PART FOUR: IS HE YOUR HUSBAND?

Kurt stared blankly at his phone for well over a minute. It was three in the morning. He'd slept a few hours after getting back from dinner and then come awake, suddenly, jolted from slumber by a dream of a memory. He had remembered Blaine coming to McKinley, that first day Kurt transferred back, and singing to him with the rest of the Warblers. It wasn't Blaine, so much, that had broken Kurt out of sleep; it was Kurt's memory of himself, of how his sixteen-year-old self had loved Blaine unabashedly and unconditionally.

Then Kurt had sat up in bed and held his phone in his hand. He had spent at least forty-five minutes remembering prom night with Blaine, and how that night they had left the dance with everyone else but then peeled off to Blaine's car, climbed in the back seat and just—touched each other. Kurt remembered the first hesitant move he had made toward Blaine, reaching his hand out to touch his boyfriend as if willed by an outside force. He had put his right hand on Blaine's cheek and then neck, and pulled him closer. They had kissed and Kurt didn't remember breathing for five minutes before he realized his hand had traveled of its own accord down Blaine's neck to his chest and then around to his side, where it had rested for a while, pulling on Blaine, bringing him closer to Kurt, until Blaine had turned his body and swung a leg over Kurt so he was straddling him. Then, Kurt's hand was joined by the other and he put his hands on the small of Blaine's back, always, always needing him closer as their lips met and didn't part.

Kurt remembered what came next: the pause before his hands drifted around Blaine's sides to the front of his pants. He had slid his fingers inside the band of Blaine's trousers and tried to pull him that way, and Blaine had come away from his mouth with a gasp. Kurt had expected him to stop what was happening, but instead when he looked at Blaine, he saw how Blaine's pupils were blown from the darkness and from the lust, and there was a hunger on Blaine's face that Kurt hadn't seen before. He remembered being surprised at himself for not feeling defensive or nervous about the physical intimacy, but Blaine made everything simple and easy, and it had only been a few more seconds before he had undone the button on Blaine's pants and cupped Blaine's hard-on through his boxer-briefs. Blaine had moaned in response and frantically grabbed at the hem of Kurt's kilt, pushing it up until he could in turn undo the buttons on Kurt's pants. Kurt had lifted up his hips just enough so Blaine could slide the pants down and make what was to happen next easier. And then Kurt remembered the mutual handjobs, Kurt getting Blaine off while Blaine did the same to Kurt, heavy-handed and blissed-out touching and rubbing and thrusting as they rutted into each other's hands and came together, for the first time. Kurt didn't care about the mess, about what his hair looked like, about his breath, about anything, in the moment after that: all that mattered was Blaine in his lap, breathing hard, and dipping his head against Kurt's neck to mouth sweetly at him and whisper the kinds of things Kurt had never thought he'd hear from another boy, let alone this boy.

It was 3 a.m. and Kurt was still holding his phone in his hands, almost rocking as he contemplated the months following that night, as he thought about that insanely beautiful summer between junior and senior year, where he and Blaine, in the honeymoon stage of their relationship, had explored each other's bodies thoroughly and done everything and anything they could think of, thrilled and ecstatic and constantly turned-on by each other and the knowledge that they shared a trust so innate that one could suggest anything—literally, anything—to the other and it would be given consideration. They had lost their bodies to each other that summer, and with this their minds and hearts had gone, gone completely.

Kurt blinked rapidly through the sudden tears as he remembered senior year, things getting better with Blaine, but worse, too, as he could do nothing but think about their impending separation. He stopped enjoying coffee dates with Blaine because it just made him think how many more coffee dates do we have left and he stopped enjoying phone calls with Blaine because he kept thinking this is the only way we'll be able to talk to each other next year and he stopped having frequent dates with Blaine because he was worried if he ran out of things to say it would be such a waste of time, of the precious little time that they had left together, and he would feel guilty knowing it was his fault they couldn't find things to talk about anymore. By graduation, Kurt saw so little of Blaine that it wasn't so hard, really, to tell him they should take a break for college, that it would be too difficult with the distance, and they would meet other people and see what was out there, and maybe come back to each other eventually, if it was right.

But it never was right after that. Blaine had been ruined, completely crushed by Kurt, and Kurt had just taken a deep breath and gone to New York City anyway. He stopped returning Blaine's calls. After a few weeks he stopped returning Blaine's text messages. And the day came when Blaine stopped sending text messages at all.

The Christmas party had been awkward. Rachel had invited Blaine because they had been friends, a little bit, in high school, when there was still a Kurt-and-Blaine. She hadn't realized how estranged Kurt had become from Blaine, how painful it was for both of them to sit in a room together and interact politely as friends, when both of them hated and—still, inexplicably but how could they not, after what they had been for each other?—loved one another too fiercely for how-do-you-do and how-are-classes-going to suffice. Kurt had downed eggnog and talked with Mercedes about the architecture in Greenwich Village. Blaine had spent the night talking with Finn about football. And they had parted at the end of the night as if they had never seen each other at all.

Kurt jumped, violently, when his phone buzzed in his hand. He stared disbelievingly at the phone number. Blaine. Blaine was calling him. At 3:15 a.m. Kurt held his breath, almost not answering the call, but then, terrified he had missed it, had waited too long to answer, he pressed the call button and put the phone to his ear.

"Blaine?"

"Kurt."

At the voice, Kurt unwillingly let out a stifled sob. He rubbed his free hand hard on the center of his forehead, trying to clear away the muzziness left by the alcohol and despair that had reached him that night.

"Were you awake?" Blaine asked, his voice only a little unsteady.

Kurt nodded and whispered, "Yes, I've been awake. Blaine, I'm so sorry what I did to you. I've just been sitting up thinking about high school, about everything you were to me and—and everything you did for me—and did to me—and it was me, it was my fault, completely, what happened, and I stopped—I stopped doing what I should have been doing."

Blaine was breathing heavily on the other end of the line. Kurt heard the cracking in his voice when he asked, "What should you have been doing?"

"Loving you back, Blaine. Just loving you. Giving you back what you gave me."

Blaine took a shaky breath and paused for a terrible five seconds. Then he sighed resignedly. "It was ten years ago. It's done."

Kurt whimpered and said, "Blaine, I know what I told you, that we were young, that it was stupid to think we could stay together—and maybe it was, maybe, maybe it wasn't all bad that I broke things off—but the way I did it, I never stopped feeling bad about it. I still feel so bad, so guilty, it's like this knot in my stomach that never completely unravels when I think about you."

"We need to talk about this," Blaine whispered over the line.

"Okay. Come over," Kurt said wildly. "Come over and we'll talk about it."

Blaine laughed, and Kurt realized it was the first time he had heard Blaine laugh since high school. It made him smile, despite himself. "You have meetings tomorrow morning, Kurt. Look. It's the middle of the night. Let's… let's get coffee tomorrow, after your meetings. Coffee, like we used to. I think… we need to figure this out." There was another pause, and Kurt felt his heart leap into his throat. Blaine continued in a softer voice, "I just want this pain I've been feeling whenever I remember you to go away. We're twenty-six, Kurt. It doesn't make any sense to still be thinking about our first boyfriend. I've had boyfriends since you … I know you've had boyfriends since me. How could you not? But Kurt … hearing your voice today, getting dinner with you, why was that painful? Why did that hurt so much? It shouldn't—it shouldn't be like that for us."

"It's been a long time," Kurt said. "But I want to apologize to you properly."

Blaine made a derisive noise. "You don't, you already apologized, at least three times. It's not that we need. We need to—to figure out how to sort away the residuals from eight years ago. I—I need to talk to you about some things. And I hope we can figure this out together. But we'll do it when we're both awake and not—god, I'm sorry I called you—"

"No."

Blaine laughed again, and Kurt felt the trembling in his stomach, a resurgence from years past, when just a smile and nod from Blaine during a Warblers performance could unleash a cacophony of butterflies in his tummy. "Okay. No, I'm glad I called you. I've been up all night since dinner. I couldn't take it anymore … I had to call you."

"I've almost called you for the last three hours," Kurt said quietly.

Blaine breathed slowly and Kurt felt himself wishing desperately he could see Blaine's face. But it was right to wait. He would be a wreck in his meetings as it was.

"When are you done tomorrow?"

"Two at the latest," Kurt said.

"Then we'll meet at 2:30. I'll text you the name of the place."

Kurt felt a thrill thinking about getting texts from Blaine again. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Blaine said. "Tomorrow, I'll see you then."

They said good night, and then each waited a few seconds for the other to hang up, before, giggling like schoolboys, they said bye again and hung up at the same time.

Kurt fell back into his bed with his entire body quivering at the promise of tomorrow. It took half an hour to come down from his nervous high, and then in his dreams it was only Blaine: Blaine in his uniform, Blaine in a tux, Blaine in nothing at all in his bed when Burt was on a weekend fishing trip with Finn and Carole was at a day spa. Kurt remembered Blaine like that, the two of them warm and soft and everything in bed together, and almost slept through his alarm for fear of losing again the calm certainty he had had with Blaine ten years before.