Blaine was staring at his phone.

It had been about four hours since he watched that video (he could lie in his mind and say he didn't watch the whole thing, but he didn't think he could even forget the end of that movie), and that whole time, it's been spent sitting at his dining room table, staring at his phone contemplating his life, thinking about texting Kurt and telling him that he was taking a last minute vacation.

He wouldn't really be going on a vacation, of course. It's not like he would just go somewhere without warning. No, he just needed to take a step back from Kurt, get his mind around this. It was the cowards way out; he knew it, he knew that anyone he told about this would think so too.

If there was one thing Blaine was particularly good at, though, it was escaping. When he had been a senior in high school, he started his flower garden as a way to escape the pressure of being the well-to-do Anderson that his father wanted him to be. It was something that helped him escape from his own mind, his own life.

His dad didn't really approve of what Blaine would do after school, and when he graduated from high school his dad gave him a ticket to New York and enough money for an apartment and told him to never contact him again. Cooper, at the time living in Los Angeles, moved to New York to help Blaine out. This caused him to be disowned too, but Cooper didn't care. The one time he chose Blaine over his own future.

A year later, after his company was starting to blossom from the money his dad gave him, he saw the Anderson name had bought a good share of his stocks. It was the last he had even heard from his parents, which to him was good riddence.

He had used his company to escape his problems with his family, and now he didn't have something to help him run away.

And now he was facing a huge problem, making him run away, and Kurt's number was now staring at him, accusing him of being a coward.

He had never thought himself a coward before, and now...now he felt like one.

He sighed at his phone for what he felt like the fiftieth time, and dropped his head onto the table. His phone buzzed next to his face, and Blaine lifted his head up enough to see that it was from...Kurt?!

From: Kurt Hummel 4:45 p.m.

Hey sorry I won't be at the park this week, got a big design thing. See you next week? :)

He took a deep breath in relief. Now it doesn't seem like he was running away from Kurt as much. Now he could take his time and not feel bad about avoiding Kurt or anything.

To: Kurt Hummel 4:46 p.m.

That's ok, I'll just have to see you next week!

He heard Cupcake putter into the dining room, and Blaine automatically dropped his hand to pet the top of her head. Now he can take a mind break without upsetting someone he really cared about.

In the ten years that Blaine had been in New York, he had never taken a vacation.

True, this wasn't really a vacation, and sure there were better vacations than staying in your apartment and just sitting around finally getting around to opening his books, but to him this was awesome. He was using his library and his movie collection for the first time since moving in. The only thing that he was thinking, though, was, 'I wish Kurt were here.'

Little things in the apartment would remind him of Kurt. The flowers in the lobby made him think of the floral print shirt he wore once when he was experimenting with patterns. Cupcake ran and barked at the action movie on the TV, and it made Blaine think about Carreras running into him the first time they ever met.

Blaine had no idea what was going on with him.

His phone buzzed the next day from his pocket as he was making dinner, and Blaine slowly pulled it out to see what it wanted.

From: Kurt Hummel 7:52 p.m.

Remind me why I wanted to deal with models?

Blaine stifled a laugh. It was apparently the worst thing to Kurt to have to dress the models instead of designing their clothes.

To: Kurt Hummel 7:53 p.m.

Would you rather deal with Cooper?

From: Kurt Hummel 7:54 p.m.

Cooper didn't insist on having his dress so tight that you had to practically sew him into it then complain that it was still too big.

To: Kurt Hummel 7:54 p.m.

Clearly you never heard the Tight Pants Compromise of 2004

From: Kurt Hummel 7:55 p.m.

What happened.

To: Kurt Hummel 7:57 p.m.

Lets just say I saw parts of Cooper I didn't ever want to see but had to anyways because he insisted on the underwear he wore.

From: Kurt Hummel 7:58 p.m.

Pics or it didn't happen. Gotta go another carrot wants to be sewn in :(

To: Kurt Hummel 7:59 p.m.

A carrot wearing a dress sounds scary. Does the dress look like ranch?

From Kurt Hummel 8:02 p.m.

XD omg seriously laughed so loud the carrot asked if her makeup was messed up. Half tempted to say she had ranch on.

Blaine chuckled and put his phone on his counter.

Blaine may have taken this week to get away from Kurt and his weird feelings, but he couldn't stop texting him the entire week.

From: Kurt Hummel 12:31 p.m.

Finally on lunch break. Spent it reading your wikipedia page.

To: Kurt Hummel 12:32 p.m.

All lies. Cooper wrote it.

From: Kurt Hummel 12:33 p.m.

I wondered why it said your biggest accomplishment was being Cooper's brother.

Soon, Blaine couldn't get through his day without once hearing from Kurt at least once, even if it was something silly like a joke or serious like how much he wanted to not be busy.

From: Kurt Hummel 1:13 p.m.

What's worse than finding a worm in your apple?

To: Kurt Hummel 1:14 p.m.

No clue.

From: Kurt Hummel 1:14 p.m.

Half of one.

It was getting in his way of relaxing and using his apartment. He put in a musical that he had been meaning to watch, and Kurt would send him some text, and before he knew it the movie would be over and he missed it talking to Kurt. Books laid next to him on the couch, open but unread while he waited for Kurt to respond. Which he didn't have to wait long. Blaine always responded to Kurt's texts right away, and Kurt did as well.

When it had been five days, Blaine realized that he hadn't accomplished what he wanted to do with this week: forget about Kurt.

From: Kurt Hummel 8:23 a.m.

I just made my first bow tie.

To: Kurt Hummel 8:24 a.m.

I didn't know girls wear them.

From: Kurt Hummel 8:26 a.m.

They do, but I made it for you.

He couldn't find himself caring about it after that.

Blaine did have some good memories from that solo week though. Ones that didn't involve his texting conversations with Kurt. Cupcake really enjoyed playing with Blaine all day every day in his apartment. Blaine had sent out for as many dog toys as the delivery boy could carry. One bizarre weather day had snow heavily falling in Central Park, and Blaine filled his phone with pictures of Cupcake covered in snow. He sent most of them to Kurt, and they both laughed over Cupcake's joy over the snow. He received pictures back of Carerras as a little puppy, rolling around in the snow.

Of course, though, his favorite part of his week was Kurt telling him about how he made Blaine a bow tie, even if he never wears bow ties.

He finally caved the Sunday after his freak out and decided that he couldn't just ignore Kurt anymore.

A call from Santana did not influence that decision at all.

"Astin!"

"Tana."

Blaine had been on his balcony of his apartment, watching Cupcake bounce outside and inside (she apparently couldn't decide if she wanted to be outside with Blaine or inside where it was slightly warmer), when his phone chimed telling him that the Devil Came Down from Georgia.

Also known as, Santana was calling him.

"So you decided to hide from the Mrs. this week huh?" She didn't even say hello, just started talking. There was a ruffle on the other line, which Blaine realized was her taking off her jacket in her apartment.

"Are my ears deceiving me? Santana Lopez just called this guy the Mrs. ?"

"They're deceiving you, Blaine." She huffed to let Blaine know she was kidding before diving in again, "And answer my question."

Blaine rolled his eyes, "Yes I decided that I need a break."

"Not having a job wasn't enough?"

He gritted his teeth, "Just needed to get out of my own mind."

She hummed, "So it had nothing to do with the fact that you watched that little video of yours?"

He froze.

"I'm taking from your sudden silence that you had forgotten about that in your haste to 'take a break'. Don't worry honey bunches, I took it out of the player before Cooper came to your apartment demanding that you back him up about the new commercial idea."

Blaine sagged in his chair with relief, "Thank you."

"Oh no, Mr. Anderson, thank YOU. Good lord no wonder you ordered that video, it was hot. As in I'm pretty sure I should buy every single one of those delicious man pies dinner because the sex was so great I felt it." Her voice grew softer, "But Blaine, why did you watch and run?"

He closed his eyes, "I..."

She cooed, "Are you still freaking out about this boy?"

"Yes."

She was silent for a moment, then she stated, "I'm sorry that you're confused, but you can't just...run away every time it gets difficult Blaine."

"That's not why I did it," Blaine lied, "I really just needed to clear my head."

"I believe you." She deadpanned. She totally didn't, he could tell, "Are you going to grace him with your A list face soon?"

He took a deep breath and sighed, "Yeah. I'll see him tomorrow."

"And how many times have you talked to him this week?"

"...Everyday."

He hung up the phone when she just laughed for five minutes straight.

As much as he hated to admit it, Santana was right. He shouldn't have just run like that. There really wasn't anything wrong with what he did. And it wasn't like Kurt would've judged him for it.

Unless...

Oh god would Kurt even like him?

He was in a bit of a shock when he woke up the next morning (no longer at 6:54 a.m. like he was used to, but now 9:23 a.m.).

The apartment was very very clean. Santana even bothered to dust the ceiling.

But that's not what shocked him.

Inside the apartment was Santana, sitting on his couch, with a woman he had never seen in his entire life. She looked petite from what he could tell, with long brown hair that fell in waves around her head. A couple months ago she would've been his type.

Now, though, she was too short and her hair too long.

It took a few minutes for Santana to see him standing in his doorway, but when she did her grin turned positively wolfish, " Ahhhh there's the man of the hour."

The other woman turned in her spot and Blaine saw the rest of her face. She was definitely Jewish with that nose. She smiled and stood up suddenly from the couch and stuck out her hand, "Are you Blaine?"

He hesitated but crossed the room and took hers in a shake, "Yes...And you are?"

"I'm Rachel Berry, one of Santana's good friends." She dropped his hand but not her smile, "She called me yesterday explaining how you might be going through a crisis and seeing as I am the best at handling crises and gay people, I thought I'd come over right away and help answer any question you have seeing as I have two gay dads and a gay roommate."

Blaine blinked a couple times. That was a lot of words in one breath. "I...uh..."

"Please ignore half of what she said," Santana said, her long legs stretching out as she stood and walked over to them, "I thought you'd like to talk to someone else who could help you since I don't know many man gays."

His gaze bounced between the two girls now standing in front of him. He felt his heart pound as he replied, "Uhhh, that's...sweet of you Santana but I don't know if..."

"Nonsense!" Rachel interrupted, "It sounds like you have a secret crush on this boy and you cannot handle your feelings seeing as it made you hide in your apartment when you realized that you might really like this guy. This sounds like you need a female friend to many a gay to help you figure out exactly what's going on in your mind and help you translate it to real life so you can tell this boy how much you want to run off to the sunset with him."

Blaine blinked a couple more times.

"What the fag hag is saying-"

"Santana! That is an offensive word-"

"-Is that you need some advice."

Blaine, at this point, was just tempted to just give in to his maid and her friend and get them out soon. He was tired. He hadn't hardly seen anyone in a week to get him to forget his silly feeling for Kurt, when really all he did was talk to him. He just wanted to lie down, read a book, and get over his problem he seemed to be having with his crisis.

He opened his mouth to do so, but then something trilled in Rachel's purse.

"Oh!" She lifted her finger in a 'wait' gesture, then pulled her phone out to look at it. She read it for a few seconds and her face broke out in a smile, "Can we have this life crisis on a later date? My roommate needs me to talk about some boy he's been obsessed with, he finally admitted to it."

She jumped up and grabbed her coat, barely letting out a half-hearted goodbye before she was gone, door slamming behind her.

Santana looked at the closed door with a pinched expression, "Damn curly." She shook her head and looked back at Blaine, "Do you wanna talk about it?"

Blaine snapped his mouth shut.

She sighed, "Guess not." She looked at the door again, "Damnit."

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

From: Kurt Hummel 10:15 a.m.

I'm gonna bring your bowtie tomorrow. That ok?

Blaine's lips betrayed him, breaking out in a huge smile.

"Ahhhh." Santana cooed from where she had sat down, "Talking to your man?"

"Shut it Tana."

Before you ask, no, Blaine has no clue that this Rachel Berry is Kurt's roommate. This is New York, there's a lot of Rachel's out there with gay roommates!

Nor does Kurt ever know they meet.