October: Milan

It was a whole month before Kurt saw Blaine again, this time on his flight to Milan, where he was overseeing a photoshoot. The original supervisor of the shoot had fallen ill with the flu so Kurt was asked to stand in, and if he was perfectly honest, he was extremely excited. He'd never been to Milan before, only Florence, and that was only for a minor shoot. This was a cover shoot and he would either execute this perfectly or die trying.

Either that or he'd be murdered anyway by a group of very angry stylists, photographers, models and the director if he didn't do it right. And he wasn't ready yet for death by photoshoot mob.

So it was with confidence, pride and determination that he held out his ticket for his flight to the boarding steward, who took it, swiped it on a little machine which beeped affirmative, and silently gave Kurt the OK to board the plane.

Of course, he hadn't been thinking about Blaine the entire month, ever since he landed back in New York. Of course he hadn't thought of his smile or his melodic voice or his cheerfulness or the way his eyes sort of expanded and became huge and round when he was happy.

He hadn't thought about any of that at all.

So naturally, when he reached the mouth of the boarding tunnel and found Blaine waiting at the door of the plane to board passengers, his heart didn't suddenly quicken in his chest, as if it were a hummingbird beating its wings.

When Blaine spotted him, he immediately motioned for him to come over to his side of the plane where he was passing through throng after throng of passengers.

"Back again? You must really like flying with this company. A secret for you: it's not that fantastic, but I get to go to some really nice places, so it's not all that bad."

Kurt let out a fake sigh. "It appears so. You'll be getting tired of me soon enough and you'll want me to find another airline."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that, I like seeing you around. You're a lot better than some of the passengers I meet, but don't tell anyone I told you that." Blaine lowered his voice on the "some" and inclined his head towards a rowdy family with three small children who were clutching at various kinds of stuffed animals and squealing loudly. Ouch. That would get annoying after a while.

"Your secret's safe with me." Kurt assured him as he took his passport and ticket back from Blaine, who had examined it for authenticity moments before. Their hands brushed as the exchange was made, and Blaine's skin was smooth and warm to touch, the fingertips calloused somewhat. "And I guess I like seeing you around, too. It's refreshing to see a flight attendant who isn't so robotic that they might as well have been constructed from wires and steel and taught to talk."

Blaine laughed, shaking his head. "You're one of a kind, Kurt. I like you." He looked up suddenly and his eyes widened in alarm. He rearranged his features into a professional-looking expression. "And maybe you should just take your seat because there's a queue starting to build up behind you and they don't look very happy."

Kurt looked over his shoulder and indeed there was. He gave a nervous giggle and feigned apology to the people behind him, shuffling forward past Blaine to his seat. Their sides connected as he slid past and the fabric of Blaine's uniform jacket was soft where his fingers touched it. It was definitely no polyester blend.

If it had been, he would have been seriously disappointed. What kind of self-respecting airline uses polyester blend for their uniforms?

Not this one, clearly.

Pleased with himself and his new discovery, he made his way to his seat and deposited his usual hand luggage in the overhead compartment. He stalled for a moment, debating whether to sit back down or close the compartment himself. He decided to leave it open, because he knew that Blaine would then have to come over and close it, giving Kurt an excuse to talk to him again.

It was a foolproof plan, really. One that was sure to work.

Kurt reached for the magazine he had bought in the duty free area and flicked to the article on the scandal surrounding a fashion editor at Elle who had allegedly bribed a rival magazine for ad space and models. He sat back in his seat and engrossed himself in the drama, all the while watching Blaine over the top of the pages as inconspicuously as possible.

Meanwhile the captain's announcement came on over the PA system.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We will shortly be departing on the 11:15 flight to Milan, Italy. In the meantime please ensure that your seatbelts are securely fastened and all luggage stowed away in the overhead compartments or under the seat in front of you. I wish you a pleasant and enjoyable flight."

"Signore e signori, questo è il vostro capitano che parla. Ci sarà presto in partenza sul volo 11:15 a Milano, Italia. Nel frattempo si prega di assicurarsi che le cinture siano ben fissati con tutti i bagagli riposti negli scomparti testa o sotto il sedile di fronte a voi. Vi auguro un volo piacevole e divertente."

Moments later, as predicted, Blaine came over to check the overheard compartments before take off and saw immediately that Kurt's was still open. Raising an eyebrow at him, as if to say, "Really?", he made his way over to Kurt's row.

"You know it's very irresponsible to leave these things open." he said, reaching up to close the compartment, a playful edge to his voice.

"I'll be more careful next time." Kurt replied, lowering his magazine, his tone equally teasing. Is this what they call flirting? He thought. He didn't really have much experience of it so he wondered if he was doing it right.

There it was again, the eyebrow raise, as if Blaine was challenging him. But for what? Honestly, the little Kurt knew about the practice of getting someone to like you was embarrassingly limited. Spending your sophomore year practically stalking your future stepbrother would do that to you.

"I'm sure you will. D'you want me to get you a coffee ready for when we're in the air?"

Kurt's mouth gaped open a little bit as he realised that Blaine was not only literally the nicest flight attendant he had ever met, but also that he liked Kurt back. Of course he did. There was no other explanation.

He liked RENT, had actually asked about Kurt's job and had shown concern when he got sick on his flight to Paris. Blaine might actually be perfect.

He quickly snapped his mouth shut to avoid looking like a goldfish.

"Sure! I would love that, really! I could use a pick-me-up if I'm going to be dealing with stubborn Italians as soon as I land." Are you actually legitimately this nice or are you just playing a joke on me?

"Very well, then. I'll make sure that's ready for you." He gave a silly little bow of the head, which made Kurt chuckle in amusement and hide his head in his hands (and no, he wasn't hiding his pink cheeks, absolutely not) before moving away.

He straightened up in his seat and ran his hands along his thighs, letting out a huff of breath.

Kurt acknowledged the man sitting in the seat next to him with a nod of the head before settling back down. He thought about reaching for his cellphone, but it was in his bag which was now safely stowed away in the overhead compartment. He moved as if to go and get it, but then decided against it. I'll get it later, he thought, and resorted to watching the movement outside the plane again.

In reality, he was just waiting for Blaine to come back with his coffee and he might as well admit that to himself because it was the truth.

If he was honest, Blaine was one of the best people he'd met in a long time. His colleagues at work just weren't the same company. Even if he was a flight attendant and had a habit of jetting off to various locations around the world. He wondered where he'd been, the places he'd visited, if he had ever stopped off at one of the airports he'd flown to and explored the city.

Kurt knew that if he was a flight attendant, that's what he would do.

*******************************************************************

He must have dozed off, because the next thing he knew, he could smell coffee and from a snippet of conversation he heard from somewhere nearby, they were 37,000ft up in the air and propelling towards Europe at high speed.

Coffee. Something stirred inside his sleep-sluggish brain. Blaine had brought him his coffee. Just like he'd said.

He rubbed his eyes and pushed a hand through his hair as he sat up a little straighter, blinking a few times to clear his vision. There it was, as promised, a cup of steaming nonfat mocha waiting for him on his tray table.

There was also a napkin with a few words scribbled on it in green pen.

You were asleep and I didn't want to disturb you.

Kurt bit back a smile, his cheeks colouring. His first thought should have been, Oh my god, he's seen me sleeping, that's so embarrassing, but surprisingly it wasn't. His first thought was that it was very, very sweet. He picked up the cup and took a sip. It was perfect.

Is he some kind of coffee god as well as a really good-looking flight attendant? Kurt thought to himself. Because he has to have some kind of debilitating feature, nobody's that good. Maybe he's secretly a deadly assassin or a spy for the Russian Mafia. Or a really bad case of athlete's foot.

Or maybe he's not actually gay and I'm going to be severely disappointed at the end of all of this.

He took another gulp of his coffee and, veins thrumming contentedly with caffeine, Kurt sat back and rubbed the napkin absent-mindedly between his fingers. He'd always appreciated good penmanship and he noticed the way that Blaine's t's sloped to the right and the b and p were slightly rounder than the other letters. There were tiny spots of green ink on the corner of the napkin where the pen must have blotted, and Kurt almost laughed out loud because yes, of course Blaine would use a broken pen. It just seemed to fit him.

Leaning his head against the small window, he allowed his mind to drift away from thoughts of work and Italian photographers and the photoshoot, focusing instead on the present.

Kurt was never one of those people who "lived in the here and now". He liked to plan ahead, to map out his days and weeks and months and years. It gave him security. He knew what was coming and how things were going to pan out. He was one of those people, the ones who kept a diary religiously so that they never missed an important engagement and had several lists such as Things To Do and Things To Remember taped to the fridge.

He kept a notepad by the phone in case he needed to take a message, for goodness' sake. He could count on one hand the number of times he had been rebellious or spontaneous, or had broken a rule.

No, Kurt Hummel was not used to "living in the present". Which was why it felt strange now to let all of his anxieties, concerns, worries and thoughts drift away as he stared at the dense wall of cloud beyond the window of the plane.

I haven't called my dad in a while, he mused. Maybe I should when I land in Milan. He'll want to know how the flight was and if I got there safely. Kurt allowed himself a small smile. Even at twenty-three years old, he still worried for his father and his father worried for him. They had always been close.

He wondered how Rachel, his best friend from high school, was fairing now; he had learnt from her most recent Twitter update that she was engaged to Jesse st James, and happily so. Kurt had never liked him much, mainly because he had made scathing comments about his choice of songs (there was nothing wrong with a man singing a song traditionally for a woman, thank you very much!) and his taste in fashion, but if Rachel was happy, then he was happy for her.

He certainly wasn't jealous of her. Absolutely not. Why would he be jealous of his best friend who had finally found someone who made her happy whilst he spent most nights sitting at his laptop crunching numbers on clothing orders and working out sales profits to determine from which designers to buy and which to forget about?

He wasn't jealous.

Kurt drained the rest of his coffee and flexed his arms, stretching them above his head to keep the circulation going. Nothing made a worse impression on those in the fashion industry than a tired and weak-looking body. He knew that from experience, especially when dealing with Italians. If he was overseeing a week-long photoshoot he would have to be strong and alert.

Getting bored, he pulled out his phone, deciding to check his emails. There was nothing he hated more than a n unnecessary backlog of messages waiting for him in his inbox because he'd been too exhausted from work to check them. He was nothing if not efficient.

He hummed to himself as he switched on his cell and navigated to his email inbox, ignoring his fellow passenger who had fallen asleep beside him.

Junk, junk, junk, Elle online newsletter ("I'll read that later," he decided), junk, junk, even more junk, junk.......oh God.

No.

No, this is not happening to me right now.

Kurt blanched in horror as he clicked on the email in question. His fingers visibly trembled as he scanned its contents with his heart sinking like lead into his finest loafers. This could not be happening to him, it just couldn't.

We're sorry, but we've found someone else to oversee the shoot so you won't have to go to Milan this week. I know the flight's already paid for but we'll contact the airline as soon as we can.

He couldn't believe it. He just couldn't believe it.

Here he was, 37,000ft up in the air above the Atlantic, on his way to Milan in fucking Italy for a photoshoot he was never actually supposed to attend.

His eyes stung with tears of humiliation as he contemplated throwing his phone through the plane window and out into the open sky. He was mad. More than that, he was furious. He was furious with them for letting him down as Head of Retail and Fashion Buying and he was furious with himself for letting this happen because he'd been lazy and decided not to check his emails before he left for the airport.

This was, first and foremost, the worst disaster he had ever encountered in his lifetime.

What was he supposed to do now? See if he could get the next available flight home to New York once he landed in Milan? That would mean more embarrassment than he would care to imagine. But he was honestly just too angry and upset to want to do anything except sit and wait until the plane touched down.

Then he would find the nearest restaurant and let out his feelings by buying the most expensive dessert they had to offer, ordering two, and eating the lot until he felt sick.

And I haven't done that since I didn't get the intern job I wanted at Christian Dior, he thought wryly. Which was four years ago.

Downhearted, he slumped in his seat in a very un-Kurt-like way and put his head in his hands. He rubbed his hands across his face and tried to stamp down his disappointment, but to no avail.

He was just incredibly annoyed.

With his colleagues, with himself, with everyone on the plane for no apparent reason. He was annoyed with the little kid he could hear shrieking from four rows behind and with the businessman with the Macbook Pro who kept tap tap tapping as he typed. It was a pet peeve of his, people who typed too loudly on their laptops. They should really invent a silencer for those things.

Maybe getting some sleep would calm him down. He seemed to like sleeping on planes. It soothed him. Maybe it would help now.

With that thought, he closed his eyes and rested his head against the back of his seat. He let the noise of the plane fall away as he blocked out the thrum of the engine and the chatter and laughter and general sounds surrounding him.

At least, it would keep him occupied until he reached Milan and had to decide what to do next.

********************************************************************

What felt like centuries later, Kurt was woken violently by the sound of the plane rumbling along the runway as it touched down at Malpensa International Airport, Milan. It was just outside of the city centre and he could see through his bleary-eyed vision the outline of the city in the distance.

It was a cruel reminder of his situation. Stuck in Milan, Italy of all places with no job to do and the task of finding a flight home ahead of him. He wasn't pleased, to say the least.

Something caught his eye and he noticed that Blaine had left him another note whilst he had been sleeping. His empty coffee cup was gone and in its place was a napkin identical to the first. The ink was red this time and distinctly blotchier than the first, which made Kurt think that Blaine didn't own any pens that actually worked. There was just two words.

You okay?

For some reason, those two little words made Kurt feel....strange. He hadn't even realised that Blaine had noticed he was upset. It was as if he was watching over him in a sweet and not creepy kind of way, and that was nice. Kurt wasn't used to that kind of attention, except perhaps from his father.

His breath caught in his throat as he read those two words over several times, You okay? He wasn't used to having people care about his mental and physical state apart from his parents, and maybe Rachel although she was usually off in her own little world where only she existed. His heart was beating fast in his chest. Was this what it was like to have somebody who actually gave a damn about you? Even a practical stranger on a plane you'd only seen a total of three times so far?

He realised that he would like to get to know Blaine better. He also realised that he really, really needed to pee.

Unbuckling his seatbelt, he shuffled forward in the queue to leave the plane, carefully extracting his bag from the overhead compartment as he did so. He narrowly avoided dropping the bag on an elderly man's head, and mumbled an apology as he gathered up the courage to see if Blaine would be interested in having coffee with him once they were in the airport.

Kurt didn't know what the protocol was for asking flight attendants if they wanted to have coffee with you, or even if it was allowed. But he might as well try.

Unfortunately, there was a wall of people separating them as passengers jostled each other to leave the plane and he couldn't get close enough to ask him without having to yell across the heads of the people around him, which would be embarrassing for both of them. So he decided to wait and see if Blaine would be going to the airport, and he'd stop him once they were inside.

Which totally wasn't stalking in any sense of the word.

It was simply waiting for an opportunity to interact with someone he liked and was interested in, that was all. Nothing stalker-like about that.

At least, that's what he told himself as he made his way off the plane and headed for the Arrivals hall to collect his no longer needed suitcase.

The airport was crowded. It was the middle of the afternoon, local time, and the place was thronging with people as groups poured in from both sides of the Arrivals hall, people on different flights coming from different locations. He checked the enormous digital screen for the conveyor belt which would be distributing the luggage from his own flight.

Flight No. BC34 from NEW YORK........Conveyor Belt 11

Volo No. BC34 da NEW YORK ........ nastro trasportatore 11

Kurt quickly navigated the crowds, dodging suitcases and trolleys and people, as he aimed for conveyor belt 11, which was on the other side of the hall. There were 12 belts altogether, all spitting out the luggage brought in from different flights. He had never really realised until now how packed an Arrivals hall could get. In all of his flying experiences, he had had a reasonably quiet journey through the airport on arrival, but this was not the case here.

Pushing through a large group of people at the front of the crowd around belt 11, he immediately began searching for his case, his earlier attempt to find Blaine forgotten for the moment as he concentrated on this task. After getting his suitcase, he would have to check when the next available flight to New York was and see if he could get a ticket.

If not...well, he was going to be seriously pissed off.

Aha! There you are! After several minutes of careful scanning, he spotted his suitcase on its way around towards him. It was a first, actually. Most of the time he was stuck there for a half hour or more, just waiting for his luggage to turn up. He hated waiting. I suppose I was lucky this time. Maybe the airport felt sorry for me because my week-long photoshoot job got cancelled without my knowledge so now I'm stranded here.

Without warning, he swung his arm out and grabbed the handle of his suitcase, dragging it ungracefully off the belt. It landed with a loud thump on the floor, wheels clattering, and a few people around him stopped to stare for a moment at the source of the noise. What are you all looking at? He thought, rather viciously. Haven't you ever seen someone take a suitcase off a conveyor belt before?

Rubbing his temples with his thumbs, he set off with his suitcase. The bright lights of the airport made him disorientated and it was difficult to see. Squinting, he he found the nearest restroom and ducked into it quickly, taking his suitcase with him. As unhygienic as that may appear, he really, really needed to use the bathroom and he wasn't going to take any chances leaving the case outside.

Coming out of the bathroom, he saw immediately the person he had been looking for. Blaine. He was standing a few feet away, observing the people that passed through the doors at the end of the hall and out into Customs and Passport Control.

He was still in his uniform. The deep navy of his flight attendant apparel contrasted rather well with his olive skin and Kurt imagined that he was one of the very few people that could make a flight attendant's outfit look good. From this angle, Kurt could see the bold curve of his jaw and the slope of his nose, the faint outline of his ear, the roundness of his smooth cheek. He was even better looking than Kurt had first thought and he felt that tingling, numbing sensation returning to his fingers and toes as he admired him from this distance. Man up, Kurt, he told himself forcefully. Just ask him if he'd like to get coffee. Say that you have some time to spare and were wondering if he would join you.

His stomach filled with butterflies at the prospect of actually having to ask him out. He hadn't asked anyone out for a long time, not since his brief relationship with an intern at work, who had been hardworking and loyal but unfortunately very boring and not really all that attractive, in the end. I can't believe I'm actually nervous.

Taking a deep breath, he made his way towards Blaine, rehearsing what he was going to say in his head, the same way he did before giving a presentation to his superiors. People often didn't appreciate how hard this kind of thing was, this whole asking people out thing. His narrow window of experience didn't help much, either.

An announcement over the airport PA system stopped him in his tracks.

"This is an important announcement. Flight number YK222 at 18:45pm to New York JFK has been delayed. The approximated waiting time for this flight is four hours and ten minutes. It is due to arrive at Malpensa International at 20:55pm. We apologise for any inconvenience caused."

"Questo è un annuncio importante. Numero di volo YK222 alle ore 18:45 a New York JFK è stata ritardata. Il tempo di attesa approssimata per questo volo è di quattro ore e dieci minuti. E 'previsto l'arrivo a Malpensa alle 20:55 pm. Ci scusiamo per ogni inconveniente causato. "

Delayed. The next available flight to New York JFK had been fucking delayed. If Kurt hadn't wanted to cause a scene, he would have stamped his foot on the ground like an enraged toddler. If he had been furious before, he was outraged now. It wasn't fair. Why did everything have to happen to him? First his job had been cancelled, and now his next flight home had been delayed.

Things couldn't get any worse.

Defeated, he grabbed his suitcase and trudged feebly in the direction of the exit. He guessed he had a long wait ahead of him so he might as well see what the duty free stores had to offer him. His thoughts of asking Blaine for coffee had been abandoned once more.

He didn't even notice at first when the person in question called out his name.

"Kurt! Kurt!" He whipped round, not registering who was speaking. "Over here!" He didn't realise it was Blaine because he didn't expect him to call out to him like that. It was a surprise. "Kurt! Hey, are you okay?"

Kurt finally realised it was Blaine talking to him and he turned to face him with a grim expression. "My flight got delayed." He had no heart to say anything else.

"The New York flight? You're on that too?" Blaine replied, confusion written on his face. "But didn't you just get here?"

"Change of plans. I was supposed to be overseeing this big photoshoot, but I got cancelled at the last minute and only found out on the plane when I checked my emails, which is just fucking fantastic because now I'm stuck here for four hours until the flight comes in so I can go home."

Something seemed to click in Blaine's head.

"Ah, so that's why you were upset on the plane earlier?" he asked, his voice laced with a concern that made Kurt feel warm to his toes. "I was going to come over and ask, but you looked like you didn't want to be bothered...." his voice trailed off, as if inviting Kurt to respond.

"Yes. Yes, it was. Sorry, I'm being boring. I'm just really annoyed right now."

"You don't have to apologise, I can imagine. Look, since we've both got a fair bit of waiting to do, what do you say to joining me for some coffee?"

Kurt's eyes widened impossibly as he stared at Blaine in disbelief. "I was - you're going to think this is silly, but I was just going to ask you the same thing!"

"Really?" The tone of Blaine's voice couldn't have been plainer - he had not expected that. His face split into his usual broad smile and Kurt swore he saw a sparkle in his eyes.

"Yes, actually. I mean, if you want to...." Kurt was suddenly nervous again. You're not a teenager any more, Kurt,act like it!

"Of course I want to! I asked you first, remember?" Blaine laughed, the warm, hearty laugh, and Kurt found it impossible not to smile back at him. He quirked in eyebrow.

"Touché."

"I would like to get to know you better." Blaine admitted, "so, coffee? I already know your coffee order, so..." He seemed to be floundering, something that Kurt thought was endearing and he decided that he would humour him and accept the offer that he had first wanted to make.

"I'd like that." Kurt said. "I'd like to get to know you better, too."

"Right this way, then. I know this great little place just around the corner from here that does the best coffee you will ever taste in an airport duty free store. You can count on that."

*********************************************************************

"No way. You're making that up. There is absolutely no way that actually happened!" Kurt protested, eyes watering from laughter as Blaine told him a story involving one of his high school friends and an April Fool's prank that went out of control.

"It did, I swear! I have video proof. But it's on my computer at home, so I can't show you. But I swear, it happened. And I did once dare one of my friends to dress up in his girlfriend's clothes. I've got the photographic evidence to prove it." Blaine insisted.

They had been talking for the better part of two hours and, once Kurt had managed to secure a last-minute ticket on the delayed New York flight and get through security, he and Blaine had met in the departures hall to get the promised coffee.

"I would never have pinned you for the private school type." Kurt commented, taking a sip of his nonfat mocha with relish. Blaine had been right; this was the best duty free coffee he had tasted. Maybe it had something to do with being Italian coffee and not the usual watery stuff served up by most cheap American cafés. If you wanted a decent coffee, you had to pay for it - that was one of the first things that Kurt had learnt about New York.

"I actually started out at public school. But there were some...problems....and I had to transfer." he explained, eyes on regulation blue carpet. Kurt gathered that it was a bit of a sore spot and debated whether he should probe further. He continued carefully.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, some kids at my old school tried to make life difficult for me. I got over it with time, but it was goodbye public school and hello private institution from then on. I liked it, though. I made some really good friends." A comfortable silence fell between them for a few moments. "So what about you?"

"What about me?" Kurt asked, feigning obliviousness. He absent-mindedly played with the rim of his coffee cup, rolling the paper edge between his fingers.

"What about your school days? Any sordid tales to tell?"

Kurt snorted, loudly.

"I hardly think you could call them sordid. It's just you regular small town high school stuff. Nothing particularly exciting to tell."

"You're lying."

"No I'm not!" Kurt retorted.

"Yes, you are. I told you my embarrassing stories, it's only fair you share one of yours to make it even." Blaine sat back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap. "Your choice."

"Well, I did get drunk and threw up on my school's guidance counsellor once."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. The worst part was that she suffered from severe OCD and had to go to the hospital to get several decontamination showers afterwards. It's not one of my proudest moments, to say the least."

"What did you drink?" Blaine's curiousness was barely masked by his horrified fascination, and Kurt flushed from his forehead to his neck. He would have sworn his eyes shone mischievously.

"Oh God, I don't even know. It tasted evil, like old socks and the stuff my stepmom uses to clean the bathroom. And sheep dip."

"How do you know what sheep dip tastes like?" Blaine was mocking him now, teasing, his smile a smirk - albeit, a very cute smirk. Stop it, Kurt.

"Really, Blaine? That's your question about all of that?"

"It's a legitimate question."

"Of course it is." Kurt retorted, his voice thick with playful sarcasm.

"Okay, all right. New question. How long have you lived in New York?"

"Since graduating high school. I went to college there and just....never wanted to leave. You?"

"Three years. I lived with my brother in Los Angeles for a while, but I decided that I wanted a change of scenery and I chose the Big Apple. I needed a fresh start. My parents divorced in my Senior year of high school and things got tense."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Kurt said, genuinely meaning it. His mother had died young, but his father had married someone new when Kurt was sixteen and he couldn't imagine them ever getting divorced. His dad and Carole seemed to be made for each other, and he was sometimes envious of how happy they were together.

"It was a long time ago now, and to be honest, I was kind of glad. I never got on with my dad, but I'm close to my mom and it sort of gave me an excuse to spend more time with her without my dad interfering." Blaine replied. "D'you want some more coffee?"

"No thanks, I'm good."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the hustle and bustle around them as people came and went. No matter what time of day it was, no matter how quiet it seemed, an airport would always be busy in some place or another. Kurt smiled as a little girl in a purple dress proudly showed her mother a picture she had drawn on a spare piece of paper, no doubt a trick to keep her occupied during the long wait.

Blaine suddenly checked his watch and his eyes widened comically.

"Crap, I gotta go. I gotta get ready for the flight, it should be coming in in about an hour." His face was apologetic. "Sorry, duty calls. D'you mind?"

"No, no, you go get ready. I'll just sit here watching....people. Not like a stalker though, just, you know, how people normally watch other people....." What the hell are you talking about? You sound crazy.

I'm only crazy around Blaine, he thought to himself, and the impact of this realisation hit him like speeding truck. Blaine made him nervous. He made him say stupid and embarrassing things.

And he most definitely had a crush on him. An actual, fully-blown, teenage-girl style crush.

"I'll see you in an hour, then. I really liked talking to you."

"The feeling's mutual." Kurt promised, and he knew it was. It really was.

"See you, then."

"Bye."

Kurt absolutely did not watch his ass the entire time he was walking away. Absolutely not.

**********************************************************************

Several hours later when he finally landed back in New York, exhausted and worn out, Kurt made to take off his (very expensive) jeans when he noticed something small and folded sticking out of one of the pockets.

It was another napkin, written on in the same green ink as the first. There was a row of numbers scrawled along the bottom followed by a simple message.

Call me. You know, if you want. I'll be waiting.