Oh! Darling: American Idol (Kris/Katy and Adam)
Title: Oh! Darling
Fandom: American Idol
Kris/Katy
PG | 9,300 words
Summary: Parenthood is hard.
This could certainly be read as a sequel to And I Do Appreciate (You Bein' Round) in as much as Kris and Katy have a baby and Adam is a doting godfather-to-be.
It had been roughly thirty-six hours since Kris had last napped, so it was understandable that he thought Adam was a hallucination. Adam was wearing platform rhinestone boots and a bedazzled leather jacket over a silver-and-gold striped cummerbund and a tie made of crystals. The whole thing looked so deeply, weirdly unreal that Kris didn’t react at all. Obviously the hospital coffee was even worse than he’d suspected.
Then the hallucination yelled, “Oh my god!” and grabbed Kris by the arm, dragging him to his feet and into a hug, and Kris was forced to admit that it felt like Adam, and it smelled like Adam. Kris tried not to spill lukewarm coffee on Adam’s very sparkly jacket.
“Those assholes at the front desk told me I wasn’t family, can you believe it?” Adam said. Kris wondered why he was shouting, and what all the other families sitting around in the waiting room thought. “I set them straight, let me tell you. Not family. I almost reached over the desk and punched that guy in the face. I mean, he’s already in the hospital, he’d be fine. Are you okay?”
Adam put his hands on Kris’s shoulders and shoved him back to arm’s length, giving him a critical once-over. Kris tried to look like a person who was awake and alive and functioning. Adam “hmmm”ed and frowned.
“I’m fine,” said Kris.
“You look like adorable death,” said Adam. “How long have you been here? Why aren’t you in the delivery room with Katy?”
“She kicked me out.” Adam gasped and clutched his chest dramatically. “I was driving her nuts, she said. Her mom is in there right now, she’s gonna tell me when it’s safe to go in again.”
“What were you doing?” asked Adam.
Kris shrugged helplessly. What were you supposed to do while you waited for your wife to have a baby? He’d asked her if she was okay, he’d given her ice chips, he’d offered to go find the doctor, he’d held her hand. Apparently he’d asked, “Really, do you want the drugs?” one too many times. It wasn’t his fault. Who knew labor could last forever?
Adam took Kris’s coffee out of his hand and sniffed at it. Kris made a protesting noise. “This is basically muddy water,” said Adam. “Gross.”
“It’s better than nothing.” Kris snatched it back and cuddled the coffee against his chest. “It was the middle of the night when Katy’s contractions stared, and now it’s... It’s...” He blinked fuzzily at the clock. He’d been so wound up on adrenaline the first few hours in the hospital that he’d totally crashed once he was away from Katy. The clock on the waiting room wall blurred and refocused itself. “Well, fine, it’s nine in the morning, but this is the second morning. Wait, if it’s morning why are you dressed like that? Are we a stop on a walk of shame or something?”
“I flew straight out of a photoshoot in New York,” said Adam. “I was in a rush.” Kris gave him a skeptical look. “Fine, I wanted to keep the boots so I ran out without changing, what’s your point?”
Kris started to laugh. “Nothing, man, it’s just awesome that you got here so quickly. You think TMZ got you hollering at that desk guy on tape?”
“Probably,” said Adam. “Sorry.”
“Nah,” shrugged Kris. He wasn’t usually interesting enough to get followed by the paparazzi, but he’d already gotten a couple of calls about whether he and Katy wanted to sell the first baby pictures and to whom. “They were here anyway.”
“My security will take care of them. I have about a million baby presents for you guys. Do you want them now, or should we wait until we get back to your apartment?” Adam looked hopeful and excited. Kris was so tired his arms hurt.
“Home, I guess,” said Kris. “We already have a bunch of flowers and teddy bears here.”
“Not like my flowers and teddy bears,” scoffed Adam. “Mine are way better. I got her a tiny little raccoon. Top that.”
“You can fight with my mom about it later,” said Kris.
“Why are you so calm?” demanded Adam. “Stop being so calm! Today of all days you should be freaking out! I was so looking forward to it!”
“Sorry,” shrugged Kris. “I think I’m too tired to freak. Talk to me when the baby graduates from college. I promise to be a mess.”
Adam sighed, rapturously happy. Kris drank more disgusting coffee and tried to stay steady on his feet. He wanted to sit down in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs and close his eyes for a minute. Actually, Kris wanted to be the kid who’d crawled underneath the plastic chairs and fallen asleep waiting for his new little sister or brother. That kid looked comfortable. His grandma had given up trying to wake him up and given him a blanket instead. Maybe Kris could share.
A nurse pushed open the door tot he waiting room. “Mr. Allen?” she said. “Your wife asked-”
Kris thrust his cup of old coffee at Adam and ran back down the hall.
-
Her name was Madeline Grace, born at 10:04 AM, and she was little and red and wrinkled and the second he got to hold her Kris was overwhelmed by two things. Love, obviously, because she was the most beautiful little red wrinkled thing he’d ever seen. And absolute heart-stopping terror.
“Let me see my grandbaby,” said Katy’s mom, reaching for her.
“No, but,” Kris started, clutching the baby a little closer. Katy’s mom gave him a look. “I just mean,” Kris tried, “What if you... I mean, what if she...”
“My mom isn’t going to drop her,” said Katy.
“I know,” said Kris, and didn’t move. The baby - Madeline, Maddy - made a tiny unhappy noise and Kris’s heart stopped for a second.
“Don’t mind him,” said Katy. “It’s a wonder he never stole someone else’s baby before this, I swear.”
Her mom laughed. “It’s better than the new dads who are afraid to pick up their own kids. I’ll give you a couple of minutes to bond, Kristopher, and then I get my granddaughter, understand me?”
“Yes ma’am,” said Kris. Maybe he was secretly plotting ways to never put Maddy down again. Maybe.
Katy said, “Eventually she’ll need to learn to walk.”
“Nuh uh,” said Kris. He wasn’t even surprised anymore when Katy read his mind.
Katy’s mom said, “You look a little tired, papa.”
“I’m okay,” said Kris. Maddy yawned. She looked like a tiny red little alien, but she had Katy’s eyes and a little bit of blond hair and long lashes. She was going to be a heartbreaker. She was going to grow up and somehow Kris was never going to let any bad things ever happen to her.
“While she’s still quiet and not fussing,” said Katy’s mom, “you should take her into the other room and show her to your parents. They just got here.”
Kris had sent his parents home after it became obvious they were all going to be there waiting all night. “Oh,” he said, “yeah, they might want to see her.”
“Maybe,” snorted Katy. “You do that while I nap, okay?”
“How can you possibly nap?” Kris asked.
“Next time you push a whole human being out of your body we’ll discuss how tired it makes you,” said Katy, a little cranky. “Give me my baby or go away.” Kris leaned over and kissed her forehead, but he didn't give Maddy back. She let out a tiny, angry wail and then stopped again as soon as Kris bounced her a little, cooing softly.
“Is it okay to take her out?” Kris asked. “I mean, hospitals are full of germs, and she doesn’t have any antibiotics yet.”
“Antibodies,” said Katy’s mom, “and if you don’t your parents are gonna kill you.”
“Antibodies, I knew that.” Kris’s brain still wasn’t quite functioning. “I’ll just tell people not to breathe on her. Or touch her.”
“Good luck with that,” yawned Katy, settling back against the pillows.
-
There was no polite way not to let his parents hold the baby, but Kris didn’t realize he was actively twitching until Adam very calmly wrapped him up in a hug and forced him to stop. “You look like you’re on meth,” Adam murmured.
“I just,” said Kris. “They’re squishing her. He’s hugging her too tightly, he’s-”
“Your dad does have some practice at this,” said Adam. “Plus you haven’t slept in a couple of days. I think you’re way more likely to squish her.”
“I am not,” said Kris. His dad held Maddy up over his head, smiling at her, and Kris’s hands reached to grab the baby before she fell without him even realizing.
Adam snorted in his ear. “It’s fine, dude. A lot of new parents would kill to have grandparents this doting.”
“No, but - Dad, stop it, she’s too little for that. Dad!” He wiggled away from Adam and took Maddy back from his father. She looked tired, she obviously didn’t want to be passed around anymore. She was starting to make a face and kick her little feet around and she needed to be swaddled and given back to Katy. The florescent lights were probably hurting her eyes, and all these strangers were big and loud and scary. Kris made soothing noises and rocked her a little bit, but she screwed up her face and started to cry.
“They cry, Kris,” his mom said. “That’s what babies do. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means something’s wrong,” Kris insisted. He bounced her but she wasn’t settling down. It was definitely time to take her back to Katy.
His parents exchanged one of those isn’t-he-precious glances behind his back. Kris pretended not to see, especially when Adam joined in on it. He wasn’t being adorable, he was keeping his baby safe. Totally different. He rubbed her cheek with his thumb and she turned her face toward him, mouth puckering.
“She’s hungry,” said Kris. “I’m gonna take her back in. You can all go home, okay? We’re gonna be here for another day, after all.”
“Are you gonna be able to sleep here?” asked his mom. “Have you thought about coming home to sleep for a couple of hours?”
Kris must have looked absolutely scandalized, because Adam cracked up. “You’re going to be hilarious on her first day of school,” he giggled. “You’ll be that totally embarrassing dad who won’t stop crying.”
“Hey,” said Kris’s dad. And yeah, Kris had a vague memory of his dad getting teary-eyed dropping him off at Mrs. McKlosky’s room. Kris had always thought his dad was kind of ridiculous, crying over the drop of a hat. He had a feeling Adam was right, though.
“Whatever, I’ll see you all tomorrow,” said Kris. Everyone wanted to kiss Maddy goodbye but she was starting to kick up a fuss for real, so Kris waved them off and walked her back to Katy.
-
Kris woke up to singing. He was totally disoriented, and for a minute he thought he was back in the Idol house, waking up to Adam coming in late. It was certainly Adam singing.
“Say ‘good morning, daddy,’” said Adam, and then repeated himself in a high, squeaky voice. “‘Good morning, daddy!’”
Kris blinked a couple of times. “My baby does not sound like Minnie Mouse,” he protested. His voice was scratchy and only sort of working.
Adam was perched on the edge of Katy’s bed, holding Maddy, who was all wrapped up in a swaddling blanket. He was trying to get her to play with a stuffed raccoon, making it kiss Maddy's cheek while she mouthed at it. Katy was half-awake and watching them both sleepily. “‘Maybe I do, daddy,’” Adam squeaked, holding Maddy up.
Kris was pretty sure his plan hadn’t been to fall asleep in the uncomfortable chairs by the bed. “And stop calling me daddy, that gets weird real fast,” Kris added. “Oww, my back.”
“Aren’t you worried Adam will drop her?” asked Katy. She sounded exhausted.
Kris wrinkled up his nose. “No,” he said, and he didn’t especially want to explain why. Adam clapped his hands and pretended to squeak like an excited raccoon. “My neck is killing me.”
“That chair isn’t for sleeping in,” said Katy. “You’d fit in the bed with me, I think.”
“Yeah, but you’re all... You just had a baby,” said Kris.
Katy just stared at him until Kris was forced to concede that he sounded kind of idiotic. “Right,” he said, moving from the chair to the bed. “You’re not too sore to cuddle?”
“I’m never too sore to cuddle,” said Katy, but he still put his arm around her a lot more gingerly than usual. His back hurt, which was part of it. She still looked pale and exhausted, which was a lot more of it.
“Your parents have been in to see the baby and cry like four times,” said Adam. “It’s really sweet. People keep telling me I can go home and get changed if I want to. Why would I want to?”
“I can’t believe you sweet-talked your way in here,” said Katy.
Adam rolled his eyes. “You have no idea about my powers of persuasion. You just wait.”
“It’s true,” said Kris. “He can do the Jedi mind trick.”
“Well, she did finally stop crying,” Katy said. She bit her lip. “What if Adam’s a better mom than I am?”
“Dumbest thing I ever heard,” said Adam, tickling Maddy’s nose with his finger. “I’m the crazy uncle who spoils her rotten, and she can already tell. Can’t you, Maddy? Yes, you can. You don’t mind that I bought her angel wings, do you? I know she’s too little for them now, but she won’t be forever.”
“What if she’s a devil?” Kris asked.
“Oh, as if this little face could ever be bad.” Adam made kissing noises and Maddy yawned a little. Kris had read some of Katy’s baby books; he knew her eyes weren’t focusing yet and she wasn’t really aware of anything, but he was pretty sure she already knew who Adam was. “I know you two were sort of kidding, but I wasn’t, so whenever you want to make my godfather status official we can get on that.”
Katy frowned. “We were kidding?”
“Just being nice, whatever,” said Adam, waving his hand. “But I want it on something official, in case, god forbid, something happens to you two.”
Kris was still kind of tired. “Adam,” he said, “are you plotting to kill us both and steal the baby?”
“Maybe.”
“I think it’s sweet,” said Katy.
Kris considered for a minute. “I don’t think it’s official until the christening, right? You’re one of the witnesses when they dunk her head underwater.”
Adam clutched Maddy a little closer to his chest. “Will they let me in the church? They don’t really dunk her, right?”
“You promise to love her and look after her,” said Katy. “And it’s just a sprinkle of water on her forehead.”
“Well,” Kris added, “I think there’s something about raising her in Christ, too.”
Adam said, “Your kind of Christ, though, right? Not the scary kind? The kind where everyone loves each other and gets to be happy?”
“That’s the goal,” said Katy. Maddy wiggled and whimpered and started to cry. “Okay, give her back, I guess it’s time for a snack.” She held out her arms.
Adam pretended to pout. “But I don't wanna.”
“You don’t have the equipment to keep her happy, hon,” said Katy. Adam handed the baby over, sticking his lower lip out. Maddy was fretting and crying and her face was getting redder and redder.
Adam looked a little wistful. “Is she latching? Sometimes babies don’t. What? I read your baby book when I was bored.”
“She’s doing just fine,” said Katy, arranging the baby so she could nurse.
“And you? No post-partum sadness? No desire to throw yourself or the baby out the window?”
“Adam,” said Kris. “Seriously.”
“I’m just checking,” said Adam. “I worry.”
Kris tried to stretch out on the hospital bed without jostling Katy or the baby. “We got this under control,” he said. Adam raised an eyebrow skeptically and Kris ignored him.
-
Getting Maddy home was a lot easier than getting anything else done the rest of the week. There were just too many people, all of whom meant so incredibly well that Kris couldn’t get mad at anyone, not when it took five hours to make a grocery list, or his mom and Katy’s mom had a two-day-long stand-off over who was taking the guest bed and who was going to sleep on the couch. (They both tried to insist on the couch. It was strange.)
Everyone wanted to tell him what he needed to do with the baby next. “While Katy’s breastfeeding she can’t eat any tuna. You know how high the mercury levels are?” “You haven’t baby-proofed the electric sockets yet! You’re gonna turn around and Maddy will be crawling and what happens when she sticks her finger in there?” “Don’t buy baby food. You should make your own. Don’t you have a baby-food maker?” “What do you mean it’s not organic. Do you want to poison her?” “You’re not gonna get her vaccinated, are you? That causes autism.”
Katy had started bursting into tears whenever anyone started a sentence with, “Don’t you have a-?” which was deeply unnerving for Maddy and for Kris.
“I just,” Katy said, when Kris had locked everyone else out of the bedroom, “I have the wrong kind of breast pump and the wrong kind of pillow and we haven’t enrolled her in day care yet. We should have done it already, even though we’re not even in L.A. yet.” Maddy started to cry, too.
“We just smile and nod and eventually they’ll all go away,” said Kris. “We’ll take the baby and fly out to L.A. and hide out at Adam’s until they forget to tell us the best way to steam carrots and how long to wait before we introduce her to cheerios. Adam’s closets are huge. No one will find us.”
Katy hiccuped a laugh. “She won’t sleep. Aren’t babies supposed to sleep? She’s wide awake all the time.”
“She’s curious,” Kris said. “All these crazy people around. I can’t blame her.”
“I’m so scared I’m screwing something up,” said Katy quietly. “What if I mess her up and the whole rest of her life is ruined because we didn’t get her the right kind of playpen?”
Kris kissed her forehead and kept his arm around her shoulders. “Yeah,” he said. “But you and I turned out okay, and our parents are obviously clueless.”
“It’s only been a week,” said Katy. “Shouldn’t this be easier?”
Kris scooched down on the bed so he was lying on his back and picked Maddy up. She cried and kicked her feet like she was trying to ride a tiny, invisible bicycle. Adam had flown back to L.A. but he’d left her all the tiny sparkly onesies in the world, although he’d been really careful not to buy any with anything that might pop off and end up in the baby’s mouth. “How can something this little be such a problem?” Kris asked. “I swear she’s twice as big as she was when she was born. At this rate she’s gonna be twelve feet tall.”
“You have some recessive genes you didn’t tell me about?”
Kris put Maddy on his chest and she kicked a little more and then settled down, sucking on her fist. “Aww,” he said, resting a hand on her back.
“She can hear your heartbeat,” said Katy fondly. “That’s supposed to calm babies down.”
“Maybe she’s already a daddy’s girl,” said Kris. He poked her other hand with his finger until she curled her tiny, tiny fingers around his.
“You spoil the baby, you deal with the tantrums,” said Katy.
“Yeah. I know.” He didn’t mind, though.
Katy curled up next to him. “What do you think? I kind of want to ask our parents to look after her for a couple of hours so we could get out of the house and be sane for a little while. But I don’t think I could stand to be away from her.”
“We should,” said Kris. “They can be doting grandparents and cry all they want and we can go... Go... I don’t know what I’d even do with an hour to myself. Sleep?”
Katy giggled. “Have a beer.”
“You’re breastfeeding. I’ll have the beer.”
“No fair.” She poked him in the side. “If I’m abstaining so are you, buddy.”
“We could go for a walk. Remember walking?”
“Remember leaving the house?” Katy said wistfully.
Maddy turned her face and started gumming Kris’s finger. Better than the four shirts she’d already spit up on. “We could just go around the block. Not too far.”
“But she’s so little,” said Katy. “Maybe we should wait. How about in a year or two me and you have a date to go for a walk. And a beer.”
“Deal,” said Kris. “Hey, is she asleep?”
“Almost,” said Katy. “Don’t roll over and squish her.”
“Stop giving me new things to worry about, woman.”
Katy smiled at him. “A walk sounds nice.”
Kris couldn’t stop rubbing Maddy’s back. “Maybe after she wakes up.”
-
A couple of days later they tried to go out, just to go downtown and get out of the house to run some errands, but Katy got as far as the door and she burst into tears. “I can’t,” she said. “Mom, I’m sorry, I can’t just leave her here.” She took Maddy back from her mother and sat on the couch, not looking at anyone but the baby.
Kris resigned himself to another day just hanging out with the family. “This is parenthood,” his mom said. “Say goodbye to all the fun things you used to enjoy doing.”
“What are you talking about? You had fun with me and Daniel,” Kris said.
“Sure, like the poor dog and all the peanut butter,” said his mom.
“I was six,” Kris protested. “You can’t still be mad about that.”
“No,” his mother said fondly, “but I can look forward to the weekends that you get to spend scrubbing bubble gum and peanut butter out of the carpet and the couch and all the pets.”
“Madeline is going to be a perfect angel,” said Katy from the couch. “There won’t be any peanut butter incidents.”
“That’s adorable,” said Kris’s mom. Kris decided to believe she meant Katy holding the baby.
-
The label had promised Kris time off, but there was an album and a tour to worry about, and somehow he found himself agreeing to fly out to L.A.
“It’ll be fine,” said Katy. “I have every person in Conway begging to hold her for a couple of minutes.”
“Yeah, but...” Kris started. Maddy was holding on to his finger with her whole fist, watching him with her big brown eyes. She was obviously watching him, mad at him for leaving. “I’ll tell them I’ll just call in. It’ll be fine. We can do it long distance.”
“If you do it long distance they’re gonna hire a bunch of country and Christian music writers while you’re out of town,” said Katy.
Kris decided to pretend he hadn’t heard that. He kissed Maddy’s nose so she’d scrunch up her face and laugh and wave her hands around.
“It’s only three days,” said Katy. “I promise it’ll be fine. And while you’re out there you can make sure the apartment is ready for us.”
“Yeah,” mumbled Kris. Maddy got her fingers in his hair and yanked. It kind of hurt. “Or I could just stay here.”
“I’ll kick you out the door myself,” said Katy. She held her arms out. “Give me the baby and go pack.”
“No.” Maddy yanked on his hair again. “Oww, see? She doesn’t want me to go.”
Katy pried Maddy’s fingers loose and took her out of Kris’s arms. “You’re supposed to be more mature than she is. Remember that, okay?”
-
Leaving was awful. Kris remembered telling people he wasn’t a crier and meaning it, but somehow he was standing on the sidewalk at the airport waving to Maddy, sleeping in her car seat, and he couldn’t stop choking up.
“It’ll be fine,” said Katy. She was all teary, too. “You’ll be back Monday.”
“I know, but. Oh my god.” He wiped off his cheek with the back of his hand. Katy clung to his neck. “If anyone asks we’re just really overtired,” Kris said.
“It’s brutal, having a newborn.” Katy pressed her face against his shoulder. “No sleep at all.”
“Exhausting.” Kris took a couple of deep breaths and blinked really hard. “I’m gonna end up getting my picture taken in LAX. I can’t look like I’ve been crying the whole time.”
“I got your shirt all wet.” She straightened it out and patted his chest. “Kick ass in those meetings, okay? You have a family to provide for. Don’t let anybody bully you and don’t take any guff.”
“I promise.” He started to kiss her, but Maddy woke up and started crying and Katy pulled away.
“She needs me,” she said. “You’ll be okay, right? Safe flight. See you soon.”
“I’ll miss you,” said Kris.
Maddy was crying harder. “You, too,” said Katy, obviously distracted. She kissed his cheek and turned around to crawl into the backseat so she could get to Maddy.
Kris managed to simultaneously feel guilty for leaving and sulky at being left out. “Bye,” he said, grabbing his rolling suitcase. “Love you.” Katy waved and didn’t turn around.
-
There were always paparazzi in LAX, but this time there were a lot more than Kris was expecting. He just didn’t think people were that interested in him, especially since he didn’t have the baby or Katy with him.
Then he saw Adam beaming and holding a sign that said “No Boundaries!!! :)” on it and figured out why.
Adam looked so pleased with himself, and he was doing his version of under cover; grey hoodie, knit cap and sunglasses. Somehow he was still unmistakably Adam Lambert. “Dude,” said Kris, pulling Adam into a hug and trying to keep his back to the photographers. “What the heck?”
“I thought you might be tired,” said Adam. “I figured I’d give you a ride to your apartment so you could freshen up before you faced the suits.”
“You’re not busy?” Kris asked. There were so many flashbulbs going off around them both it was like American Idol again or something. Kris didn’t understand the fascination.
Adam grinned. “I’m always free for you, babe. How come you didn’t bring my favorite girls?” He took Kris’s suitcase away from him without asking and started pulling him toward the exit. He didn’t appear to notice the paparazzi shouting stuff at them, but Adam got that a lot more than Kris did.
“Maddy’s too little. Babies catch germs on airplanes, and she was a couple of weeks early. But we’re all flying out here next month. We figured it was about time we took her home.”
“Please tell me I can throw you a housewarming party,” said Adam. “That’s our car.” He deftly ducked past more photographers, threw a smile to a teenage girl who looked like she might faint, and held the door for Kris.
“I can’t lie, I’m really grateful you took care of all of this,” said Kris. “I didn’t even think about it.”
“You’re tired. There’s a tiny person at your house taking up all your brain energy. Relax, baby, I got this.” Adam patted Kris’s thigh and gave the driver directions to the apartment Kris and Katy had just barely moved into before the whole baby thing had happened. Kris didn’t remember what it looked like, he would have had to look up the address in his phone. He hoped there was furniture. It definitely wasn’t set up for a baby. He wondered how Katy thought he was going to get it ready in three days while he bounced back and forth between meetings.
Adam poked Kris in the arm a few times. “Pictures!” he said. “You must have them. Show me the baby.”
Kris laughed tiredly. “Normally I’d pretend to be reluctant, but...”
“Show me my goddaughter,” Adam commanded. “I have bought so many presents. I can’t wait for her to move out here where I can spoil her. Pictures!”
Kris pulled out his phone and opened a shot of Katy and Madeline. She was too little to do anything or pose, but Kris still had a couple of dozen shots of Maddy and her mom, Maddy and her aunts, Maddy and her uncles, Maddy and her grandparents, Maddy and Kris... Maybe more like a hundred pictures. Adam was enthusiastic about every single one.
“Now I need to call Katy,” Kris said. “I texted her, but-”
“Go, call, I understand,” said Adam, waving him off.
Katy picked up on the second ring. “I can’t believe you texted me,” she said. “Was that some kind of joke?”
“Put Maddy on the phone,” said Kris. “Who wants to talk to you, anyway?”
“Good thing I don’t miss your sarcastic butt,” said Katy. There was a shifting noise and then Katy started saying, “Say hi, Maddy. Say hi to daddy. Say hi.”
“She already forgot who am I,” Kris complained.
“She’s mostly asleep. She’s grabbing for the phone, though. I think that means something. Say hello so she can hear your voice.”
“Hi, Maddy,” said Kris. He glanced at Adam to see if he was embarrassing Adam with his ridiculous baby-talking voice, but Adam was busy typing on his own phone. “Hi, sweetheart. I miss you.”
“She definitely woke up a little bit,” said Katy. “I think she knows it’s you.”
Kris couldn’t bring himself to care that Katy was probably making that up. “I shouldn’t have left. I hate this. I'm missing stuff.” The car stopped and Adam poked Kris until he climbed out of the car.
“Look at that,” said Katy. “She just learned to walk and you missed it.”
“That’s not funny,” Kris complained.
“You’re not missing anything,” said Katy. “All she does is eat and sleep, she’s not big enough to do anything else. You just saw her a few hours ago and you’ll see her again on Monday.”
“You couldn’t even go grocery shopping without her,” Kris pointed out. Somehow this was getting close to an argument, and he couldn’t think of anything stupider to argue over. Katy was being so reasonable and he wasn’t feeling reasonable at all. He was feeling miserably homesick. It was ridiculous, obviously, but that didn’t stop him from feeling it.
Katy sighed tiredly. “I can’t send her to you through the phone, Kris, so you’re just going to have to miss her for a couple of days, I guess.”
“It sucks,” said Kris, following Adam into the apartment. He stopped in the door. “Holy crap.”
“What? Kris, you okay?”
“The apartment!” said Kris, looking around. “It’s finished! Did you--” he started, but Adam was literally doing an excited little dance next to him, so it was pretty clear who was responsible. “Adam decorated the apartment.”
“Oh my god,” said Katy excitedly. “Is it cute?”
Adam was giggling gleefully. Kris clapped him on the shoulder a couple of times. “It’s all... We have a couch and tables and chairs and end tables and lamps. It’s crazy. And there’s plastic stuff on all the edges-”
“Baby proofing,” corrected Adam. “Not plastic stuff.”
Kris walked around. “And there are kitchen appliances. Nice ones, too. Did you talk to him about this?”
“No,” said Katy. “I just gave him a spare key.”
“Uh, Adam, what did you do to our bedroom?” Kris asked, pushing the door open. “Holy crap.”
“It’s romantic,” said Adam.
“It’s black,” said Kris.
“Oh my goodness,” said Katy.
Kris waved his free hand around a little bit because he didn’t know what else to do. “I’ll send you pictures,” he said. “It’s all.. Shiny sheets and curtains and... Adam, are those fuzzy handcuffs?”
“Satin sheets,” shouted Adam. “Furry pillows and I framed some erotic poetry for you on the walls!”
Kris started laughing and couldn’t stop. He leaned against the wall, shoulders shaking. It was a little hard to breathe.”We’re gonna put the crib in here,” he hiccuped.
“Kristopher, this is a room to make babies,” said Adam, mock-sternly. “New ones.”
“Give him the phone,” Katy ordered.
Kris handed the phone over and tried to stop laughing. The bedroom was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever seen, like Adam had taken it as a personal challenge to turn the room into some kind of Playboy set from the 1970s. The bed was round.
“Yeah,” said Adam. “Oh, I did, I left them in the drawers for you. No, the walls are painted black with red accents. The sheets are black, and everything else is leopard print.” There was a pause. Adam sighed dramatically. “Yeah, there are normal sheets in the closet, too. If you’re feeling boring.”
“We’re pretty boring,” Kris volunteered.
Adam waved him off. “Because people who have babies can get too busy for romance, I read it in Cosmo,” said Adam. “So I decided to help. Well, you better be grateful. Actually, you should have seen Kris’s face. It was priceless. I snapped it on my phone, I’ll send it to you. Sweetie, I kind of think he was kind of into the handcuffs.”
“Give me the phone back,” Kris ordered.
“Please let me throw a housewarming party,” said Adam, holding the phone out of reach. “I have so many ideas about how to make it baby-friendly.”
“Adam,” repeated Kris, holding his hands out.
Adam glanced at him. “On a scale of one to ten? He’s about a seven. No, an eight. I’ll do what I can to cheer him up, promise. Okay, love you, too. And I love you, baby girl. Mwah.” He made some kissing noises at the phone and handed it back to Kris.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be home soon,” said Katy. “Try and have fun with Adam.”
“I wanna come home,” Kris said. “It’s been eight hours and I want to come home now.”
“Love you,” said Katy. “Say goodnight to Maddy.” Katy made a kissing noise and hung up.
Kris stared at his phone for a second, trying hard to swallow.
“Think about it this way,” said Adam, draping himself over Kris’s shoulders. “You’ll sleep well tonight. No crying babies or beeping baby monitors.”
Kris nodded tightly.
“You’ll be fine,” said Adam soothingly. “You’ll fly home all rested up.”
“Yeah,” said Kris. “Sure.”
-
As it turned out Kris didn’t sleep at all. He moved out to the couch because he wasn’t quite sure how to lie on a round bed and the slippery satin sheets were too weird against his bare legs. But then he lay awake and stared at the ceiling of his apartment. It had been so long since he’d slept by himself. Katy was always there, or the guys on the bus, or even Adam back at the Idol mansion. The apartment was so quiet. There was no noise, no one breathing, no static on the baby monitor, no one’s elbow accidentally catching him in the side.
Sometime just before dawn, when the city outside his window was starting to glow but wasn’t light yet, Kris texted Katy. Miss you. Love you. Home soon.
-
The next day wasn’t any better. Katy was always busy when he tried to call, and the meetings were full of people who weren’t listening to Kris when he said he wanted to stay home with his family for a while. They kept saying things like, “Strike while the iron is hot!” and “The baby will make for great publicity.” Kris was tired and grumpy and he didn’t want to be there, so he crossed his arms and sank into his chair and didn’t say anything unless someone pushed him to. There didn’t seem to be any point.
Adam should have been getting ready for his own tour, but he stopped by Kris’s apartment after dinner. “You’re sulking,” he said.
“I’m just pissed,” said Kris. “They’re pushing me out on a tour and they want to sell pictures of Maddy to People. I quit.”
“You didn’t really,” said Adam, sitting down on the couch and pulling Kris down next to him.
“No. Almost,” said Kris. He wanted to punch someone badly. Normally he didn’t have violent urges, but since becoming a dad he’d discovered a whole new side of himself that wanted to do violence to anyone who hurt his baby girl or tried to keep him away from her.
Adam put his arm around Kris’s shoulders. “Maybe before you quit the thing you worked your whole life to get, you should talk to your wife,” Adam suggested.
“She’ll just tell me to stop being stupid,” said Kris. “I’m not being stupid.”
“Of course, not, babe,” said Adam. He paused. “The tiniest bit irrational, maybe?”
“Shut up,” said Kris.
“Sure,” said Adam.
-
Kris woke up with a stiff neck from sleeping on Adam’s shoulder. Adam was watching TV and humming angrily at a show about fashion. “Better?” asked Adam. “You want some coffee?”
“Don’t you have a tour to go to?”
Adam shrugged. Kris stretched carefully, trying to convince his neck it wanted to turn to the left and the right again. “You’re worse off than I thought,” he said.
“What? I’m fine. Just crabby because I haven’t been sleeping.” He felt a lot better now, actually. Apparently he had just needed a nap. Thinking about napping made him miss Maddy, though, with a sharp pang that stole his breath for a second.
“It'll get better when it's the three of you in your new home,” said Adam. “I promise. You okay to fly home in the morning or do I need to come by?”
“I’m a grown up and I can get myself to the airport just fine,” said Kris. “When do you come back?”
“In a couple of weeks, this is a short one,” said Adam. “Plenty of time to throw a housewarming party when you bring my adorable god daughter to see me so I can steal her forever.”
Kris tried to imagine how miserable it was going to be to move across the country with an infant. “Sure,” he said. “Can’t wait.”
-
Katy met him at the airport but she was late. Kris felt like he’d been run over by a truck. He wasn't a great flier anyway, and he was unshowered and tired and still pretty grumpy about the whole trip, and then a whole group of high school girls on a field trip had seen him and shrieked and asked for pictures. He always said yes, but he really would have liked to say no just that once.
Katy looked pretty bad, too. Well, not bad; Kris didn’t think she could ever really look bad, but not as polished as usual. Her hair was back and unwashed, her shirt had a stain on it, and there were bags under her eyes that she hadn’t bothered to pretend to cover with makeup. “She wakes up and wants food every three hours,” said Katy instead of hello. “I never get to sleep. I don’t know what to do.”
Maddy was crying a little bit, fidgeting on Katy’s shoulder. “Pump bottles, let your mom get up with her,” Kris suggested. He kissed Katy hello, but it was a quick and perfunctory cheek kiss, because she was clearly not in the mood.
“My breasts ache,” said Katy. Kris winced a little; they were in public and people were sort of watching them. “I don’t want anything touching them right now. Here, you take her, I’ll take the suitcase.”
Kris took Maddy and she kicked a little, crying louder than anyone so small ought to have been able to manage. She smelled like baby powder and sour milk. “I missed you, baby girl,” Kris said quietly. Maddy sniffled. Her face was all red and angry. Like her mom, Kris thought unkindly. He didn’t feel especially welcomed home.
“You can have all of her you want,” said Katy. “When we get home I’m going to bed.”
Kris thought about pointing out that he was tired, too, but he didn’t actually mind holding Maddy. She settled on his shoulder, sobs turning into exhausted hiccups, and one of her tiny hands curled around the hair on the nape of his neck. “There, see?” said Kris. “All better. Daddy’s home.”
“That’s not fair,” said Katy, a little grumpy. “She likes you better.”
“You’d rather she was crying?” Kris got the prickly feeling that they were being watched; another group of teenagers was whispering and giggling and pointing. “Let’s get out of here. I can’t sign stuff and hold her.”
Katy rolled his suitcase through the crowds of people and out to the parking garage. Maddy kept waking herself up to start to cry and then forgetting and dozing off again. She was getting Kris’s t-shirt all wet with spit.
Katy put the suitcase in trunk and closed it gingerly, so Maddy wouldn’t wake up. “She’ll sleep when the car is moving,” she said. “I thought about just driving her around the block all night.”
“I’ll do it,” said Kris. “I can stay up with her. I missed her.”
“Yeah,” Katy said. She sighed and rubbed her fingers across her eyes. If she’d been wearing makeup it would have smeared. “I’m sorry I was snappy, babe. She really did miss you. I don’t care what they say about infants being too little to recognize faces, I swear to you, she’s been the fussiest brat since you left. And I missed you, too.” She went up on her tiptoes and kissed him, longer than before, and a lot sweeter. Kris liked her mouth without lipstick, it reminded him of sleepy early mornings together before Maddy was born.
“I’m sorry I had to go,” said Kris, turning so he could kiss his wife without squishing the baby. “I’m sorry I’m going to have to go again.”
“Not until after we move,” said Katy. “I’ll lock the door and tie you to the bed.”
“See, now that sounds like a reason to stay,” Kris joked. Katy slapped his shoulder gently. “I can’t wait for you to see what Adam did to the bedroom. You’ll freak.”
“Maybe I’ll like it,” said Katy. Kris stared at her. “What a man does with his wife in the privacy of their bedroom is a blessing in the eyes of the lord,” said Katy primly. “The bible says so.”
“I’ve always appreciated the way you interpret the Lord’s word.”
Katy giggled. “Put Maddy in her car seat and let’s go home. There’s a pillow with my name on it.”
“Yes ma’am,” said Kris.
-
“Where’s the pile of sundresses?” Katy asked. “I need to pack those.”
“She needs to wear those,” Kris objected. “It’s hot.”
“It’ll be hotter in L.A.,” said Katy. “Are you helping me or not?”
It was inconceivable to Kris that they had accumulated so much stuff since Maddy was born. There was a whole baby bedroom full of tiny little socks with pink frills at the cuffs and tiny velcro shoes she couldn’t wear yet and tiny hair clips that wouldn’t stay in her wispy baby hair. And then there were the endless boxes and drawers full of clothes. Everyone they’d ever met had donated old baby clothes, things for Maddy when she was three months, when she was six months, when she was a year. Clothes for every situation and every season in every climate. Katy was sitting on the floor, hidden behind stacks of baby clothes that would have taken care of a village of babies.
“I give up. Let’s just forget to pack this stuff and leave it all here, and we can buy her new stuff when we get to L.A.,” Kris said despairingly.
Katy snorted. “That would be ungrateful.”
“It would be easy.” Kris found a stack of sundresses, but they looked too big for Maddy. He held one up and Katy shook her head. Not the right stack. “I have one suitcase and you have two, and the baby is going to have ten.”
“My parents will mail some of this. I’m sorting this into stuff she needs and stuff that can wait a couple of weeks. But the problem is she needs clothes for while we’re traveling, too. Layers. What if she gets cold on the plane? You know how air conditioned they always are.”
“What if she cries on the plane? We’re going to be those people. The ones everyone hates. And they’ll all take pictures and twitter them and the internet is going to talk crap about our baby. We could just drive-” Kris started.
“We are not driving from Arkansas to California with an infant,” Katy snapped. Fine, maybe Kris had brought this up a few times already. “If you’re such a big chicken I’ll take her myself, and you can drive all this crap out. Actually, that’s not a terrible idea.”
Kris sighed. “Yes, it is. Are these the right dresses?” He held up something green and ruffled.
“No. I’m looking for the pile that has a dress with little sheep on it. Why don’t you want to drive? That’d be cheaper than shipping.”
“I’d have to drive my dad’s car. I hate my dad’s car. And how would he get it back?”
“You’d drive out together,” Katy said, starting to laugh. “A road trip adventure.”
“Mom wouldn’t let him drive back alone.”
Katy laughed harder. “You’d have to drive them both out, so they could drive back together. Oh, that would be priceless. A week alone in the car with your parents. Do it, Kris. Please?”
“No way,” said Kris, trying not to laugh. “We’d get as far as Oklahoma City and I’d jump out of the car while it was still moving.”
“Some day we’ll drive Maddy crazy just like that,” said Katy fondly.
-
Maddy had her first doctor’s visit and they had to give her a shot. She cried and Katy almost cried and Kris felt like an unfeeling jerk because he had to sit there and hold his baby still so she could be hurt by strangers. She was too little to get a lollipop or a sticker, and afterwards she only wanted Katy to hold her.
-
Katy got a cold and both sets of grandparents were busy at a church barbecue. Maddy was too little to sit around outside around strangers all day, so Kris stayed home with his girls by himself, bringing Katy soup and ginger ale and trying to keep Maddy happy while he packed the last of their stuff.
She was fussy and he was a mess. He burned the soup he was making for Katy and spilled Maddy’s milk all over the floor. He knocked over the pail of dirty diapers, and then he lost one of her socks somewhere. She didn’t seem to care but Kris kept remembering how the baby book said that infants couldn’t regulate their temperature very well so you had to keep their feet covered. What if she got cold and couldn’t tell him? All her cries sounded alike to him; hungry, cold, angry. What if something was wrong and he couldn’t tell? He worried that he was crappy at this. He just wanted to make sure nothing bad ever happened to her and he was failing all over the place already.
Kris tried to hold her in one arm and pack with the other, because she started wailing whenever he put her down. He gave up on packing eventually, because he wasn’t actually getting anything done. He tried putting on a baby DVD, but she fussed when he put on the television and fussed harder when he turned it off.
Katy had a little fever and she was mostly asleep, bundled underneath every blanket they owned but hadn’t packed. When Maddy finally went down for a nap Kris crawled into bed with Katy and moaned. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Go ‘way. You can’t get sick too,” Katy croaked.
“I’ll take the cold, you take the baby,” said Kris. “It’s been only been a few hours and I'm so, so tired.”
“Silly,” sniffled Katy. “She’s the sweetest baby ever.”
“I thought I was good with kids,” Kris said. “She just never stops wiggling. Or crying. Or needing things from me.”
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” said Katy, and pulled the blankets back over her head.
-
The night before the flight Katy was up in a panic, doing last-minute packing. Maddy stayed up with Kris. The idea was to make her tired so she’d sleep on the flight, but she was unhappy because she could tell her mom was unhappy. Maddy usually laughed and smiled when Kris told her about This Little Piggy and wiggled her toes but tonight she didn’t want that and she didn’t want to look at her mobile and she didn’t want Kris. It made his chest hurt.
He coaxed her to sleep by singing to her, nonsense words to whatever tune popped into his head, and she fell asleep just a couple of hours before they had to wake her up again. Kris told himself that Adam was right; it would all be easier when they got to their real lives in L.A., but his eyes were burning and he felt like he hadn’t slept in weeks. It was still pitch black outside.
Maddy cried through saying goodbye to her grandparents and all the way to the airport, and then something miraculous happened; as soon as Kris carried her car seat into the airport she fell asleep. Security was never Kris’s favorite part of flying, and he’d been dreading it with a newborn and a stroller. Maddy only woke up long enough to bat her eyes at the security guard, who waved them through to the front of the line. Kris wondered if he should worry that she’d already learned to flirt.
It was still awkward to get through the metal detectors, with so many things to carry and so many people looking at them. Kris felt like everyone in line was judging their parenting skills. Maddy was being an angel but Kris couldn’t get his sneakers off and on again while holding her, and Katy already had her arms full, so it turned into an ridiculous little dance of passing the baby back and forth while people stared.
“You have her okay?” Katy asked, squeezing his hand and slipping her own shoes back on.
“Please, God, just let her stay asleep the whole flight,” said Kris, taking the baby back.
They maneuvered their suitcases and all of Maddy’s stuff across the airport, stopping to get coffees for themselves. Katy settled into a seat by the window that looked out over the planes with a sigh, clutching her latte. “I’ll take her for the flight,” she said.
“I like holding her,” said Kris.
Katy frowned over her coffee. “I like holding her, too.” There was a strange edge to her voice.
“I didn’t mean - Are you mad at me?”
“No,” said Katy. “I’m just tired, I’m not mad.”
“Baby, you’re crying,” Kris said gently. It seemed like a bad note to set out to their new home on and he genuinely didn’t know how to make it better or what he’d done.
Katy wiped her cheeks off with her sleeve. “I'm really tired. And I'm a little sad.” She made a valiant effort to stop crying, taking long deep breaths. “Kris, haven’t you noticed? She likes you better.”
“What? Baby, no-”
“She does. She sleeps better for you and she smiles more for you. It’s not fair.” Katy started crying again despite her best efforts. “I’m her mom. I’m supposed to have a little baby girl so we can go shopping and play dress up together. She’s supposed to be my special little girl.”
Kris swallowed the urge to tell Katy she was crazy. That wouldn’t end well. “I’m gonna be gone,” he said. Just saying it made his throat hurt. “She won’t even remember me. Maybe she’s trying to store up daddy time.” Katy started crying harder. Kris felt like crying, too. He put Maddy’s car seat carefully on the floor and put his arms around Katy instead. “She loves you too much to sleep, she wants to hang out with you,” said Kris. “I promise. She loves you just fine.”
“I don’t know about moving to L.A. Maybe this is a bad idea. I don’t know what we’re doing. Why are we taking her away from everyone? What if something happens and my mom’s not around?”
Kris tried to pretend he wasn’t terrified, too. “Eventually it has to be you and me and her. We can do this. She’s just one little tiny baby and we’re two smart, well-adjusted adults. We’re bigger than her. We can buy one of those baby leash things.”
Katy choked, laughing and crying at the same time. She put her arms around him, pressing her lukewarm coffee against his chest. “You’re not putting my little girl on a leash, Kris.”
“We gotta sleep sometimes,” Kris said. Katy laughed again and a little weight lifted off his shoulders.
“I don’t feel old enough for this,” said Katy. “I’m not a grown up yet.”
“Yeah,” Kris sighed. “Me neither. How about we just agree not to tell Maddy? Maybe she won’t notice.”
She slipped her other hand underneath his t-shirt, curling her cold fingers against his back to warm them up. “I’m sorry I’ve been so stressed. I’ll be all better when we get to L.A.,” said Katy.
“Good,” said Kris, “because I’m feeling a little overwhelmed and I’m gonna need a turn to cry pretty soon.”
She smiled. “I love you,” Katy said, and kissed his cheek. He tightened his arms around her. She leaned against him, looking out the window at the sun rising behind the planes. “You know who she’s gonna love? Adam. I bet she runs away with him and forgets all about us.”
“Honestly, there are a lot worse guys she could run away with,” Kris said, and Katy cracked up quietly. If this was how it was going to be - stressful and exhausting but still them, still hopeful and silly and trying - then maybe things would be okay no matter what. Maddy napped on quietly, clutching a well-gummed stuffed raccoon toy in one little fist.
Fandom: American Idol
Kris/Katy
PG | 9,300 words
Summary: Parenthood is hard.
This could certainly be read as a sequel to And I Do Appreciate (You Bein' Round) in as much as Kris and Katy have a baby and Adam is a doting godfather-to-be.
It had been roughly thirty-six hours since Kris had last napped, so it was understandable that he thought Adam was a hallucination. Adam was wearing platform rhinestone boots and a bedazzled leather jacket over a silver-and-gold striped cummerbund and a tie made of crystals. The whole thing looked so deeply, weirdly unreal that Kris didn’t react at all. Obviously the hospital coffee was even worse than he’d suspected.
Then the hallucination yelled, “Oh my god!” and grabbed Kris by the arm, dragging him to his feet and into a hug, and Kris was forced to admit that it felt like Adam, and it smelled like Adam. Kris tried not to spill lukewarm coffee on Adam’s very sparkly jacket.
“Those assholes at the front desk told me I wasn’t family, can you believe it?” Adam said. Kris wondered why he was shouting, and what all the other families sitting around in the waiting room thought. “I set them straight, let me tell you. Not family. I almost reached over the desk and punched that guy in the face. I mean, he’s already in the hospital, he’d be fine. Are you okay?”
Adam put his hands on Kris’s shoulders and shoved him back to arm’s length, giving him a critical once-over. Kris tried to look like a person who was awake and alive and functioning. Adam “hmmm”ed and frowned.
“I’m fine,” said Kris.
“You look like adorable death,” said Adam. “How long have you been here? Why aren’t you in the delivery room with Katy?”
“She kicked me out.” Adam gasped and clutched his chest dramatically. “I was driving her nuts, she said. Her mom is in there right now, she’s gonna tell me when it’s safe to go in again.”
“What were you doing?” asked Adam.
Kris shrugged helplessly. What were you supposed to do while you waited for your wife to have a baby? He’d asked her if she was okay, he’d given her ice chips, he’d offered to go find the doctor, he’d held her hand. Apparently he’d asked, “Really, do you want the drugs?” one too many times. It wasn’t his fault. Who knew labor could last forever?
Adam took Kris’s coffee out of his hand and sniffed at it. Kris made a protesting noise. “This is basically muddy water,” said Adam. “Gross.”
“It’s better than nothing.” Kris snatched it back and cuddled the coffee against his chest. “It was the middle of the night when Katy’s contractions stared, and now it’s... It’s...” He blinked fuzzily at the clock. He’d been so wound up on adrenaline the first few hours in the hospital that he’d totally crashed once he was away from Katy. The clock on the waiting room wall blurred and refocused itself. “Well, fine, it’s nine in the morning, but this is the second morning. Wait, if it’s morning why are you dressed like that? Are we a stop on a walk of shame or something?”
“I flew straight out of a photoshoot in New York,” said Adam. “I was in a rush.” Kris gave him a skeptical look. “Fine, I wanted to keep the boots so I ran out without changing, what’s your point?”
Kris started to laugh. “Nothing, man, it’s just awesome that you got here so quickly. You think TMZ got you hollering at that desk guy on tape?”
“Probably,” said Adam. “Sorry.”
“Nah,” shrugged Kris. He wasn’t usually interesting enough to get followed by the paparazzi, but he’d already gotten a couple of calls about whether he and Katy wanted to sell the first baby pictures and to whom. “They were here anyway.”
“My security will take care of them. I have about a million baby presents for you guys. Do you want them now, or should we wait until we get back to your apartment?” Adam looked hopeful and excited. Kris was so tired his arms hurt.
“Home, I guess,” said Kris. “We already have a bunch of flowers and teddy bears here.”
“Not like my flowers and teddy bears,” scoffed Adam. “Mine are way better. I got her a tiny little raccoon. Top that.”
“You can fight with my mom about it later,” said Kris.
“Why are you so calm?” demanded Adam. “Stop being so calm! Today of all days you should be freaking out! I was so looking forward to it!”
“Sorry,” shrugged Kris. “I think I’m too tired to freak. Talk to me when the baby graduates from college. I promise to be a mess.”
Adam sighed, rapturously happy. Kris drank more disgusting coffee and tried to stay steady on his feet. He wanted to sit down in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs and close his eyes for a minute. Actually, Kris wanted to be the kid who’d crawled underneath the plastic chairs and fallen asleep waiting for his new little sister or brother. That kid looked comfortable. His grandma had given up trying to wake him up and given him a blanket instead. Maybe Kris could share.
A nurse pushed open the door tot he waiting room. “Mr. Allen?” she said. “Your wife asked-”
Kris thrust his cup of old coffee at Adam and ran back down the hall.
-
Her name was Madeline Grace, born at 10:04 AM, and she was little and red and wrinkled and the second he got to hold her Kris was overwhelmed by two things. Love, obviously, because she was the most beautiful little red wrinkled thing he’d ever seen. And absolute heart-stopping terror.
“Let me see my grandbaby,” said Katy’s mom, reaching for her.
“No, but,” Kris started, clutching the baby a little closer. Katy’s mom gave him a look. “I just mean,” Kris tried, “What if you... I mean, what if she...”
“My mom isn’t going to drop her,” said Katy.
“I know,” said Kris, and didn’t move. The baby - Madeline, Maddy - made a tiny unhappy noise and Kris’s heart stopped for a second.
“Don’t mind him,” said Katy. “It’s a wonder he never stole someone else’s baby before this, I swear.”
Her mom laughed. “It’s better than the new dads who are afraid to pick up their own kids. I’ll give you a couple of minutes to bond, Kristopher, and then I get my granddaughter, understand me?”
“Yes ma’am,” said Kris. Maybe he was secretly plotting ways to never put Maddy down again. Maybe.
Katy said, “Eventually she’ll need to learn to walk.”
“Nuh uh,” said Kris. He wasn’t even surprised anymore when Katy read his mind.
Katy’s mom said, “You look a little tired, papa.”
“I’m okay,” said Kris. Maddy yawned. She looked like a tiny red little alien, but she had Katy’s eyes and a little bit of blond hair and long lashes. She was going to be a heartbreaker. She was going to grow up and somehow Kris was never going to let any bad things ever happen to her.
“While she’s still quiet and not fussing,” said Katy’s mom, “you should take her into the other room and show her to your parents. They just got here.”
Kris had sent his parents home after it became obvious they were all going to be there waiting all night. “Oh,” he said, “yeah, they might want to see her.”
“Maybe,” snorted Katy. “You do that while I nap, okay?”
“How can you possibly nap?” Kris asked.
“Next time you push a whole human being out of your body we’ll discuss how tired it makes you,” said Katy, a little cranky. “Give me my baby or go away.” Kris leaned over and kissed her forehead, but he didn't give Maddy back. She let out a tiny, angry wail and then stopped again as soon as Kris bounced her a little, cooing softly.
“Is it okay to take her out?” Kris asked. “I mean, hospitals are full of germs, and she doesn’t have any antibiotics yet.”
“Antibodies,” said Katy’s mom, “and if you don’t your parents are gonna kill you.”
“Antibodies, I knew that.” Kris’s brain still wasn’t quite functioning. “I’ll just tell people not to breathe on her. Or touch her.”
“Good luck with that,” yawned Katy, settling back against the pillows.
-
There was no polite way not to let his parents hold the baby, but Kris didn’t realize he was actively twitching until Adam very calmly wrapped him up in a hug and forced him to stop. “You look like you’re on meth,” Adam murmured.
“I just,” said Kris. “They’re squishing her. He’s hugging her too tightly, he’s-”
“Your dad does have some practice at this,” said Adam. “Plus you haven’t slept in a couple of days. I think you’re way more likely to squish her.”
“I am not,” said Kris. His dad held Maddy up over his head, smiling at her, and Kris’s hands reached to grab the baby before she fell without him even realizing.
Adam snorted in his ear. “It’s fine, dude. A lot of new parents would kill to have grandparents this doting.”
“No, but - Dad, stop it, she’s too little for that. Dad!” He wiggled away from Adam and took Maddy back from his father. She looked tired, she obviously didn’t want to be passed around anymore. She was starting to make a face and kick her little feet around and she needed to be swaddled and given back to Katy. The florescent lights were probably hurting her eyes, and all these strangers were big and loud and scary. Kris made soothing noises and rocked her a little bit, but she screwed up her face and started to cry.
“They cry, Kris,” his mom said. “That’s what babies do. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means something’s wrong,” Kris insisted. He bounced her but she wasn’t settling down. It was definitely time to take her back to Katy.
His parents exchanged one of those isn’t-he-precious glances behind his back. Kris pretended not to see, especially when Adam joined in on it. He wasn’t being adorable, he was keeping his baby safe. Totally different. He rubbed her cheek with his thumb and she turned her face toward him, mouth puckering.
“She’s hungry,” said Kris. “I’m gonna take her back in. You can all go home, okay? We’re gonna be here for another day, after all.”
“Are you gonna be able to sleep here?” asked his mom. “Have you thought about coming home to sleep for a couple of hours?”
Kris must have looked absolutely scandalized, because Adam cracked up. “You’re going to be hilarious on her first day of school,” he giggled. “You’ll be that totally embarrassing dad who won’t stop crying.”
“Hey,” said Kris’s dad. And yeah, Kris had a vague memory of his dad getting teary-eyed dropping him off at Mrs. McKlosky’s room. Kris had always thought his dad was kind of ridiculous, crying over the drop of a hat. He had a feeling Adam was right, though.
“Whatever, I’ll see you all tomorrow,” said Kris. Everyone wanted to kiss Maddy goodbye but she was starting to kick up a fuss for real, so Kris waved them off and walked her back to Katy.
-
Kris woke up to singing. He was totally disoriented, and for a minute he thought he was back in the Idol house, waking up to Adam coming in late. It was certainly Adam singing.
“Say ‘good morning, daddy,’” said Adam, and then repeated himself in a high, squeaky voice. “‘Good morning, daddy!’”
Kris blinked a couple of times. “My baby does not sound like Minnie Mouse,” he protested. His voice was scratchy and only sort of working.
Adam was perched on the edge of Katy’s bed, holding Maddy, who was all wrapped up in a swaddling blanket. He was trying to get her to play with a stuffed raccoon, making it kiss Maddy's cheek while she mouthed at it. Katy was half-awake and watching them both sleepily. “‘Maybe I do, daddy,’” Adam squeaked, holding Maddy up.
Kris was pretty sure his plan hadn’t been to fall asleep in the uncomfortable chairs by the bed. “And stop calling me daddy, that gets weird real fast,” Kris added. “Oww, my back.”
“Aren’t you worried Adam will drop her?” asked Katy. She sounded exhausted.
Kris wrinkled up his nose. “No,” he said, and he didn’t especially want to explain why. Adam clapped his hands and pretended to squeak like an excited raccoon. “My neck is killing me.”
“That chair isn’t for sleeping in,” said Katy. “You’d fit in the bed with me, I think.”
“Yeah, but you’re all... You just had a baby,” said Kris.
Katy just stared at him until Kris was forced to concede that he sounded kind of idiotic. “Right,” he said, moving from the chair to the bed. “You’re not too sore to cuddle?”
“I’m never too sore to cuddle,” said Katy, but he still put his arm around her a lot more gingerly than usual. His back hurt, which was part of it. She still looked pale and exhausted, which was a lot more of it.
“Your parents have been in to see the baby and cry like four times,” said Adam. “It’s really sweet. People keep telling me I can go home and get changed if I want to. Why would I want to?”
“I can’t believe you sweet-talked your way in here,” said Katy.
Adam rolled his eyes. “You have no idea about my powers of persuasion. You just wait.”
“It’s true,” said Kris. “He can do the Jedi mind trick.”
“Well, she did finally stop crying,” Katy said. She bit her lip. “What if Adam’s a better mom than I am?”
“Dumbest thing I ever heard,” said Adam, tickling Maddy’s nose with his finger. “I’m the crazy uncle who spoils her rotten, and she can already tell. Can’t you, Maddy? Yes, you can. You don’t mind that I bought her angel wings, do you? I know she’s too little for them now, but she won’t be forever.”
“What if she’s a devil?” Kris asked.
“Oh, as if this little face could ever be bad.” Adam made kissing noises and Maddy yawned a little. Kris had read some of Katy’s baby books; he knew her eyes weren’t focusing yet and she wasn’t really aware of anything, but he was pretty sure she already knew who Adam was. “I know you two were sort of kidding, but I wasn’t, so whenever you want to make my godfather status official we can get on that.”
Katy frowned. “We were kidding?”
“Just being nice, whatever,” said Adam, waving his hand. “But I want it on something official, in case, god forbid, something happens to you two.”
Kris was still kind of tired. “Adam,” he said, “are you plotting to kill us both and steal the baby?”
“Maybe.”
“I think it’s sweet,” said Katy.
Kris considered for a minute. “I don’t think it’s official until the christening, right? You’re one of the witnesses when they dunk her head underwater.”
Adam clutched Maddy a little closer to his chest. “Will they let me in the church? They don’t really dunk her, right?”
“You promise to love her and look after her,” said Katy. “And it’s just a sprinkle of water on her forehead.”
“Well,” Kris added, “I think there’s something about raising her in Christ, too.”
Adam said, “Your kind of Christ, though, right? Not the scary kind? The kind where everyone loves each other and gets to be happy?”
“That’s the goal,” said Katy. Maddy wiggled and whimpered and started to cry. “Okay, give her back, I guess it’s time for a snack.” She held out her arms.
Adam pretended to pout. “But I don't wanna.”
“You don’t have the equipment to keep her happy, hon,” said Katy. Adam handed the baby over, sticking his lower lip out. Maddy was fretting and crying and her face was getting redder and redder.
Adam looked a little wistful. “Is she latching? Sometimes babies don’t. What? I read your baby book when I was bored.”
“She’s doing just fine,” said Katy, arranging the baby so she could nurse.
“And you? No post-partum sadness? No desire to throw yourself or the baby out the window?”
“Adam,” said Kris. “Seriously.”
“I’m just checking,” said Adam. “I worry.”
Kris tried to stretch out on the hospital bed without jostling Katy or the baby. “We got this under control,” he said. Adam raised an eyebrow skeptically and Kris ignored him.
-
Getting Maddy home was a lot easier than getting anything else done the rest of the week. There were just too many people, all of whom meant so incredibly well that Kris couldn’t get mad at anyone, not when it took five hours to make a grocery list, or his mom and Katy’s mom had a two-day-long stand-off over who was taking the guest bed and who was going to sleep on the couch. (They both tried to insist on the couch. It was strange.)
Everyone wanted to tell him what he needed to do with the baby next. “While Katy’s breastfeeding she can’t eat any tuna. You know how high the mercury levels are?” “You haven’t baby-proofed the electric sockets yet! You’re gonna turn around and Maddy will be crawling and what happens when she sticks her finger in there?” “Don’t buy baby food. You should make your own. Don’t you have a baby-food maker?” “What do you mean it’s not organic. Do you want to poison her?” “You’re not gonna get her vaccinated, are you? That causes autism.”
Katy had started bursting into tears whenever anyone started a sentence with, “Don’t you have a-?” which was deeply unnerving for Maddy and for Kris.
“I just,” Katy said, when Kris had locked everyone else out of the bedroom, “I have the wrong kind of breast pump and the wrong kind of pillow and we haven’t enrolled her in day care yet. We should have done it already, even though we’re not even in L.A. yet.” Maddy started to cry, too.
“We just smile and nod and eventually they’ll all go away,” said Kris. “We’ll take the baby and fly out to L.A. and hide out at Adam’s until they forget to tell us the best way to steam carrots and how long to wait before we introduce her to cheerios. Adam’s closets are huge. No one will find us.”
Katy hiccuped a laugh. “She won’t sleep. Aren’t babies supposed to sleep? She’s wide awake all the time.”
“She’s curious,” Kris said. “All these crazy people around. I can’t blame her.”
“I’m so scared I’m screwing something up,” said Katy quietly. “What if I mess her up and the whole rest of her life is ruined because we didn’t get her the right kind of playpen?”
Kris kissed her forehead and kept his arm around her shoulders. “Yeah,” he said. “But you and I turned out okay, and our parents are obviously clueless.”
“It’s only been a week,” said Katy. “Shouldn’t this be easier?”
Kris scooched down on the bed so he was lying on his back and picked Maddy up. She cried and kicked her feet like she was trying to ride a tiny, invisible bicycle. Adam had flown back to L.A. but he’d left her all the tiny sparkly onesies in the world, although he’d been really careful not to buy any with anything that might pop off and end up in the baby’s mouth. “How can something this little be such a problem?” Kris asked. “I swear she’s twice as big as she was when she was born. At this rate she’s gonna be twelve feet tall.”
“You have some recessive genes you didn’t tell me about?”
Kris put Maddy on his chest and she kicked a little more and then settled down, sucking on her fist. “Aww,” he said, resting a hand on her back.
“She can hear your heartbeat,” said Katy fondly. “That’s supposed to calm babies down.”
“Maybe she’s already a daddy’s girl,” said Kris. He poked her other hand with his finger until she curled her tiny, tiny fingers around his.
“You spoil the baby, you deal with the tantrums,” said Katy.
“Yeah. I know.” He didn’t mind, though.
Katy curled up next to him. “What do you think? I kind of want to ask our parents to look after her for a couple of hours so we could get out of the house and be sane for a little while. But I don’t think I could stand to be away from her.”
“We should,” said Kris. “They can be doting grandparents and cry all they want and we can go... Go... I don’t know what I’d even do with an hour to myself. Sleep?”
Katy giggled. “Have a beer.”
“You’re breastfeeding. I’ll have the beer.”
“No fair.” She poked him in the side. “If I’m abstaining so are you, buddy.”
“We could go for a walk. Remember walking?”
“Remember leaving the house?” Katy said wistfully.
Maddy turned her face and started gumming Kris’s finger. Better than the four shirts she’d already spit up on. “We could just go around the block. Not too far.”
“But she’s so little,” said Katy. “Maybe we should wait. How about in a year or two me and you have a date to go for a walk. And a beer.”
“Deal,” said Kris. “Hey, is she asleep?”
“Almost,” said Katy. “Don’t roll over and squish her.”
“Stop giving me new things to worry about, woman.”
Katy smiled at him. “A walk sounds nice.”
Kris couldn’t stop rubbing Maddy’s back. “Maybe after she wakes up.”
-
A couple of days later they tried to go out, just to go downtown and get out of the house to run some errands, but Katy got as far as the door and she burst into tears. “I can’t,” she said. “Mom, I’m sorry, I can’t just leave her here.” She took Maddy back from her mother and sat on the couch, not looking at anyone but the baby.
Kris resigned himself to another day just hanging out with the family. “This is parenthood,” his mom said. “Say goodbye to all the fun things you used to enjoy doing.”
“What are you talking about? You had fun with me and Daniel,” Kris said.
“Sure, like the poor dog and all the peanut butter,” said his mom.
“I was six,” Kris protested. “You can’t still be mad about that.”
“No,” his mother said fondly, “but I can look forward to the weekends that you get to spend scrubbing bubble gum and peanut butter out of the carpet and the couch and all the pets.”
“Madeline is going to be a perfect angel,” said Katy from the couch. “There won’t be any peanut butter incidents.”
“That’s adorable,” said Kris’s mom. Kris decided to believe she meant Katy holding the baby.
-
The label had promised Kris time off, but there was an album and a tour to worry about, and somehow he found himself agreeing to fly out to L.A.
“It’ll be fine,” said Katy. “I have every person in Conway begging to hold her for a couple of minutes.”
“Yeah, but...” Kris started. Maddy was holding on to his finger with her whole fist, watching him with her big brown eyes. She was obviously watching him, mad at him for leaving. “I’ll tell them I’ll just call in. It’ll be fine. We can do it long distance.”
“If you do it long distance they’re gonna hire a bunch of country and Christian music writers while you’re out of town,” said Katy.
Kris decided to pretend he hadn’t heard that. He kissed Maddy’s nose so she’d scrunch up her face and laugh and wave her hands around.
“It’s only three days,” said Katy. “I promise it’ll be fine. And while you’re out there you can make sure the apartment is ready for us.”
“Yeah,” mumbled Kris. Maddy got her fingers in his hair and yanked. It kind of hurt. “Or I could just stay here.”
“I’ll kick you out the door myself,” said Katy. She held her arms out. “Give me the baby and go pack.”
“No.” Maddy yanked on his hair again. “Oww, see? She doesn’t want me to go.”
Katy pried Maddy’s fingers loose and took her out of Kris’s arms. “You’re supposed to be more mature than she is. Remember that, okay?”
-
Leaving was awful. Kris remembered telling people he wasn’t a crier and meaning it, but somehow he was standing on the sidewalk at the airport waving to Maddy, sleeping in her car seat, and he couldn’t stop choking up.
“It’ll be fine,” said Katy. She was all teary, too. “You’ll be back Monday.”
“I know, but. Oh my god.” He wiped off his cheek with the back of his hand. Katy clung to his neck. “If anyone asks we’re just really overtired,” Kris said.
“It’s brutal, having a newborn.” Katy pressed her face against his shoulder. “No sleep at all.”
“Exhausting.” Kris took a couple of deep breaths and blinked really hard. “I’m gonna end up getting my picture taken in LAX. I can’t look like I’ve been crying the whole time.”
“I got your shirt all wet.” She straightened it out and patted his chest. “Kick ass in those meetings, okay? You have a family to provide for. Don’t let anybody bully you and don’t take any guff.”
“I promise.” He started to kiss her, but Maddy woke up and started crying and Katy pulled away.
“She needs me,” she said. “You’ll be okay, right? Safe flight. See you soon.”
“I’ll miss you,” said Kris.
Maddy was crying harder. “You, too,” said Katy, obviously distracted. She kissed his cheek and turned around to crawl into the backseat so she could get to Maddy.
Kris managed to simultaneously feel guilty for leaving and sulky at being left out. “Bye,” he said, grabbing his rolling suitcase. “Love you.” Katy waved and didn’t turn around.
-
There were always paparazzi in LAX, but this time there were a lot more than Kris was expecting. He just didn’t think people were that interested in him, especially since he didn’t have the baby or Katy with him.
Then he saw Adam beaming and holding a sign that said “No Boundaries!!! :)” on it and figured out why.
Adam looked so pleased with himself, and he was doing his version of under cover; grey hoodie, knit cap and sunglasses. Somehow he was still unmistakably Adam Lambert. “Dude,” said Kris, pulling Adam into a hug and trying to keep his back to the photographers. “What the heck?”
“I thought you might be tired,” said Adam. “I figured I’d give you a ride to your apartment so you could freshen up before you faced the suits.”
“You’re not busy?” Kris asked. There were so many flashbulbs going off around them both it was like American Idol again or something. Kris didn’t understand the fascination.
Adam grinned. “I’m always free for you, babe. How come you didn’t bring my favorite girls?” He took Kris’s suitcase away from him without asking and started pulling him toward the exit. He didn’t appear to notice the paparazzi shouting stuff at them, but Adam got that a lot more than Kris did.
“Maddy’s too little. Babies catch germs on airplanes, and she was a couple of weeks early. But we’re all flying out here next month. We figured it was about time we took her home.”
“Please tell me I can throw you a housewarming party,” said Adam. “That’s our car.” He deftly ducked past more photographers, threw a smile to a teenage girl who looked like she might faint, and held the door for Kris.
“I can’t lie, I’m really grateful you took care of all of this,” said Kris. “I didn’t even think about it.”
“You’re tired. There’s a tiny person at your house taking up all your brain energy. Relax, baby, I got this.” Adam patted Kris’s thigh and gave the driver directions to the apartment Kris and Katy had just barely moved into before the whole baby thing had happened. Kris didn’t remember what it looked like, he would have had to look up the address in his phone. He hoped there was furniture. It definitely wasn’t set up for a baby. He wondered how Katy thought he was going to get it ready in three days while he bounced back and forth between meetings.
Adam poked Kris in the arm a few times. “Pictures!” he said. “You must have them. Show me the baby.”
Kris laughed tiredly. “Normally I’d pretend to be reluctant, but...”
“Show me my goddaughter,” Adam commanded. “I have bought so many presents. I can’t wait for her to move out here where I can spoil her. Pictures!”
Kris pulled out his phone and opened a shot of Katy and Madeline. She was too little to do anything or pose, but Kris still had a couple of dozen shots of Maddy and her mom, Maddy and her aunts, Maddy and her uncles, Maddy and her grandparents, Maddy and Kris... Maybe more like a hundred pictures. Adam was enthusiastic about every single one.
“Now I need to call Katy,” Kris said. “I texted her, but-”
“Go, call, I understand,” said Adam, waving him off.
Katy picked up on the second ring. “I can’t believe you texted me,” she said. “Was that some kind of joke?”
“Put Maddy on the phone,” said Kris. “Who wants to talk to you, anyway?”
“Good thing I don’t miss your sarcastic butt,” said Katy. There was a shifting noise and then Katy started saying, “Say hi, Maddy. Say hi to daddy. Say hi.”
“She already forgot who am I,” Kris complained.
“She’s mostly asleep. She’s grabbing for the phone, though. I think that means something. Say hello so she can hear your voice.”
“Hi, Maddy,” said Kris. He glanced at Adam to see if he was embarrassing Adam with his ridiculous baby-talking voice, but Adam was busy typing on his own phone. “Hi, sweetheart. I miss you.”
“She definitely woke up a little bit,” said Katy. “I think she knows it’s you.”
Kris couldn’t bring himself to care that Katy was probably making that up. “I shouldn’t have left. I hate this. I'm missing stuff.” The car stopped and Adam poked Kris until he climbed out of the car.
“Look at that,” said Katy. “She just learned to walk and you missed it.”
“That’s not funny,” Kris complained.
“You’re not missing anything,” said Katy. “All she does is eat and sleep, she’s not big enough to do anything else. You just saw her a few hours ago and you’ll see her again on Monday.”
“You couldn’t even go grocery shopping without her,” Kris pointed out. Somehow this was getting close to an argument, and he couldn’t think of anything stupider to argue over. Katy was being so reasonable and he wasn’t feeling reasonable at all. He was feeling miserably homesick. It was ridiculous, obviously, but that didn’t stop him from feeling it.
Katy sighed tiredly. “I can’t send her to you through the phone, Kris, so you’re just going to have to miss her for a couple of days, I guess.”
“It sucks,” said Kris, following Adam into the apartment. He stopped in the door. “Holy crap.”
“What? Kris, you okay?”
“The apartment!” said Kris, looking around. “It’s finished! Did you--” he started, but Adam was literally doing an excited little dance next to him, so it was pretty clear who was responsible. “Adam decorated the apartment.”
“Oh my god,” said Katy excitedly. “Is it cute?”
Adam was giggling gleefully. Kris clapped him on the shoulder a couple of times. “It’s all... We have a couch and tables and chairs and end tables and lamps. It’s crazy. And there’s plastic stuff on all the edges-”
“Baby proofing,” corrected Adam. “Not plastic stuff.”
Kris walked around. “And there are kitchen appliances. Nice ones, too. Did you talk to him about this?”
“No,” said Katy. “I just gave him a spare key.”
“Uh, Adam, what did you do to our bedroom?” Kris asked, pushing the door open. “Holy crap.”
“It’s romantic,” said Adam.
“It’s black,” said Kris.
“Oh my goodness,” said Katy.
Kris waved his free hand around a little bit because he didn’t know what else to do. “I’ll send you pictures,” he said. “It’s all.. Shiny sheets and curtains and... Adam, are those fuzzy handcuffs?”
“Satin sheets,” shouted Adam. “Furry pillows and I framed some erotic poetry for you on the walls!”
Kris started laughing and couldn’t stop. He leaned against the wall, shoulders shaking. It was a little hard to breathe.”We’re gonna put the crib in here,” he hiccuped.
“Kristopher, this is a room to make babies,” said Adam, mock-sternly. “New ones.”
“Give him the phone,” Katy ordered.
Kris handed the phone over and tried to stop laughing. The bedroom was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever seen, like Adam had taken it as a personal challenge to turn the room into some kind of Playboy set from the 1970s. The bed was round.
“Yeah,” said Adam. “Oh, I did, I left them in the drawers for you. No, the walls are painted black with red accents. The sheets are black, and everything else is leopard print.” There was a pause. Adam sighed dramatically. “Yeah, there are normal sheets in the closet, too. If you’re feeling boring.”
“We’re pretty boring,” Kris volunteered.
Adam waved him off. “Because people who have babies can get too busy for romance, I read it in Cosmo,” said Adam. “So I decided to help. Well, you better be grateful. Actually, you should have seen Kris’s face. It was priceless. I snapped it on my phone, I’ll send it to you. Sweetie, I kind of think he was kind of into the handcuffs.”
“Give me the phone back,” Kris ordered.
“Please let me throw a housewarming party,” said Adam, holding the phone out of reach. “I have so many ideas about how to make it baby-friendly.”
“Adam,” repeated Kris, holding his hands out.
Adam glanced at him. “On a scale of one to ten? He’s about a seven. No, an eight. I’ll do what I can to cheer him up, promise. Okay, love you, too. And I love you, baby girl. Mwah.” He made some kissing noises at the phone and handed it back to Kris.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be home soon,” said Katy. “Try and have fun with Adam.”
“I wanna come home,” Kris said. “It’s been eight hours and I want to come home now.”
“Love you,” said Katy. “Say goodnight to Maddy.” Katy made a kissing noise and hung up.
Kris stared at his phone for a second, trying hard to swallow.
“Think about it this way,” said Adam, draping himself over Kris’s shoulders. “You’ll sleep well tonight. No crying babies or beeping baby monitors.”
Kris nodded tightly.
“You’ll be fine,” said Adam soothingly. “You’ll fly home all rested up.”
“Yeah,” said Kris. “Sure.”
-
As it turned out Kris didn’t sleep at all. He moved out to the couch because he wasn’t quite sure how to lie on a round bed and the slippery satin sheets were too weird against his bare legs. But then he lay awake and stared at the ceiling of his apartment. It had been so long since he’d slept by himself. Katy was always there, or the guys on the bus, or even Adam back at the Idol mansion. The apartment was so quiet. There was no noise, no one breathing, no static on the baby monitor, no one’s elbow accidentally catching him in the side.
Sometime just before dawn, when the city outside his window was starting to glow but wasn’t light yet, Kris texted Katy. Miss you. Love you. Home soon.
-
The next day wasn’t any better. Katy was always busy when he tried to call, and the meetings were full of people who weren’t listening to Kris when he said he wanted to stay home with his family for a while. They kept saying things like, “Strike while the iron is hot!” and “The baby will make for great publicity.” Kris was tired and grumpy and he didn’t want to be there, so he crossed his arms and sank into his chair and didn’t say anything unless someone pushed him to. There didn’t seem to be any point.
Adam should have been getting ready for his own tour, but he stopped by Kris’s apartment after dinner. “You’re sulking,” he said.
“I’m just pissed,” said Kris. “They’re pushing me out on a tour and they want to sell pictures of Maddy to People. I quit.”
“You didn’t really,” said Adam, sitting down on the couch and pulling Kris down next to him.
“No. Almost,” said Kris. He wanted to punch someone badly. Normally he didn’t have violent urges, but since becoming a dad he’d discovered a whole new side of himself that wanted to do violence to anyone who hurt his baby girl or tried to keep him away from her.
Adam put his arm around Kris’s shoulders. “Maybe before you quit the thing you worked your whole life to get, you should talk to your wife,” Adam suggested.
“She’ll just tell me to stop being stupid,” said Kris. “I’m not being stupid.”
“Of course, not, babe,” said Adam. He paused. “The tiniest bit irrational, maybe?”
“Shut up,” said Kris.
“Sure,” said Adam.
-
Kris woke up with a stiff neck from sleeping on Adam’s shoulder. Adam was watching TV and humming angrily at a show about fashion. “Better?” asked Adam. “You want some coffee?”
“Don’t you have a tour to go to?”
Adam shrugged. Kris stretched carefully, trying to convince his neck it wanted to turn to the left and the right again. “You’re worse off than I thought,” he said.
“What? I’m fine. Just crabby because I haven’t been sleeping.” He felt a lot better now, actually. Apparently he had just needed a nap. Thinking about napping made him miss Maddy, though, with a sharp pang that stole his breath for a second.
“It'll get better when it's the three of you in your new home,” said Adam. “I promise. You okay to fly home in the morning or do I need to come by?”
“I’m a grown up and I can get myself to the airport just fine,” said Kris. “When do you come back?”
“In a couple of weeks, this is a short one,” said Adam. “Plenty of time to throw a housewarming party when you bring my adorable god daughter to see me so I can steal her forever.”
Kris tried to imagine how miserable it was going to be to move across the country with an infant. “Sure,” he said. “Can’t wait.”
-
Katy met him at the airport but she was late. Kris felt like he’d been run over by a truck. He wasn't a great flier anyway, and he was unshowered and tired and still pretty grumpy about the whole trip, and then a whole group of high school girls on a field trip had seen him and shrieked and asked for pictures. He always said yes, but he really would have liked to say no just that once.
Katy looked pretty bad, too. Well, not bad; Kris didn’t think she could ever really look bad, but not as polished as usual. Her hair was back and unwashed, her shirt had a stain on it, and there were bags under her eyes that she hadn’t bothered to pretend to cover with makeup. “She wakes up and wants food every three hours,” said Katy instead of hello. “I never get to sleep. I don’t know what to do.”
Maddy was crying a little bit, fidgeting on Katy’s shoulder. “Pump bottles, let your mom get up with her,” Kris suggested. He kissed Katy hello, but it was a quick and perfunctory cheek kiss, because she was clearly not in the mood.
“My breasts ache,” said Katy. Kris winced a little; they were in public and people were sort of watching them. “I don’t want anything touching them right now. Here, you take her, I’ll take the suitcase.”
Kris took Maddy and she kicked a little, crying louder than anyone so small ought to have been able to manage. She smelled like baby powder and sour milk. “I missed you, baby girl,” Kris said quietly. Maddy sniffled. Her face was all red and angry. Like her mom, Kris thought unkindly. He didn’t feel especially welcomed home.
“You can have all of her you want,” said Katy. “When we get home I’m going to bed.”
Kris thought about pointing out that he was tired, too, but he didn’t actually mind holding Maddy. She settled on his shoulder, sobs turning into exhausted hiccups, and one of her tiny hands curled around the hair on the nape of his neck. “There, see?” said Kris. “All better. Daddy’s home.”
“That’s not fair,” said Katy, a little grumpy. “She likes you better.”
“You’d rather she was crying?” Kris got the prickly feeling that they were being watched; another group of teenagers was whispering and giggling and pointing. “Let’s get out of here. I can’t sign stuff and hold her.”
Katy rolled his suitcase through the crowds of people and out to the parking garage. Maddy kept waking herself up to start to cry and then forgetting and dozing off again. She was getting Kris’s t-shirt all wet with spit.
Katy put the suitcase in trunk and closed it gingerly, so Maddy wouldn’t wake up. “She’ll sleep when the car is moving,” she said. “I thought about just driving her around the block all night.”
“I’ll do it,” said Kris. “I can stay up with her. I missed her.”
“Yeah,” Katy said. She sighed and rubbed her fingers across her eyes. If she’d been wearing makeup it would have smeared. “I’m sorry I was snappy, babe. She really did miss you. I don’t care what they say about infants being too little to recognize faces, I swear to you, she’s been the fussiest brat since you left. And I missed you, too.” She went up on her tiptoes and kissed him, longer than before, and a lot sweeter. Kris liked her mouth without lipstick, it reminded him of sleepy early mornings together before Maddy was born.
“I’m sorry I had to go,” said Kris, turning so he could kiss his wife without squishing the baby. “I’m sorry I’m going to have to go again.”
“Not until after we move,” said Katy. “I’ll lock the door and tie you to the bed.”
“See, now that sounds like a reason to stay,” Kris joked. Katy slapped his shoulder gently. “I can’t wait for you to see what Adam did to the bedroom. You’ll freak.”
“Maybe I’ll like it,” said Katy. Kris stared at her. “What a man does with his wife in the privacy of their bedroom is a blessing in the eyes of the lord,” said Katy primly. “The bible says so.”
“I’ve always appreciated the way you interpret the Lord’s word.”
Katy giggled. “Put Maddy in her car seat and let’s go home. There’s a pillow with my name on it.”
“Yes ma’am,” said Kris.
-
“Where’s the pile of sundresses?” Katy asked. “I need to pack those.”
“She needs to wear those,” Kris objected. “It’s hot.”
“It’ll be hotter in L.A.,” said Katy. “Are you helping me or not?”
It was inconceivable to Kris that they had accumulated so much stuff since Maddy was born. There was a whole baby bedroom full of tiny little socks with pink frills at the cuffs and tiny velcro shoes she couldn’t wear yet and tiny hair clips that wouldn’t stay in her wispy baby hair. And then there were the endless boxes and drawers full of clothes. Everyone they’d ever met had donated old baby clothes, things for Maddy when she was three months, when she was six months, when she was a year. Clothes for every situation and every season in every climate. Katy was sitting on the floor, hidden behind stacks of baby clothes that would have taken care of a village of babies.
“I give up. Let’s just forget to pack this stuff and leave it all here, and we can buy her new stuff when we get to L.A.,” Kris said despairingly.
Katy snorted. “That would be ungrateful.”
“It would be easy.” Kris found a stack of sundresses, but they looked too big for Maddy. He held one up and Katy shook her head. Not the right stack. “I have one suitcase and you have two, and the baby is going to have ten.”
“My parents will mail some of this. I’m sorting this into stuff she needs and stuff that can wait a couple of weeks. But the problem is she needs clothes for while we’re traveling, too. Layers. What if she gets cold on the plane? You know how air conditioned they always are.”
“What if she cries on the plane? We’re going to be those people. The ones everyone hates. And they’ll all take pictures and twitter them and the internet is going to talk crap about our baby. We could just drive-” Kris started.
“We are not driving from Arkansas to California with an infant,” Katy snapped. Fine, maybe Kris had brought this up a few times already. “If you’re such a big chicken I’ll take her myself, and you can drive all this crap out. Actually, that’s not a terrible idea.”
Kris sighed. “Yes, it is. Are these the right dresses?” He held up something green and ruffled.
“No. I’m looking for the pile that has a dress with little sheep on it. Why don’t you want to drive? That’d be cheaper than shipping.”
“I’d have to drive my dad’s car. I hate my dad’s car. And how would he get it back?”
“You’d drive out together,” Katy said, starting to laugh. “A road trip adventure.”
“Mom wouldn’t let him drive back alone.”
Katy laughed harder. “You’d have to drive them both out, so they could drive back together. Oh, that would be priceless. A week alone in the car with your parents. Do it, Kris. Please?”
“No way,” said Kris, trying not to laugh. “We’d get as far as Oklahoma City and I’d jump out of the car while it was still moving.”
“Some day we’ll drive Maddy crazy just like that,” said Katy fondly.
-
Maddy had her first doctor’s visit and they had to give her a shot. She cried and Katy almost cried and Kris felt like an unfeeling jerk because he had to sit there and hold his baby still so she could be hurt by strangers. She was too little to get a lollipop or a sticker, and afterwards she only wanted Katy to hold her.
-
Katy got a cold and both sets of grandparents were busy at a church barbecue. Maddy was too little to sit around outside around strangers all day, so Kris stayed home with his girls by himself, bringing Katy soup and ginger ale and trying to keep Maddy happy while he packed the last of their stuff.
She was fussy and he was a mess. He burned the soup he was making for Katy and spilled Maddy’s milk all over the floor. He knocked over the pail of dirty diapers, and then he lost one of her socks somewhere. She didn’t seem to care but Kris kept remembering how the baby book said that infants couldn’t regulate their temperature very well so you had to keep their feet covered. What if she got cold and couldn’t tell him? All her cries sounded alike to him; hungry, cold, angry. What if something was wrong and he couldn’t tell? He worried that he was crappy at this. He just wanted to make sure nothing bad ever happened to her and he was failing all over the place already.
Kris tried to hold her in one arm and pack with the other, because she started wailing whenever he put her down. He gave up on packing eventually, because he wasn’t actually getting anything done. He tried putting on a baby DVD, but she fussed when he put on the television and fussed harder when he turned it off.
Katy had a little fever and she was mostly asleep, bundled underneath every blanket they owned but hadn’t packed. When Maddy finally went down for a nap Kris crawled into bed with Katy and moaned. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“Go ‘way. You can’t get sick too,” Katy croaked.
“I’ll take the cold, you take the baby,” said Kris. “It’s been only been a few hours and I'm so, so tired.”
“Silly,” sniffled Katy. “She’s the sweetest baby ever.”
“I thought I was good with kids,” Kris said. “She just never stops wiggling. Or crying. Or needing things from me.”
“Enjoy it while it lasts,” said Katy, and pulled the blankets back over her head.
-
The night before the flight Katy was up in a panic, doing last-minute packing. Maddy stayed up with Kris. The idea was to make her tired so she’d sleep on the flight, but she was unhappy because she could tell her mom was unhappy. Maddy usually laughed and smiled when Kris told her about This Little Piggy and wiggled her toes but tonight she didn’t want that and she didn’t want to look at her mobile and she didn’t want Kris. It made his chest hurt.
He coaxed her to sleep by singing to her, nonsense words to whatever tune popped into his head, and she fell asleep just a couple of hours before they had to wake her up again. Kris told himself that Adam was right; it would all be easier when they got to their real lives in L.A., but his eyes were burning and he felt like he hadn’t slept in weeks. It was still pitch black outside.
Maddy cried through saying goodbye to her grandparents and all the way to the airport, and then something miraculous happened; as soon as Kris carried her car seat into the airport she fell asleep. Security was never Kris’s favorite part of flying, and he’d been dreading it with a newborn and a stroller. Maddy only woke up long enough to bat her eyes at the security guard, who waved them through to the front of the line. Kris wondered if he should worry that she’d already learned to flirt.
It was still awkward to get through the metal detectors, with so many things to carry and so many people looking at them. Kris felt like everyone in line was judging their parenting skills. Maddy was being an angel but Kris couldn’t get his sneakers off and on again while holding her, and Katy already had her arms full, so it turned into an ridiculous little dance of passing the baby back and forth while people stared.
“You have her okay?” Katy asked, squeezing his hand and slipping her own shoes back on.
“Please, God, just let her stay asleep the whole flight,” said Kris, taking the baby back.
They maneuvered their suitcases and all of Maddy’s stuff across the airport, stopping to get coffees for themselves. Katy settled into a seat by the window that looked out over the planes with a sigh, clutching her latte. “I’ll take her for the flight,” she said.
“I like holding her,” said Kris.
Katy frowned over her coffee. “I like holding her, too.” There was a strange edge to her voice.
“I didn’t mean - Are you mad at me?”
“No,” said Katy. “I’m just tired, I’m not mad.”
“Baby, you’re crying,” Kris said gently. It seemed like a bad note to set out to their new home on and he genuinely didn’t know how to make it better or what he’d done.
Katy wiped her cheeks off with her sleeve. “I'm really tired. And I'm a little sad.” She made a valiant effort to stop crying, taking long deep breaths. “Kris, haven’t you noticed? She likes you better.”
“What? Baby, no-”
“She does. She sleeps better for you and she smiles more for you. It’s not fair.” Katy started crying again despite her best efforts. “I’m her mom. I’m supposed to have a little baby girl so we can go shopping and play dress up together. She’s supposed to be my special little girl.”
Kris swallowed the urge to tell Katy she was crazy. That wouldn’t end well. “I’m gonna be gone,” he said. Just saying it made his throat hurt. “She won’t even remember me. Maybe she’s trying to store up daddy time.” Katy started crying harder. Kris felt like crying, too. He put Maddy’s car seat carefully on the floor and put his arms around Katy instead. “She loves you too much to sleep, she wants to hang out with you,” said Kris. “I promise. She loves you just fine.”
“I don’t know about moving to L.A. Maybe this is a bad idea. I don’t know what we’re doing. Why are we taking her away from everyone? What if something happens and my mom’s not around?”
Kris tried to pretend he wasn’t terrified, too. “Eventually it has to be you and me and her. We can do this. She’s just one little tiny baby and we’re two smart, well-adjusted adults. We’re bigger than her. We can buy one of those baby leash things.”
Katy choked, laughing and crying at the same time. She put her arms around him, pressing her lukewarm coffee against his chest. “You’re not putting my little girl on a leash, Kris.”
“We gotta sleep sometimes,” Kris said. Katy laughed again and a little weight lifted off his shoulders.
“I don’t feel old enough for this,” said Katy. “I’m not a grown up yet.”
“Yeah,” Kris sighed. “Me neither. How about we just agree not to tell Maddy? Maybe she won’t notice.”
She slipped her other hand underneath his t-shirt, curling her cold fingers against his back to warm them up. “I’m sorry I’ve been so stressed. I’ll be all better when we get to L.A.,” said Katy.
“Good,” said Kris, “because I’m feeling a little overwhelmed and I’m gonna need a turn to cry pretty soon.”
She smiled. “I love you,” Katy said, and kissed his cheek. He tightened his arms around her. She leaned against him, looking out the window at the sun rising behind the planes. “You know who she’s gonna love? Adam. I bet she runs away with him and forgets all about us.”
“Honestly, there are a lot worse guys she could run away with,” Kris said, and Katy cracked up quietly. If this was how it was going to be - stressful and exhausting but still them, still hopeful and silly and trying - then maybe things would be okay no matter what. Maddy napped on quietly, clutching a well-gummed stuffed raccoon toy in one little fist.