Many thanks to my beta, Tuuzmorado.

Sam got off work around seven the next evening. Blaine pulled into the parking lot of the garage a few minutes early and walked inside, trying to act like this wasn't at least a little weird. Although, it kind of was. Blaine wasn't entirely sure what he'd say to Burt after not seeing him for so long.

The moment Burt looked up and spotted him, though, he grinned. "Blaine," he called, motioning for Blaine to walk over to where Burt was working on a car. "How are you doing?"

Blaine smiled. "I'm good," he said. "Just here to pick up Sam. I said I'd give him a ride back to his apartment." Although, Burt probably knew that. Sam had mentioned before that he didn't actually know enough to be that much help on the cars – he usually could help by handing people the right tools and cleaning up messes, but that was about it. Sam was pretty convinced that Burt mostly hired him for the company, so Sam probably would have already mentioned to Burt that Blaine was coming. "Where is Sam, by the way?" he asked, glancing around the garage.

"He's in the back room, organizing some files," Burt said. "You can keep a secret, right?" When Blaine nodded, Burt chuckled and said, "Sam's a lot of help with the basic stuff, and with keeping this place looking nice. But when it comes to anything more difficult, he can be more trouble than he's worth. Good company, though, but I sent him to the back so I could concentrate."

Blaine chuckled as well, idly wondering how frustrated Sam was getting with the files. Putting things in alphabetical order wouldn't be the easiest thing for him, and Blaine had heard Kurt complain before about how unorganized the filing system was. Blaine figured that if Sam had been working on that for a while, then Blaine had better go see him before he went crazy.

"So, what are you working on?" he asked, more to make conversation than because he was honestly curious.

"Trying to fix the engine on this thing," Burt said, tapping the side of the car. "I could tell you what the actual problem is, but I doubt you'd understand me."

"Probably not," Blaine admitted. His dad's attempts to straighten him out by rebuilding a car had left Blaine with a pretty good knowledge of which tools were which and what a couple of the car parts were called, but not much else. Dad had been the one who figured out what they needed to do; Blaine had just done whatever his dad told him (even though he had no idea why he was doing it), then tried not to think about it after that.

Burt smiled. "Carole gives me grief about working on Sundays, but the woman who owns this car is a really nice lady. Single mom, so I'm trying to get it done for her as soon as I can."

"That's really nice of you," Blaine said. "How have you been doing?"

Burt shrugged and leaned against the side of the car. "Pretty good, all things considering. What about you? It's been weird not seeing you around so much."

"I've been really busy with all the clubs," Blaine said, even though he was pretty sure they both knew the real reason he had stayed away. He quickly changed the subject. "But you're okay? Kurt said that you have an important doctor appointment on Thursday."

A worried look crossed Burt's face for a second before disappearing. "It's a big one," he agreed. "I think Kurt's a lot more freaked out about it than I am. You two have been talking?"

"Just a few times," Blaine said quickly, not wanting Burt to get the wrong idea. Though, at this point, Blaine wasn't sure if Burt would be relieved or disappointed to know that he and Kurt weren't going to get back together. At Christmas, he'd agreed to take Blaine to New York because he'd honestly wanted to help Blaine make amends with Kurt, but a lot of time had passed since then. Blaine wouldn't blame Burt if he'd changed his mind and didn't want Blaine to have anything to do with Kurt anymore.

But no, Burt's smile widened at that. "Glad to hear that," he said, and sounded like he meant it. "Did he tell you that he's coming back on Wednesday."

"Yeah," Blaine said, choosing his words carefully. "I'm looking forward to meeting Adam. I've only spoken to him a couple of times, but he seems like a nice guy."

"He does. I'm not too sure about the age difference, but he seems like a good guy and I trust Kurt's judgment. I might still have to explain to him that I've got a gun and I'm willing to use it, but if Kurt likes him, that's good enough for me."

"You have a gun?" Blaine asked, wondering if that was true or if Burt was just saying it because it was the standard threat than dads made. When Burt nodded, looking completely serious, Blaine added, "I guess I should take it as a compliment that you never felt the need to tell me that when Kurt and I were still dating."

"You should," Burt said. He crossed his arms and leaned further back against the car, and said, "I'm going to be frank with you about something, okay, Blaine?" Blaine frowned and tentatively nodded, not entirely sure where this was going, or that he'd want to hear it.

"Honestly, the idea of Kurt dating someone scared me quite a bit," Burt began, which just confused Blaine further. "Not because I didn't want him to meet the right guy eventually. It was more that I was worried that he'd end up with the wrong one. But I didn't worry so much about that when he started dating you. Not to say that you didn't screw up some times, because you did. I mean, waking up hung over in my son's bed wasn't the best first impression that you could have made." Blaine winced at the memory. That had definitely not been one of his better moments. "But I wouldn't have taken you to New York if I didn't think that you were a good guy underneath it all."

"I-" Blaine began, then stopped because he honestly had no idea what to say. Which might have been a good thing, because Burt was still talking.

"Now, Kurt says that you two aren't going to get back together, and I know he really likes this Adam guy," Burt said. "But whatever happens with that is between you and him. It's not my place to get involved. But that doesn't change the fact that you're a good kid, Blaine, whether you're dating my son or not. Don't think that I'm going to think less of you just because you and Kurt are broken up."

Blaine swallowed hard against the lump that suddenly appeared in his throat. "I- Thank you," he said. "And I'm really sorry about... about what happened between Kurt and I."

Burt chuckled. "I know. You told me about twenty times during the trip to New York. If Kurt can forgive you for that, then I can, too."

Blaine smiled slightly. This was better than he'd been hoping. It wasn't like he'd expected Burt to suddenly start hating him during the time between Christmas and now, but still, it was nice to be sure.

"And one more thing," Burt said. "I know you and your dad don't have the closest relationship. So I just want you to know that you could come to me if you ever need help with something. Now, it's just a suggestion. I'm not saying you have to, and hell, you'd probably feel weird talking to the dad of your ex. But I just want to make sure that you know what you're options are. Like I said, you're a good kid, Blaine."

"That's very nice of you to offer," Blaine said, with complete sincerity, even though he already knew that he wasn't going to take Burt up on his offer. Burt was right about Blaine not being close with his dad – Dad had never been high on the list of people that Blaine would go to if he had a problem. But at the same time, talking to Burt about his problems had been awkward enough when he and Kurt were dating (though it had happened a few times last year, when Blaine really needed advice about something). Now, Blaine had the feeling that it'd just be too uncomfortable. He did appreciate the offer, though, more than he could ever say.

"It's no problem," Burt said, smiling in a way that said that he meant it.

"Hey Burt, my shift ended a couple minutes ago, so I just clocked out," Sam called as he walked out of the back office. A grin spread over his face when he saw them. "Blaine! I didn't hear you get here!"

Blaine chuckled at Sam's enthusiasm. He must have really gotten tired of sorting files if he was that excited to leave. "We should probably get going," he said, turning to Burt. "But it was nice talking to you."

"Nice talking to you, too," Burt said. "Go ahead and stop by some day when Sam's working so we can catch up more, if you want."

"You can help me with the files," Sam said, confirming Blaine's thoughts. "Those things are absolutely evil. No offense," he added to Burt, who just looked amused.

"Yeah, maybe I can stop by to help out sometime after Regionals," Blaine said. There wouldn't be time before then, but he'd have more free time once the competition was over (though a lot of that free time would be spent attending the clubs that he'd had to neglect during the past few weeks).

"Sounds good," Burt said. He waved and Sam and Blaine started to leave, then turned and got back to work on the car.

Sam was practically bouncing with excitement as they walked out to Blaine's car. Blaine just watched, amused by how much Sam resembled a hyperactive child at that moment. "Okay, how much sugar have you had today?"

"None," Sam said, looking confused. "Or, not much, at least. Why'd you ask?"

"Because clearly something has got you completely overexcited," Blaine said as he climbed into the driver's seat and started up the car.

"It's nothing," Sam said immediately. "I'm just excited to see you! I'm always excited to see you. You're my best friend, remember? Why wouldn't I be excited?"

"Uh huh." If Blaine hadn't already been able to tell that something was going on, then this would have clued him in instantly. Still, Blaine decided not to say anything as he drove Sam back to him apartment. Whatever was making Sam so excited, Blaine was sure he'd find out about it soon enough.

"Thanks for the ride," Sam said when Blaine had parked in front of his apartment building. He undid his seat belt and jumped out of the car almost the second that it stopped, then quickly turned back to Blaine. "You're coming inside, right?"

Blaine raised his eyebrows. "That was the plan, considering that you invited me over for dinner."

"Right, right, good!" Sam said with a grin. "Come on, let's go."

Sam obviously couldn't stand still the entire elevator ride up to his floor. He kept shifting his feet and practically vibrating with excitement. Blaine snorted. "You're really bad at keeping things a surprise, aren't you?" he teased.

Sam spun to face him, eyes wide and a horrified look on his face. "You figured it out?"

"I figured out that you have something planned, even if I don't know what," Blaine said. "You have something waiting for me back at your apartment, right?"

Sam relaxed slightly. "Okay, you've got that part. But you don't know what I'm planning, so it's still going to be a surprise!" The elevator doors opened, and Sam was out into the hallway instantly, grabbing Blaine's hand and yanking him along. He quickly unlocked his apartment door, but instead of going inside, he turned to face Blaine. "You remember Joe's serenade, right?"

"Of course," Blaine said. It had only been a few days ago, after all. But he couldn't figure out what it had to do with what Sam was planning, though.

Sam smiled. "And you remember that you and the girls were talking at lunch afterward, about how romantic it was, and how Coleen was really lucky."

"Yes," Blaine said slowly, since Sam seemed to be waiting for that. He was starting to get an idea where this was going. At least, he hoped that this was going where he thought that it was.

"It got me thinking," Sam said. "At first, I was thinking about doing an actual serenade, but I figured that might be hard, since we're going to be rehearsing for Regionals all week. There won't be a lot of time. But I figured we could do something else, instead."

Blaine grinned. "Like what?"

Instead of answering, Sam slowly pushed open the door and motioned for Blaine to step inside.

At first, Blaine had no idea what the surprise was supposed to be. Sam's apartment look the same as it always did, except that there was a blanket spread over the usually-bare floor and the lights were already on. That seemed like the weirdest part, actually. Normally, Sam would never waste electricity by leaving lights on when he wasn't in the room, let alone when he was going to be gone for a few hours.

"Look up," Sam said softly, then flipped off the lights.

The ceiling of Sam's apartment was covered in glow-in-the-dark stars. With the lights off, they were the only thing that Blaine could see in the apartment, except for the small bit of sunlight that still shown through the thin curtains over his windows.

"Sam," Blaine whispered, half worried that the setting would be ruined if he spoke any louder. "This is incredible."

Even if the dark room, Blaine could still tell that Sam was grinning from the sound of his voice. "Mercedes and Brittany used to make me watch a lot of romantic movies with them," he said as he walked over to the kitchen, going slow to try to avoid bumping into anything. He raised his voice just enough that Blaine would still be able to hear him, though his voice was still quieter than usual. "When I was trying to think of things to do, I remembered that a ton of the movies involved people lying under the stars. But it's too cold outside to actually do that, so I figured this would have to be good enough."

"This is more than good enough," Blaine said, tilting his head back to stare up at the was the stars were spread across the ceiling. It didn't look like there was a definite pattern to them, but it didn't look completely random, either. Sam had arranged them artistically, much better than Blaine would have managed if he'd tried to do the same thing.

Sam came back out of the kitchen. By now, Blaine's eyes had adjusted just enough that he could tell that Sam was carrying a lunch box. "I don't have a basket, so I'm using this instead," Sam said, walking over to the blanket. He sat down and patted the space next to him. "Come on, dude." Blaine smiled and took a seat beside him. Sam opened the lunch box. Now that he was closer, Blaine could see that it was decorated with the power rangers. If it had belonged to anyone else, Blaine would have assumed that it was left over from when he was a little kid. Knowing Sam, though, he probably still used it all the time. "I just packed sandwiches. I know that's not that great for dinner, but I didn't have much time to make them, and I couldn't think of anything else that would be easy to eat with our hands."

"Sam, this is perfect," Blaine said, keeping his voice low and trying to sound as sincere as possible. It would be just like Sam to put together something this wonderful and then assume that it wasn't any good. This was possibly the most romantic date Blaine had been on – if this counted as a date when they hadn't technically started dating yet – and he wanted to make sure that Sam knew it. Blaine glanced up. "How long will the stars last?"

Sam shrugged. "Probably an hour or so. I left the lights on while I was gone so that they could charge, but still, Stacey has the same kind in her room and they never last as long as the box says that they will."

"Sounds like we have plenty of time," Blaine said.

The two of them sat a normal distance apart while they ate, joking around the entire time like they always did. If it wasn't for the romantic atmosphere, than it would almost seem like they were just friends, goofing around like any of the other countless times that Blaine had come over for dinner. But as soon as they were finished eating, Sam put the lunchbox aside and lied down. Blaine lied down beside him, and after a second Sam scooted closer and took Blaine's hand.

The two of them laid there in silence until Blaine finally decided to break it. "Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"This is wonderful." Blaine scooted even closer so that he could lean his head against Sam's arm.

Sam sighed, sounding relieved. As if, even now, he'd actually thought that there was a chance that Blaine wouldn't like it. "Thanks, dude."

Blaine smiled, even though he didn't know if Sam could see it, and awkward shuffled even closer to Sam. "Do you think this counts as our first date?" he asked, since he couldn't figure that out for himself, and he really wanted to know, even though part of him was hesitant about asking. He knew that Sam didn't want to kiss until they were officially dating, and he didn't know if Sam had similar feelings about going on dates or not.

"I don't know," Sam said. His voice was thoughtful, like he was really thinking hard about it. "We decided not to date until Regionals, right? So I'm not sure if we can call this a date if we're not actually dating."

"That's what I was thinking," Blaine said.

Sam tilted his head so that his cheek rested against Blaine's hair, which Blaine knew would turn his hair into a complete mess and lead to the gel smearing across Sam's cheek, but he was too happy to care. "It feels like a date though," Sam almost-whispered. They were both still keeping their voices softer than normal, to fit the atmosphere, but this was quiet even by their standards. Blaine had to strain his ears to hear it, even with their heads right beside each other.

"Do you want it to be?" Blaine asked.

Sam waited a minute before he answered. Blaine knew that Sam was thinking it over, trying to come to a decision, so Blaine kept quiet and waited, even though part of him wished that Sam had said "Yes" immediately.

"I don't want to date until Regionals," Sam finally said. "I know, that's probably stupid. I'm not dating Brittany any more, and- Well, we originally decided to wait to give you time to get over Kurt, and I guess I can't speak for you about how that's going, but-"

"I'm good," Blaine said, tilting his head just enough that he could see the outline of Sam's face in the darkness while still keeping his head on Sam's shoulder. "Kurt and I broke up in November, remember? I know I spent way too long chasing after him, and I'll admit, it hurt when he started dating Adam." Blaine closed his eyes, thinking back to how he'd felt when he'd first seen Kurt's relationship status two weeks ago. It had hurt, like he'd said, but the pain had been like a slushy to the face – meaning, the shock was the worse part, and then you just had to deal with the clean up. At that moment, Blaine hadn't wanted Kurt to date anyone else. But looking back, it wasn't because he'd hoped to start dating Kurt again. It was because he hadn't seen it coming, and he hadn't quite been ready to let go.

He didn't feel like that anymore.

"Kurt will always be one of my best friends," Blaine said, "but I'm happy that he's with Adam. Even if Kurt decided that he wanted to get back together, I would still choose to be with you."

"Even if we're not exactly dating?" Sam asked.

Blaine shook his head. "I said that I would choose to be with you," Blaine said. "That doesn't have to be dating. It just means... being with you." He thought that sounded like a stupid way to say it, but he couldn't quite think of any other way to phrase it.

"But you still want to date," Sam said, not even making it a question.

"Of course," Blaine said.

"So neither of us are dating other people now, and we're both happy about it," Sam said. "So I guess if we're both over our exes, then there's no reason that we have to wait until Regionals." Blaine could hear the uncertainty in Sam's voice, and decided to wait, guessing that Sam had something more to say. And sure enough, Sam continued, "But I kind of still want to."

"Why?" Blaine asked, making sure to keep his voice non-judgmental. He didn't want Sam to think that he was upset, because he wasn't, really. He'd expected this from the way Sam had been talking, and he'd accept it, but he still wanted to know what Sam was thinking.

"Because it's the rules, I guess," Sam said. "We decided to wait, and I want to stick to that."

"And?" Blaine asked, knowing that that couldn't be the real reason, or even the main reason. Maybe Sam really did feel like that, but Blaine doubted that Sam was a big enough stickler for the rules that he'd wait another week to date Blaine just so that they could honor some rule that they'd arbitrarily decided on.

"And because I don't want to date you in secret," Sam said. "You're awesome, so you deserve more than that." Blaine opened his mouth, but Sam continued before he could speak. "And I know that you're going to say that I can take all the time I need, and that you'll be fine with it, but that's not it." Blaine closed his mouth, since that was exactly what he'd planned on saying. "You can say that you'll be fine if we don't tell anyone, any maybe you mean that, but that's not me. I mean, I don't want to date you in secret because I really care about you, so I don't want to make you have to do that. But I also don't want to secretly date you because I wouldn't want to secretly date anyone. It's just not who I am. So if we started dating you now, then I'd have to go to McKinley and announce it to everyone tomorrow, because otherwise I wouldn't feel right."

"And you don't want to do that," Blaine said. He squeezed Sam's hand. "And that's okay. You have all the time you need." He hesitated, then added, "You know, when we first decided to wait until Regionals, we didn't plan on it being a deadline where we had to start dating by this day. I think it became that, but originally, it was just a day to reevaluate so we could decide if we wanted to start dating. So if we get to Regionals, and you're not ready to start dating-" He thought for a second about how he wanted to finish that sentence, and decided on, "-that would be okay."

"No, I want to start dating you at Regionals," Sam said, his voice sounding almost stubborn. "I'm going to be out by then."

"Don't let anything force you into this, Sam," Blaine said. "Not even yourself."

"I know, but I'm not." Sam bit his lip, then said, "I've been thinking a lot over the past few days."

"About what?" Blaine asked, even though he was pretty sure he knew.

"You know how you asked me yesterday if I'd thought about coming out?" Sam asked. "About that. And I think I actually have some ideas."

"Care to share?" Blaine asked, making sure to keep his tone light, even though he was actually anxious to hear what Sam had to say.

Sam nodded. "Well, I'm going to come out to the Glee club first," he said. "I mean, they're the ones that I don't mind knowing. It's still probably going to be hard to actually say the words, but it's not like I think any of them are going to treat me differently because of it."

"Sounds like a good plan," Blaine agreed. "What about the rest of the school?"

"Well, for them, I was thinking we could just... not tell them," Sam said. Blaine frowned, confused, but Sam hurried to explain. "I don't mean that we keep it a secret from them. It's just, I don't have any friends outside of the glee club, so why should I have to come out to them? But if I'm out to the glee club, then it won't be a secret that the two of us are dating. It's going to get around the school eventually. And even if nobody in the glee club talks about it, it's still going to be obvious from the way we act, right?"

"Right," Blaine said slowly, thinking that over. "While I agree that you shouldn't have to come out to anyone that you don't want to, it's probably not going to be that simple. At the very least, you're going to have to figure out what you'll say the first time someone calls you gay."

The silence told Blaine that Sam hadn't thought about that. Then Sam said, "I really, really want to say that I'm not going to deny it. Or, well, I will deny being gay. But I want to think that I'd tell them I'm actually bi, and that we're definitely dating. But I don't know if I can promise that." Sam scowled and turned away from Blaine. "I hate that I can't promise that. It's just words. It shouldn't be this hard!"

Blaine squeezed Sam's hand again, wondering if he should point out that it wasn't just words. Sure, the words themselves were no big deal – it was the results that was hard to deal with. Sam had already gotten slushied for bullied because people thought that he was dating Blaine, and Blaine could only imagine that it'd get worse when Sam confirmed it. But that didn't seem like it'd be very comforting, so Blaine didn't say anything about that.

Instead, Blaine said, "You don't owe them an explanation, you know. Even if people insult you for it or ask point-blank, you don't have to answer them or say anything."

"Isn't that just another form of hiding, though?" Sam asked.

Blaine didn't really have an answer for that.

They laid there in silence for a while, long enough that the light from the stars was starting to dim by the time Blaine spoke. "Like I said, you can have as long as you need," Blaine said. "Even if you're determined that we'll start dating at Regionals, we still have almost a week. You can start with the glee club and see what happens after that. It doesn't need to be planned out now." He nudged Sam's arm with his shoulder and added, "Come on, look at me! I want to enjoy the rest of our date while I have the chance."

To his relief, Sam turned his face back towards him. "So this is a date?" he asked, his voice surprisingly playful considering what they'd just been talking about. "I thought we'd never made a decision about that."

"Well, I just decided. This is out first date," Blaine said, mostly because he was hoping to make Sam smile. And it worked. The corners of Sam's mouth barely turned upward, but Blaine still counted it as a success.

"Even though we're not dating?" Sam asked.

"Well, most people aren't dating when they go on their first date, anyway," Blaine said. "Think about it. Two people like each other, so they go out. And if everything goes well, that's when they ask each other if they want to date. So we're doing things normally. It's just that I'm a nice person, so I'm giving you more time than usual to make up your mind."

Sam's smile widened. "I think my mind is pretty well made up."

"Well, I'm still going to make you wait to tell me," Blaine said, his voice teasing. "You can give me your answer at Regionals."

"Sounds good," Sam agreed. "I'll give you a hint, though." He moved so that his mouth was right next to Blaine's ear, and said in a loud whisper, "I'm going to say yes."