Happy Saturday, everyone! I'm here to bring you Chapter 9, which may be my favorite one so far! HUGE thank you to my wonderful beta, Christine.

Santana knew how to get what she wanted from Kurt. It was clear from the way she used Burt to get Kurt to go to concerts, her birthday party, and the various activities that their new group of friends (Kurt, Blaine, Santana, Sam, Puck and various Hummel's employees) were doing quite regularly.

"You can't take care of Kay if you don't take care of Kurt," was her only response to his protests.

But when she played her best game was when she used Kadie to get what she wanted. But on Friday night when Kurt received a screaming announcement from Kadie that she was going to be spending the night with Auntie Tana, Kurt had no idea what she wanted from him.

"And what am I supposed to do all night?" Kurt asked going through Kadie's drawers, putting Kadie's favorite purple pajamas into her overnight bag.

"I don't know and I don't care," Santana answered from her post, leaning against the door frame, her arms crossed across her chest, "Tonight is a girl's night and we can't be bothered with your problems."

Kurt looked up and looked Santana directly in the eye, "What are you doing?"

"Taking my niece for the night so that her daddy, and my best friend, can have some peace and quiet. He works himself too hard."

"I mean," Kurt said standing, "What's your hidden agenda?"

"I think you're really losing it Hummel. Which is why this night off is a good idea. I don't care if you sit in the dark and cry, drink an entire bottle of wine by yourself and pass out on the floor, or dance around in your underwear. Just take a deep breath, Kurt, and enjoy one night to yourself."

"I've been doing a lot of that lately."

"It's still not enough."

Ten minutes later, Kadie's excitement was practically pouring off her as Kurt hugged her tight and kissed the top of her head, before she followed Santana out the front door shouting "Bye Daddy!" as the door closed behind her.

Alone in his quiet, empty house, Kurt tried to think of what he could do with the time he had to himself. He hadn't planned on doing much, just whatever Kadie wanted. But now he was left with a few hours to do what he wanted, and he was coming up blank. Sitting down on the couch, Kurt visually skimmed his bookshelf. It had been so long since he'd read anything written for someone his own age, and nothing looked particularly interesting. He could sit in front of the TV until he fell asleep, the drama of the reality show that he was terribly behind on as his lullaby; or he could clean and reorganize the upstairs bathroom like he'd been hoping to for as long as he could remember. But all of that seemed like a waste of time.

He scanned the room, hoping to find an idea, and his eyes stopped at the spot in the corner. The corner where on Saturday, Kurt had kissed Blaine, and he was immediately transported back into that moment, as if it was happening in the present. He could feel Blaine wrapped around him, his lips against his lips, his tongue against his tongue, his skin against his skin. In that moment, everything had felt good again. At least until the power went out. Kurt eyes then trailed to the spot where later that night he'd made the mistake of letting Blaine leave without an explanation.

Now, it wasn't as if they were avoiding each other, exactly. Text messages had been exchanged all week about various topics, and they saw each other almost every day when Kurt picked Kadie up from school. The kiss, however, remained unmentioned, but not forgotten. Kurt knew what he wanted: more. He wanted to figure out how to make things work with Blaine, to give them a real try. Blaine had kissed him back just as desperate as Kurt had, hadn't he? Or was that all in Kurt's head? Had he just thought he felt it because he wanted it so badly? No. Blaine's hands had held him the way that his body and his mind remembered; had kissed him the way his lips remembered. He was certain of it. And because of that Kurt was also certain that if the power hadn't gone out, and if Kadie hadn't come downstairs, and the bar hadn't called, that maybe that kiss would have been everything they needed to stop avoiding whatever was going on between them and things could finally fall into place.

Tonight there would be no power outage, no Kadie, no emergency phone calls from the bar. Tonight there were no more excuses. Before he could talk himself out of it, Kurt pulled his phone out of his pocket and was scrolling to find Blaine's name. He let his thumb hover over the green button for just a second before he tapped it with certainty.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's Kurt," he said, "What are you doing tonight?"

"Nothing, I don't think," Blaine responded, "Is everything alright?"

"Let's go get a drink."

"A drink?"

"Yeah," Kurt said, "Santana took Kadie for the night and I want to go out. There's a place in the next town that's basically like Hummel's except when I go in there, I don't have to worry about the way the place is running. Plus they have fantastic onion rings."

"That's what Cooper said about the ones at Hummel's."

"I may have talked to the owner and slightly altered his recipe."

"You didn't?" Blaine gasped.

"I cannot confirm or deny anything, but I think we should go."

"Uh, yeah. That'd be great."

"Perfect. Can you meet me at my place?"

"Yeah, I'll see you in a little bit."

The moment they hung up, Kurt ran upstairs. It became totally obvious that he needed to change.

It was the first time Blaine and Kurt had hung out, just the two of them, in a long time. When they went out, it was always with a bunch of other people. When they were at Kurt's, Kadie or Santana were always there. But they were going out now; just the two of them, and honestly the thought both thrilled and terrified Blaine. But he didn't mind at all.

After he'd gotten off the phone he'd ignored Cooper's amused gaze as he ran upstairs to change out of his sweatpants. Allison was at her book club and he and Cooper were going to watch some movie he had no interest in, but one call from Kurt and the night suddenly became more exciting.

Blaine met Kurt in his driveway, not even getting to the door before Kurt was directing him into the car. Kurt explained on the ride there how Nicky's was the bar he and Santana snuck into when they weren't exactly of legal age. The bouncer just took one look at Santana's chest and let them in.

"It was too bad for him that Santana's into girls," Kurt said with a laugh as they pulled into the parking lot of Nicky's.

Nicky's was, as Kurt described, just like Hummel's or any other bar for that matter. Tables of people, alcohol, loud music. But there weren't nearly as many people there and Blaine knew that what made Hummel's special was the people. Here the bartender looked bored, at Hummel's Puck would be asking a million questions. The atmosphere made the bar a success and this just didn't feel as welcoming as Hummel's.

"Do you come here often?" Blaine asked.

Kurt laughed, "No. But Hummel's is the only bar in Lima so if I want to go out for a drink I have to go outside the city limits. Cheers had it all wrong. Sometimes you have to go somewhere no one knows your name."

They ordered drinks and onion rings from a waitress who looked less than thrilled as she took their order popping her gum.

"Tell me about New York," Kurt said.

"What about it?"

"You're not from there, so what drew you there? You don't need to be in a city that big to teach."

"I don't know. I love the heart of the city. The constant change of it all."

"Must make living here a nightmare."

"No," Blaine said, "I actually like it here. It's different, but no better or worse. I get why Cooper came here. I mean, aside from Allison."

"You've actually never told me why you left New York."

"I haven't?"

"No. You just said you needed a fresh start."

Over the last few months Jason had become nothing more than a memory. His heart had started to put itself back together. And had all started the night he met Kurt.

"It's not an original story by any means," Blaine explained, "I lost my job and my boyfriend, his name was Jason, in the same week. Cooper charmed someone into getting me a job at the school and before I knew it I was on a plane to Ohio."

"Do you ever regret it?"

"Nope," Blaine said without a moment's hesitation, "I've only been here a few months but I've got my brother and Allison, a group of friends I care about, a job I love. I've somehow managed to get almost everything I've always wanted and I didn't need a big city to get it. I found it all right here."

The word "almost" rang loudly in Kurt's head as he thought about the thing that Blaine was missing before he had everything he'd ever wanted. And the tightness in his chest was the hope that maybe what Blaine was missing was the same thing Kurt was: someone to love, and to love him back. And the hope that maybe they could be that thing to each other that made them complete.

A couple hours and two—well, for Kurt, three—beers later, Kurt was pulling the car back into his driveway. The short drive back had been full of laughing and singing along with the radio, and when Kurt cut the engine, Blaine's chuckle grew louder, making Kurt's heart grow along with it. Their night together had been perfect, easy, and very much needed. Unlike most other nights that he went out, there was no one waiting for him at home, no babysitter to relieve. He could breathe a little deeper, drink that extra beer, and hope that the prince sitting next to him would kiss him without worrying that the clock would strike midnight.

"We should do this again," he told Blaine, looking over to see the other man's moonlit illuminated profile.

Blaine turned his attention towards Kurt, "Yeah, definitely."

Kurt took a strengthening breath. Now as the time to be fearless, "I like hanging out with you, Blaine. Just you."

"Yeah," Blaine said, "Me too."

"Really?"

Blaine shot him a puzzled look, "Of course."

"Because I kissed you the other day and we really haven't talked about it," Kurt blurted. It wasn't exactly how he'd planned on venturing onto that topic, but his words were out there now, and there was no taking them back.

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh," Kurt said, "Can I ask you something? And can you be completely honest with me? No matter what your answer is."

"Sure," Blaine said, "Of course."

Kurt faced forward for a minute, running his hands against the steering wheel, and then turned back towards Blaine, "Have I been imagining this the whole time? Me and you? Those feelings that we felt the first couple of days, before you knew about Kadie, before you knew about Daniel. Did I imagine all of that? Because sometimes I can't decide if it was real or just a really good dream."

"They were definitely real."

"Good. Because those were the first days in a really long time that I felt like me again. I felt like singing and dancing and shouting from the rooftops. It was like coming out from under the water and taking in that first breath. I felt alive. And I thought you felt the same, at least a little bit."

"I did."

"Do you now?"

"I-"

"Because I do. I do and it scares the hell out of me. You scare the hell out of me. Because you could hurt me."

"I wouldn't," Blaine said and if by no other force than instinct, grabbed onto Kurt's hand. Kurt's fingers curled around Blaine's.

"I know that. I think. But sometimes you have to take chances, no matter how scared you are. And telling you this could do one of two things. You could tell me that no matter how real those moments were, they're over. That you can't be with me for whatever reasons. That the feelings are no longer there. And I will respect that. It'll be the last time I bring this up. We will go back to being friends. Truly friends. But if there's even a slight chance that we can work this out, that I want to be with you and you want to be with me, then I want to take it. I want to take a chance on you. On us."

"Kurt—"

"It's been a really terrible year, Blaine. God, it's been more than a year now. But I've been spending every second working or making sure that Kadie is happy. Because I worry about how she reacts more than anything else. To a certain extent, I understand but she doesn't. And life was just the same routine, day after day. And then you came into my bar. And things were good, they were—I thought they were great. There was something new to look forward to. The sun was shining after it had been dark for so long. And then you were Kadie's teacher and then we decided it wasn't a good idea for us to be together, and things got a little bit grey again. But then all of a sudden my first thought every morning wasn't 'is Daniel going to come back today?' It was 'will I see Blaine today when I pick up Kadie from school?' And then I thought back to something my dad said. He told me, after the open house, that everything happens for a reason. I thought it was the worst advice he'd ever given me, but I think I finally understand what he meant. He meant that the reason we couldn't be together before was because no matter how much I wanted it, my heart wasn't really ready. It had been through the ringer and it wasn't ready to let anyone else in. I wasn't expecting you, Blaine. I wasn't waiting for someone to appear in my life and turn my world around. So when you showed up, I wasn't ready. But I can't seem to move on or forget you. And the more we try to be friends, the more I realize that I never wanted to be your friend, Blaine. I've always wanted something more. And I think I'm ready now."

"I want that too. More. I always have."

"Good. That's—that really good to hear."

"But what about Kadie?" Blaine asked, finally getting a complete sentence in.

Kurt rolled his eyes, "She's been doing just fine while we've been friends. Santana told me about her interrogation last week. We will just have to explain it to her and hope for the best. I'm honestly more worried about her being upset I'm dating in general than I am about me dating her teacher. She's five, not fifteen. I think her priorities are different then we think they are. Plus, she worships you."

"And if something happens? With us, I mean."

"God, Blaine," Kurt said with a laugh, squeezing Blaine's hand, relishing of the warmth of his skin beneath the pad of his thumb, "We'll deal. We're adults and you're not going to be her teacher forever."

"And you're sure about this?"

"Very sure," Kurt said, "The question is, what do you want? After everything you told me tonight, what do you think will make you completely happy?"

"You," Blaine said, "I do, I'm just-"

"Scared?" Kurt finished, "If you're scared, be scared with me."

Blaine looked down at their joined hands, at their intertwined fingers fitting perfectly together, grounding him to the moment. There was no place in the entire world that he would rather be than with Kurt. And despite everything, Kurt wanted to be there with him too. Despite the obstacles that had been placed in front of them—and he fully admits some of them were put there by his own hands—the path to being with Kurt had cleared and all he had to do was lean over and he would be his.

So he did. His lips pressed softly, but firmly, against Kurt's. A warmth washed over his entire body as Kurt responded to him, reaching up to place a hand against his cheek. Blaine leaned more, wanting to be closer, wanting more of Kurt, the center console digging into his side. He laughed into the kiss as he thought about how much he felt like a teenager, making out in the car, parked in the driveway, the need to feel and explore and devour Kurt overwhelming.

"What's so funny?" Kurt asked leaning his forehead against Blaine's, cherishing the intimacy.

Blaine told him how he was waiting for someone's dad to come tapping on the window, warning them it was time to go inside.

"Then let's go inside," Kurt whispered into the cold car.

Blaine responded with a quick kiss before leaping out of the car and hurrying towards Kurt's house.

Blaine really loved waking up to the smell of Cooper making breakfast. He loved waking up with a smile from a dream he couldn't remember. He loved waking up and knowing that it was Saturday and he didn't have anywhere he needed to be and could just lay in bed for a while. But by far, Blaine's favorite way to wake up was with Kurt's head against his chest and the tickle of his breath against his skin as he carded his fingers through his messy hair, both their bodies' void of clothing. Being with Kurt had been perfect, amazing, and everything—and more—that Blaine had imagined over the last few months. It had been worth the wait and the risk. In the light of morning, every apprehension that Blaine had had was gone. He looked down at Kurt and no longer saw boring days and lonely nights; he saw a road towards something, a future that was more exciting than he'd ever experienced.

Kurt stirred against him, nuzzling his chest, fingers skimming Blaine's belly as he slowly became awake and opened his eyes, their beautiful blue diamonds looking up at Blaine before the smile crept on his face. He looked happy. He'd made Kurt happy, just as Kurt had done to him.

"Good morning," he whispered running his fingers through Kurt's hair again, laughing when Kurt swatted at his hand until he grabbed onto it, locking their fingers together as he brought them to his lips.

"Good morning," Kurt said leaning up and replacing Blaine's hand with his lips, transferring them into a series of slow, yet needy, kisses.

Blaine slipped down so that his body was even with Kurt's, his hands reaching out to pull his—well, he supposed Kurt was his boyfriend now—flush against his body. Blaine's own body was vibrating with the anticipation of what was to come and the excitement of getting to discover Kurt's body and the newness of how it felt under his hands.

"Tell me how to make you feel good," Blaine asked between the gentle kisses he peppered across Kurt's chest.

"You," he reached up to cup Blaine's neck and run his thumb across his jaw, "I just need you."

Blaine's responsive kiss was desperate, need, and hungry. He wanted nothing more than to give Kurt everything and found that there was nothing easier than giving himself to Kurt. His hand traveled down, skimming over Kurt's bare ass and thighs, before coming up and to the front to take Kurt in his hand. Blaine was certain that the rush he felt when he was with Kurt like this would never go away or get old. There was nothing Blaine couldn't do if Kurt just continued to kiss his neck the way he was; if he just continued to caress and tease in a way that only Kurt Hummel could. It was mind-altering. When he was with Kurt, the rest of the world went away until it was just them. They were so caught up in each other they hadn't heard the sound of the front door opening, and the sound of footsteps creeping towards Kurt's room.

"I've been trying to get you two into bed together for a freakin' month and all I had to do was take the kid for the night? Jeez, if I had known that it would have saved me and Trouty so much trouble."

The boys froze then sat up quickly to see Santana in the doorway, stepping inside and closing the door.

"You've been trying to get us in bed together?" Blaine asked incredulously.

"Of course," Santana responded, "You two have been dancing around each other for too long and it was driving me nuts. I don't go bowling on Friday nights just for fun."

"Santana, can you please give us a minute?"

"Yes, of course. But only so you're daughter doesn't walk in on this room smelling like morning sex and seeing her daddy and her teacher tangled in their sin."

Santana left the room, closing the door behind her.

"I can't tell if she's actually happy for us or not."

"She is. You just can't tell unless you're fluent in Santana, which, I just happen to be," Kurt placed a quick kiss on Blaine's lips, "Are you happy?"

"Kurt, I am up in the clouds, singing and dancing on Broadway, happy."

"So you're doing okay?" Kurt laughed.

"I'm great."

"Good," Kurt said adding another kiss at the end.

"DADDY!" Kadie yelled.

"I guess we should get this over with, huh?"

Kurt kissed Blaine's lips, just long enough to melt some of the tension that had been building inside Blaine, "Hey, we'll figure this out."

Blaine hung his head, "I know, you're right."

"You're learning quickly," Kurt said with a big smile, "Now go put your clothes on, we're going to have breakfast with the ladies."

AN: TA DA! I know! I know! FINALLY!

Please leave a review and let me know what you think and I will get Chapter 10 to you as soon as I can!

Have a great weekend!