayed there, breathing slowly and deeply, loving how clean Kurt’s clothes smelled, and feeling Kurt’s muscles shift as he arranged the pieces of bread. He closed his eyes. “I love you,” he said.

Kurt hummed in agreement, sticking a knife into the peanut butter and smearing some on a piece of bread.

“Let’s elope.”

Kurt laughed. “No.”

“Please?” Blaine tightened his hold. “I just wanna be with you. I don’t care about all this drama. We don’t need a wedding.”

Kurt dropped the knife dramatically, knocking over the jar of grape jelly and spilling it across the countertop in the process. “Blaine. Bite your tongue.” He twirled around in Blaine’s arm’s so that their bodies were facing, right up against each other. “How dare you even insinuate that you would take this wedding away from me?”

Blaine couldn’t help but smirk. “You have peanut butter on your nose.” And then he stuck his tongue out and licked it off.

Blushing furiously and rubbing his nose with his palm, Kurt turned around again and cursed under his breath at the mess. “Happy now?” He wriggled free of Blaine’s embrace and grabbed as many paper towels as he could to start reining in the sticky mess.

“Don’t waste it,” said Blaine, who grabbed the piece of bread with no peanut butter on it and started scraping some of the spilled jelly from the counter onto it.

“Oh, dear god,” grimaced Kurt. “Really?”

Blaine slammed the pieces of bread together. “It’s not like you don’t clean this counter obsessively.” He took a bite and smiled. “It’s perfect. Thanks, babe,” he said, chewing.

Kurt rolled his eyes and grabbed the entire roll of paper towels. He chucked it at Blaine’s head. “Help me clean up.”

“Well, you do have a way with words.”

“And, getting back to the wedding, – which we are 100 per cent having – can we pick a date soon? I’d like to develop at least a draft of a timeline for the design process in the next week.”

“How long do you need?” asked Blaine, putting his sandwich down so he could gather up some paper towels to help clean.

“It’s relatively flexible. I’d say at least eight months if you want magic, though,” said Kurt, winking.

“Oh,” said Blaine, feeling suddenly shy.

“What?” asked Kurt, sensing his hesitation.

“Maybe – what if we waited a couple years?”

Kurt frowned. “Years? Not three minutes ago, you wanted to elope. Now you want to wait a couple years?”

“Well,” sighed Blaine. “Look. It’s not about you. I want to be married. But if we’re having a wedding, I sort of – I don’t know.” He was suddenly very focused on mopping up grape jelly.

“You sort of what?” asked Kurt. “Say it.”

He balled up a mass of paper towel and jelly and tossed it into the trash. “I want my dad to come,” he said sheepishly.

Kurt tilted his head to the side. “You do?”

“Even if he’s pretending to be happy. I want him there.”

“But why? It’s not like he’ll – “

“Because that’s what I want,” snapped Blaine, looking away from Kurt. “You can put whatever color schemes together. I’ll be happy with it. I just want – I want this.”

Kurt threw aside the rest of the paper towels and grabbed Blaine’s hand. “Do you think waiting will really help?”

Blaine’s shoulders fell. “I dunno,” he mumbled under his breath.

“He’s not going to talk to you, Blaine. Two years of silence won’t change anything.”

“I don’t think you could know that for sure,” said Blaine, looking at the floor, the stained counter, anywhere but at Kurt. “I think – I think it’s worth it. Let him breathe a little bit, figure things out.”

Kurt sighed and shook his head. “I don’t think it’s going to make a difference.”

Blaine did look at Kurt then. He shrugged. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.” He grabbed his sandwich, went into their living room, and turned on the TV.

“Wait,” said Kurt, jogging after him. “Don’t leave it like this. Let’s talk.”

Blaine stared intently at some college football game that was on.

Stealing a glance at the screen, Kurt said, “It’s not even the Buckeyes.” He grabbed the remote from where it sat on the couch next to Blaine and clicked the TV off. “Talk to me.”

“Do you mind?” snapped Blaine. He stood from the couch and turned the TV back on manually.

“What happened to not caring? Last night you said you didn’t care. This is a whole lot of caring.”

“And if your dad called you a fag, what would you do?” asked Blaine.

“Please don’t act like I’m trying to tell you that this kind of reaction is out of line. Because if you recall, I stayed up with you last night – “

“Yes, I know,” interrupted Blaine, dropping his head in his hands. “I know. And of course I care.”

“Then talk to me,” said Kurt, turning the TV off again with the remote. He settled down in the empty couch cushion next to Blaine and waited intently.

Blaine stayed silent.

“I hardly know anything about your relationship with him,” offered Kurt. He started drawing circles with his finger in the knee of Blaine’s jeans. “I know it’s not great. And I’ve seen you guys hating each other for years. But I don’t really know why, or how it started.”

Blaine chewed at his bottom lip for quite some time before he knew what he wanted to say. “I wasn’t surprised he said it. It was like, he had wanted to say it for so long, and he finally did. I almost felt happy for him. Or proud. Like, he finally said what he was feeling. After all the passive aggressive bullshit, he finally just said something.”

Kurt nodded, brow furrowed.

“I don’t know what happened to us.” Blaine started chewing on a fingernail now.

Kurt pulled Blaine’s hand from his mouth, then smoothed a stray hair off of Blaine’s forehead. “What do you mean by that?”

“He was my best friend. You know? Like you and Burt are. That’s how we were when I was a kid. We did everything together.” He paused and looked at his lap. “And when I told him I was gay – except I didn’t even tell him I was gay, because I didn’t even know what that was at the time – but when I told him, he just stopped talking to me. Just...nothing.”

Kurt flattened his palm against Blaine’s knee and squeezed affectionately.

“I guess it just took what happened yesterday to make me realize that, even though I’ve been so angry at him and wishing he would just leave me alone, it’s not that I want him out of my life. It’s that I’ve been waiting for him to change his mind about everything and go back to the way things were.”

“But do you really think he will?” asked Kurt. He spoke as softly and calmly as he could, trying to lessen the blow. “How old were you when you came out?”

Blaine squinted, not believing he never told Kurt this story before. “I was 11, I think. Maybe younger. I really don’t remember,” said Blaine. “I didn’t mean to tell him. I was just asking questions, and it slipped out, but I hadn’t ever heard of being gay, much less met someone who was. I never – I don’t even know.” Blaine was getting flustered, the pitch of his voice rising and falling out of control.

Kurt sighed and leaned back against the arm of the couch, pulling at Blaine’s shoulders so his back was against his chest as he did so. “Take a deep breath.” He did. “Look, Blaine. I don’t want you to put us off for him.”

“That’s not what this is about,” said Blaine.

“Yes, it is. I’m not suggesting you don’t want to get married. But don’t pretend you’re doing something big here by falling into his traps.”

Blaine whimpered quietly in protest. “Being married means we have the rest of our lives together. What does it matter when we throw a party for it?”

“It matters to me,” said Kurt. “I want some things, too.”

Blaine nodded against Kurt’s chest. “I know.”

There was a tense silence between them that drove Blaine to take the remote back from Kurt and switch the TV on again. After he put the remote down, he gripped Kurt’s leg like it was his lifeline. They watched the game, Blaine more intently than Kurt. When one of the teams scored a touchdown, Blaine almost smiled. “If we have kids,” he said, his voice quiet, “I want them to know that, if they want, they can play football and have an Easy Bake Oven.”

Kurt’s brow furrowed. “That’s oddly specific,” he said, one of the corners of his mouth tugging into a smile.

Blaine shrugged.

“I really don’t want us to wait for your dad to come around,” he begged softly. “I’ve done enough waiting around for ignorance’s sake. I didn’t move to New York to wait longer.”

“I know.”

More painful silence. Another touchdown.

“But,” sighed Kurt, “why don’t we wait a year, and re-evaluate at that point. Deal?”

Blaine closed his eyes and smiled. “Deal.”

“Besides, eight months will give you magic. A year? It’ll blow your mind,” Kurt whispered against Blaine’s ear.

Blaine stood up off of the couch and repositioned himself straddled over Kurt, kissing him fully. “Thank you. So much.”

When they pulled apart, Kurt looked into Blaine’s eyes and smiled. “Why an Easy Bake Oven?”

Blaine laughed. “It just – popped into my head, I guess. It was just an example.”

But Kurt wasn’t deterred that easily, and his arched eyebrow worked its magic. So Blaine told the story he hadn’t even thought of in years. And that led to other stories. And others. And others still, so many and so much that by the time Blaine felt utterly drained from spilling his guts out it was completely dark outside, and inside. Kurt looked at Blaine with heavy eyes, straining to make out his features. They hadn’t moved to turn on any lights, so the only glimpses of Blaine he caught now were whenever the muted television flashed a bright commercial between segments of some medical drama series. “I can’t believe you never told me any of this. Or that I never asked.”

Blaine swallowed thickly. His eyes were burning from both the tears he let fall and the ones he held back. “I never talked about it.”

“It’s not good, Blaine. You have to let these things out.”

He shrugged and sniffled. “I think I – I need to go to sleep.”

Kurt nodded. “Okay. Go ahead.”

Blaine stood up and started walking towards the bedroom. “Are you coming?” he asked, turning back to look at Kurt over his shoulder.

Kurt was still seated on the couch. “In a bit. I’m just going to clean up the counter one last time. Make sure there’s no jelly left.”

Blaine nodded, then slunk into the bedroom. He peeled all of his clothes off and crawled under the covers, closing his eyes and begging for sleep that wouldn’t come. He tossed and turned for the better part of an hour, until Kurt finally came to bed. And the instant Kurt’s arm was around his waste, and Kurt’s nose was nuzzling at his neck, he fell straight to sleep with a small smile on his lips.

A year came and went, and what a year it was. Perhaps being engaged made the two of them bolder, or perhaps the fact that the wedding date was up in the air meant their lives could be, too: Blaine had applied for a new job teaching in and co-running the music department at an elementary and middle school slightly closer to their apartment and got it. Kurt left that fashion magazine; he felt underpaid and overworked. He figured, if he was waiting, he might as well enjoy the freedom he had to change his mind as many times as he wanted, both about the wedding arrangements and his work life. Blaine had taken him out to a lovely dinner to celebrate his new job as a writer/critic on a major website in the Theater Blogosphere (and while it still didn’t pay much, it was better than before, his hours were considerably more flexible, and he could even work from home on some days).

But the biggest difference? Henry.

Blaine had held out this long for a cat, and so when the ASPCA truck rolled outside of their apartment building one night, it was difficult for him to resist. “I mean, if having a cat will interfere with the wedding budget, I can stop myself. But if it doesn’t, I can’t make any promises,” said Blaine.

Kurt rolled his eyes. “Believe me, Blaine. This is the smallest possible obstacle in our wedding plans.”

Blaine could hear it: every time the wedding came up, Kurt’s voice had an edge to it, one begging Blaine to drop the issue with his dad and commit to a date. But he had become very adept at dodging this bullet. “Okay. Well, I’m going in that truck,” he said. And when he came out with a small gray kitten with one white patch on its chest, Kurt knew this was a good thing. For Blaine – not for him. Or his wardrobe. But it was good for Blaine, so, in the end of the day, it would be good for him.

“Dream come true?” asked Kurt, gently stroking the cat’s tiny head. “Why’s he so small?”

“He’s a runt. Nobody wanted him. But I think we sort of understand each other. Don’t we, Henry?”

“Henry? Really?”

“Don’t you think he looks like a Henry?” asked Blaine, placing a kiss on the kitten’s back. Henry meowed, high pitched and quiet.

Kurt sighed and shrugged. “Are you going to call home today?”

Blaine tilted his chin down firmly. It was a sore topic. “Yeah, yeah, I will. Promise.”

“And since it’s been a year, maybe we could start getting a little more serious about a date?”

“Let me call home first. And play with Henry for a little while,” he cooed, petting the cat with the excitement of a little kid.

“Okay,” sighed Kurt.

“But we’ll see when’s good, because my Grandpa Joe is probably around town for Thanksgiving these days. There’s no way Dad would talk to me if he’s around. So maybe next week is better,” said Blaine.

“Blaine. Thanksgiving is still three days away.”

“I know, I know. Look, I’ll give a call tonight, but I’m just saying – well, don’t get your hopes up.”

Kurt nodded, his eyes vacant, lips pursed. He silently counted in his head how many times they had had some variant of this conversation. The number was far too high for his liking.

They spent Thanksgiving weekend together, but the Monday after, Blaine had to stay late at school for parent-teacher conferences. Kurt was left alone on Henry Duty. Kurt and Henry never really hit it off; Blaine was the one taking care of him, and boy did that cat know it. Kurt always got judgmental glares and pointed ‘meows’ when he tried to pet him, and Henry spent more time hiding under their bed than anywhere else whenever Blaine wasn’t home. After thirty minutes of frantically flailing some cat toy at the edge of the bed skirt, begging Henry to come out from underneath, Kurt huffed and tossed the toy aside. He went into his closet and pulled out his wedding binder, hoping to get some work done on the center pieces for the tables, laying swatches and papers out across the bed. He thought maybe the shifting of the mattress would get Henry out from under there. But Kurt couldn’t get himself to focus. He tried relocating to the living room; maybe the change of scenery would help, and maybe Henry would resurface if Kurt didn’t put so much pressure on him to do so. But Kurt still couldn’t focus, and the damn cat stayed under the bed, meowing pathetically. He slammed the binder shut, swatches and magazine cutouts scattering everywhere. He went back into the bedroom and crouched on the floor to look at Henry one more time. “What are you trying to prove, huh?” Kurt asked the cat. Henry meowed and scuttled to the other side of the bed. Kurt sighed. This wasn’t his ideal night.

So he pulled out his phone and called up a work friend to grab a drink or two. He’d be damned if he was going to stay in and sulk all night.

A drink or two turned into three or four, and he was quite pleasantly buzzed when he got a call from Blaine around 10:30 that night. “Hey-lo,” sang Kurt.

“Um, where are you?” asked Blaine, his voice urgent.

“I’m out with a friend,” said Kurt, trying really hard to focus and not let his voice waver at all. “I’ll be back soon.”

“I thought you were dead.”

“Oh, please, Blaine. Don’t be so dramatic.”

“You left your wedding book all over the living room. It looked like someone came in and kidnapped you. I was concerned.”

Kurt giggled.

Blaine paused. “Where are you out with this friend?”

“A bar.”

“Kurt.”

“What? I’m old enough,” joked Kurt.

“What bar, and how many drinks have you had?” If there was one thing Blaine knew, it was that Kurt couldn’t hold his liquor.

“I’m fine, Blaine.”

“Do you need me to come get you?”

“No.”

“Should I come get you anyway?”

“No.”

“When are you coming home?”

“I don’t know, Mom,” said Kurt.

“Hey. I’m just asking you a question,” said Blaine, getting defensive. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Why don’t you channel this energy into calling home so we can finally set a goddamn wedding date?” snapped Kurt. Somewhere in the back of his head, he knew that that was a stupid thing to say, but he wasn’t coherent enough to apologize.

“Excuse me?” said Blaine.

“Did you call your dad yet?”

“I’ve been at work.”

“Uh huh.”

“Kurt, what the hell?” said Blaine. “You’ve had enough. I’m coming to get you. Where are you?”

Kurt groaned and put his hand over his eyes. “Calm down. Don’t bother coming. I’m leaving now. I’ll be home in, like, 20 minutes.”

“Take a taxi,” said Blaine softly. “Please.”

“The train’s right here.”

“Kurt,” Blaine scolded.

Kurt hung up the phone without another word and turned to his friend to say he had to leave. The two walked out of the bar together and parted ways, saying they’d see each other in the morning in the office.

Kurt had started to walk down the steps to the subway, but heaved out a sigh and headed back up to the curb to hail a cab. Once he was settled in the backseat and told the driver where to take him, he pulled his phone out and, still quite buzzed, dialed a phone number he knew all too well.

A gruff voice on an answering machine spoke, “You’ve reached the Anderson household. We’re not here to take your call, so please leave a message after the tone. If you are a client of Gordon Anderson and your message is urgent, please try his cell phone.” Beep.

“I’m not a client,” he spat into his phone’s speaker, “but, as your future son-in-law, I have a few things I’d like to say to you, Gordon Anderson.”

When Kurt entered the apartment, Blaine was curled up on the couch with Henry asleep on his lap. He was looking straight ahead at the blank TV, not bothering to acknowledge Kurt as he sauntered into the living room, dropping his bag beside him and he slumped into a chair.

“Did you take a cab?” asked Blaine, playing with the fur on Henry’s tail.

“Mmhmm,” hummed Kurt.

“Ok.”

“I’m sorry I said what I said,” blurted Kurt. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“You left Henry here all alone.”

“Oh, he’s fine,” said Kurt. “You didn’t get home too late.”

“He doesn’t like to be alone.”

“He doesn’t like me.”

Blaine was silent, and clearly not amused at Kurt’s current state.

“I said I’m sorry,” repeated Kurt, quieter this time, and more sincere.

Blaine nodded. “I know. And, well – I know you’re right.”

Kurt shifted in his seat, making sure he was consciously hearing this and that it wasn’t some kind of booze-induced hallucination.

“I promise, I’ll actually call tomorrow. And talk to him.”

Kurt smiled. “Okay.” He stood up and tripped as he walked over to Blaine to place a kiss on his head. “I’m going to bed. I have to go into the office tomorrow.”

“Do you need help?”

Kurt winked at him. “Only if you need it, too.”

Blaine rolled his eyes and stood up, clutching a still sleeping Henry against his chest. “That’s not what I meant. And forgive me if I’m not really in the mood tonight.”

Kurt laughed and stumbled into the bedroom, his phone call in the cab completely forgotten. Blaine watched Kurt fall into bed from the doorway before he put Henry down and curled into bed himself.