"Sing me a song, piano man," he breathed, before reaching across the table in front of him, grabbing the collar of the grey shirt on the man on the other side, and pulling him in for a long, hot kiss.
The end.
~x~
He was stirred that morning by his cell phone's shrill ring. In that state of consciousness somewhere between asleep and awake, he pawed blindly at his bedside table, until he found the device vibrating dangerously close to the edge.
"Hello?" he yawned, rubbing his eyes.
"Oh, Mr. Hummel!" a small, squeaky voice gasped. "I'm so sorry, sir! Did I wake you? I can call back in a few minutes if you'd like some time to get—!"
"No, Stacie," he sighed in exasperation. "What is it?" Rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck, he tossed off his sheets and flung his legs over the side of his mattress, only groaning a little bit when he caught sight of his clock reading six-o-five in the morning.
"Well, sir, the people from Vogue had some scheduling issues." He heard papers shuffle on the other end, then Stacie's voice went flat, obviously reading form one of them. "'Due to conflicting engagements, we have been forced to reschedule our meeting previously set for nine a.m. on the sixteenth of May, two-thousand and twenty-two…'"
"Yes…?" he pressed on, throwing his violet comforter on top of his bedspread.
"'Our meeting will now be held via Skype at ten a.m…." Stacie's voice quivered a bit.
"Yes…?"
"Eastern standard time, sir."
There was a moment of silence where Stacie thought her boss may have dropped his phone, before he frantically sputtered, "Stacie, you're a life saver."
Hurriedly, he flicked off his phone and dropped threw it on top of his bed as he dashed to shower.
There was not a moment that morning where he was not cursing someone. He cursed Vogue for being on the east coast. He cursed Skype for making it so easy for people in other time zones to simply 'reschedule'. He cursed his ancestors for deciding that they needed to go to Oregon. And he cursed himself for never plucking up and just moving to the east coast because that would have made his life so much easier and probably would have left him flat broke…
…he could live with the time zone problem. As long as Stacie was there to save his ass every now and then, he would be fine.
Standing in front of his still foggy bathroom mirror, a thought hit him so hard it sent him flying out of the bathroom, his hair still wet and his tooth brush still in his mouth, fumbling through his room for his phone.
He hit redial and spit a mouthful of toothpaste into the sink.
"Yes, Mr. Hummel, what can I—?"
"Stacie, there is an envelope on my desk labeled 'Vogue.' I need you to take that and scan all of those papers onto my computer. All of them. Got it? I'll be there in a half an hour."
"Yes, sir. Vogue envelope, scan them all to your computer. See you in a half hour." Then she hung up.
And he went back to getting ready no less relaxed but one hundred times more prepared.
Two hours later, he sat in his large desk chair, the silver-grey jacket to his suit slung over the back of it, his white shirt rumpled and his black tie loose. He held his head in his hands, his elbow leaned up on his desk and his eyes were closed.
"M-Mr. H-Hummel, sir?" Stacie piped up from the corner of the spacious office. Her long brown hair fell across her face, and she seemed very small, hiding away from the tension.
"That was a train wreck, Stace." He rubbed his eyes and groaned, sinking into his chair. "A train wreck."
"You were fine, sir," she said reassuringly, taking a cautious step towards him.
"They hated it. They hated all of it."
"No they didn't, sir." She continued to make her way over to him. "Sure, they didn't show precisely the enthusiasm we were hoping for but I'm sure that they didn't—"
"And to think for a minute this morning I thought about heading out there. I thought that this would be my chance. I thought that if I got even just a little something in Vogue, I'd finally get known." He dropped his head to the table and groaned again. "I'm an idiot."
"Mr. Hummel…" She scanned the room quickly and found a small rolling chair. She moved it over to the desk and sat to his right, her hands folded in her lap. "Mr. Hummel…" she cleared her throat. "K-Kurt—" she paused when he flinched at being addressed so informally, but continued nonetheless. "K-Kurt, just being considered for Vogue makes you more successful than ninety-nine percent of the people in this business could ever hope to be. And you really did do fine. I thought that they seemed…impressed."
"I bet you I don't even get a picture in. Just a little blurb at the bottom: 'oh yeah, there's this company in Oregon that makes clothes. So go to their website.'" His head popped up and he stared at Stacie, the look in his bright blue eyes somewhere between pleading and something like murderous. "I've dreamt of this since I was eight, Stacie. This is what I've worked my entire life for."
"They came and they saw," Stacie said bluntly. "There is nothing else we can do. Either they like your designs enough to endorse them or not. The only thing worrying about it will do is raise your blood pressure." There was a moment where he just looked at her. "…um…sir."
He sighed. "That would be true if I didn't just screw up the whole thing!" He threw his hands up and leaned back in his chair.
"Um…I'm not sure why you think it went so terribly, sir."
"I couldn't open the pictures. I sat there, for five minutes, in dead silence, in front of four Vogue representatives, clicking and clicking and clicking and clicking and it wouldn't open. I am an idiot!"
"It was the computer, sir. I'm sure they understand that." For a moment she hemmed and hawed, then, tentatively, she picked up her hand and set it on his arm. "Sir—Mr. Hum—K-Kurt," she finally blurted out. "When was the last time you had a vacation?"
"I was in Barbados over the holidays, Stacie…" he grumbled.
"I don't mean that kind of vacation. I mean I vacation where you just sat at home and watched movies and ate chocolate and did other things you like to do." She smiled wearily at him. "I'm worried about you. You never seem to rest."
"I own a company, Stacie, I don't rest. I have people to do that for me." He tossed his head back with a dark chuckle.
"As your executive assistant and the person who probably knows you the second best—after only yourself—it would be my recommendation that you take some time." She paused, thinking. "The Vogue article won't be out until June twentieth. It's not like you'd be abandoning the company. We have phones. Just…for your health. I think it could do you some good."
He looked at her. "And what do you propose I do for a month?"
"Well," she began, smiling as she pulled her phone form her pocket. "I would suggest you spend some time up in the mountains for a bit. You always seemed more chipper after those outdoors photo shoots." She began typing furiously. "I would suggest"—she held the device to his face momentarily—"this resort. After that, you could head down to that nice place in Los Angeles you like and go to the beach." Her tone suddenly went serious. "If you don't mind me saying sir, you look like you need some color…"
Kurt just sat in his chair, mildly amused at his lovely assistant's attempts at making him relax, playing with his hair absentmindedly and almost forgetting about Vogue.
"…And then you can come back here and just dawdle about and—" she continued before being cut off.
"I'll make a deal with you, Stacie. I'll take three weeks off if you promise to call me daily with updates." He reached across his desk for his laptop.
"Absolutely, sir!" She looked back at her phone, then back at him. "Would you still like me to make these reservations?"
He took a deep breath and stowed his computer under his arm as he stood. "No. Thank you, though. I think I've got this under control." He then turned on his heels and made his way towards the door of his office.
"Talk to you tomorrow sir."
"Goodbye, Stacie. I sincerely hope you're alive when I get back."
She swallowed hard as she watched him walk down the hall and out the front door of the building. Several other inconspicuous members of his staff were also stirred from their work as the door opened and closed loudly. When he had disappeared, they all turned towards Stacie, standing in the doorway of his office.
"Well…he's going on vacation…and I'm in charge for now…So…please do whatever you're supposed to be doing."
And like robots, they all fell back into their work, and Stacie fell cautiously into Kurt's desk chair, smiling only slightly.
~x~
"…Dude…dude, wake up…" a distant voice said. "…Dude, I'm serious, you need to move…" There was a roll of laughter from somewhere. "Dude…you did it again…"
With a yawn, he rubbed his eyes and surveyed his surroundings. He was laying on something hard, and he was surrounded by people. It seemed to be daylight, but he couldn't be sure.
"What…what time is it?" he asked, sitting up, still fully aware of the fact he was sitting on something hard.
"Eh, about eight fifteen," a girl with red hair said casually.
"In the morning?" He cracked his knuckles and noticed that he was elevated.
"In the morning, sunshine." There was another round of laughter.
"Oh, shit." He tried to jump up, but instead, he rolled off of whatever he had been previously perched on, and onto the floor with a hard thud. He popped right back up, though. "I'm going to be late for w—OW!" He grabbed his shoulder as the rest of the people in the room laughed again.
"Calm down," the girl said, leading him to a chair across the room and handing him a mug of coffee. "It's Monday. I'm pretty sure you don't have to be in 'til noon."
He sighed in relief and settled into the chair.
"You did it again," another voice repeated from the back of the room.
He took his mug and furrowed his brow. "What are you talking about, Ted?"
"He's right, man." The girl sat down in a chair opposite him. "It's getting to be a problem."
He downed his cup of coffee in one mouthful before beginning to gag. "Liv, what the hell was that?"
Her face dropped. "It's soy milk…"
"I liked it," Ted chirped up.
"Okay…um…my problem, again…?" He furrowed his brow.
"Ah, yes." Liv moved to sit on the arm of his chair and took his hand. Ted snickered again. "Blaine, dear, you're not Billy Joel."
"You fell asleep at the piano again," Ted added.
"You were up 'til two in the morning. We asked if you were drunk and you didn't say anything." Liv patted his head comfortingly.
"It's not a problem…" he said dejectedly. "It's a hobby."
"Look," Ted cut in. "I know this is your thing and all, but falling asleep on the piano at some ungodly time after hours and hours of playing old music? That's not…good." He smiled reassuringly. "You play piano for a living. Why spend all of your free time doing it too?"
"Because it's what I like to do!" He stood from his chair and stretched. "And I must go and do it or not be able to do it anymore."
"Blaine, you need to get out of this apartment," Liv said, her voice tinged in concern.
"I work for eight and a half hours a day!" He threw his hands up and almost dropped his mug.
"And that's all you do," Ted cut in. "Man, you're twenty-seven and all you do is work and sit around at home playing oldies music on your 'baby.' It's not healthy and it's not normal."
"Normal is boring," Blaine said plainly.
"Yes but…" Ted grumbled a little. "Forget it. You're impossible. I just hope you're ready to die alone." And with that, he stood from his chair and made his way down the hall towards his room.
"I'll always have Liv!" Blaine hollered after him, a look of horror spreading across the face of the girl next to him. "…or a cat…" he added as an after thought.
Live smiled. "Go fix yourself for work. You look like a ball of steel wool." She patted his head tenderly and headed off to the kitchen, leaving Blaine alone in the living room with his piano.
Begrudgingly, he walked by the instrument and headed down the hall. At least he'd be able to just sit and not be bothered there.
Hopefully.
I'm going to admit, this confused me for a minute, but I finally figured it out. And I like it. I needed another major project, and I think this could be good. I hope you get where I'm going and like this skeleton of a storyline enough to review/subscribe to find out what the hell is going on.
Thank you for reading!