Dating an X-Man is Hazardous to Your Health

Chapter 13: Isla Des Demonas

Kate hadn't allowed Kurt to have any idea of where they were going for his birthday, insisting not only on driving to the airport but also on packing their suitcases herself and everything. By the time all the bamfs and Kurt and the suitcases were loaded up in the little purple car, Kate was full-on singing to herself as she snapped out a new pair of sunglasses and pushed them up the bridge of her nose.

"You're so old today," she teased him as he slipped into the passenger seat beside her. "I think I saw a gray hair and everything. So old."

"If I have a gray hair, you gave it to me," he said with a smirk.

She placed one hand on her heart. "Me?" she asked innocently. "I'm no trouble at all. I don't know what you're talking about."

"Tell that to my gray hairs," he said with a laugh before he kissed her.

"They make you look so distinguished," she teased right back.

She drove them down to the little airport and hired a private flight for them — and he teased her as usual about how she spoiled the bamfs when they each got their own seats and little in-flight snacks again. For her part, she insisted that the bamfs were hers now anyway and she just let him pretend to keep them for appearances' sake before she drew him into a kiss and cuddled up under his chin for the duration of the flight.

It took a few hours — and then at last they landed at a tiny private island out in the Keys, with a beach house that looked like it hadn't been used in a while, though Kate had made some arrangements to at least have it cleaned out and have new furniture and such brought in.

"Nothing like a warm weather getaway in the middle of fall," Kate announced as she threw open the door to the beach house and tossed the suitcases onto the very large and very purple bedspread. "Your swimming trunks are in there, and I even packed bug spray," she informed him before she leaned over to kiss his nose and then started to dig through her own suitcase. "I bought three brand new bathing suits just for the occasion, and I look good in all of them."

"You look good in everything," Kurt amended for her.

"It's a gift," she teased. "How else am I supposed to catch the eyes of handsome elves?"

"You did that by being charming," Kurt replied easily, watching her with a fond smile. "The cute was a lucky coincidence."

She beamed at him. "Well. You're pretty darn adorable yourself — and dashing and heroic. Plucking pretty girls out of the sky and all that."

"It's my niche," he said with a laugh.

She hung her jacket over the nearest chair and shimmied out of her jeans into some short black shorts before she slipped out of her shoes, digging through the suitcase for some flip-flops to wear instead. "You're very good at it, you know. The dashing thing," she said half over her shoulder, knowing she was slightly rambling as she could hear her heart beating somewhere in between her ears instead of in her chest where it belonged as she tried to work up the nerve to just... say it . "Must be because you practice."

"I don't need to practice it," he replied her way as he looked around them carefully, taking in all the preparations she'd made. "I was just born this way."

"Lucky me," she giggled. "Because I happen to love dashing heroes."

"No, lucky me that some other dashing hero didn't scoop you up from mid-air," Kurt replied, his smile stretching as he watched her finally find her shoes.

She smirked his way before she dashed over to steal a little kiss. "Well, no one does the heroic scoop quite the way you do," she teased.

"That's entirely true," Kurt replied easily, then slipped into a chair to lean back. "So much travel. It's exhausting. Flying ." He said it as if the very thought was painful in his overly dramatic tone.