"Okay, so if Geoffrey has two dollars in his left pocket and five dollars in his right pocket, how much money does he have altogether?"

"Five!" A voice called out

"Ten?"

"Three."

"Kids, what did I say about raising our hands?" Kurt asked.

A little girl named Lucy sitting in the front row raised her hand. "He has seven dollars," she answered when called upon.

"Very good," Kurt complimented her. "Can you please read the next problem in the book out loud, Lucy?"

"Sally buys three apples at the…" She was stuck on a word.

"Grocery store," Kurt supplied from his desk.

"Grocery store," she recited. "She gave one apple each to her two sisters. How many does she have left?"

There was a knock on the door. Kurt walked over as the children muttered to one another. He opened the door to reveal a huge flower arrangement hiding the face of its deliverer.

"Happy Valentine's Day!" came a familiar, chipper voice.

Kurt took the flowers from Blaine, giving his friend a one-armed hug.

"Everyone, this is one of my best friends, Blaine," Kurt announced.

"Hi, Blaine," the chorused loudly.

"Read to yourselves for a moment," he told them.

He set the arrangement down on his desk and clapped his hands together excitedly. "Wow, this is beautiful," he sighed. He reached down and grabbed the attached card, reading it out to Blaine. "To my wonderful boyfriend, Happy Valentine's Day. I miss you already. Love, Jesse." He held it to his chest and grinned like a fool - but he didn't care.

"Yeah, about that..." Blaine started.

"Did you meet him?" Kurt interrupted. "Did he come into the shop this morning before he left? What did you think of him? Isn't he handsome?"

"Yeah, I met him. He was…different than you described."

"Did you like him? Did he like you?" Kurt kept on rambling. "Did he know that you knew me?"

"I doubt it," Blaine told him. "Look, I really need to talk to you – it's important. Could we go out in the hallway for a minute?"

Kurt looked back towards his students (who weren't reading at all) then back to Blaine. "I'm in the middle of a lesson…"

"Just a minute, I swear. It's really important," Blaine promised.

"Alright," Kurt agreed. He spotted Parker and beckoned him over. "Parker, I need to talk to Blaine outside for a minute. Can you keep an eye on everyone? If anything goes wrong, come and get me immediately."

"I can handle it," Parker insisted. He puffed out his chest bravely.

"Of course you can," Kurt said with a smile. He cleared his throat and all the kids hushed up. "Everyone, I'm going to be right outside that door. Parker is in charge for right now and you guys better behave or I'm keeping you inside for your last recess."

Gasps rippled around the room as the children tried to imagine that unspeakable horror. Kurt looked around the room once more, then he was following Blaine outside.

"What's wrong?" he asked Blaine as soon as the door shut behind them. "Is it Jer-bear?"

"No," Blaine said. "Why do you always assume everything bad has to be because of Jer-b…Jeremiah?"

"There's nothing bad about this situation," Kurt pointed out. "You're in love, I'm in love – what's the problem?"

"It's Jesse," Blaine told him, looking down at his own two shoes.

"Jesse?" Kurt repeated. "Didn't you get my text? I'm going to San Francisco right after school lets out," he said happily. "I'll be there by dinnertime."

"Please," Blaine begged. "Don't do it."

"What? Why not?" Kurt asked. "It was your idea in the first place! You told me I should go and I thought to myself, 'Hey, Blaine's right.' And I got myself a ticket." He folded his arms across his chest. "I thought you would be happy for me." He couldn't understand why Blaine looked so distraught; so torn.

"I am happy for you - I was," he corrected himself, "But I was wrong," Blaine told him. "You shouldn't go."

Then it dawned on him. "Is this because you met Jesse?" he asked Blaine. "In the shop this morning?"

Blaine looked like he was about to cry with relief. "Yes, that's exactly it - "

"And you're afraid," Kurt guessed. "You're thinking, 'Gosh, Jesse is such a great guy and Kurt is so lucky.' And you're worrying that things between us – between you and I – could really change now."

"No," Blaine shook his head as he grabbed Kurt's arms. "Why would anything change between us?"

"You think I'm going to be spending more time with Jesse and it's going to affect our friendship, right?"

"That's not it at all – "

"Nothing's going to change," Kurt went on, ignoring him. "I'm still going to go with you to see all the movies that Jer-bear won't go watch. I'm still going to come into the shop every single day after school and we're still going to eat junk food at your house and throw our leftover crumbs to the ducks." He smiled at Blaine. "I'm still going to call you right after every disasterous parent-teacher conference and you're still going to volunteer to help out in bake sales on Back To School nights even thought I've told you repeatedly that you have enough to do already." That got a laught out of Blaine. "We're still going to need each other. Nothing's going to change," he assured him.

"Kurt, that's not what I'm trying to tell you - "

"Mr. Hummel?" Parker called as he cracked open the door. "I think we have a problem in here – I sense mutiny."

"Okay," Kurt said, turning back to Blaine. "I really have to go, I shouldn't be out of the classroom like this."

"Wait," Blaine said, holding onto his arm.

"I have to go," Kurt said more firmly. "I'll call you after work, but I have to go now."

He ripped his arm out of Blaine's grasp and walked back into the classroom.

As he got everyone settled again (a fist-fight was about to break out over a box of crayons – the 64 pack with the built in sharpener) and gotten back into the lesson, he looked towards the door again.

He could see Blaine's face through the rectangular window. He stared at Kurt for a long moment, looking as if he was going to open the door again. But he didn't – he just stood there.

Then he walked away.

"What the fuck was that?" Mike demanded after Blaine retold the story when he got back to the van. "You call that trying?"

"I tried," Blaine insisted. "I mean, how do you tell someone you care about that they're being cheated on? How does somebody hear that?"

"You had several chances to tell him."

"He wouldn't let me talk! He kept going on and on about how I'm secretly fearful that our friendship is going to change because he and Jesse are this serious thing now."

"Well are you?"

"I'm a little bit more concerned that Jesse St. James is an asshole and he's married."

"You should've blurted it out, shouted it, done something," Mike persisted. "You take him by the shoulders and you say 'Jesse is a lying, cheating scumbag! I'm the one for you!' That's how you tell him."

"I tried," Blaine repeated, narrowing his eyes. "And I'm not the one for him, Mike - give it a damn break. He said he'd call me after school – I'll tell him then, I swear."

"Over the phone? That's cold."

"What? If I'd told him right now in the hallway how would he be able to make it through the rest of the school day? He'd be heartbroken."

"You tell yourself that now, after the fact," Mike argued. "That, my friend, is what we psychologists like to call hindsight bias. You're just trying to justify your half-assed actions with just as half-assed excuses and it's not going to work."

"So now you're a psychologist too?" Blaine asked his friend dubiously.

"I could've been," Mike said with a shrug. "But the point is that you fucked up."

"Yeah," Blaine agreed. "I did."

A/N: Sorry, guys! It's been a really busy week and I haven't had any time to write, but I'm getting some work done at the moment (:

Review, lovelies!