November – Freshman year

Kurt pulled his jacket up and over his head and hung it on one of the hooks on the wall before nudging the front door closed with his foot. Courtney, who was sitting on the couch in the living room, her arms draped over the back of it, turned around to face Kurt. "Holy hell, Kurt. It's only 7:15, that has to be the world's shortest date ever."

Kurt snorted out a disgruntled "hrmph" before plopping himself down on the couch beside his best girlfriend. "Please, a half hour of getting to hear about how me and my wardrobe are personally disenfranchising and enslaving hundreds of thousands of south eastern Asians and Indians is something I consider to officially be a date-ender. That is the last time I pick a guy up at a freakin' all-natural food store."

Courtney smiled and rubbed Kurt's back. It was only his second attempt at dating since arriving in New York. The first date had been equally tragic with Kurt getting in a fight with his date over the benefits and drawbacks of organized sports. After listening to his date rant about how football, hockey and equally "heathenistic, testosterone-driven blood-rights" were destroying the advanced western world, Kurt had been hard pressed not to beat him over the head with a hockey stick. After dating Dave for almost a year and a half Kurt had discovered he actually had a fondness for hockey, though football was still completely beyond him. He had even bonded with Burt over hockey: watching the occasional professional game on TV with him and actually able to keep up a conversation with Burt on the subject. It was a good thing too, if he didn't enjoy hockey, he might be tempted to kill Courtney for monopolizing the television every time her beloved Jonathan Ericsson was playing.

Like at that very moment. Commentators were replaying a phenomenal save by Red Wings' goalie Jimmy Howard while Courtney poured out more popcorn into her bowl for Kurt to share with her. Accepting the consolation prize from Courtney, he decided to put his awful date behind him and try and enjoy the game with her. "What's the score?"

Courtney placed the popcorn bowl in her lap and scooped up a handful of the salty snack. "Nil, so far. We're only five minutes in." Courtney shoved the fist of popcorn in her mouth and settled back into the plush cushions of the couch.

A little over an hour later they were into the second period with popcorn all over the floor and couch. Courtney had jumped up earlier spilling the bowl all over the place after the Red Wings made two phenomenal goals less than five minutes apart. Kurt, normally obsessive about cleaning, didn't even care he was so excited. The score was now 5-2 Red Wings with two of the Red Wings' goals having been made by a rookie. Kurt had his hand gripped around Courtney's wrist, digging his nails into her wrist excitedly as the rookie and Datsyuk made their way, alone, down the ice towards the Maple Leafs' goal. Datsyuk had the puck and, despite having a perfect shot, passed the shot off to the rookie who slammed the puck in between the goalie's legs. Kurt and Courtney both screamed (though Kurt's was more of a squeal) and flew off the couch, jumping up and down, their hands clasped together as they bounced around each other in a circle, no doubt annoying the hell out of their downstairs neighbor.

Courtney's phone started vibrating, almost furiously, and Courtney dislodged herself from Kurt's grip to answer it. "Hello?"

"Tell me you saw that!"

"Duh! Of course I did!" Courtney put the phone down on the side table by the couch and put it onto speakerphone. "Kurt and I are both watching. That was absolutely incredible."

Kurt leaned over Courtney to get close enough to the phone that Dave could hear him. "Oh my god, did you see what Datsyuk did? He totally could have taken that for himself, but he just wanted to see Matshna-whatever-the-hell-his-name-is get a hat trick."

"Hey Kurt. Haha, I know, right? That was re-donk-ulous."

Talking to Dave was getting gradually easier for Kurt. Dave came to New York often enough for visits and did his best to keep things normal between them, so hanging out with his ex wasn't nearly as awkward as Kurt had feared it would be. Dave acted so completely natural around Kurt that, aside from the lack of physical contact, it was almost as though they had never broken up…almost. "So how's school treating you?"

"Classes are making my brain melt. But other than that, everything is good."

Courtney screwed up her face in confusion. "What classes are you having trouble with?"

"Ugh. Those mandatory literature courses. I love reading and all, but I hate analyzing literature. Can't you just…I dunno, accept it at face value? Everything has to have some deeper meaning; symbolism, morals, metaphors, foreshadowing, blah, blah, blah."

Kurt laughed, that type of stuff was simple for him. "Tell you what, you help me with my chemistry class and I'll help you with literature."

"Psha! Chemistry is easy. Just don't mix bases and acids and you'll be good…or you can have a lot of fun and ignore that advice. Bee-Tee-Dubs, I'm not coming up this weekend."

Kurt felt slightly disappointed. He and Courtney had been planning on taking Dave for a New York-style night on the town. Courtney's disappointment was evident in her question. "Why not? Don't you love us anymore?" Kurt whacked her on the arm for phrasing her question that way.

"Hah. Yeah, always and forever. I just, you know…have a" Dave cleared his throat, uncomfortably. "…a date."

Kurt barely had time to register his own feeling of sorrow at that before Courtney, quite literally, "squee-ed" in his ear. "Tell us all about it. What's his name, where'd you meet, what's he do, is he a student, what's his major?"

"Um…well, this chick…" Kurt's eyes went wide chick? "…in one of my classes made me go with her to a BLGT meeting-"

Kurt felt the need to interrupt Dave in order to correct him. "It's LGBT."

"That sounds like a sandwich or something…OOoo, I know what I'm making for dinner, now. Anyway, we went together and this dude was totally flirting with me, but it was really…uncomfortable. I mean, this guy was bigger than me. Not fat or anything, but like, one of those dudes that works-out for fun; not my type. Anyway, he couldn't tell that I totally wasn't feeling it, but this other dude, Adam, did and he pretended to be my boyfriend in order to get the other guy to back off. So now we have a date this weekend."

"Oh, I'm so happy for you, Dave!" Courtney had her hands clasped together in front of her chest. She looked as though she were praying for him.

Kurt decided to be a good sport and root for Dave as well. "We'll be crossing our fingers for you. But only if you promise to call us immediately after the date and tell us all about it."

Courtney nodded and patted Kurt on the back, obviously agreeing with his conditions. "Yeah, you better, Davey."

"Yeah, yeah, I will." Dave forced himself to chuckle at them. He didn't want them to think anything was wrong. This was the fourth date he had been on since getting to school and each time he had been obstinate and standoffish with his date. He had to remind himself that Kurt wasn't in his future and he would have to be nice to other guys if he had any hope of dating again.

"So how are things with the team?" A month ago Dave had been having issues with his hockey team. They wouldn't let him into the locker room if they were in there and Dave was refusing to stand up for himself. Kurt was very curious to know if any progress had been made since the last time he broached the question.

"Meh. They're better. I guess I've kind of proven myself to them. I mean, it's still super uncomfortable in the locker room, but I keep to myself and change in the corner away from everyone else and things have definitely improved. I even went out drinking with a few of them the week before last. One of the guys is cool with me being gay. He even said to the others that it was just more puck-bunnies for them. That seemed to lighten a few of them up."

Kurt tried to sound happy for Dave, despite feeling bad that he had to put up with those kinds of medieval attitudes. "That's great, Dave."

"Yeah, Davey. Just remember to call us if you need to kvetch or anything. Talk to you later, hun. Love you."

Courtney held the phone next to Kurt so he could offer his farewell. "Don't forget to call us this weekend Dave…"

"Don't worry, I'll call. See you soon, love you guys."

"L…" Kurt caught himself before making the situation awkward. "…later."

Courtney tapped "end call" on her phone before placing it off to the side. Kurt busied himself trying to re-engross himself in the game. Given the amount of time it took to clean up all the hats off the ice and go through the instant replays from every angle and the slow motion instant replays they hadn't missed too much. The score was still the same and one of the Red Wings was in the penalty box, but then again, so was one of the Maple Leafs. Courtney poked Kurt in the arm; he just shrugged her off. A moment later she did it again. Kurt turned to face her, finding her grinning like a madman. "What?"

"I heard that."

Kurt furrowed his brow. "Heard what?"

"You almost said you love him."

Kurt shook his head. "Oh, grow up."