A/N: Hello! Sorry for the delay in getting this to you. I was away for a long weekend without internet connection.

Also, this chapter kicked my butt. I have re-written five or six times and I'm still not sure I am happy with it. Please let me know what you think.

Chapter 10 - Kurt's POV

Kurt fussed with his hair one more time in his rear view mirror. His heart was pounding and he could not believe he cared this much about one date. He had lost count of the number of men he had been with. Most of those couplings were lost to the haze of drugs and alcohol, in dark rooms with no distinctive personality. At the time they had felt good but his father had been right, Kurt felt embarrassed and cheapened by them now.

None of the men had mattered to him as much as this one coffee meeting with his old high school sweetheart. Yet, he knew that this may not end the way he desperately wanted it to. That thought alone kept him in the car until he saw Blaine's car pull in to the lot and Blaine head in to the coffee shop. Kurt breathed a sigh of relief. He couldn't bear the thought of sitting at a table on his own waiting.

He took his wallet with him. He was toying with the idea of putting a hat on as it would have provided some safety from prying eyes but in the end, he decided to leave it. He did not want to meet Blaine shielded. Fuck the National Inquirer. If they were that interested in his pathetic, disastrous excuse for a love life then they could have at it.

He steeled himself one final time and walked in to the shop with as much false confidence as he could muster. Blaine was waiting for him in the foyer and they exchanged an anxious grin and hug. Kurt found that he could barely meet Blaine's eyes but when their bodies touched he shivered inwardly at the tingle down his spine.

They stood in line to get coffee. Kurt found himself desperately reading the menu board behind the baristas as though he did not know that he was already getting a skinny latte. He took a deep breath and tried to calm the raging nerves shooting through him. He was pleased to see that Blaine looked equally out of sorts, shuffling awkwardly from one foot to the other and avoiding looking at Kurt.

Once they had their coffees and were settled in a back table away from the window, Kurt took a breath and raised his eyes to meet Blaine. He found the familiar pair of hazel eyes looking back at him nervously. God, Blaine was beautiful. If anything he had grown in to his looks, which given that he had been a smoking hot teenager, Kurt found difficult to believe. Kurt resisted his gut reaction to lean over the table and kiss him.

He contemplated making a joke to break the tension but instead Blaine was the first to speak.

"Thank you again for yesterday, Kurt. Jack was blown away by you hanging out with us. You made the day really special."

Kurt smiled. "I loved meeting him too. He's a total livewire. He definitely made things interesting… and his voice! That blew me away. If I was ten years younger I would have turned green with envy."

"Oh I don't know. I think your voice is quite special too. As I recall you have no problems making an impact with it when you choose to," Blaine teased a little.

"I do what I can," Kurt jibed back with his own Cheshire grin. "And yesterday was fabulous. Thanks for letting me tag along. And can I just say, seeing you in professional work mode was fascinating."

"Oh, really?" Blaine raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"Oh yes. It was pretty sexy actually."

Blaine smiled shyly in return but then bit his lip and looked away. Kurt kicked himself. Based on what had happened the last time they were alone together this probably bordered on insensitive.

He took a deep breath and resisted the strong urge to carry on talking as if nothing had happened. "I'm sorry Blaine. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable again. And I do want to apologise again for last weekend, face to face. I behaved really badly towards you and I am so sorry."

Kurt wanted to reach his hand out to touch Blaine's but he was too scared that Blaine would pull away from him. He knew that his current fragile, vulnerable state would not cope well with that rejection right now.

Blaine looked back up at him and re-established eye contact. Kurt felt a jolt of emotion run through him. It was an almost irresistible pull that made him yearn deeply that there was not such a huge emotional gulf separating them.

"Thank you, Kurt." Blaine swallowed some coffee and fiddled with his cup. He sighed in resignation, "I have to admit that I am a bit lost for words. I have so much that I want to ask and so much that I want to understand but I don't know where to begin."

"I know the feeling. Look, start with something easy. I promise that I will try to answer as honestly as I can."

Blaine nodded in agreement and then looked up at Kurt through his lashes and gently ran the tip of his tongue over his lower lip in an anxious, contemplative gesture. Kurt found his eyes tracking the path of the tongue.

"How long are you sticking around for?"

Kurt jolted to. "I thought I said easy!" he found himself releasing a nervous laugh. Calming himself, he puffed out a breath and ran his fingers through his fringe. "Uh, I don't know. I mean I'm currently unemployed and truthfully probably unemployable in LA until this scandal runs its course. Honestly, I don't even know if I want to go back to LA anytime soon. I'm currently struggling to plan more than one day ahead right now without my brain exploding, so I will probably hang out at home for the next few weeks until my Dad gets tired of me moping and kicks me out."

Blaine nodded seriously and sipped his coffee. "I would have thought you would want to skip town as soon as possible. I know you always found Ohio really claustrophobic."

"As I recall, there was a time when you did too," Kurt quipped and then regretted his boldness, feeling again that he was stepping too close to hidden landmines. "Um…I don't have anywhere else to go right now and to be honest I am enjoying being with my family and friends. So you aren't getting rid of me that easily," he raised his eyebrow at Blaine pointedly with a small smirk.

Blaine smiled at that a little and the tips of his ears went red. Kurt took that as a positive sign that he had got through to him, even if it was just a start.

"So what was LA like?" Blaine asked changing topic. He put his chin on his hand and gazed at Kurt contemplatively.

Kurt took a second to consider his answer and rubbed his hand over his face. He had been dreading this topic. "Uh…Exciting, terrifying, superficial and… fake. I don't know… when I first got out there and things went so well, I thought that my dreams had come true. It was so exciting. Everyone buzzed around telling me how gorgeous or talented I was. I only understood that it was lies when the first show ended and there was no one beating down the door with new scripts for me. My agent would call people up and it was like Kurt who? And then I was back to the audition circuit with everyone else."

Blaine raised his eyebrows in surprise. "I thought I read somewhere that the director of the first film you were in offered you that part based on how well you had done in the TV series?"

Kurt laughed bitterly. "More like his took a shine to me and thought that an available, appealing body on set would be conducive to his artistic process."

Blaine choked on the sip of coffee and had to take a minute to recover from his coughing fit. "What?"

Kurt sighed. "Yes. It wasn't one of my proudest moments." Kurt looked down at his hands and then up at Blaine, searching his eyes for his long lost confidant and best friend. "Look, I'm totally embarrassed talking to you about this but I think you need to hear it."

Blaine schooled his surprised expression and responded simply. "OK."

Kurt brought his hand to his mouth and began chewing on the skin on top of his thumb. Realising he was about two seconds from biting his thumb nail he quickly put his hand back on the table and started decimating his coffee cup sleeve instead.

"After the first show ended, I was on my own big time. Mark had left LA by that point and although I had some friends from the show I was pretty isolated. I was also only just beginning to realise that being out and gay in Hollywood is a bit like wearing a plague sign. To my face everyone gushed about how much they respected me and how brave they thought I was, but no men would hang out with me, in case the media thought they were gay too. I had some girl friends but I really missed guys in my life and I was tired of being alone.'

'My life went in to freefall pretty quickly after that first series. I did a lot of things that I am not proud of. I am just incredibly grateful that I reacted so badly to alcohol in high school and I had that bad acid trip in college, otherwise I probably would have been sucked deeper in to the whole drugs thing. It was crazy out there – anything you could imagine offered on a big platter.'

Kurt glanced at Blaine. Blaine met his gaze neutrally and Kurt found it was hard to gauge any particular reaction from him at that point.

Kurt took a deep breath and ploughed on. "There were a lot of parties - not the birthday cake and ice cream variety. At this one party in particular, I met Sean, the director of that first film I was in. He sweet talked his way in to spending the night with me in one of the rooms in the house. In the morning he mentioned this film he was working on and how he thought he might have a part for me.'

'I hadn't had a callback from an audition in a long time and I was running out of money. It wasn't like I had sex with him purely for the job or anything," Kurt looked at Blaine slightly pleadingly hoping he would understand. "Sean was nice to me and at the time I thought there was more chemistry than there was. During filming he was clear that we had to keep the sex under wraps. The shoot lasted about four months. I was only technically needed for about two of those as my part was quite minor but he made up reasons for me to stick around and I was happy to do so, especially as it upped my paycheck. Then when filming was over, he sent me the Director's edit and I never heard from him again. It took a while for me to get my head around that but the sad thing is that that was probably my longest Hollywood relationship."

Kurt fixed his eyes on his cup. He couldn't even look at Blaine at the moment.

Blaine cleared his throat and took Kurt's hand. "It's OK, I understand. Thank you for being so honest."

Kurt swallowed and nodded still not achieving eye contact.

Blaine continued to hold his hand for a beat.

"Kurt, what are we doing right now?"

Kurt looked up at Blaine confused. "What do you mean?"

"I guess I'm trying to figure how to react to what you have just told me and the huge amount of stuff that you have implied but have not told me." Kurt moved to interrupt, but Blaine stopped him. "It's OK. We've been away from each other for nine years. Of course stuff has happened in that time. Stuff's happened to me too. I just need to know what you are hoping for. Do you want me to respond to what you are saying as a friend, or do you feel that it is important that I know this because you are hoping that we might get back together?"

Kurt looked away, his face flaming. He didn't want to be the one defining this especially when he could get no reading on Blaine at the moment. He felt so exposed.

"Please, don't put that all on me," his tone came out more agitated than he was expecting. "I feel like you are treating me like one of the kids you work with. What do you think this is?"

Blaine looked a bit taken aback, and then smirked to himself. "Touché! I'm sorry, I guess I am a little overwhelmed and have slipped in to Social Worker mode. I'll stop. I guess I am just still trying to process what we are doing. And honestly, it's easier to get you to tell me what you want than to admit that I am feeling totally lost and vulnerable right now."

Kurt felt some relief that he was not the only one desperately splashing to keep his head above water. He waited for Blaine to think through his answer.

"Kurt, I don't know what to say. A large part of me is so excited you are home. Seeing you with Jack yesterday may have been the most fun that I have had in months and it brought back a lot of great memories. I am totally attracted to you and I can't stop thinking about you. I feel 16 again," Kurt felt relief flood back in to him and he smiled brightly at Blaine.

Blaine gave a small smile back and leaned forward in his seat. "But Kurt, I need to be real with you," he continued. "I was floored by how you treated me last weekend. You have changed, and while I desperately want to tell you that I am OK with that, honestly some of the changes kind of scare me. On Saturday night, you looked at me as though I was a nameless trick and then just walked out. It was one of the most painful things that has happened to me in years. I couldn't cope with that happening again."

Kurt felt his heart breaking a little. He recaptured Blaine's hand and waited 'til Blaine was looking right in to his eyes.

"I can't forgive myself for what I did to you. Blaine, I'm a mess. I haven't had sex with meaning and connection in years and I was scared. You were gorgeous at the party singing to me, and you looked so fucking hot. All I could do to cope with my emotions was to go in to autopilot and try to turn them in to a form that I felt I could handle. I bitterly regret that because that is not at all how I want us to be like," Kurt caught himself, "…if we were to end up together that is."

There was desperation in Blaine's face now. "Kurt, I want us to be able to just rewind the clocks so much. I have been thinking about little else since I heard that you were coming home. But so much has happened, I don't know if we can. The thing that made last Saturday so awful was that I was left reliving all the same emotions as the day you broke up with me all those years ago. I can't go back there. It almost killed me the first time. I absolutely can not let it happen again."

Kurt felt like he had been smacked in the face. "What do you mean, 'when I broke up with you last time'?" he challenged. He pulled his hand away from Blaine. "You can not be serious right now. That is not what happened." His voice began to get steadily higher pitched. "YOU ended the relationship. I'll agree that I was the one who finally moved away, but let's be very clear, you had already decided that we were over months before I finally gave up. Don't you dare pin that on me! It took me years to get over you."

Blaine looked shocked and then there was an angry glint in his eye. "I ended the relationship? What are you talking about? I loved you. Do I need to refresh your memory with the basic facts? You were the one who waltzed off in to the sunset with Mark to make your dreams come true in LA, leaving me behind to pick up the pieces."

Kurt could feel his insides boiling and knew his face had turned red. It was only fear of being overheard that stopped him from standing up and screaming in the café. "How dare you?" he hissed, leaning over the table as far as his torso would reach and making sure he had Blaine's full attention. "You know full well that you pushed me in to Mark's arms. You gave me no choice in the matter. Like you don't know that I would have chosen you in a heartbeat if you had let me. Instead you with your saviour complex had decided that I was better off without you and you did everything but pack my bags to get me to leave. Don't twist what happened after the attack. It took years and some therapy for me to get my head around how you reacted, let alone forgive you for it. I will take a lot of emotional dumping Blaine. I will hold up my hands to being completely in the wrong last weekend and I am deeply sorry for hurting you. But don't ever accuse me of walking away the first time. That was not my fault."

Blaine looked totally taken aback. The colour drained from his face and he looked like he was going to be sick. "Do you really feel that way? I… I never wanted you to leave… but I know that things changed, that I changed. I always assumed that you couldn't stand who I became… you think I pushed you? Oh God… I need some air…"

He pushed his chair back from the table and walked out of the café very quickly leaving Kurt, eyes filling with tears, to stare at an empty seat. Kurt put his head in his hands and let the tears fall silently. He hadn't been this much of an emotional wreck since he arrived in California. God, poor Mark. He put that kid through hell, crying himself to sleep every night over the loss of Blaine. No wonder their relationship never stood a chance. It was dead in the water before they even got on the plane.

Kurt fixated on the jacket cloaking the chair in front of him. He truly did not know if he and Blaine could have a future together. Already they were struggling to get through coffee and they hadn't even scratched the surface of their difficulties. But Kurt could not help the hope he felt in his heart. When he looked in to Blaine's eyes, he vividly remembered the boy who had loved him completely and every now and then, he caught glimpses of that boy shining out of the hurting man. He knew that reforming the connection may be a doomed hope but he also knew that he would have to try. Otherwise he didn't know if he could ever live with himself or move on properly.

After about ten minutes, Kurt turned his head at the footsteps coming behind him. He saw Blaine's tear stained face matching his own. Blaine sat down heavily in the seat opposite and looked lost.

"I don't know where we go from here Kurt," he said sadly. "You need to know that I have never stopped loving you and I don't think I ever will. But there is so much stuff to work through and let's be real, nine years has changed us both. There are parts of you I don't recognise at all. I'm sure you feel the same way. This is just too painful. I mean look at us, we can't even get through coffee without reducing each other to holy messes."

Kurt allowed the tears to slide freshly down his cheeks. "But you do love me."

Blaine looked wrecked. His face was a picture of agony. "I'm sorry Kurt. I can't do this. Inevitably when this goes wrong you will leave again and that will destroy me. This is too much."

He got to his feet and put his jacket on. Kurt looked up at him sadly and Blaine bent down to kiss his cheek softly. He lingered a second too long breathing in Kurt's scent. Kurt felt heat and warmth spreading over his skin at the touch. He knew then with total sureness in his heart that he was not prepared to let Blaine go that easily.

Instead he stood up and mustered as brave a face as he could manage and hugged the man to him. "I love you too."

Blaine released the hug and looked at him mournfully. "Thank you. Goodbye, Kurt. I wish we had met again under different circumstances." He turned away and walked out of the café.

Kurt sat back down and stared at the mess of the decimated coffee cup in front of him. Blaine's parting shot had given him an idea. It was crazy but he wondered if he could make it work.

A/N: Please review *waiting anxiously*