Over the next few weeks, fashion week came and went, leaving Kurt's schedule much less crowded with meetings and more time to spend with Blaine. The school year had just ended, meaning that Blaine and Effie got through the last few classes without a hitch, even though Effie didn't speak to him that much in school; Blaine still saw it as progress. Both had realized that they were falling in love with one another, but neither was willing to voice it, too afraid of the consequences if the feelings were not returned. It was silly, if you thought about it: they had said those three simple words to each other countless times as teenagers. But, now, saying it would be acknowledging that they saw a future together and that they wanted to spend their lives together. As the days grew warmer and the New York streets began to become unbearable, Kurt was leaning further and further towards leaving work earlier than planned to get to his beach house, though it would be the first summer there without Eli: this fact being the thing that caused his internal debate. They hadn't gone last summer because Eli had just passed and neither Effie nor himself really felt like it was okay to have fun yet; they weren't punishing themselves, they were grieving. But now, with the temperatures in the city being as high as they were, his need for a beach outweighed his anxiety of possibly depressing and nostalgic memories. It wasn't until a few days after he decided that he had thought about inviting Blaine. The two men were sitting on Blaine's roof, pink lemonade in hand, Blaine strumming through some old songs on the guitar. After a particularly heartwarming rendition of "California Girls", Blaine set down the guitar to take a drink.

"I can't believe, almost two decades later, you're still playing Katy Perry."

"What have I always said? Musical Icon."

"Okay, Blaine. Something tells me that you may have a girl crush on her," Kurt teased with a smirk and a lifted eyebrow.

"Okay, you caught me," Blaine joked back, "I'm straight for Katy Perry."

"Blaine you do know that means you would have to touch her vagina."

Blaine shivered and gave Kurt the most horrified look, "Never mind! I take it back!" He then jumped on Kurt's lap and nuzzled into his neck as their laughter subsided. He began to place slow, deliberate kisses all over Kurt's neck, paying particular attention to the hickeys he had made a few nights prior.

"Blaine as much as I love this, it's too hot. They invented air conditioning for a reason, you know."

"Mhhhhm," Blaine answered while continuing his ministrations, "But it's so nice out. I feel terrible wasting the wonderful weather inside." Blaine rolled off of him and slumped back, "Uh, it is hot though. You'd think with all the money floating around this city that they would find time to clean up the water so that we could actually swim in it. Or like at least make a pool or something." Kurt couldn't help but find Blaine's whining amusing.

That's when the thought struck him, though. Blaine and Ollie could come with them to the beach. Kurt had already been dreading the fact that he would have to spend two weeks in a row without Blaine and now he wouldn't have to. Quickly ignoring his so-called "rational" part of his brain telling him he was moving too fast, something he had come to do more often these days, he just decided to ask Blaine.

"You know, I have a house out on the Cape, which has glorious beaches and pools," Kurt smiled.

But Blaine, always the oblivious one, just continued to whine, "Kurt, you don't have to rub it in. We can't all be so lucky."

"No, you dufus, I'm not telling you just for kicks, I…well, I think you should come." At Blaine's confused look, Kurt elaborated, "I'm inviting you. With us. To the house." Kurt looked at him expectantly, waiting for the slightest hint of a negative reaction. But, he couldn't find one. After Blaine finally registered what he was saying, a huge grin was plastered on his face.

"You want me to come on vacation with you?"

"Yes," Kurt said as he looked deep into the other man's eyes, getting caught up in the flickering of the hazel orbs of light, "What do you say?"

If possible, Blaine's smile got even wider before adding, "I would love to," and moving over to kiss Kurt again, this time on the lips, long and passionate. They stayed like that for a while, before the heat became too much for them to bear, and they made their way inside to the confines of air conditioning. They made dinner together in a comfortable silence, occasionally stealing kisses or mentioning something that had happened to them earlier that day. It was all very domestic, something that neither man acknowledged vocally, but recognized, and knew that they enjoyed. For Kurt, he had done it all before—the domesticity; but, for some reason, he and Blaine doing it together never felt the same as he and Eli, not different in a better or worse way, just different, and that definitely helped with Kurt being able to get over the guilt of doing something so intimate with someone only a year after Eli had passed.

He had been sick for a while. There had been countless hospital visits, numerous medical trials, and in the last few months, many days where his husband couldn't even get out of bed. The process of watching his love slowly die, well, it was something that he couldn't describe; it provoked such a specific and targeted kind of sadness, a sadness that caused him actual chest pains during the whole ordeal. And though watching Eli slowly become a man who was just the shell of himself was the most terrible thing he had ever gone through, it had given him time to prepare himself with the grieving process. Eli's death was not a surprise, and even though it hurt like Hell and it hadn't stopped hurting, the pain had gotten significantly easier, even in the first months after his death. But the thing that really dulled the pain: Blaine. Kurt couldn't explain it; being around Blaine made him want to live life, not forgetting Eli, but being able to recover and keep living in the present—something Eli had fervently knocked into his brain before his death. In the weeks before his death, when things were only getting worse, he had beckoned Kurt and told him, "Kurt, we can't avoid this anymore. I really don't want to leave you or Effie, but I don't think God is giving me a choice," when Kurt started to cry, he used his energy to wipe the tear off his face before grasping his hands and continuing, "I love you so much, Kurt, and because I love you so much I want you to live life. This whole speech may seem entirely cliché, but please take it to heart. I'm okay with you loving again. Of course you will remember me, and I appreciate that, but let our relationship and the amazing times we have had together be a new point of growth in your life, not a hindrance to the amazing things you could experience, but don't because you feel bad about your dead husband."

The words had been blunt, and at the time Kurt was angry at Eli for saying such things, but when he thought about them after Blaine entered his life, they helped immensely.

xxxxxxx

Later that week while taking their daily stroll in the park, a tradition which Kurt made sure was kept even after Eli's death, much like his dad kept the tradition of Friday night dinners, Effie and Kurt were making their way past the Shakespeare Garden, and the topic of their vacation finally came up.

"Today Maggie asked me if we were gonna be up in Chatham this year," Effie said, clearly trying to broach the topic softly, not knowing where her father stood, "I didn't know what to tell her."

"Yah, I think so," Kurt said, turning towards his daughter, "how do you feel about it. I mean, I think we should definitely go, especially cause it's been so hot and the nearby ocean could probably help with that."

"Yah, okay, I was hoping you'd say yes, actually." After a few more seconds of silence, Effie probed further, "Are we aloud to invite people?"

"Sure, I mean, do you have a friend you would like to bring?"

Effie began to blush, still scared to ask her father what she had convinced herself she needed to do during this precise time. "Um, yah, maybe. It's a big house, you know, and it would feel huge with just the two of us."

"Effie, you're beating around the bush. Do you wanna bring Maggie or…Allie or Sarah, or?" He finally looked over to Effie, seeing that she was avoiding his gaze. Suddenly he understood. She wanted to bring a boy. A boy whom she was obviously dating because she was clearly trying to get over a blush. Ooh, Kurt thought, I'm going to have fun with this.

"Um, no, someone else; um, it's someone you haven't met," and then, trying to avoid the question, "Are you bringing someone?" It was meant to be a distracting question, and so she wasn't expecting that Kurt would answer in the affirmative.

"Yes, I was planning on it."

She looked up at him with shocked eyes, realizing that he was planning on bringing Blaine. Her immediate reaction was anger, again feeling like Blaine was encroaching on her late father's territory, but instead, she began to see it as an opportunity. As they walked under the Winterdale Arch, she decided to use this to her advantage.

"Oh. Good." It was Kurt's turned to be surprised now, as he was definitely expecting some anger on Effie's part. "So, if you're bringing your boyfriend, that means I can bring mine right?" Effie smirked and continued walking, even as her father paused.

xxxxxxx

"She wants to bring her boyfriend. Blaine, boyfriend. A boy whom she is dating, and I haven't even met the kid!" Kurt ranted into his phone later that night. Kurt was not particularly happy that Blaine seemed to find this whole conversation incredibly amusing.

"Blaine, it's not funny! What? Why are you laughing?"

"Kurt, please don't take this the wrong way, but you sound exactly like your father did when we started dating. This whole overprotective and papa bear demeanor, it's very Burt Hummel."

"Except if I had had a boyfriend at fifteen, he would've castrated the guy. I think I'm being very civil about this whole thing."

"I'm just waiting for you to have the awkward sex talk with her…"

At that, Kurt's eyes bugged out of his head, "Shit, I have to do that?" He whined, falling back onto his neatly made bed, while Blaine just continued to laugh.

"Kurt, honestly, I don't think it's a half bad idea," Blaine started once he had finally calmed down, "I mean, it's not like they're going to be in the house alone. We'll be with them, and it may give you a chance to get to know the kid; weed him out and see if he's worthy of Effie's standard." Kurt chuckled a bit at that. "And if, you know, you're worried about them alone, you could always look into getting her a chastity belt."

"Okay, we're done. Goodnight, Blaine."

"Night. I wish I could be there next to you to go to bed."

Kurt smiled. "Yah, I really wish you were here to," he said, absently looking at the space next to him. "Tell me again why we live 70 blocks from each other."

"Because you're the fashion tycoon who lives on the fancy street with the mucky mucks and I'm the hipster musician/teacher who wants to hang with the cool kids."

"You're ridiculous." They were both silent for a bit.

"God, Kurt, if you lived closer then you could just come over when I'm fucking horny." Blaine practically growled.

"Woah, I did not see that coming. Is Blainey having some sexual frustration?" Kurt teased.

"Yah, considering the fact that I haven't seen you in three days, I think I have a right to be sexually frustrated."

"What are you wearing?"

"You're agreeing to this?" Blaine said much too hopefully. Kurt couldn't stand to turn him down now.

"Yes, now answer before I have a chance to realize how awkward this is."

A/N: Okay, so the next chapter will include the trip up to the house, which means we get to meet Effie's boyfriend. And see more protective Kurt—Yay! I'm thinking there will be smut in the next chapter, and if not it will come soon because I want Kurt and Blaine to have a date night. Thanks for reviews! If you have any suggestions about Kurt/Blaine date night or maybe some Kurt meeting Effie's boyfriend material, it would be appreciated. Thanks!