Blaine loved summer. He picked up two glasses of the sun tea that Carol always seemed to have brewing on the windowsill and wandered into the cool air of the living room where Kurt was sitting in the corner of the sofa.
"Hey, come here." Kurt pulled Blaine down to sit next to him on the couch and wrapped his arm around Blaine's shoulders. Blaine set the glasses on the coffee table and leaned in with a smile. Kurt had switched to his summer cologne and smelled light and fresh, reminding Blaine of ice cream cones on starlight evenings last year. His new iPad, a graduation gift, was in his lap open to a map application. "Welcome to DuBois, Pennsylvania."
"What's that?" Blaine asked, watching as Kurt rotated the screen and zoomed out.
"That is exactly half way between New York City and Lima. Five hours and, well, ten minutes from one, thirteen minutes from the other. But it's as close as I could get." Blaine watched as the screen refocused on a long purple line stretched from Ohio to New York, with a red marker in the middle.
"Wow, ok." Blaine kept watching as Kurt switched screens and pulled up a website for a Holiday Inn. "Is that someplace you could stay on trips home or something?"
"Maybe," Kurt said, shifting so he could look Blaine in the eye. "I was thinking that we could meet up. Not every weekend, sadly, because I don't think my work-study job will be paying that much, but it'd be easier than either of us making the full trip, right?"
"Kurt." Blaine didn't know what to think. Five hours didn't seem so far away at all. His heart beat a little faster, but his brain forced logic through. "But you're not going to want to leave New York on the weekends! You'll miss out on the theater, the street markets…"
"To see you? Please. It's not even a contest." He pressed a soft kiss to Blaine's lips, drawing back with a smile. "I'll still have some weekends, and we can do all those things next year. Together."
Blaine's brow furrowed and he tried to figure out how this was all going to work. "But you're not going to have a car, are you?"
"Amazingly, yes. My dad made friends with a Congressman from North Jersey. He's offered to let my dad stay at his place when they come to visit, and said I could garage the Navigator there so I could come home, or go down to DC and visit my dad if I want to. It's just a short train ride away."
Blaine studied the image of the tastefully decorated reception area on the website. "Kurt, I don't know what to say." He's already memorized all of the numbers, the number of days until Kurt left, between school breaks when Kurt can come home, until his own trip to New York already circled in red on his calendar. He'd been preparing for these long stretches, but Kurt. Kurt had been finding a way to work around them.
"I'm thinking maybe halfway between move-in, which you're coming to with my dad, and Columbus Day, when I'm coming home. Mid-September, maybe? It'd been three weeks on either end."
"That would work." Blaine's weekends were dedicated to college applications that fall, hoping to get them finished before Glee's competition started. His parents were taking him to visit campuses later that summer, insisting that he at least look at some schools outside of New York. The easiest thing had been to agree, even though he knew he'd be joining Kurt next fall no matter how impressive the tours were at Cornell.
"Do you think your parents will let you?" Kurt asked hopefully.
Blaine quickly nodded. His parents had been nothing but supportive about Kurt lately. His mom had even started texting Kurt for fashion advice while shopping. He wasn't sure if it was because they knew how hard the fall was going to be for the boys, or because they'd finally accepted that Blaine was never going to date a girl, but he was hopefully optimistic. "They've let me visit Wes at Northwestern this year, and have already said I can fly out to see you."
"Which is going to be the greatest weekend ever." Kurt squeezed him closer and touched the screen to the reservations page. "I'm booking this. Friday and Saturday nights. If we both leave after classes, we can meet for a late dinner, then spend all day Saturday and Sunday morning together."
Before he could begin filling out the form, Blaine reached over and grabbed his hand. He took a deep breath, hoping his voice didn't quiver as it often did when he was emotional. "I can't believe you figured this out. I can't believe you'd do this for me."
"For you? Blaine this is just as much, if not more, for me. Sure I'm going to New York and I get to live there and walk down Broadway everyday if I want, but I'm going to be all alone! You're going to have all of your family and friends to talk to when we're missing each other and I'm just going to have to wallow in my loneliness." He smiled, sadly. "I'm going to go crazy missing you, but if it's only for a few weeks, then it's worth skipping to TKTS line to be with you."
Blaine drew Kurt's hands up to his lips and kissed his knuckles. He loved him so much. "I'd go with you if I could, you know."
"I know." Kurt smiled. "I might have mentioned boarding schools on the Upper East Side to your mom once. She wasn't very enthused."
Blaine laughed at the thought of that conversation. "She thought Dalton was too far away. I can imagine." He let go of Kurt's hands so he could finish making the reservation. "I love that you thought of this. I love you."
They watched together as the screen changed and a confirmation message was displayed. Kurt forwarded the information to Blaine's email with the touch of a button. "There. Our first romantic weekend away is reserved at the Holiday Inn in DuBois, Pennsylvania. Someday we'll look back on this with fond memories."
"Some people have Paris, some Venice," Blaine joked. "We'll have DuBois."
"Exactly." Kurt set the iPad down on the coffee table and reached for his iced tea. "And DuBois has one big thing going for it that Paris and Venice can NEVER claim." He sipped from his glass, eyes sparkling over the rim. Blaine knew that look and smiled back.
"What's that?"
"Well," Kurt said, setting his glass down and swinging his legs up to drape over Blaine's lap. He wound both arms around Blaine's shoulders, pulling him closer. "There is NOTHING to see or do in DuBois. Which means," he said, pausing to lean in for a quick kiss, "we have no incentive at all to leave the hotel room."
"Oh really," Blaine smiled back as Kurt leaned in to kiss him again. Alone in a hotel room- no parents, no brothers, no roommates to work around. He kissed Kurt again, deeply, until they were both breathless. Drawing back, he watched as Kurt's eyes opened. Blaine would never stop loving that hazy look in them at moments like this. "I like this plan."
"It's not perfect," Kurt said, resting his forehead against Blaine's. "But it's something."
"It's awesome." Blaine leaned down, pushing Kurt back and shifting to lie beside him on the couch, kissing him again with the lazy love of a summer afternoon. They had hours left today and days left until school started, and Blaine planned to enjoy every one of them together.
But now, there was only half the time to miss Kurt afterwards, and that was definitely something amazing.