Author's note - This is it. It took a long time to finish this chapter, but here we are! Realized that there's more dialogue in this one chapter than the rest of the story combined, which advances the plot but stresses me out. I'm not great at dialogue. Also, I didn't do a great job of editing, I apologize. Hopefully you like it anyway.

Kurt waited in front a plain door, marked only with a gold plated 4-C. He'd already knocked, and while waiting for someone to answer, he realized exactly how stupid this idea was. He hadn't bothered doing any internet research on Karofsky before writing down the address and changing into his most flattering jeans, boots, and sweater. The book was only about his high school years. For all Kurt knew, he was in a happy little civil partnership with several adopted children and a dog.

But the door finally opened and Santana Lopez was on the other side. It didn't take long for her face to go from polite, to recognition, to just plain pissed, and she slammed the door in his face.

Kurt stood there shocked, but not surprised. Karofsky and Santana were best friends in high school according to the book, so why not now? Besides, if they were room mates, then that meant Dave probably didn't live with another guy. He knocked again.

"Vete!" Santana hollered on the other side. "No hablo ingles."

"Dammit Lopez open the door!"

She yanked it open, and shot him a glare. Ten years had done nothing to diminish her scariness. If anything, it had exacerbated it. "What. Do. You. Want?"

"I want to talk to Karofsky."

Santana scoffed. She was still good at it. "Why?"

"None of your business. Where is he?"

"I'm not telling you. You think you can show up and just mess with his head all over again?"

"I'm not going to mess with his head. I just want to - to talk to him."

Santana laughed bitterly. "No. Absolutely not. You've had ten years to talk to him and it wasn't until he wrote a book and exposed your dirty little secret that you felt the need to even think about him. So don't give me that rash of bullshit."

Kurt opened his mouth with a witty reply. Unfortunately that reply came out in the form of Um. And some other, vaguely word like syllables. The main reason Santana could always sting was her ability to throw the ugly truth directly at a person. And she was on a roll.

"I mean, do you even know what you did to him? You were all, Oh Dave, be yourself, come out of the closet, be gay and free. But you know, keep the fact we're fucking to yourself."

"Oh, it wasn't like that at all." Maybe a little.

"Shut up, it was too. Christ! Do you know how lucky you were? Dave LOVED YOU. He came out FOR YOU. He risked his football scholarship, his friends, his family FOR YOU. Yeah, it all turned out okay in the end for him, but he didn't know that. He just wanted you to like him and it was never enough for you, was it, Princess?"

Normally, Kurt would have thrown down over the use of Princess, but he was stuck on what came before that. "Dave didn't love me," He said quietly, and it stung him a little bit, even a decade later. Santana laughed bitterly.

"Are you kidding me? That's all I heard from the day you first hooked up at my party. He loved you so much, he didn't even ASK why you were hooking up in the first place, he just took what he could get. Just to be near you for awhile."

"No," Kurt interrupted, "We were just…getting off, it wasn't like that."

"Bullshit." Santana emphasized. "Maybe you were just getting off, but it was more to him. It always was."

Kurt didn't know what to say to that for awhile. "I guess he forgot that part in the book,' he finally shot back weakly. Santana looked at him, stunned. If he wasn't so depressed, he would have felt victorious at rendering her speechless, even if it was at his own stupidity.

"You know what?" She finally said. "There's a game that he's covering tonight." She gave him the address. "I love the big oaf, but he needs to deal with his own mess," She was saying to herself as she closed the door. Kurt didn't know whether to do a victory dance or just go home.

Kurt arrived at the entrance to the arena to see a crowd of people leaving, and groaned. Obviously the game was over, and the chances of finding Dave were nearly impossible. Not that it stopped him from trying to look at every single person there.

After fifteen minutes of not seeing him, Kurt began to accept a simple reality. Even if he magically found Dave Karofsky in the midst of all these people, what was he going to do? He started to wonder if jumping into this without a plan was such a good idea. Really, what would he even say? And what if Karofsky didn't recognize him? Or worse, didn't want to talk to him? He'd mulled over what Santana had said to him. Was he really only doing this because of the book? What if Dave just laughed at him and sent him on his way? Just because Santana said he'd loved him ten years ago didn't make it true now.

Besides, he'd read that damn book cover to cover. It didn't mention any loving feelings. It didn't even mention the one night that would have come close to loving.

Kurt waited a few more minutes, but he already knew he was going to go home. He trudged back the several blocks to where his car was parked, scuffing his shoes and feeling like an idiot.

A burst of laughter caused him to glance across the street and stop dead in his tracks. There was Dave Karofsky in all his tall, dark and handsome glory, with a group of other men in front of a pub. He was even more good looking than when he was on television, dressed in a dark v-neck sweater and jeans that fit much better than any pair he wore in school. He stared as Dave laughed and his stomach twisted into a knot. This was not the angry, closeted jock he remembered from high school anymore. Despite the author's picture and television appearance, and logically knowing that Dave was different now, he had expected the same uncomfortable slouch, the baggy jeans, and even the letterman jacket. Not this gorgeous, confident, obviously happy man.

Kurt got to his car on auto pilot. Santana had been right. Dave didn't need him showing up out of nowhere just because he wrote a book.

He got in the shower immediately after getting home, hoping it would help clear his poor confused brain. It didn't. After running the same thoughts a thousand times, he was left with just a steady pounding.

The pounding continued even after the water was cold and he shut it off. It took Kurt a moment to realize it was someone at the door. He frowned, and hurriedly threw on his sweatpants. He couldn't think of anyone who would show up uninvited, but usually he answered his phone more often, so it could have been any of his friends checking up on him.

Maybe a distraction would help.

And a distraction might have helped, if it had been anyone other than Dave Karofsky on the other side of the door. Kurt blinked three times, sure he was hallucinating. But no, he was still there. They stood on opposite sides of the doorway for several long seconds of silence, before Kurt remembered to ask him what he was doing there.

"I saw you," Karofsky said quietly, never taking his gaze off Kurt, "On the street. After the game. And then Santana called." He swallowed, and Kurt didn't miss the flicker of his eyes towards his bare chest. "Did you - did you want to talk to me? About something?"

"Um," Kurt said gracefully. He couldn't think of anything else. Well, anything other than how much of the doorframe Dave's body filled up. Granted, it was an older building and they weren't big doorframes anyway - he'd barely got his couch through, and now he was thinking about a shirtless Dave lugging furniture. It wasn't helping him think of anything to say.

Dave just kept staring at him in that same intense way he'd always stared at him.

"You lied in your book." Kurt finally managed to say. He wasn't sure what he was expecting Dave to do in reply, but laughing wasn't it.

"About the last time we had sex," Dave guessed, and Kurt blushed. "I did that on purpose you know. But I'm disappointed, I fully expected you to march across the street and give it to me good right in front of my friends."

Kurt had a vision of 'giving it good' to Dave on the sidewalk. It ended with an arrest for public nudity. "Well, you're awfully full of yourself," he said as primly as he could. While still blushing.

Dave laughed at his expression. "Not like that, although I wouldn't have minded," and hey, Kurt could blush harder after all, "I meant, I expected you to come after me for not being honest. I could just see you freaking out over me telling everyone about all the things we did, and then getting all self righteous over leaving something out."

"Wait a minute," Kurt tried to piece the situation together, "You did it on purpose? Just to see if I'd hunt you down? A phone call wouldn't have been easier?"

Dave shrugged. "You're hot when you're mad."

The whole thing was surreal. Kurt was standing in only loose fitting sweatpants arguing with a fully dressed and too good looking to be real Dave Karofsky. A Dave Karofsky who was possibly flirting with him. A Dave Karofsky, who according to his best friend loved Kurt Hummel and who, according to himself, wrote his book at least in part to get said Kurt Hummel to come after him.

Kurt stared. He probably looked ridiculous, but he couldn't think of anything else to say. Dave just waited, shifting his weight from foot to foot, and still staring. His eyes were still that honey-green color.

"Do you really think I'm hot?" Kut asked him quietly. "Or did you only kiss me because I'm the only gay guy you know?"

Dave grinned and Kurt detected a tiny amount of relief in it. "I know a number of gay guys now, and I still only want to kiss you." He stepped inside the doorway, finally, and leaned in close. "Are you going to let me this time?"

Kurt didn't answer, just pushed forward and held Dave's face in a mirror image of their first kiss. Only this time, it wasn't three seconds. It was more like thirty, and the boy - man - still made him feel like he was on fire years later. How had he gone so long without doing this?

This time, no one punched a locker or ran away. Just slammed the front door shut and Kurt led the way to his bedroom for a proper reunion.

AN - I thought about a smuttier ending, but I have so many ideas and beginnings of other stories, and this one already took soooo long to write that I just didn't have the energy. I'm sure you can all use your imaginations….

Karofsky and Lopez, crime fighting Duo. It just rolls off the tongue.