Kurt cleared their breakfast plates from the table. "Thank for making us breakfast this morning," Kurt said cheerfully. "It was a really delicious surprise."
"I'm glad you enjoyed it, darling. That was my entire purpose." He got up from the pass-through counter and wrapped his arms around Kurt's waist while he was quickly washing the plates they had used. "I know how you'd rather skip over today and move on to April 2nd, so I thought a delicious breakfast might improve your day just a bit."
"It has already. I still can't say that I'm looking forward to it, but now that Chad moved out, I do get to have you come home tonight to my amazing first day as your official roommate."
"Not that I disliked Chad, but you, darling, will be a much better roommate for many, many reasons beyond how much I utterly adore you and enjoy every minute I get to spend with you."
"Such as?"
"Well, Chad snores like what I imagine Bigfoot would sound like if he snores."
Kurt laughed. "That's true."
"Let's see. You, my dear, have the most lovely voice. Chad can barely sing on pitch when other people are singing his part nearby."
"Also true, but he is a fantastic bassist."
"He really is. And he's a really great poet and lyricist. He will one day write amazing songs for musicals."
Kurt finished rinsing the dishes and turned in Adam's arms and kissed him.
"There is that."
"What?"
"Chad never kissed me the way you do."
"I should hope not. I think Elise would not appreciate that."
"Not likely." Adam kissed along Kurt's jaw and down his neck. "I'm certainly glad that Alicia got that role with the tour of Annie. She's going to be great Grace."
"She will. And her leaving allowed Chad to move in with Elise."
"Leaving you to move in here with me and move out of that den of frenemies you live in. Lived in. Past tense."
"Speaking of my first official day, I need to pay my half of the rent today." Kurt wrapped his arms around Adam's neck. "I live in the Theater District. I can walk to NYADA in less time than it took me on the subway. Not that I'm going to walk all that often because walking 40 minutes is a little much, but maybe if it's super nice. I could ride my bike on days I don't work at Vogue."
"Sounds like a plan, darling." He pressed his forehead to Kurt's. "But unlike you, who gets to spend the day unpacking our stuff and rearranging everything to your heart's content, I have to go to work and then go meet with my three senior project advisors to have them look over my script and pass me along to the next stage of the process."
"Well, I think it's great. I hope they do too."
"I really hope so because I'm running out of time for rewrites. I need to hold auditions on Wednesday and get a cast list up by Friday."
"I'm going to take advantage of the dance studio being closed today, Juliette being willing to give me her notes for my History of Theater class, and Dani being willing to take my afternoon shift, so hopefully by the time you get home for dinner, this place will look amazing instead of like a storage unit like it does right now."
"You have a carte blanche. Don't hurt yourself moving heavy stuff though. Alex might be home across the hall. Try getting him to help, if you need it."
"I will. Don't worry. I have no intention of hurting myself. I have to impress Cassie July on Thursday."
Adam kissed him gently once more. "I wish I could stay to help, but I leave it in your trustworthy hands." He let go of Kurt, grabbed his jacket and backpack from the coat closet behind the door, and closed the door behind him.
Kurt surveyed the room. Everything he had brought with him was in boxes and the furniture sat on the right hand side of the room, exactly where they had sat it down the night before. They had packed up Adam's things that weren't stored in the closet into boxes as well. All of the boxes were stacked in the hallway between the bathroom and the walk-in closet.
He opened his satchel to retrieve the notebook where he had drawn the room to scale and he and Bart had worked out what to do to the area. He laid it on the pass-through counter between the kitchen and living area and went down to the lobby to meet him and bring up the pieces they had designed and assemble them.
Chad and Adam had treated the space like an oversized hotel or dorm room where each of them had put a single bed on the left wall, with a night stand between the heads of their beds. Their desks were situated on the right wall, side by side on the wall shared with the walk-in closet. Adam had mounted his flatscreen TV to a vintage wood file cabinet that someone had attached heavy-duty casters to. And they kept a few folding moon chairs folded up in the corner near the window unless they were sitting in them to watch TV.
They had worked out a schedule to do schoolwork in the NYADA library alternating with in their flat to give each other some down time alone. Kurt had rarely seen Chad at at the flat. He laughed as he stepped off the elevator when he remembered when they could hear Chad snoring before they even unlocked the door one day a few weeks back.
He saw Bart in the lobby and waved. He stopped at the concierge desk and picked up two visitors' passes. He gave Bart a pass as they headed out to the truck he had rented. Mateo was waiting for them in the back of the truck. Kurt handed him a pass as well.
They took turns making trips up to the apartment until everything had been unloaded and reloaded. Mateo left with Adam's single bed and large desk in exchange for helping Kurt transform the living space. Mateo pulled off to take the furniture to a storage unit for the month until classes ended and he would need them when he moved out of the NYADA dorm. In exchange for all of Bart's help, Kurt was going to alter a suit to properly fit Bart's short, yet wide but not stocky frame. Kurt had helped him choose a suit that fit through the shoulders and at the waist, but the sleeve and pants legs were far too long at a nice secondhand place for a price within his budget.
Kurt and Bart returned to the flat and got busy assembling the extra-sturdy custom wood canopy bed frame that they had designed. By the time they finished the parts they could complete with just the two of them, Mateo was back to help them build the framework that would become a privacy partition along the left side of the room. Kurt and Bart had designed the posts on the canopy bed to extend up high enough that there was just room for a 2x4 to fit along the top. The board that ran along the length of the bed extended past the end of the bed all the way to the wall that divided the living area from the kitchen. They worked together to get the support pieces in place.
The intercom buzzed, so Kurt went to answer it.
"Yes?"
"Mr. Hummel, there's a delivery for you."
"Thank you. I'll be right down." He turned to Bart and Mateo. "I'll be right back. I didn't order anything else, but Adam might have. I better go check."
They nodded and went back to what they were doing.
He opened the door and went down the hall to wait for the elevator. When he exited the elevator, he crossed the lobby to the front desk and got in line. When he gave his name, the concierge turned around and picked up a small vase of flowers – golden orange Calla lilies.
His stomach dropped. He looked at the card and all it said was, "I'll always love you." He took them graciously, thanked the concierge, and went back up to the flat. He put the flowers in the kitchen near the sink, not knowing what else to do with them.
Kurt refocused. He walked back into the living area and went to work connecting and attaching the galvanized pipe fittings along the long board across the the top.
"Who are the flowers for or from?" Mateo asked.
Kurt shrugged. "I'm not sure who they're from or for. They don't have a recipient's name on them. I didn't send them. That much I know."
Mateo let it drop and continued to work on the brace on the wall that divided the kitchen from the living area. The three of them finished up the project about lunch time. Kurt asked them to help him move the large sofa and his desk into place before they had to leave to make it to their afternoon classes. He thanked them both for their help and walked them down to the lobby.
When he got back up to the flat, he slipped his stool under his desk and sat the vintage bucket seat chair up to his desk. Adjusting the frame on the chair to make it comfortable as a desk chair would be his next project.
He stopped long enough to make himself a quick sandwich before he went back to work.
He set up his sewing machine and ironing board to hem the three king-sized flat sheets he had bought to create the curtain divider. He ironed along the bottom to create a deeper hem which would become the top of the curtains, simultaneously shortening the curtains the right length. He cut fusible interfacing to the right width and iron it in place between the layers of fabric, after which he sewed the new seams. Once he had sewn the fabric in place on each one, he used the grommet press he had borrowed from the costume shop to attach stainless grommets along the top of the curtains.
Before he managed to get all of them attached, the intercom sounded again, so he went back downstairs. This time there was a box of chocolates, specifically See's chocolates. He sighed, but thanked the concierge politely and went back to wait for the elevator. He didn't look at the card until he got back in the elevator. It said, "To the sweetest man I know". When he got upstairs, he left the chocolates in the kitchen with the flowers.
He returned to his task of attaching the grommets. Once he finished he hung all 36 roller shower curtain hooks he had bought to the piping he had attached to the 2'x'4s. He ironed the first curtain and attached each grommet to one of the hooks. When he finished, he tried out sliding the curtains along the pipe and they slid quite smoothly and easily. He smiled at his ingenuity and improvements over his first attempt at curtain dividers in the loft. He ironed the other two sheets and hung them. He spread them out evenly and stood across the room to take a look. He was thrilled with how well the steel gray linen sheets he had ordered online matched the gray color of the walls.
He opened the boxes in the hallway and began to fill the wood unit with their books and things. The walk-in closet provided enough storage for all of his clothes and shoes, which he had put away the evening before. The fact that he did not need to use the lower half of the unit to store off-season clothing and shoes allowed Kurt to used the space to store the two blankets and extra set of sheets for the queen sized bed he had, plus the bed linens that Adam had been using on his XL twin bed that they had decided to keep since they could be used on the sofa for a guest.
He pulled out a photo of himself with his mom and dad when he was around seven, from before his mom got sick. He stood and stared at it and thought about the day they had gone to the corn maze. He could barely remember making their way through the maze and his mom letting him make all of the choices about which way to go. Every time he'd hit a dead end, she'd remind him that just because he'd made a wrong choice didn't mean that he couldn't go back to the last junction and make a different choice. He'd forgotten about that for a long time. He had forgotten that he could step back and make new choices when his original ones didn't work out. He had pressed on and pushed to try to get through dead ends several times when he should have just stepped back and re-evaluated his choices. He was doing that now, though.
He pulled out a small group of old books – classics that had been his mom's. She read them to him when he was too young to read well enough to read them on his own. After she died, he worked hard to be able to read them to himself. The familiarity of the stories helped him push through the difficult words he didn't know. He had asked his dad for a dictionary, which he pulled out next. He put it at the bottom of the stack and placed them on a shelf at eye level. He ran his fingers down the spine of Heidi and smiled sadly.
"I know you'd like Adam."
He wiped a few tears from his eyes and went back to emptying the boxes. He pulled out the football that the whole team had signed after they won their first game his sophomore year. Finn had let him bring it with him saying that he deserved to have it since he had a trophy from them winning the championship their junior year. Kurt put it up on the shelf and reminded himself that he needed to call and talk to Finn soon. He had started school at OSU Lima for the third trimester, taking a few classes to get to where he needed to be to start full-time in the fall to study to be a teacher. He was happy that Finn had finally found something that interested him.
He continued to empty his boxes and Adam's, intermixing their CDs, but keeping their books separate. He rearranged some things a few times to get a good aesthetic balance. He stepped back to give it one finally look-over. He decided that he liked the way it looked, but that if Adam wanted to rearrange some things that would be fine as well.
He rolled the vintage wood filing cabinet with the TV on it in front of the center of the wood wall unit. He use a fabric sleeve with velcro that he had made to to keep the cords flush to the back, which was actually the side. He attached a 3-outlet surge protector underneath using self-adhesive velcro and ran a single gray appliance extension cord to the outlet under the window, which improved the look of the setup quite a bit.
He looked around the room and all that remained was to roll out the rug he had gotten and to assemble the new corner desk that he had gotten for Adam. He used a Swiffer on the whole flat before he unrolled the rug. He had just managed to get the rug in position when the intercom sounded once more. He went back downstairs.
This time the concierge handed him a brown paper sack gift bag, which Kurt thanked him for before he turned around and headed back to the elevator. Once inside, he looked inside the bag and found the complete series of Gilmore Girls. He put the bag in the kitchen with the other items and picked up all of the flattened boxes and took them to the recycling bin to give himself a chance to be calm when he got back to the flat so he could assemble the desk more easily.
When he opened the door, he was pleased with what he saw. The living area that had looked like a dorm room or hotel room now looked like an adult living area with the gray linen curtains hanging along the left with the green sofa he had brought from the loft in front of them, the gray rug with small, muted earth-tone ovals and a mid-century vibe to it was in front of the sofa, which was facing the TV and the wood unit filled with their things.
He smiled and opened the box with the desk pieces in it and got to work. About an hour later, he moved it into position in the corner that the bed created with the wall it was up against. The shape of the desk allowed them to get in the bed without moving the curtains. He moved Adam's desk chair over, opened the last box of Adam's things, and set them up on his new desk. He took the last two boxes to the recycling bin and went back to the flat.
Their flat, he reminded himself and smiled.
The last thing left to do was to make the bed, but first he wanted to wash the bed linens since they had slept on the mattress on the floor the night before. Once he had everything in the washer, he went into the kitchen to start prepping dinner and he came face to face with the gifts again. He moved them to the pass-through counter so he had room to cut up vegetables.
His mind wandered and he couldn't help but try to think who could be behind the prank gifts. With the last addition of the Gilmore Girls DVDs, there was little to make him continue to consider that the gifts were for Adam. He glanced over at them and realized that he had no way to know whether the gifts were from the same sender. He also couldn't figure out who would spend that much money just to be spiteful. He had long stopped thinking of April Fool's Day as a day for fun when people just started pulling obnoxious pranks on him, like the pee balloons. But no one had ever spent a lot of money to make him feel bad.
Rachel and Santana were both angry with him for moving out of the loft and taking the the sofa and the wall unit he had been using as room divider, but he had paid for them, so he didn't bother to listen to their arguments. They were also annoyed that they had to buy him out of the deposit he had put down on the place. He had given them the option of buying the other furniture he had paid for that he wasn't bringing with him. Even at that, he left quite a few things he had bought behind, like most of the items he had bought to furnish the kitchen, but they seemed unappreciative of that.
He never told them his forwarding address, but Rachel did know what building he had moved to because Adam had mentioned the name once when she asked him where he lived. He knew she remembered because she had made a snarky comment about how he could afford to live in the Theater District when he dressed the way he did. Santana was sneaky and could have followed him at some point.
When the washer stopped, he had almost finished slicing up the vegetables. He put them in a container and put a lid on it before he moved the load to the dryer and started a second one with the comforter.
He decided that he needed a shower after all the physical labor he had done. He left his clothes in the laundry basket in the walk-in closet and crossed the hall to the bathroom. As he stood under the hot water, he did his best to relax, but his mind went back to the gifts again.
It was always possible that Adam like See's candies as well. It wasn't like the only place to buy them was Ohio. He was certain that he had never told Adam how much he liked them since he had never actually seen a candy store that sold them locally. But the Gilmore Girls set brought Blaine to mind. It had been the hardest gift to refuse because he had really wanted the DVDs, but could never justify the expense of buying them for himself since Carole owned all of them and he watched hers, which he could no longer do after he had moved to New York, so the temptation to keep them had been quite strong.
Thinking about Blaine brought what had happened in Lima two weeks prior back to the forefront of his mind. Nick and Jeff had invited him to stop at Dalton for lunch on his way back to New York at the end of spring break after he had visited for a few days since he hadn't gone back for Christmas or Thanksgiving. He agreed to meet them and arranged to go while his dad went to a political event that Kurt had been planning on attending with him, despite not wanting to, just because it took place on the same day he was flying back to New York. He parked and met Nick and Jeff out front. They led him around the side of the building.
He remembered stopping dead in his tracks as music began to play from the balcony. Nick and Jeff scurried ahead as Blaine came out.
He stepped inside the building to find the Warblers shuffle-stepping while they sang "Love, Love, Love". Mercedes, Rachel, and Santana were there, which shocked him. Before he got pulled into the hallway, he stopped and did his best to calmly lead Blaine outside back through the doors they had come in so they could talk in private. Blaine tried to talk Kurt into staying inside, but he held his ground.
The instant they were outside, Kurt told Blaine that his stance on high school students getting engaged hadn't changed since the year before.
Their conversation after that played back in his mind.
"I know that you went to my dad and told him that you wanted to ask me to marry you. He told you that asking for my hand in marriage was an old-fashioned tradition and that I'm not a girl. He also told you that you're too young. I also know that he told you that I'm seeing someone. I have been since before you came to New York in December."
"You can't be that serious about him. You haven't told anyone about him. You never changed your Facebook status."
Kurt rolled his eyes. "After I changed it to single when we broke up, I quit using Facebook. I haven't logged in since that first week in October after I got lambasted for breaking your heart." He scoffed. "As if." He saw Sebastian standing in the doorway within earshot, but he was too tired to care at that point. "You let someone else fuck you and then you have the nerve to expect me to forgive you and take you back when you know that I've been dating someone else exclusively for two and a half months? You tried to get me to come back for the wedding. I turned you down then. I'm turning you down now. I'm going to keep turning you down. You need to stop."
"Wait, what?" Sebastian said. He saw Nick and Jeff approach the door. "He cheated on you?"
"Back at the beginning of the school year. I broke up with him the first weekend in October."
Sebastian gestured towards the building. "This was over-the-top, but I figured he knew what you would like. Plus, I thought you two had been solid for, like, two years." He turned to Nick and Jeff and told them to go in and get everyone to stop singing, but to stay inside. He turned back to Kurt. "I'm sorry about this. I never would have agreed if I had known you had a boyfriend."
Kurt nodded.
This time it was Mercedes that overheard Sebastian when she cracked the door open.
"Say what?" she asked as she stepped outside, closing the door behind her. "You have a boyfriend?"
He put a stop to that train wreck of a memory.
He opened his eyes and forced himself to look around. He was in a glass walk-in shower with room for two in a bathroom that was completely tiled – gray floor and lighter gray walls, both with dark gray grout. The sink, which was next to the shower was white with a white wood cabinet below it where the towels were stored and a large mirror that opened hung above it. Near the door was the toilet with shallow white storage cabinet was mounted above it, which was filled with their personal care products.
This was the bathroom that he shared with Adam.
Adam who loved him.
Adam who wooed him to join his choir of amazingly talented misfits with a song about big butts.
A smile spread across Kurt's face.
That was a day worth thinking about. A few days after he had gotten his acceptance letter, he was hanging out in the atrium, looking through the activities boards while he waited for Rachel while she took a final. Adam approached him and invited him to join the Apples. He tried to resist, but ultimately Adam's enthusiasm convinced him to go along with him to just hear them. He enjoyed every second of it and couldn't remember the last time he had smiled so much before that afternoon.
Those smiles had become everyday occurrences. He could not be happier that he had gotten up the nerve to ask Adam out the next time he saw him when he was waiting for Rachel again later that week after he had finished his enrollment process and picked up his class schedule.
He turned the water off, got out, dried off, and crossed the hall to get redressed. He chose a pair of form-fitting well-worn jeans and a burgundy hoodie. He slipped some socks on and went back into the bathroom to style his hair.
He went back to thinking about his first few coffee dates with Adam, where they were getting to know each other. The smile reappeared on his face.
Barely more than a week later, his dad had brought Blaine as his Christmas "gift". After skating and singing with him, they went back to the loft. He set Blaine up in Rachel's area, letting his dad sleep in his bed, while he took the couch. He got Burt up early the next morning and took him out for breakfast, leaving a note behind for Blaine. He had opened up and told his dad the truth about their breakup and about casually dating Adam. The fears he had about telling his dad the truth melted as he was pulled him into a bear hug. When Burt let go, he looked Kurt in the eyes.
"You're an amazing guy, Kurt. You absolutely deserve someone who recognizes that and who will be faithful to you. Obviously, Blaine isn't that guy. I want you to give me your keys to the loft and I want you to stay here until I text you. I'm going to send Blaine on his way back to Ohio."
The dryer buzzing broke him from his trip down memory lane. He grabbed the mattress pad and sheets and moved the comforter to the dryer. After he made the bed, he checked the time and realized that it was time to get the rest of dinner started. He pulled out Adam's rice cooker and got that started. He sliced the chicken up into thin, bite-sized strips. He had asked Adam to let him know when he arrived downstairs, so he was waiting to actually start cooking until he heard from him.
He went into the living area and started some Rachmaninoff to whisk him away to another place. He danced around the living room like he was Prince Charming at the ball.
Adam opened the door to the flat and shut it behind him quietly when he saw Kurt dancing. He didn't move past that point, not wanting to scare Kurt. He took his phone out and texted Kurt.
-I'm here, darling. I forgot to text you downstairs. I'm sorry.
Kurt felt his phone buzz in his pants pocket and stopped dancing. He took it out and read the text and immediately looked towards the door, his face flushing from embarrassment.
"Oh, no, no, no," Adam said, moving close enough to put his hand on Kurt's waist and kiss him. "You're beautiful, darling. Never be embarrassed about me seeing you dance, please?"
Kurt nodded. "Welcome home." He leaned forward to kiss Adam.
"Had you not been in here dancing so beautifully, I would have thought I had somehow opened the wrong door. How on earth did you transform this place into something so lovely in one day?" He spun Kurt slowly as he turned himself to look around the room. "You are amazing, darling. It is absolutely fantastic. I feel like I've won one of those home makeovers on a TV show."
"You like it then?"
"I love it, darling."
"I have a surprise for you."
"Something more than transforming our home?"
Kurt's smile grew as he heard Adam say "our". "Yes." He slipped loose from Adam's embrace and slid the curtains to the right.
"I have a new desk already." He stepped closer to inspect it. "It fits nicely in the space. I have a drawer like I had said I wanted. And there are two long, narrow shelves underneath where I can put whatever books I'm using at the time." He wrapped his arms back around Kurt. "You're amazing, darling. It's perfect." He kissed Kurt sweetly.
The dryer buzzed and Kurt turned. "That's the comforter. It's the last thing that needs to go on the bed."
"I'll help you put it on. You've done so much today."
While Adam went to retrieve the comforter, Kurt pulled the curtains back from the other side.
"They slide so smoothly. I love the–. The circles?"
"Grommets," Kurt offered.
"Grommets, yes. Slipped my mind. I love how those curtain hooks have rolling bearings and just move so easily."
"Experience. Improvements based on my last attempt."
"Well, this is fantastic." He put the comforter on, climbed across, and lay down. He patted the space next to him.
Kurt lay down and took a deep breath. "Dinner won't take long to make. It would have been done when you got up here–"
"But I forgot to let you know I was here. I am sorry about that, darling. I'll do better. I'm not used to having someone who cares about me waiting for me."
Kurt rolled towards the center and lay on his side. He reached out and ran his thumb along Adam's jaw. "I missed you. It's been a long day." He sighed.
Adam turned to face him. "What's troubling you? It's not just the physical labor." He draped his arm across Kurt's hip.
Kurt struggled to speak. He was still surprised by Adam's ability to read his feelings. "Well, I thought I had managed to escape the pranks. I was here. No one even knows my exact address except my parents."
"Someone did something here? This building is pretty secure, darling. How did someone manage to get up to the flat? No one's managed to sneak up here before. And trust me, several of the Apples have tried."
Kurt chuckled. "That doesn't surprise me." He slipped his hand down and put it on Adam's waist. "No one made it up to the flat. I did have help with the construction, but I went down and got passes for them."
"Who helped you?"
"Bart and Mateo. Bart runs a little side business building lofted bed for dorms. He helped me design a sturdy queen-size canopy bed frame. He cut the pieces and I went to the place where he has his tools a couple of nights last week and stained and sealed the bed frame to match the big wall unit. I painted the long board that runs along the ceiling to match the ceiling. Anyway, Mateo needed the single bed and desk for when he moves out of the dorms for the summer, so I traded them in exchange for his labor."
"Great idea. I had said to donate them, and you did. And this bed frame is amazing. It doesn't give or rock at all."
"Underneath there are two storage box we built too. They're on sliders to keep them from scratching the floors. I put my sewing machine and all of my crafty stuff in one. I covered it with an elasticized cover to keep the dust out. I put the moon chairs in the other box, also covered. The rest of the space is still available, if we ever need more storage."
"Excellent forethought. My darling, you are quite the amazing man." Adam leaned forward and kissed him again. "I love you."
"I love you too."
"Darling, I can see your love. Everywhere."
Kurt's heart swelled. No one else had ever acknowledged his acts of kindness or service as acts of love. He tipped his head back and looked at the blank walls. "We can get a few things to hang on the wall in this area. Neither of us had anything to hang."
"We'll find things in time." He kissed Kurt again. He could still feel the tension in Kurt's body. "Darling, please tell me what happened that's got you so tense."
He took a deep breath. "Well, three different times during the day while I was working, the intercom buzzed and I went down to pick up things that had been left for me. The first time was a vase of golden orange Calla lilies."
"Alright."
"Those were my mom's favorites. I usually buy a small bouquet of them each year on her birthday in July, but that's the only time. They always make me cry." He wiped his eyes. "My mom loved to garden and had some Calla lilies that she had had since she was a teenager. She transferred them to pots and kept them indoors over the winter since they would die if left outside in Ohio. Each spring we'd take the pots back outside and plant them along the front edge of our flower garden. The year she died, I tried to take them inside myself, but I didn't know how to take care of them and they died over the winter."
"Oh, Kurt."
He wiped the tears away. "I don't know who would know that, but it was like an arrow through the heart to see them." He took a deep breath. "The second time I went down, there was a box of See's chocolates. Again, I have no idea how anyone would know that I really love their dark chocolates. I didn't actually open the box to see what type was inside. It just brought back some memories that I had buried and reminded me of a time when I didn't keep my word." He wiped his eyes again. "Um, the last thing was a complete set of DVDs for a TV series that I really like. It was one of the gifts I had been sent last fall when Blaine was flooding me with 'I'm sorry.' gifts. When it arrived, I sent it back. It didn't matter that I really wanted it. It was what it represented – the fact that he thought he could buy his way back into my life. That what he had done to me could be undone by buying me things I wanted. I paid to ship it back and told him to stop sending me gifts."
Adam reached up and wiped Kurt's eyes and scooted close enough to press his forehead to Kurt's. "Darling, what is today?"
"April Fool's Day. A day I hate on principal."
"Think again. What is today's date?"
"April 1st?"
"Yes. And when did we start dating officially? What day did I ask you to be mine and only mine?"
"New Year's Day."
"January 1st, yes, which means that we've been dating for three months. I sent you those gifts, darling. I wanted your day to be filled with good things, instead of the pranks you've dealt with before. I'm so, so sorry that each of them reminded you of something negative and made you feel like you were still being pranked. That was the absolute opposite of what I had wanted." He pulled Kurt closer and wrapped his arms around him. "Darling, I love you so, so much. You make it very hard for me to spoil you with gifts because you still keep a lot of your preferences to yourself. Experience has shown you that no one cares about your preferences, so you stopped sharing them." He ran his hand down Kurt's back lovingly. "I went to Carole for advice. Of all of the people in your life, she is the one you seem to have opened up to the most. I figured if anyone knew your preferences or of things you'd like to have, she would be the one to know."
"You're right, sweetie. You're right. I hadn't considered that they might be from you. Not because you aren't amazing and loving, but because I was just expecting bad things."
"I get that. I should have signed my name on each item. Or just left them down at the desk and given them to you when I got home."
"I never considered that Carole would think that the Calla lilies are my favorite, but it makes sense. Those are the only flowers she's ever seen my buy for myself. And she and I used to sit and watch Gilmore Girls together while my dad and Finn watched professional sports games on TV. She had the whole set, and she knew that I didn't." Kurt snuggled into Adam's chest. "Do you want to watch them with me?"
"I do. That's why I've been scouring second-hand shops for a couple of weeks to find a set. I had no idea they would remind you of Blaine though. That is the last thing I ever want to do."
"If you watch them with me, I won't think about him at all. He would never watch it with me. That's why the getting the DVDs from him was so exacerbatingly frustrating. He was willing to spend about $150 to buy the DVDs to send to me as an apology, but he would never sit down and watch one episode with me. Where did you find the See's chocolates?"
"I ordered them online."
"You are really sweet to me."
"You deserve it."
Kurt ran his fingers through Adam's hair. "Will you look at me, please?"
Adam readjusted a bit.
"I appreciate how much effort you went into making today a nice day for me."
"It didn't work, though."
"It's okay. We're going to enjoy watching the DVD's together. I'll even share my chocolates with you. And while it may be a few months early, the flowers are beautiful. I'll tell you about the photo of me when I was young that I put out on the shelf."
"I'd like that."
"Today is still going to be a good day. How could it not be? I'm officially living with the man I love." He snuggled back into Adam's chest and nuzzled his nose into the nape of his neck. He lay that way for a few minutes, letting himself be surrounded by Adam's comforting embrace. It didn't take long for the tension from the day to drain out of him. "How about you set our places at the counter and make us some tea while I make our stir fry?"
He kissed Kurt on the forehead. "That sounds perfect."