Kurt was standing looking at a four-sided activities board pillar when a man approached him.
"You're thinking about signing up, aren't you?" the man asked in a lovely British accent.
"Oh, uh." Kurt stuttered, not knowing what to say. "You are?"
"Adam, a senior and a founder and fearless leader of the Adam's Apples, the group you are very seriously joining."
"I'm Kurt."
"Kurt Hummel. Your performance in your chorale course the first day was breathtaking. Now, you've been here almost a week and you're wondering where you fit in and how you can make college different than high school. And how joining an outside group would fit into your already overbooked schedule? And no, I'm not a mind reader. I'm just astute, like you. We need you. We want you." Adam said in one long breath, followed by a big smile.
"I'm sorry, but I don't think I'll be joining," Kurt said as he moved to walk around the opposite side of the pillar.
"Man, a hard sell. I respect that, but I'm not willing to go down without a fight. Come hear us sing. No strings attached. No secret time-share condo Ponzi scheme. Just our voices and your ears," Adam said as he followed Kurt through the atrium.
Kurt relented and followed Adam to the small auditorium off the atrium where the Adam's Apples were awaiting Adam's arrival to start their rehearsal.
"I present to you, the Adam's Apples."
Kurt took a seat near the front of the auditorium and was presented with the most unusual ballad arrangement of "Baby Got Back" imaginable, complete with choreography and Adam singing lead. By a few lines into the song, Kurt was smiling and laughing so hard he had to cover his mouth to keep from laughing out loud.
After the song finished, Adam turned the rehearsal over to a fellow member and they started working on another song that Adam did not sing lead on.
"So, what did you think?"
"Well, I haven't had that much fun watching a group perform before."
"That's the point. Music school is tough and competitive and someone is always there to tell you how you can 'improve' some aspect of your performance. That's not a complaint. That's why we all came to school. To learn to be better at what we love. But sometimes, I just like to do what I love because I love it. No other reason."
"I can understand that. My roommate found this karaoke place in town when my boyfriend and I were gone to visit my parents in DC. We go there every Saturday now, for the same reason. Just to sing and have fun doing it. We've met some nice people there too. No one boos. It's a nice place. You could come with us sometime if you want."
"That sounds like fun."
"When do the Apples meet?"
"Well, now obviously and on Wednesdays at the same time. For an hour each time."
"I'll think about it. That's the best answer I can give you for now. This is my first semester and I also work 20 hours a week and I have to be at work by 3:00 every day. It really sounds like fun, but it's so early in the semester, I really don't know what to expect as far as the amount of time I'm going to have to spend daily on schoolwork."
"I understand." Adam pulled his phone out. "Put your number in and I'll let you know about the karaoke on Saturday. I'll see if any of the Apples are interested too."
Kurt took the phone and put his number in. Adam clicked on the number and hung up so Kurt would have his number too. Adam shook hands with Kurt and went back up onstage to join in the rehearsal. Later that afternoon, when Kurt got to the Navigator, he opened the video he secretly took while the Apples were singing, paused it and took a screen shot and added it to Adam's contact info. He couldn't wait to show the video to Sebastian and Sam after he got off from work.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
Kurt showered and found that Sam and Sebastian had pretty much finished dinner by the time he got out to the kitchen.
"You guys aren't trying to prevent me from helping are you?"
"No. I just got home a little early and started prepping stuff and when Sam got here, he started helping me and we just managed to get dinner on the table a little early tonight."
"Okay. It looks great. I want you guys to see this video I took earlier this afternoon. He told them the story first and then played the video. They were both cracking up watching it.
"That has to be the most ridiculous arrangement of a song, ever. There should be an award for making that song into a ballad," Sebastian said, still laughing.
"Well, the guy singing lead - his name is Adam and he's British. He's the leader of the group called 'The Adam's Apples'. He tried to convince to join by inviting me to watch them perform that."
"Well, he's bold," Sam said.
"I invited him to go to the karaoke place some time. I also told him that I am probably too busy to join his group, although it does look like a lot of fun, don't you think?"
"Well, he definitely has a sense of humor," Sebastian said.
"I could definitely use some fun times at school. The group meets on Mondays and Wednesday for an hour. I might go again to see if the other things they do are that much fun or if that's the only crazy arrangement they've done."
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
Kurt had finished the curtains the evening before, but they didn't have a curtain rod. Sebastian had gotten a rod and the clips to hang the curtains with on the way home from his classes.
Sebastian ironed the panels while Kurt worked on getting the curtain rod supports up. They put the clips on while the panels were laid out on the bed. They slipped the rod through and got the end caps on and stood on the bed to fasten the rod into the supports. Once it was fastened in place, they got down to have a look.
"What do you think?" Kurt asked.
Sebastian straightened the bed up from where they had been standing on it and put the throw pillows in place and then moved back from the bed again. "I think they finish off the room. It looks complete now." He moved to where Kurt was standing and wrapped his arms around his waist from behind. "I think they look really good."
"Me too. That vintage fabric your mom found looks really good with the colors we chose and the fabric we got in London."
Kurt went and got Sam to show him.
"Oh, hey. Those look nice. Good job. Wanna watch Dr Who?"
"Sure. One episode. Then I have some reading to do," Kurt said. He grabbed Sebastian's hand.
"Wait. I wanted to to take a picture to send to Mom." Kurt let go of his hand and waited for him to take the picture. Sebastian reached back out to him and Kurt took his hand and they went to watch.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
Kurt and Sam were gone early and Sebastian knew that he didn't have enough schoolwork to fill a whole day. He worked on it for a few hours, and then he switched to doing laundry. He got everything hung up or dried and put away before lunch time. He ate and went back to his schoolwork, which only took another hour or so. He felt guilty sitting around the house while Kurt was struggling to keep up, but for the life of him, he couldn't think of a single other thing he could do to make it easier for Kurt. Kurt seemed to be on the verge of having his feelings hurt when he was left out of making dinner the night before. He clearly enjoyed the camaraderie of working with him and Sam. They always laughed and teased and joked with each other while they cooked and obviously Kurt needed to be a part of that.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
Sam got home before Kurt. Sebastian mentioned what he thought he saw in Kurt the night before.
"You're probably right. If we do it without him, in an effort to save him time, I think he'll feel like we're leaving him out. He wants to cook with us, so we should just wait for him to come help."
Sam went to change into his pajamas because he didn't like cooking in his uniform.
"I see the laundry fairy visited again today. I'm going to need to start leaving him a tip or something if he keeps this up."
"You're welcome. Please don't tell me you feel left out of someone does your laundry for you," Sebastian teased.
"No way, dude. Laundry is nowhere near my top ten fun things to do with my spare time. I really appreciate you doing it."
"I have all this free time and the two of you are gone so much, I feel useless sometimes."
"I'm sure once you get a little further into the semester, you'll have plenty of work to keep you busy. It can't be much longer before all those lit professors think that you've had plenty of time to read all those books and start making you write papers about them."
"I'm sure," Sebastian said.
Kurt came in the door, put his backpack on the rack and walked directly to their bedroom and closed the door.
"Looks like it's been another long day for him," Sam said.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
Not long after dinner Kurt pulled the covers back, took his shirt off and got into bed lying face down. Sebastian couldn't resist giving him a massage to make his back feel better, so he went and showered quickly. He climbed into bed with Kurt's lotion and started working the knots out of Kurt's back. "Mon ange, you're so tense."
"That feels so good. I'll try harder to relax." Kurt thought about Paris and took several deep breaths and let them out slowly.
"What's got you so stressed?"
"It's just the lack of routine, I think. Everything is still so new in the semester that I have to look at my daily schedule every time I finish a class just to know where I'm supposed to be next. Today was my first regular Tuesday/Thursday classes day."
"I can see how that would be stressful. You have so many different classes. Hopefully, in a week or two it won't feel so strange anymore."
"That's what I'm hoping too. I'll be getting up early tomorrow. Can you sleep yet?"
"I don't know, but I'm willing to try." He got up and turned off the lights. Kurt was already waiting for him to snuggle up as the little spoon again. Sebastian lay down on his side and scooted back and Kurt pulled him even closer.
"I love you."
"I love you, mon ange," Sebastian replied and within a matter of minutes, he could tell that Kurt had fallen asleep.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
Early the next morning, Kurt slipped out of the bed. Sebastian stirred a bit, but figured that Kurt had to use the bathroom and would be right back. He was back in a few minutes, but he was dressed and he was holding clothes for Sebastian to put on.
"Mon ange, it's dark outside. Why are we getting dressed?"
"I want to go somewhere with you. Please?"
Sebastian could never refuse Kurt a simple request, and he took the clothes from Kurt and went to the bathroom and returned a few minutes later and put some shoes on and followed Kurt out to the Navigator. He climbed into the passenger side and tipped his head back, closed his eyes as Kurt had requested, and relaxed. Kurt drove to the center of town and parked in an empty lot to the side of the municipal building. He walked around to Sebastian's door, opened it for him, told him that he could open his eyes, and then led him by the hand to a bricked park area between the municipal building and the art museum that they hadn't yet visited. Kurt timed their arrival to be just at sunrise. He led Sebastian to the area near the Calder statue and asked, "Will you dance with me?"
"Always."
Kurt pulled out his phone and stuck it in his shirt pocket after he started the music. He wrapped his arms around Sebastian's neck, keeping enough distance between them that the music could still be heard well. He started singing "Me and You" to Sebastian while they danced, only changing the lyrics slightly.
Ordinary, no, really don't think so
Not a love this true
Common destiny
We were meant to be
Me and you
Like a perfect scene from a movie screen
Where every dream comes true
Suited perfectly for eternity
Me and you
Every day, I need you even more
At the nighttime too
There's no way
I could ever let you go
All I want is you
Every day I live
I try my best to give
All I have to you
I thank the stars above
That we share this love
Me and you
He continued singing until the end of the song. When the music stopped, he took a small step back and took Sebastian's hands.
"We've been together for three months and I know that I want that to continue forever. Will you marry me? In June?"
"Yes. A million times, yes." He stepped forward and pulled Kurt into a huge bear hug. "Yes, I will marry you." He loosened the hug enough that they could kiss. "I love you so much."
They walked hand in hand to a nearby ledge where they could sit and watch the sun rise.
Sebastian wrapped his arm around Kurt's shoulders and Kurt wrapped his around Sebastian's waist and Kurt leaned in and kissed Sebastian on the cheek. "I love you. I didn't get rings because I love the ones we have. I want to keep wearing these even as our wedding rings, if that's okay with you. These mean more to me than any fancy expensive ring."
"I'm fine with that. Having expensive fancy rings is not important to me. Us being together is what's important." He turned and kissed Kurt. "This is beautiful."
"We talked about watching a sunrise together that night on the Seine."
"I remember."
They just sat there holding each other close for a while.
Eventually, Kurt said, "Let's go home and make breakfast before we head off to classes."
"One more kiss first." Sebastian leaned in and Kurt met him with a passionate kiss. No one was around because it was so early and Kurt was a lot less concerned about PDA than he had been in Ohio anyway.
Sebastian stood and took Kurt's hand, walked him to the opposite side of the bench and pulled Kurt into his lap. "I want us to take a picture here together." Kurt pulled his phone out of his shirt pocket and took a few shots of them together with the sunrise in the background, and then they walked back to the Navigator hand in hand.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
"Does Sam know?" Sebastian asked on the ride home.
"Only the two of us know."
"Do you not want him to know?"
"Of course, I do. I just wanted telling people to be something we do together."
"We can talk more this evening. I want to take you out to dinner, please?"
"I'd love to. I'll tell Sam that we're going out when I drop him off at school. We can tell him about this morning whenever you want. That goes for everyone else too. If you think that people will be happy for us, then we can start telling people. You can think about and we can talk later, like you said."
They pulled up in the parking space and went into their apartment. Sam was in the shower. Kurt and Sebastian made breakfast together for all three of them and had it waiting on the table when Sam came out to the kitchen.
"I thought Sebastian's birthday is Friday. Did I mix things up and it's today?" Sam asked seeing the pancakes and eggs on the table.
"No, you're right. My birthday is Friday."
"Oh, okay." He sat down with them and started eating. "Well thanks for the hot breakfast. This is really good."
"You're welcome," Kurt responded.
"Something's going on," Sam said.
"He can read me like a book," Kurt laughed looking at Sebastian.
"Well, as your best friends, we aren't faced with the ice king with the unreadable expressions," Sam teased. "So, spill already. I know you want to tell me or you two would have hidden out in your room and not made the three of us a hot breakfast to share."
Sebastian couldn't hold it in anymore. "Kurt got me up before the sun came up and drove me downtown to the park by the art museum and he asked me to marry him as we watched the sunrise."
"Awe. Seriously? That's really sweet. Congratulations."
"Thanks," they both said in unison.
"We haven't decided who all we're going to tell yet," Kurt said.
"Got it. For me to know and maybe no one else to find out." Sam smiled and winked.
The three of them gathered up what they needed and headed out. Kurt told Sam about not being home for dinner on the way to school.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
Sebastian got home before Kurt and laid out clothes for Kurt to wear and changed. They were going to a nice place, not expensive, but not a buffet or fast food place. Kurt came in and jumped in the shower, blew his hair dry and found the clothes waiting for him on the back of his desk chair when he came out of the bathroom. He put them on and went out to the living room where Sebastian was waiting for him.
Sebastian wouldn't tell him where they were going, just that it was some place new and that it would be fun. They drove north from the apartment and less than 15 minutes later, they pulled up to a Jamaican restaurant.
"Ooh, this does look fun."
"It has good reviews online, so I thought we'd give it a try."
They went in and were seated and started to look through their menus. "How about we do what we did at that Peruvian place in Paris and just order a bunch of different small things and share them all?" Kurt asked.
"Sound fun to me."
While they waited for their food to come after they had ordered, Sebastian started the conversation. "I have something I want to talk about."
"Okay."
"I want us to go to Paris for Winter Break. And please listen before you say anything."
Kurt nodded.
"I've started tutoring people again. I will have enough money to pay for your ticket, but I know you don't like it when I just try to pay for things for you. So, I would like us to discuss how we can make this work. You already work really hard to pay for your expenses and Sam's. My dad is covering mine. Please consider letting me work and cover your ticket to go to France with me."
Kurt didn't really know what to say immediately.
"If you don't want to go to France, I'll go wherever you're going. I'll still keep tutoring and saving the money for us for the future. Please just consider it. If the situation were reversed, would you be willing to pay for me?"
"You know I would."
"Then we just need to figure out what we both really want to happen over Winter Break and then work together to make it happen. I love you and most of all I want to spend Christmas with you." Sebastian reached out for Kurt's hand across the table. Kurt responded by taking his hand.
"Okay. When we get home, we'll look at our school calendars and see when we're done and make some plans," Kurt said.
Sebastian squeezed his hand gently, and then changed his hand's position so that he could run his thumb across Kurt's ring.
"Do you want to tell your mom when she comes this weekend?"
"Yes, definitely."
Kurt smiled.
The waiter arrived with their dishes and two empty dinner plates. They split all of the items and enjoyed their meal. They were too full to eat all of what they had ordered and decided to take the rest home for Sebastian to eat for lunch the next day.
On the drive home, Kurt asked, "Where do you want to go when your mom's here? You know she'll want to take you out for your birthday."
"I'm not sure. We'll probably just decide on a type of food and look for some place online and go there and eat since we haven't really tried many places yet. This place tonight was good. We can add it to our list of places we like. We've got three now. When I was looking online for a place for tonight, I found a sandwich place owned by a guy from Paris. All the bread is fresh made and the photos looked really good. It's only open for lunch though. Maybe we could to there on Sunday."
"That sounds like a good idea. Was it expensive?"
"No. From what I could see everything was between $5-$10."
"That's not bad. Same price range as the other three places we've added to the list so far."
They walked in to find Sam shooting things with Finn, Puck and Artie online. Sebastian put his leftovers box in the fridge and checked to see whether Sam had packed lunches for them tomorrow and found that he had.
He thanked him for the lunches on the way into their bedroom and waved good night.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
Sebastian entered the room to find Kurt standing there holding out a pair of pajama pants for him. He took them and went into the bathroom and showered. When he came back out, Kurt was dressed in his pajama pants and nothing else. There was only one light on in the room and there was music playing. The way that Kurt had designed the room, with the bed under the window in the alcove, left the center of the room open.
"Dance with me?"
Sebastian tossed his clothes into the laundry basket and went straight to Kurt. They slow danced around the room for quite a while. Kurt danced them over to the edge of the bed and Sebastian laughed when he saw the marker was on his pillow.
He lay down in the bed on his back and let Kurt have his fun. After much contemplation, Kurt began connecting the dots. When he was done he picked his phone up off his side table and took a photo. He turned the phone and showed Sebastian the picture. Kurt had spelled the word "MINE" out across his chest.
"Awesome, even better than the horse." He raised up and propped on his elbows. Kurt leaned forward and kissed him.
"You better go wipe it off before we get it on the sheets somehow."
Sebastian turned off the light when he climbed back into bed. "I should have asked. Did you want to dance more or are you ready to lie down?"
"Stay."
"Always."
"Sit next to me. I want to tell you something. I will more than likely still call you my boyfriend. I like French better for this particular situation. 'Mon financé' sounds completely different from 'ma fiancée'. And unless I name you every time, I could unintentionally mislead people into thinking I'm engaged to a girl."
"I guess I had never thought about since the part of my life that I can actually remember I spoke French most of the time."
"I just didn't want you to be offended or think that you've been demoted or something," Kurt teased.
"I get it."
"Plus, I guess it just sounds pretentious to me because it was sort of thrown at me with Finn and Rachel being engaged. 'She's my fiancée', like it was some badge of honor like his letter jacket, giving him privileges I was unable to obtain. My baggage, not yours. I just didn't want you hurt by my word choice at some point."
"No offense will be taken. Boyfriend, fiancé, eventually husband. As long as they refer to me, I'm good with it."
"Of course they all refer or will refer to you and only you." Being silly, Kurt started singing, "You're the one that I want. You're the only one I want, ooh, ooh, ooh. The one I need. Oh, yes indeed."
"Grease?" Sebastian started laughing.
"It popped into my mind, what can I say? Music theater is my default mode I guess."
"Well, you always make me laugh, which is awesome. Come over closer. Can I hold you?"
"Always." Kurt scooted as close as he could get.
"Here in the middle and lean back." Kurt climbed over Sebastian's leg and sat in the V. Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt. Kurt leaned back at an angle so he could kiss Sebastian. He missed at first, grazing Sebastian's jaw near his ear because it was pitch black in the room.
Kurt laughed. "Turn this way so I can kiss those beautiful lips."
"I love that we laugh together."
"Me too." Their lips finally met and they spent several minutes gently kissing.
"I need to ask you something serious," Sebastian said.
"Okay."
"We're taking things really slow, which I appreciate more than I can express in words, but what if by June I can't... let you...?"
Kurt could feel the tension radiating through Sebastian's whole body.
Kurt moved and pushed Sebastian's legs back so they were touching and sat down in his lap facing him. He scooted up really close so their chests were nearly flush. He put one hand on Sebastian's shoulder for balance and tipped Sebastian's chin up gently with his other hand. "Sebastian Alexander Smythe. I love you. Whether we ever do anything that we aren't doing now or not, I still want to be with you. Do you want to be with me even if we never do anything that we aren't doing now?"
"Yes."
"I said I'd never pressure you. I meant that. I'm in love with you, not with what you can do with part of your body. Are you having second thoughts?"
"Oh, God no. No, I'm not having second thoughts. I meant it when I said 'yes' that I want to marry you. I just started panicking this afternoon when I thought about how I might never be able to let you... that close to me. I still feel broken sometimes, like I'll never be whole again."
"Maybe one day, I'll be able to let you that close to me. Only time will tell. If it becomes that big of a deal some day, I'm sure there are therapists we can see just for that specific topic, but I'm not concerned about it right now. I like the pace were taking. It feels really comfortable and safe."
Kurt leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Sebastian's neck.
"Whenever you're feeling like you somehow aren't good enough, just be honest with me, okay? I will remind you how much you mean to me. No flattery, just truth, like we promised. I'm glad you told me your concern. That way we dealt with it and prevented it from building up in your mind until you were convinced it was true."
"Me too. I get myself all worked up over nothing sometimes."
"It's not nothing. Fear is real. It can be disabling. I don't want your concerns to become huge fears." Kurt caressed Sebastian's cheek with his right hand. "I'm here for you just like you're here for me. I was overwhelmed last night and you took care of me. When you're overwhelmed, I'll take care of you. If we're ever both overwhelmed at the same time, we'll just strip down to our pajamas and lie in bed and kiss until we feel better."
"I like that plan," Sebastian started gently running his hands up at down Kurt's back.
"I'm sure," Kurt laughed.
"Actually, I think that's what we need to do right now."
"Oh, really?"
"Really."
Kurt quickly kissed Sebastian's cheek and moved off his lap and plopped down on his back on his side of the bed. "Come on then. You're wasting valuable kissing time. It was your idea after all."
Sebastian laughed and put the extra pillows next to the bed, and then slid down to lie on his side of the bed.
"The only thing I can kiss on you from way over there is your hand," he said as he snatched Sebastian's hand and started kissing it. He moved slowly toward Sebastian kissing his wrist, his forearm, near his elbow, his biceps, his shoulder, his neck. By then, Sebastian was moaning. "Should I stop?"
"No. Please continue."
"Unless you roll on your side, I'll have to straddle you to continue."
Sebastian rolled toward the center of the bed. Kurt continued kissing the other side of his neck and then back down to his other hand. Sebastian continued to moan quietly occasionally. Kurt lay back down on his side facing Sebastian and kissed his forehead, each eyelid, his cheeks, his chin, and back to his lips. "I love you. I was so happy when you said 'yes' this morning. Loving someone and being loved in return is my dream come true."
Kurt continued speaking, "I heard a song on the radio once and the chorus stuck in my mind. 'I gotta couple dents in my fender, got a couple rips in my jeans. Try to fit the pieces together, but perfection is my enemy. And on my own I'm so clumsy, but on your shoulders I can see, I'm free to be me.' It just struck me as perfect in its own imperfect way. I wanted that with someone - the freedom to be myself and still be accepted. You don't need to see yourself as broken. I don't. You might be a bit dented here and there. We all are. No one manages to make it to adulthood in 'mint' condition. Certainly not me. And perfection has always been my enemy. And my incessant need to control everything. Our dents might not be identical, but we both have them. But when I look at you, that's not what I see. You know that, right?"
"It's sinking in, slowly."
"I'm not one of those 'everything happens for a reason' kind of people. But I think we can learn something from everything that happens. Sometimes what we learn is that some people are awful. Sometimes we learn that some people who have had awful things happen to them are beautiful amazing people. That's what I see when I look at you."
Sebastian shifted enough to make their lips brush together again. Kurt returned the kiss.
"So will you let me take you to France for Winter Break?"
"Yes. This is one of those times when I am willfully choosing to let go of my incessant need to control everything. I want to be with you. And I don't want us to fight over where to go or how to get there."
"Really? You mean it?"
"I mean it. I can't keep refusing to let you do things for me. It obviously means a lot to you and it makes you happy. I can't let my stubborn pride steal away your joy like that. It would just be wrong."
"While I'm home tomorrow, I'm going to get the semester calendars for all of our schools and make a combined calendar so we can figure out dates for stuff. I'm pretty sure I get three weeks at Winter Break. We have to figure out what we'll do about your parents because I'm betting they'll be annoyed if we don't go to Ohio."
"Not as much as you might think. When I talked to Dad when we were still in Paris, I warned him that I may never go back to Lima, like ever. I don't honestly know if I will or not. But I'm pretty sure that he understood that I was serious. I told him that he and Carole could come here or we might be able to go to DC."
"Alright. When I make the calendar, I'll see what I can figure out for us to go to DC another time this semester. I've never done the big American Thanksgiving meal, so I won't be missing anything. If Burt and Carole are still going to do that in Lima, then maybe they'd be okay with us doing something different. Your dad would probably like it if we had burgers, fries, beer and whatever his favorite dessert is."
Kurt laughed. "You're right. He would love that."
"I don't need gifts for Christmas. Neither of us really do. Neither of us is religious. So, I think we'll need to think about what we're celebrating and how we want to do it. I know you like to give gifts, so maybe still giving out one small, significant gift to each person in your family would still be fun to do."
"That seems reasonable."
"What I would like to do with you is be with you. We could go somewhere we want to visit and just get away together. I think that would be a nice long term goal and we don't even need to do it at Christmas time. I'd just like for us to have some time each year when you're off from work and we don't have school and it's just the two of us like it was in Paris this summer."
"I have to think about my job too, though. I need to talk to Joe and get an idea of what he was expecting. Since I'm a student, I'm hoping that he expected me to go away for Winter Break."
"Me too. But if you have to stay in order to keep your job, I'll stay. I'm not going to spend winter break without you."
"That's not fair to you."
"Fair shmair." He kissed Kurt. "Enough talking, more kissing."
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
Kurt spent the time between his classes finalizing the plans for Sebastian's surprise party the next night. Thad had gotten the key and the visitor parking pass. Kurt sent him the address of the bakery he had ordered the cake from and the address of the dollar store nearby so that Thad could pick up the cake and some balloons on the way to the apartment. He arranged for Thad to arrive by 5:30 and for Nick and Jeff to get there at 5:45. All three of them asked what to get Sebastian and Kurt had asked them not to bring gifts. He mentioned if they wanted to do something, they could pay for Sebastian's dinner or something. By the time he got to work, he had gotten all of the details arranged.
He had arrived 15 minutes early intentionally.
"Hey Joe, do you have time to talk for a few minutes?"
"Sure, Kurt. What can I do for you?"
"Well, I wanted to ask about school breaks and scheduling. I didn't know if you were expecting me to work during the school breaks."
"Honestly, you're really good and you've been a great addition to our shop. I'd love for you to be here all the time, but I know that you're a student and students tend to want to leave town during school breaks."
"I'll just put all my cards on the table. Sebastian and I are getting married next June. This is a nice place to work and I have to work in order to eat and pay my bills. Sebastian and I are half French and we were in France the whole summer before I came here in July. We'd like to spend time there every year. I'm trying to figure out what the limit of me being off during school breaks is before you decide I'm not worth the hassle and you replace me."
"No beating around the bush. I like that. You work hard. You show up on time. You don't cost me extra because of mistakes. Give me a little time to think about it. I'll come out and talk to you later."
Kurt got his coveralls on and started on the car he was assigned to work on. An hour later, Joe came out to talk to him.
"So, here's my offer. You work the school breaks, covering for people who want off, in addition to your regular hours. We are closed Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and New Year's Day, with the exception of towing/rescue service crew, which you don't work. So, you'd have the official holiday days off. And I will offer you eight weeks off in the summer starting whenever you want, which I am assuming will be mid-June to early August. I will try to get the guys who want full weeks off to take them in late May, early June and in August."
"And if I wanted the school holiday weeks off?"
"I could only offer you 2-3 weeks in the summer because the school breaks would be about 5-6 weeks of time off, depending on the exact schedule for the school breaks."
"Thank you. I'll talk to Sebastian tonight when I get home."
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
Kurt walked in to find Sebastian watching a movie and he could smell dinner. He went to the bathroom and came back out in his pajama pants and a t-shirt. He plopped onto the couch and put his head in Sebastian's lap and stretched out.
"Why is dinner already done?"
"Because after Sam texted saying that he wasn't coming home until later, I thought we could use the time to dance and then eat, unless you're too tired."
"I won't turn down dancing with you unless I'm literally too tired to stand." Kurt got up and held his hand out. Sebastian turned the move and TV off with the remote. He turned on the music he had prepped and pulled Kurt up close. "Mmm," Kurt said as he nuzzled Sebastian's neck.
Eventually Sebastian danced Kurt across the room to the table and let him sit down. He served their dinner and sat next to Kurt. There was a stack of papers on the opposite side of the table.
Kurt cleared the table and put some things in to soak and the rest in the dishwasher. He sat back down next to Sebastian at the table to look at the calendar pages he had made.
"I talked to Joe. I'll tell you what he said before we start looking through these. I can either have all the school breaks off and two or three weeks off this summer or I can work all of the school breaks, including covering for people's vacations, and have eight weeks off next summer after we get married."
"Eight weeks, hmm."
"That's really what I want to do if only have those two options. If we go to France over Winter Break it would only be for a couple of weeks. It's a lot of money to spend on a ticket to only get to stay such a short period of time. If we go in the summer, we could stay even longer than we did this summer."
"Okay."
"Okay?" Kurt turned to look at him. "But you really wanted to go home for Winter Break."
"My home is with you." He kissed Kurt. "I meant what I said. I want to be where you are."
"I don't want to keep you from going. Your mom will pay for your ticket and I feel like I'm making you miss out on Christmas." Kurt closed his eyes, willing himself not to cry.
Sebastian ran his thumb across Kurt's cheek catching the tear that escaped. "I am choosing this. Please don't feel bad. I feel like no matter what I say, you're going to be sad."
"It's one of those situations, where there's no solution that makes everyone happy."
"It is. But we can choose to be happy that we're together."
"I guess I just still struggle with feeling like you'll be mad at me later because you stayed and didn't do what you wanted to."
"What I wanted to do was make sure that we were together. I wanted make sure that I could take you to France with ME. I wanted YOU with ME. But if I can't have that in France, then I'll have that here. You and me here. It wasn't about ME being in France, even though I'd love to do that. In a world where I get to choose all options I want, I would choose you and me in Paris. If I only get to pick one or the other, I choose you. Always."
Kurt got up and straddled Sebastian's lap and wrapped his arms around his neck. "You're sure?"
Sebastian wrapped his arms around Kurt's waist to stabilize him. "I'm absolutely sure."
"Okay." Kurt kissed Sebastian gently, climbed off his lap and sat back in his own chair.
"So, the next part of the plan is to make sure that Sam gets to go to visit his family. He'll need a plane ticket. I looked at bus tickets. They're about $100 cheaper, but it takes like 20 hours each way and he only has 11 days off. Spending two of them in a bus isn't practical, when he could fly there a lot more quickly."
"So, we split the cost three ways. We find the best ticket price and we tell him up front that it's what we want to do for him for Christmas, but that the ticket prices will go up a lot if we wait until later to buy the ticket. We'll see what he says. I won't manipulate him into owing us the other third of the cost. And maybe he doesn't want to go. We need to find out first."
"Deal."
Kurt picked up the calendar pages and looked through them. He left November and December next to each other so he could see both. "So, we'll be home every school break. I think your job will be to find us things to do. We don't have to do something every day. Just things that we haven't gone to see around here or places we could go visit. Sam only gets 11 days off, so he will be here during the last part of our breaks, but he'll be gone every day until 6:00. So, we'll still have a lot of alone time." He smiled thinking about it.
"Your school has a 'Winter Term' on the calendar. What exactly is that?"
"I can take a 3-credit class during Winter Term, to get ahead, which would be a good idea if we are going to pretty much spend all summer in France. I'll go talk to my advisor about it. I can also take two classes this summer. One during the 3-week term right after spring semester ends and another one later in the summer. I can do the work in France. Have you thought about taking summer classes?"
"Well, only after you asked me about whether I could graduate in three years. And to do that, I'll need to take two classes this summer. There are really complicated rules about graduating in six terms. But there are online courses and I'll find two that will work and enroll in those."
"So, we've decided that we'll stay home through all the school breaks, find fun things to do together here when I'm not working. I'll take a Winter Term course. We'll go to Sam's graduation. We'll get married in June. We'll each take two summer courses. And we'll spend eight weeks in Paris."
"That sums it up."
"So, then we move on to the budgeting, which we can work on a little later because I want to dance more before Sam gets home."
"Sounds perfect." Sebastian collected the calendar sheets and put them in their room while Kurt restarted the music.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
Sebastian took on the task of budgeting because Kurt still had homework left to do. He ended up giving up because he just didn't have all of the information that he needed and he couldn't interrupt Kurt's schoolwork to get it. He showered early and got in bed to read. Kurt finally finished what he was doing and got into bed with Sebastian.
"We'll work on the budget again together, okay? I couldn't do it on my own because I needed information from you."
"Okay. Can we turn the lights out or do you still want to read?"
"I'm done for now."
They both turned their lights off. "We talked about so many other things earlier, I didn't think to ask, but did you find a time when we could go to DC again? I'll need to plan things with Carole. The sooner I can ask off or arrange to trade shifts, the better."
"Well, rather than going there, I thought we'd invite them here. I couldn't really figure out a way to be gone long enough to make it worth the drive. Leaving Saturday at 12:30 and needing to be back the next evening is a really quick trip. The third week in October I have a 3-day fall break, but you don't. And that weekend is your school's family weekend. So, I thought maybe we could have Burt and Carole here for 4 days. I know you'd still have class during the day on those weekdays, but I could find something for them to do, even if it's just let your dad sit on the couch and watch sports all day. We get cable TV with our rent and we never use it. He'd probably enjoy a vacation of sitting on his butt since he's so busy all the time."
"You're right. He was a homebody before he ran for office. He was never into doing things like going to museums or anything. If I plan well, I might be able to manage to have those two evenings be homework free. Maybe the professors will go easy on us since there's a big school event that weekend and they obviously want the students to participate in the Family Weekend events. I'll see what I can find out about the event schedule."
"Good plan. How about snuggling and sleeping instead of plotting and planning?"
"Excellent idea, but I suggest the addition of kissing too."
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
Sebastian was surprised by the birthday breakfast that greeted him when he and Kurt went to the kitchen to eat.
"Thanks, Sam. This looks fantastic. I'm guessing that the birthday breakfast is some sort of Hummel tradition."
"Definitely. I was surprised by my very first birthday breakfast celebration this year. I'm just carrying on with the tradition."
"And it wouldn't have been a surprise if I had come out here and done it. You'd have felt me get out of bed."
Kurt and Sam sang to him and let him choose first. They split what was left. After breakfast, Sam grabbed his stuff and went to the Navigator to wait for Kurt. Kurt gave Sebastian a hug and a kiss goodbye.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
Kurt was surprised to get a call from Papi on the drive to school.
"Good morning, Papi, or afternoon there."
"I'm fine. Thank you."
"Sebastian is doing well too."
"Oh, really? Sure. Do what you think is best. I already signed everything I needed to sign. So, please do what you think will be best."
"I'm sorry, but I need to go. I'm driving to class."
"Yes. I'll call back tonight. You can talk to Sebastian at the surprise party I planned for him. It will be a little late for you, but I'll call a little after midnight your time. The party's at 6:00."
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
Kurt texted Sebastian at 4:00 and asked him to buy a pad of stave paper at the Yale bookstore before he headed home. It was completely true that his own bookstore had sold out, but he waited to ask until it would buy him the time he needed to get home before Sebastian.
He arrived to find Nick, Jeff, and Thad waiting for him.
"It's great to see you guys. I have to take the fastest shower ever. I'll be right back."
Ten minutes later, Kurt was back and Sam was home too.
"Okay, tie the balloons to the back of that kitchen chair," pointing to the one that Sebastian always sat in. "Sam, can you go grab our two desk chairs and put them up to the table as well?"
"Sure," Sam left to get the chairs.
"Thad, can you take the cake out of the container and set it in front of the balloons?"
Sam grabbed the plastic lid and put it out of sight.
"Perfect. Thank you all for coming. Let's just go sit on the sofa and wait for him to get here. We won't hide or anything. I don't want to scare him, just surprise him."
They talked about their classes and their summers for a while and then they heard Sebastian unlocking the front door. He came in and hung his bag on the hall tree and turned to walk into the living room and saw everyone.
"Surprise!" he heard from all five of them. He looked around and saw the balloons and cake. Kurt got up and walked over to him and hugged him. "Happy birthday, mon choix," he said into Sebastian's ear.
"Wow. I am really surprised. I had no idea." He pulled Kurt close. "You are very sneaky."
"Come on, we're doing things backwards and eating the cake before dinner." Kurt motioned for everyone to come sit at the table. They all sang Happy Birthday to him, this time in 4-part harmony.
"Thanks. Believe it or not, this is actually the first birthday party I've had. Let's eat the cake."
Kurt got out plates and handed a cake slicer to Sebastian. "Just a sec before you cut it. I want to take a picture. Kurt snapped one before he cut it and one as he was cutting it. Sebastian slid the slices onto plates and passed them out.
After they finished, Sam got the lid and they put the cake in the fridge. They moved to the living room. Kurt dialed Papi's number and handed it to Sebastian. He talked to his grandparents for a few minutes while everyone discussed what they wanted for dinner.
By the time Sebastian got off the phone, the consensus was Jamaican because no one else had ever tried it before.
"So, how about we go to the Jamaican place?" Sam asked.
"Sounds good to me. Are you guys staying overnight or driving back tonight?" Sebastian asked.
"We're staying," Nick answered.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
"This place is really cool," Jeff said.
"What do you recommend?" Thad asked.
"We've only been here once and we just ordered several small things and split them because we didn't know what to order, but everything we had was good. I'd say just pick something and try it. There's enough of us that if you don't like it, someone would swap with you," Kurt answered.
"Or we can order six different entrées and split them all family style," Sam suggested.
"Ooh, I like that idea," Jeff said excitedly.
"So, when can you guys come to Boston?" Nick asked.
"Well, Kurt works every Saturday morning, but we could head over afterward and stay until early Sunday evening some weekend," Sebastian answered.
"That would work," Nick said.
"It just can't be the third weekend in October because hopefully my parents are coming that weekend. It's family weekend at school," Kurt added.
"So, someone's been holding out on details. First we learn that Sebastian is living with you two here in Hartford instead of a dorm in New Haven when we get invited to his surprise party and then we see with our own eyes that you two are dating. And now I see that the two of you are wearing rings?" Jeff inquired.
"Good job, Sherlock," Sebastian said teasingly.
"Yes, we started dating three months ago," Kurt answered. "We told our families the same day. We didn't tell anyone else. We were attempting to remain under the radar with our location and our personal lives. We were foiled by the eavesdropping Rachel, who heard my father say that I was in France with Sebastian, and who took it upon herself to attempt to save me from myself by enlisting the help of my so-called friends. I told all of them to either get over themselves or to butt out. Rachel did neither and once she knew I was back in the States, she used Finn's phone to track my location. I never even considered that she knew that his phone was set up to do that. But my mistake led her to be able to track me and she shared that information with... who wants to guess?"
"Seriously?" Nick asked.
"He showed up at the shop where I work."
"Being invited to our place inducted you into a secret society which you all pledged allegiance to by agreeing to come, just in case you didn't notice the fine print on your invitations," Kurt deadpanned.
"Got it," Thad said.
The waitress brought their food out and they all started serving themselves while they continued to talk.
"So, that's why you don't exist in the cyberworld anymore." Nick stated.
"You got it. Kurt, Sebastian and I changed our Facebook settings and we deleted all of our non-family members from our friends list. It wasn't anything personal, but we were sure we had made the right choice after she used his stepbrother to find him," Sam said.
"But he doesn't know where you live, right?" Jeff asked.
"No. He knows that Sebastian was here when he came. He does not know that Sam was here. Neither one of us said anything about where we live when we talked to him. No one knows our address, except you three now. So, it really was a step of faith to give it to you. I know I already asked you not to tell anyone, but I'm asking again."
"Not a problem. I won't post any photos from this weekend to my Facebook page," Thad responded.
"We won't either," Nick added.
Jeff asked, "So how do all you like Hartford?"
They talked about the places they'd been, places they still wanted to go, and continued eating until the food was gone.
"This was a good choice it seems," Kurt laughed as he looked at the table full of empty plates.
"Definitely," Jeff said.
Each of them pulled out a $15 to cover their portion of the meal and a tip. Nick, Jeff and Thad pulled out an extra $5 each and put it on top. Sebastian looked at them questioningly. "We're leaving a big tip for the waitress in honor of your birthday."
Sebastian smiled and nodded.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
Back at the apartment, they piled on the sofa and watched a movie before heading off to bed.
"There are three sets of clean towels in Sam's bathroom, but any of you can use our bathroom in the morning if you want," Kurt said. "I'm really glad you could all come. I won't be here when you get up, but I'll be back when I get off work."
Nick and Jeff slept in Sam's bed. Thad and Sam slept in sleeping bags on the sofa. Kurt was really glad they had found two brand new sleeping bags that night they had gone looking. It saved him the time of having to go back and look for another one for this weekend.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
Sebastian came out the bathroom into a completely dark room. Kurt turned his phone on to provide a little light for Sebastian to toss his clothes into the laundry in the closet and make it to the bed more easily.
Kurt was lying on his back waiting for him. Sebastian got in bed. "Scoot toward the middle a bit." Kurt did. Sebastian sat up and got on his knees and knelt straddling Kurt's torso. "You are very sneaky."
Kurt answered, "But only for good things, I promise."
"I know, mon ange. I'm not upset. I loved the surprise. Thank you. I can only imagine how much effort you put into pulling that off."
"You're welcome. I wanted you to have a fun birthday."
"Well, you succeeded. It was great. And it's going to end in a most awesome way."
"And how's that?"
"With lots and lots of kisses for you."
"Shouldn't I be the one giving you lots and lots of kisses?"
"Oh, well, if you're offering, we can do that too," he teased.
"But my idea first, okay?"
"Sure."
Sebastian started kissing Kurt's hand and worked his way up and over his shoulders and back down to his other hand. "Mmm. I'm not sure whether doing the kissing is more enjoyable or being the one who gets kissed," Sebastian said before moving up to Kurt's lips and kissing him.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
Kurt took Sebastian's car to work so that the other five could go out more easily. Sam and Sebastian did their typical early morning Saturday run to Costco and dragged their three visitors with them. None of them had been in a Costco before and had fun wandering around eating samples. They picked out supplies for a picnic lunch for themselves and gave Sam the cash to cover their portion of the bill. They had decided on spending the afternoon at the park playing disc golf, having a picnic and just lazing around and talking.
Sam and Sebastian put the groceries away quickly, leaving out the picnic food to prepare. Sam and Thad played COD while Nick and Jeff helped Sebastian prepare the food they were taking to the park. By the time Kurt got home, they had everything ready to go. He got showered and changed quickly and they headed out. The six of them had a great time.
By 6:30, they had all showered and gotten ready to go out again, the three guests had packed their bags and put them in their cars, bed linens were washing, and they had cooked and eaten the two extra large pizzas they had brought home from Costco. Kurt convinced them all to work on one song for a half hour to sing together that evening. Afterward, they headed out to the karaoke place in three cars. Sam opted to ride with Thad and act as navigator.
Everyone decided to just wing it and pick songs to sing. Jeff and Nick even managed to get Sebastian and Thad to sing "Glad You Came" during one of the band sections of the evening. And not to be outdone, Kurt and Sam reprised their "Under Pressure" Duet. During the second band section the six of them got up and performed "Some Nights" with Kurt on lead. They had a great time and were laughing as they sat back down.
"Man, you should have stayed at Dalton with us. We could have killed it with you and Sebastian on lead," Jeff said.
"That was so much fun," Sam said. "And he probably would have had a better senior year if he had stayed, but it's over. You guys can always come here on the weekends and rock out with us. We can be our own band for fun."
About 20 minutes later, Kurt's name was called. He hadn't added his name for anything else, but he got up and went to the stage to tell them so no one would keep waiting. He got up there and laughed. He decided to go through with it. He got up on stage and said, "This is a request by one of my friends obviously, but here goes." The stomping and clapping started as the intro. "All the single ladies, all the single ladies.." From the audience, Kurt heard "Do the dance!" He rolled eyes and started dancing. "Now put your hands up..." He sang and did the dance as requested. He ended to wild clapping and whooping.
"Okay, so which one of you did that?"
Blank looks from everyone.
Sebastian finally spoke. "We'll since no one will confess, while you were gone, I was informed that it was my birthday gift from the person who added your name." And he leaned toward Kurt and kissed him.
"Fine, fine. I'm not mad, but you could warn a guy to wear pants that have more give to them. It's hard to dance in these pants."
Just then Elliott walked up. "That was awesome."
"Hey, Elliott, I didn't see you here when we got here. These are our friends from back in Ohio, but they're in college now too. This is Jeff and Nick. They go to Harvard. And that's Thad. He goes to Brown. Everyone, this is Elliott."
Everyone waved.
"Are Dani and Charlene here?"
"No, they had something else to do tonight."
"Well, grab a chair and sit with us." Elliott snagged an unused chair from a nearby table. "Are you going to sing? You're not Starchild tonight."
"Nah. I had to work this afternoon and didn't have time to go home and get myself all dolled up. And yeah, I'm going to sing something. My name's on the list already. That song has a great story to it. I can tell. So, spill."
Kurt told the story of his dad finding him with Tina and Brittany in the basement all the way through his coming out.
"Wow," Jeff said. "I didn't know all of it. I'd just seen the video."
"Yeah, me too," Nick said.
Thad said, "I've not even seen the video, just heard about it."
"Well, well," Kurt heard in a familiar British voice, "That was fantastic," Adam said.
"Adam, come sit down. I didn't know you were here."
"I texted, but I figured you couldn't hear it."
"How long have you been here?"
"Since before you got here."
"Sorry I didn't see you when we came in, but sit with us now. Grab another chair."
Adam pulled up another chair.
"So, introductions again. This is Elliott, Jeff, Nick, Thad, Sam and Sebastian. Elliott and his roommates who aren't here tonight are new friends. The rest of us knew each other in Ohio, which is where I'm from. Jeff and Nick go to Harvard, Thad goes to Brown, Sam is a senior in high school here, and Sebastian goes to Yale and lives here with me and Sam."
"I'm never going to remember all that, but I'm Adam. I'm a senior and I go to the same school as Kurt and I'm from Essex, England. It's nice to meet all of you. I really liked "Some Nights". You all have really different voices individually, but sounded really good together."
Several "thanks" were heard.
They sat around talking and a few still took turns singing. Sebastian got a text and he responded. Kurt was busy talking and didn't ask. About ten minutes later, Lisette came in with her suitcase and a couple of garment bags in tow. Kurt got up and walked her out to the Navigator and let her put everything in the back and took her back inside.
"Squish together back there," Kurt said when he got back to the booth. There wasn't really room for another chair, so they'd just have to make room. Once they scooted closer together, Kurt slid in and Lisette sat on the end. Kurt did the abbreviated version of introductions. Each person just waved slightly as they heard their name. "Adam, Elliott, Jeff, Nick, Thad. This is Lisette, Sebastian's mom. She's visiting from France."
"Well, now that I'm here, the two of you have to sing for me," she teased looking at Kurt and Sebastian.
"We don't have anything prepared," Kurt said.
"It's karaoke. You're supposed to get up and make a fool of yourself, right?"
"Not in this lifetime," Kurt laughed. "One of these bozos already had me do "Single Ladies WITH the dance tonight."
"We could sing what we sang last week. Maybe no one will notice or care," Sebastian said. "Adam, will you go add our names and "Run to You" to the karaoke list, please?" Adam nodded, added their names and came right back.
"Did you record what you sang earlier?" she asked.
"Well, all of them except the one we all six sang because we were all on stage."
"I recorded that one," Adam said. "I'll send it to Kurt so you can see it."
"Thanks..."
"Adam," he offered.
"You're not from Ohio," she laughed. "You must be one of their new friends."
"I'm from Essex."
"Elliott is a recent acquisition as well," Kurt teased. "The other three were at Dalton with me and Sebastian."
Lisette nodded.
"We didn't think you were coming until tomorrow morning," Sebastian said.
"I was done. And I wasn't interested in any more parties or high heels or fancy dresses."
She was wearing the type of clothes Kurt was used to seeing her in, designer shirt, fitted designer jeans and her favorite French boots.
"I see," Kurt teased and smiled at her.
"It's truly quite fun for the first four or five nights. Then my feet just eventually rebel and all I want to do is put my favorite boots and jeans on with a sweater and drink tea and read a book."
"I can see that. That's how I'm used to seeing you. I've never seen you all made up. Do you have photos?"
She laughed loudly.
"Of course you have photos. I mean of you in these fancy outfits."
"Sure, a few. I'll show you later."
Kurt and Sebastian's names were called. Lisette slid out and got her phone out to record them. Everyone enjoyed their song, even if it was a repeat. Sebastian hugged his mom before he slid back into the booth. Kurt did too.
"Do you want anything to eat?" Sebastian asked her.
"No, I ate before I left New York."
They stayed until about 10:00 because Thad, Nick, and Jeff had to drive a couple of hours to get back to their dorms.
"It was nice meeting all of you," Adam said. Elliott nodded in agreement. They waved as they split up in the parking lot, everyone heading to their own vehicle and leaving.
o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0o
That night Kurt was exhausted. He kissed Sebastian, then nudged him to turn over. He snuggled up behind Sebastian as close as he could get. "I love you, Bas."
"I love you too. Thank you for the amazing birthday."
"You're welcome." He kissed Sebastian's neck and squeezed his hand and promptly fell asleep holding Sebastian tight.