As you may have noticed, there is a new and improved summary! Congratulations to Sinkwriter, who won the contest and will receive a H2$ Playbill and a fanfic.

I've been horrible about responding to reviews lately, but I promise to do better. You are all so sweet, you deserve a response.

This chapter is dedicated to Brandon Spangler, a sweet soul and fellow gleek who lost his life far too young on December 30th. Please take a moment to wish him peace, and send strength to his family and beloved fiancée.

Many, many thanks to Cathedral Carver for her beta skills and unparalleled awesomeness.

The three of us huddle together in my father's study, sliding the window almost shut so that my parents won't feel a cold draft in the parlor. Once we're all wearing our big fuzzy slippers, we disperse to search the room. There's no sign of the cell phone. I check my dad's desk drawer just in case, but it's not there.

Puck lifts up his hands, miming walking with his fingers, then pretending to eat a sandwich. I look over at Kurt, who is twisting his lips, trying not to laugh. Kitchen? I mouth, and Puck shrugs and nods, disappointed that his sign language isn't catching on.

I go first, tiptoeing into the hallway and listening to my mother telling Quinn about their very handsome and eligible son, Blaine. Kurt waggles his eyebrows at me and I grin before heading into the kitchen. The counter is unusually cluttered — Mom must have hurried to get the cookies and tea prepared — so it takes a few minutes to check the room for the phone. I'm nearly finished searching when I hear a frantic rustling sound. I look up, and Kurt is pulling Puck away from the counter, just as Puck is shoveling more butterscotch cookies into his mouth. I lean against the island, laughing silently at them both. When Kurt looks over at me, I mouth Criminal? He just rolls his eyes and urges Puck toward the dining room.

I watch them go, amused. And I wait. Because if the cell phone is not in the study or the kitchen, I know it must be upstairs. There's no reason for my parents to have left it in the dining room or the living room. As I suspected, Kurt and Puck return to the kitchen shortly, and I gesture toward the stairs silently. Kurt turns and gives a significant look to Puck, who nods and heads back to the study.

I can hear my mother's voice from the parlor as Kurt and I creep toward the stairs. "So tell me, Penelope," she says, "after all this time, why did you choose to reestablish a relationship with your grandmother now? If I may be so bold as to ask?"

There's a long pause, and Kurt and I lock eyes, waiting nervously.

"I left home," she says at last. "I finally decided that enough was enough, and that my parents' treatment of me was unacceptable."

An audible gasp comes from my mother, and in my mind I can see her leaning forward, eager for details. "What did they do?"

"They never accepted the fact that I'm gay."

If I thought the last pause was long, then this one seems interminable. I look at Kurt, mouthing, Quinn's gay? He shakes his head in response, looking as confused as I am.

"Don't get me wrong, my parents love me," Quinn continues. "I'm their only child, and they've given me every material item I could ever want. All I've ever really wanted, though, was their acceptance. I was tired of my mother's suggestions that it was a phase, and my father's coldness toward my girlfriend."

"Well..." Mom's voice sounds shaken. "Certainly, they must have needed time to adjust."

"I came out to them over a year ago. And the signs were there much earlier, if they'd thought to look. Anyway, one day it just got to be too much, and I left. I called up Grandmother and told her everything. She was terribly upset, and said that she'd raised her daughter better than that. She invited me to come live with her, and... here we are."

Kurt is beckoning to me, gesturing to the stairs. As much as I want to stay and hear my parents' response to Quinn, he's right. Time is slipping away. We climb the stairs together slowly, careful to avoid the squeaky steps. Once we've reached the second floor, I head to my bedroom first. The bedside lamp is on, illuminating my cell phone where it sits on the nightstand. Triumphantly, I tiptoe across the room and grab it, spinning around to show Kurt.

He's not looking at me, though. He's standing just inside the doorway, gazing at the room sadly. I look around, trying to figure out what's upsetting him, before making my way back to him. "Kurt?" I whisper. "Are you all right?"

He smiles weakly. "I'm fine. It's just... there are a lot of memories in this room." His cheeks flush as he looks at the bed, and I draw a breath.

"Oh. Did we... here?"

"Our first time," he says softly. Then he adds, "And other times, too, but the first time is just... well, you know."

"I don't, actually."

He sighs. "Right. Oh, hey, you found your phone."

"I did."

"That's good." He doesn't sound terribly excited, so I have to ask.

"Tonight wasn't about the phone, was it?"

"No," he admits. "Not really. Although I did miss texting with you."

"So why the big production?"

He makes his way over to the bed, sitting down with a shrug. "When you and I were together, we used to go get coffee at the Lima Bean almost every day. We'd hang out at my house, and we'd spend a lot of time at Rob's apartment."

"And?"

"Don't you see?" He looks up at me searchingly. "Now it's the second time around, and we're back in all our old haunts, and... I just want to make sure that if I end up falling for you, that I'm falling for you — not who you used to be."

"I don't understand. You're trying to take me out of our old settings? But didn't you just say that we... spent time together here, too?" I ask, blushing a little.

"It's not about the setting as much as it's about the memories."

"But I don't have any memories of you here."

"Right. That's why I was trying to create a new one."

A warmth blooms in my chest as I look at him. He's tried to play tonight off like a Mission Impossible movie, but try as he might, he's still just a silly romantic. "You wanted this to be a bonding experience." He tilts his head in acknowledgement. "You totally got this whole breaking-and-entering idea from a movie, didn't you."

"No," he says, a little too quickly.

"Did so."

"I did not." I squint at him hard, until he mumbles, "I got it from an old Nancy Drew book of my mom's."

I look up at the ceiling, smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. "You're adorable."

"Stop making fun of me." He's pouting, sticking out his lower lip in the most alluring way.

I take a step toward him, and he inhales sharply. "Kurt…"

"Blaine?"

"I'm going to kiss you now."

His mouth falls open. "You're going—"

"To kiss you now." It's all I can think about. He's so damned beautiful, there's no way I can spend another moment without touching him. "Unless you want me to stop."

"No," he whispers. "I don't want you to stop."

"Thank god." I take another step, and—

The floorboard under my foot gives a loud creak.

Oh, shit.

I step back at once, and it creaks again.

We both freeze. Kurt looks as terrified as I feel. We don't even breathe as we listen, hoping no one downstairs noticed the sound. But I've never been that lucky. Slowly, my dad's voice grows louder.

"I swear I heard something," he's saying, and I can hear him approaching the stairs.

"Wait!" Quinn calls out, sounding panicked. "I still need to tell you secrets about my family... My grandmother had my mother out of wedlock!"

Mom adds, "Harold, you can't leave. We're in the middle of a conversation."

"Look, I'll be right back," Dad says. "I just want to check upstairs and make sure everything's all right."

I turn and gape at Kurt. "What do we do?" I whisper nervously.

His eyes are wide, his mouth set in a grim line. "Does Anna still do the laundry on Mondays?" It doesn't register at first, what he's asking, because I'm fixating on the slow, heavy footfalls of my father heading up the stairs. "Blaine, focus. Does Anna still do the laundry on Mondays?"

"What? Um... Mondays, yeah."

He stands and grabs my hand, dragging me over to my bathroom. We step on two more squeaky floorboards in our haste, and I can hear my dad speed up as he mounts the stairs. Kurt closes the bathroom door quietly behind us, then turns to me, breathing shallowly. "Wait to see if I'm okay before you go."

"Go where?"

"Puck's waiting outside in case he needs to pull us out."

"But wait, go where?"

He doesn't answer. He just backs up to the laundry chute in the wall of my bathroom, squeezes his eyes closed nervously, and drops out of sight. I dart over in horror, trying to look down the dark chute. What if Anna did the laundry early this week? What if there aren't any piles of clothes to cushion Kurt's fall?

"Go!" comes a whisper from below, just as I hear Dad reach my bedroom doorway. And then there's no time to think, no time to hesitate, no time for anything, and I'm free-falling down a laundry chute like some absurd version of Alice in Wonderland. I land with my face in one of my dad's old undershirts, dazed, trying to picture Kurt as the White Rabbit, and he's tugging at my arm. "Come on!" he breathes harshly.

I scramble to my feet and climb out of the laundry bin, following him toward the set of windows near the rose bushes. I can just barely make out the shadows of Puck's boots as he paces back and forth outside. He crouches down when he sees Kurt push one of the windows open.

"You first," Kurt whispers.

"Me? No, you first."

"You won't be able to reach the window unless I give you a boost," he insists. Before I can argue, he leans down to grab me around the thighs, and lifts me up toward the open window. Puck reaches in and grabs my outstretched arms, pulling me out into the snow. He goes back for Kurt, and I take a little solace in the fact that Kurt has to jump a little to reach Puck's grasp.

"Let's go," Puck whispers once we've closed the basement window. The three of us hunch over, racing toward the street. Kurt keeps sliding across the snow-covered driveway until he realizes he's forgotten to take the house slippers off. I'm laughing so hard at him I can't even breathe.

We reach Puck's car quickly. He pops open the trunk and pulls out a set of generic mechanics coveralls, slipping them on over his clothes. "I'll be back," he says, grabbing Quinn's spare key and jogging over to her car.

I turn to Kurt, and he's got his head turned up toward the stars, laughing silently. "I can't believe you almost got us caught," he says.

"Me? You're the one who almost wiped out on the snow back there."

"Well, you're the one who wanted to take a nap in the laundry bin."

"You're the one who took burglary tips from a Nancy Drew book."

We're both laughing now, our breaths making clouds in the cold air. "Yeah, well, you're—"

He doesn't get to finish that thought, as I lean in and kiss him. God, we're kissing, and it's everything I ever wanted. His lips are even softer than they look — does he moisturize them? Is that it? — but his kisses are firm, confident. He's done this before, countless times, and I hope I'm not too inexperienced for him. I wrap my arms around his waist, and his hands curl behind my neck, his fingernails scratching lightly against my scalp. He breathes out through his mouth shakily, and I steal the breath from him, leaning in to kiss him again.

"Blaine," he murmurs. "We should get in the car. People might see us."

I want to argue with him, but he's right — the O'Tooles wouldn't hesitate to call the police over two boys kissing in public. Kurt yanks open the door to the back seat and I dive in, reaching up for him. In an instant he's there, looming over me. He leans down and licks my bottom lip, which should be weird but is unbearably hot. He whimpers and does it again, and again.

He's tasting me.

God.

I grab the back of his head and pull him down hard, opening my mouth and letting our tongues touch tentatively. It's like I gave a signal without even realizing it. Suddenly he's lying fully on top of me, his tongue making probing swipes through my mouth, his hands rubbing across my chest, his thigh pressing hard between my legs. I'm just trying to keep up, hoping that my eagerness will overcome my lack of skill. His hands travel back up to my head, cradling it gently as he cards his fingers through my hair.

The frenzy fades after a minute, and we're kissing slowly, languidly. I wonder how many times we did this in the past. I'm envious that Kurt must remember them all, because this? This is heaven.

He pulls back after a car goes by, and breathes shakily. "We're not supposed to be doing this yet."

"Why not?" I whine, seeking out his mouth again. He leans away, just out of my reach.

"We made a deal, remember?"

"Yeah, that we'd try dating again. Don't people kiss when they date?"

"Blaine..."

"I mean, granted, most of my knowledge about dating comes from watching the CW, but still—"

He laughs, leaning back down to kiss a path along the side of my neck. "You're not supposed to be putting all your eggs in one basket," he murmurs, his tongue darting out to lick behind my ear. "You're supposed to date other people, too."

"I am, though."

"You are what?"

"Dating other people."

"What?"

"I have a date with a guy tomorrow night. So see? I am following the deal." I smile broadly, waiting for him to resume kissing me, but he lifts himself up on his elbows, looking down at me inscrutably.

"You have a date."

"Yeah."

"Tomorrow night."

"Yes. Now, can we get back to—"

"We made our deal, like, twelve hours ago. And you already have a date?" He's irritated, I realize. How can he be irritated, when I'm following the rules he made?

"You told me to go out with other people," I remind him defensively.

"I know I did."

"If you've changed your mind, then say so. I'll call the guy and cancel our—" I stop, sighing. "Wait, no. I don't have his number. But I just won't go. Say the word, and the deal's off."

"No." He shakes his head. "No, you should go. On your date. With the guy. That's the whole point of the deal." He sits up, looking very young, suddenly. "It's been a while since Puck left. I wonder if everything's going okay."

"Kurt—"

"Don't," he says quickly. "I'm trying to do what's right, here. Please, just... just don't."

Sighing, I sit up too. I don't know what to say. I don't want to go out with Sebastian. I want to pull Kurt back on top of me and make out with him for the next hour, or day, or rest of my life. Why is he making this so difficult?

Puck finally comes back to the car, flicking us a thumbs-up as he starts the engine and pulls away from the curb. On the drive back to Rob's apartment, he regales us with the details of how skillfully he impersonated a mechanic, and how Kurt's dad should really hire him, because he was that convincing. Kurt doesn't reply. He's looking out his window, and even though we're sitting side by side, it's like I can feel him slipping away from me.

We pull up outside the building. I don't make a move to get out, because I'm still waiting for something, anything, from Kurt.

He finally looks over at me. "Are we still on for the Lima Bean tomorrow morning?" he asks hoarsely.

"Of course we're still on. It'll be the highlight of my whole day."

He smiles a little, and I lean in to kiss his cheek. He lets me, which is something, I guess.

I get out of the car and wander back to Rob's apartment, feeling lost. How did I manage to mess this up?

Fifteen minutes later, while I'm preparing a cup of tea, my cell phone dings with a new text message. I dart over in relief, anxious to see what Kurt has written, but to my surprise, it's a message from my father: No need for the charade, Blaine, we would have left the cell outside if you didn't want to see us. I hope you're all right. We love you.

I lay in bed for a long time, the familiar tickle of insomnia keeping me awake. Finally I wander out into the living room, curling up on the couch with my face pressed into Kurt's pillow, his quilt from last night covering me. I'm surrounded by Kurt as I lie here alone.

Sleep doesn't come.