Wait Till Next Year
Title: Wait Till Next Year
Author: heroes_and_cons
Pairing: Kradam
Rating: PG-13 (language, mild sex)
Word Count: 8,404
Summary: Adam and Kris escape to a small coastal town in Northern California when Kris and Katy hit a rough patch in their marriage, but despite the distraction of blissful peace, Kris must ultimately determine his fate before the end of the summer.
Disclaimer: don’t own
Author’s notes: The story takes place in both the past and present, so each section flips back and forth, jsyk. Also, I obviously have nothing but respect for Katy and Drake.
I.
Present: June, 2010
Kris’s life seems to be composed entirely of decisions.
He has an orange in one hand, an apple in the other, and it isn’t a metaphorical situation-he’s standing in front of the produce section at the grocery store, debating over which fruit to purchase.
“Um. Excuse me? Do you…need help?”
Kris glances up to see a scrawny kid, probably still in his teenage years, wearing a smock and nametag. He looks slightly terrified of Kris, eyebrows raised and feet shuffling.
“I’m just trying to decide,” Kris mutters. “It’s all about apples or oranges, isn’t it?”
The kid clears his throat. “Um. You could always get both…”
“No,” Kris says, growing frustrated. “I can’t. Sometimes you can’t just pick both, okay? Sometimes you have to go with one or the other. Sometimes you just have to…” Kris closes his eyes, clears his mind, and feels his left hand drop the fruit it was holding. He looks up to see that he’d dropped the orange, and held on to the apple.
He glances back at the kid, who looks as though he wants nothing more than to run into a corner and hide. Kris tosses the apple in the air and catches it in the palm of his hand with an audible smack. “Never really liked those orange peels, anyway.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
“I kind of had a revelation in the grocery store today.”
Adam snorts, dipping his chin so he can meet Kris’s eyes. “Really? In the grocery store?” He smiles, grazing his fingers over Kris’s tussled hair. “Okay, I’ll bite.”
“It has to do with why I bought so many goddamn apples.”
“What the hell happened in that grocery store? You come home with fifteen apples and now you’re swearing?” Adam smirks.
“I’m serious,” Kris says, untangling himself from Adam and sitting up, hugging his knees to his chest. The moonlight filters through the glass French doors, framing his face in an eerie silhouette. “I had an apple in one hand, and an orange in the other, and I couldn’t decide which I wanted.” He swallows. “And then I started imagining it like it was you and Katy, and I couldn’t choose. And this kid, an employee, he said, ‘You can have both’.” Kris picks at the frayed edge of the blanket. “And I realized I couldn’t.”
He feels the bed shift as Adam sits up next to him, wrapping his arms around his legs. The sheer curtains over the opened doors swish in the gentle summer breeze. Somewhere in the distance, not too far from the house, they can hear the rhythmic lapping of waves against the shore.
“So, tell me,” Adam murmurs, clasping his hands together. “Were you imagining that I was the apples, or that Katy was?”
Kris bites down on his lip, hard enough to taste blood. “You,” he whispers, meeting Adam’s gaze.
Adam smiles, wraps a hand around the base of Kris’s neck, and pulls him in for a kiss before the fall back onto the bed together. But even as Adam takes control, effortlessly easing Kris into the numbing sensations of ecstasy, all Kris can think of is how guilty he feels for the lie he just told.
II.
Past: September, 2009
The final show of the three-month, fifty-city tour was much less climatic than Adam had been expecting it to be.
He throws his fist in the air for the last time amid a shower of bubbles and flashing lights, having capped off Don’t Stop Believing for the last time. The audience erupts, and Adam feels Kris’s arm around his waist, other arm still in the air. The ten of them stumble off the stage, arms linked, hopeful for the future.
Within the hour, Kris and Adam are sharing a limo to the Manchester Airport to catch a red-eye back out to Los Angeles. The rest of the contestants are opting to stay the night before returning home, but Kris and Adam are both pressed to record the next day.
“I can’t believe it’s over,” Kris murmurs, gazing out the window as the night rolls by them.
“Yeah,” Adam says. “But, hey, now we get to do everything else, right? Cut an album, tour on our own…”
“With riders,” Kris grins. “And a bus to myself.”
Adam reaches for a bottle of wine and two glasses on the side of the limo, popping the cap off with his teeth-“Classy,” Kris interjects, to which Adam rolls his eyes-and pouring them each a cup.
“Cheers,” Adam smiles, tipping the rim of his glass towards Kris’s.
“What’re we toasting to?” Kris asks, tentatively sipping his drink.
Adam hesitates, staring into the blood-red wine that swishes against his glass. “To the future,” he murmurs, before closing his eyes and downing the alcohol.
III.
Present: June, 2010
“Kris. Get up.”
Kris groans and rolls over, pressing his face into the mattress. Even with his eyes closed, he can vividly see Adam as he walks across their bedroom, tossing the curtains back and pushing open the balcony doors.
Kris blinks several times, allowing his vision to return, and forces himself to sit up, his legs tangled in the blankets. He realizes then that it’s still relatively dark outside; that his body is screaming at him to return to sleep.
“Adam,” Kris mumbles, “it’s four in the morning. What are you doing?”
“Come on,” Adam says eagerly, reaching over and tugging on Kris’s arm. “We’re gonna go for a walk.”
“Now?!” Kris says, kicking back the covers and stumbling out of bed. But Adam is already gone, disappearing into the hallway.
Kris goes through the motions of his daily morning routine, but halfway through brushing his teeth, Adam throws open the bathroom door. “Hurry up!” He says, tossing Kris a smile. When Kris finishes and emerges in the kitchen, Adam hands him a bagel and a thermos of coffee and starts for the door.
“If you’re not going to let me eat, can you at least tell me what’s going on?” Kris mutters, slipping on a pair of Adam’s flip-flops that are much too big on him, but too comfy for him to care.
“Nah,” Adam smirks as they leave the house. “It’s a surprise. Just trust me on this one, okay?”
Kris wants to laugh at the fact that Adam actually asks him for his trust. Kris has been trusting Adam since the first day they met.
They start down the dirt path just off of the house, and are on a main road within ten minutes. They don’t pass another residence for fifteen minutes-a feature that drove Adam to choose the miniscule coastal town of Point Arena, population 474.
After walking for ten more minutes, they reach the base of a hill when Adam abruptly stops and turns, smiling at Kris. “Close your eyes,” he instructs.
Kris blinks, still dazed after being woken up so early. “…what?”
“Close them,” he insists. Adam takes his hand, gently intertwining his fingers between Kris’s. “Come on, I’ll lead you up, okay?”
Kris reluctantly closes his eyes, and Adam pulls at his hands, leading him up the slope. “Okay, keep going…watch out, there’s a rock on your left…okay, a few more steps…”
He feels Adam stop, and a strange sensation of wind against his face. Adam makes his way behind Kris, situating his hands on Kris’s hips.
“Okay,” he whispers in Kris’s ear. “Open.”
It takes one simple muscle movement for Kris not to care about having been woken up at four in the morning anymore.
He instinctively feels a rush to his lungs, and he gasps without thinking; it’s overwhelming, literally breathtaking, the kind of thing that, when he sees it, completely clears out every measure of doubt or insecurity or worry in his mind. The fiery sphere of a sun is just beginning to surface over the horizon, tawny rays arcing over the ocean, colors Kris can’t even find a name for reflecting off of the water. The clouds, stretched and puffy, cascade out away from the sunrise, breaking into dawn.
“So?” Adam murmurs, his breath warm against Kris’s cheek. “What do you think?”
Kris reaches down, taking Adam’s hands in his own and interlacing their fingers. He leans his head back slightly, so that it’s lying in the crook of Adam’s neck.
“Totally worth it,” he smiles.
IV.
Past: October, 2009
The tour has seriously fucked up Adam’s sleeping schedule.
The last show had been more than two weeks ago, and yet he somehow can’t pull himself from the pattern that had grown into a routine over the three-month tour: sleeping until noon, energy peaking at night, up until one or two, before falling back to sleep under the lull of the moving bus.
His insomnia now could easily be contributed to a number of things, though: like how he was stressing over the album, how it would do numbers-wise, getting everything finished. Or the constant traveling, jet-setting to places outside of L.A. to record or do photoshoots or press.
Or, more reasonably, the cause for his restlessness at night was the strain on his and Drake’s relationship. The fact that they no longer fell into a rhythm of natural conversation, like they had been before; the fact that Adam was forced to be away from him for longer periods of time, and Drake was inevitably distancing himself. But what kept Adam awake at night wasn’t any of these details-it was the fact that when he had to travel, he saw it as a relief, and found himself not wanting to go home again.
It’s three in the morning now, and Drake isn’t home. The empty space on the bed next to Adam feels void, uncomfortable, foreign-yet at the same time, he can stretch, spread his limbs across the mattress, if he wants to.
It’s three twenty-seven when the bedroom door creaks open, and Drake tip-toes across the floor, slipping into the bed. Adam waits for a moment, subconsciously debating over whether or not to speak.
“Where were you?”
Adam can feel Drake tense next to him, even in the dark. It’s funny, how after being with someone for so long, you can read their body language with eyes closed; and even now, Adam knows that in a minute or so, Drake will begin running his fingers through his hair, the way he always does when he’s anxious or frustrated or exhausted.
“Out,” Drake mumbles, his answer lying in the tone of his voice.
Adam sits up, the loose blankets making a drape across his knees. He flips on the light, glances down at Drake’s lightly bloodshot eyes, worn skin. He looks older, somehow, tired, and Adam wonders if he looks the same way, too.
Adam swallows hard against the lump in his throat. “We need to talk,” he whispers.
Drake sits up next to him, folding his knees beneath the sheets. He’s in the same clothes from earlier that day-V-neck t-shirt, cut low enough so that Adam can see the edges of his chest tattoo, and low-rise jeans that had been a gift at some point. “I know,” he murmurs, but it’s more than just a response to what Adam has just said.
Adam reaches over, lightly outlining the D inked against Drake’s bicep. Drake turns into him, leaning his head against Adam’s freckled shoulder. “You know I’ll always love you, right?” Adam breathes.
Drake smiles, but it trembles underneath the pressure. “Always.”
They stay like that for a moment, feeling a burden lifted, before Drake sighs and lifts himself away from Adam. He turns, brushing his lips against Adam’s forehead, before slipping out of bed and walking towards the door.
He turns back, but only for a heartbeat. And then he is gone.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
“So then we left the restaurant and Alli was like, ‘Did you pay?’ And I totally skipped out on the bill. But it was an accident, you know?” Kris laughs and shakes his head, digging his fists into the pockets of his jeans.
Adam forces a smile, reaches over and pays the cashier before taking his coffee. “Yeah,” he murmurs absent-mindedly as they leave the Starbucks.
“Okay,” Kris sighs. “What’s going on?”
Adam cocks an eyebrow and shrugs. “Nothing. You know, I’m not talkative all the time.”
Kris smirks slightly. “Right. In the…what, almost a year that I’ve known you, you’ve never been this quiet. Something’s wrong.”
For some reason, it irritates Adam that Kris can read him like a book. He’s rarely closed off about anything, but there are times when he wishes his poker face was a little stronger.
“Come on, Adam,” Kris says as they round the corner. Paparazzi catch sight of them, and the unmistakable sound of shutters flashing echoes from across the street. “What is it that you can’t tell me about?”
Adam glances into his frappuccino, watching the caramel syrup pool at the bottom of the plastic cup. He swallows and shakes his head. “Nothing.”
Kris is growing agitated, and Adam can tell. “Nothing,” he mumbles. “Right. I’d tell you if something happened that made me all depressed.” He pauses. “What, something with your label? Your designer? Did Skingraft go out of business or something?” By now, Kris is grinning, clearly teasing Adam. “Or did they discontinue your favorite line of-”
“Drake and I broke up.”
It takes Adam a moment of walking to realize that Kris has stopped, and he turns to see Kris planted to the sidewalk, a few feet behind him. His brow is knitted together over his dark eyes, bowtie lips slightly parted.
“You…what?”
Adam half-shrugs, gripping his coffee hard enough to turn his knuckles white. “We broke up. It was mutual. Mostly.”
Kris swallows. “Why did you let me go on like that? Adam…God, I’m so sorry. Really. I had no idea.” He takes a few steps forward. “Are you…are you okay? Are you going to be okay?”
Adam ducks his head slightly, turns and begins to walk again. Kris falls into step with him. “I have to be,” he sighs. “It was mutual, I guess. I mean…” he pushes his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. “It’s always hard, losing someone you love.”
Kris can hear his heartbeat echoing in his eardrums, loud enough to shatter them. “I know,” he murmurs.
Adam glances at him and, for a moment, looks as though he’s going to ask something like How could you possibly know what I’m feeling right now? But he doesn’t, and Kris is thankful, because even Adam realizes that, at that moment, the two of them have more in common than they think.
V.
Present: June, 2010
“What’s going on?”
Adam closes his eyes and leans his head against the wall. It’s a loaded question, with an equally loaded response, one that he doesn’t feel like delving into right now. And if it were any other person calling, he probably wouldn’t have.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he says softly, a blatant lie.
“The tabloids, Adam. They all say the same thing.” There’s a rustle of papers being shuffled in the background. “Lambert and Allen: California Getaway. Trouble in Paradise: Allen’s Marriage in Shambles. An Idol Affair: Allen and Lambert, Vacationing Together.”
The silence that follows is hideously long. Adam curls the cord of the phone around his index finger before pulling it back.
“You know I don’t ever believe this stuff,” Adam’s mother says quietly. “But you haven’t called in days. You haven’t told me where you are. You…” She lets the sentence dissipate.
Adam clears his throat, pushes the soles of his feet against the door. He’s in the small coat closet under the stairs, and even though Kris is sleeping in the bedroom, he speaks in a husked whisper, afraid that Kris will somehow overhear him.
“I’m in Point Arena,” he whispers. “A little south of Fresno.” He hesitates, licking his chapped lips. “And I’m with Kris.”
Another ache of silence blankets them, and Adam realizes he’s unknowingly holding his breath. When Leila speaks again, her voice has changed, tinted with something Adam’s never heard before-not concern, not anger, but something trapped in between. “Adam,” she murmurs. “Do you realize what you’re getting yourself into?”
He bites his lip hard enough to taste blood. “Yeah, Mom,” he whispers, his voice cracking slightly. “I do. I really do. I know that he should be focusing on his marriage. I know that it’s making me look bad. I know that it’s probably going to hurt both of our careers. I know that people are going to frown upon it and I know I’m only feeding the goddamn fire by doing this but…” his voice trails off, leaving a storm in its wake.
“But?”
Adam presses the palm of his free hand against his forehead, hard enough to leave a permanent imprint. “But it’s so worth it.”
For a moment, Adam feels as though his mother might say something reassuring, the way she always does: You’re doing the right thing. Follow your heart. As long as you’re in love…
But her voice returns, heavy and unfamiliar, cutting through the static like a knife: “Sometimes it’s not worth it, after everything is said and done.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Kris has a small cluster of moles on the back of his neck, sloping into his shoulder blades, that looks like a star.
Adam harbors this seemingly meaningless fact like a secret, as if it’s something meant only for him; this is close to the truth, because Kris was never shirtless in public and that was the only way you could see it.
Adam outlines the star with the edge of his index finger, connecting the five points before planting a kiss on Kris’s back. He feels Kris moving against him, rolling over, a faint smile outlining his sharp cheekbones.
“So,” Kris sighs, voice heavy with sleep. “Your mom knows.”
The statement is so blunt, so simple, that Adam almost misses it completely; when he registers the words Kris has just said, it comes as a smack in the face. “You heard?” He murmurs.
Kris’s smile twists slightly at the corners. “Yeah. You know there’s vents in that closet that come up right by the stairs here.” He hesitates, glancing up at Adam. “Judging from how quickly you hung up, she doesn’t think this is worth it.”
Adam swallows against the lump in his throat. “It doesn’t matter what she thinks,” he mutters, lying so that Kris’s head is in the nook of his arm.
Kris is silent for a moment, and in the dark, Adam thinks he’s fallen to sleep. His breathing is steady and shallow in Adam’s arms.
“But it matters what I think.”
Adam blinks, taken aback by the sound of Kris’s voice. “What you…what?”
Kris shifts away from Adam’s hold. “Every day, these little things happen with you and all I think is, ‘This is worth it, worth everything.’ Like when we’re just lying in bed or watching the sunrise.”
Adam swallows, already sensing the imminent conjunction that is going to shatter Kris’s sentence.
“But then I…I think of her. And everything that’s happened with us.” He hesitates. “And what I did.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” It’s Adam’s immediate response, internally embedded into his reflexive answer to that statement.
Kris sits up, hunched silhouette outlined by the blanched moonlight. “There isn’t much of a difference between doing something wrong, and knowing you did something wrong.”
All Adam can think about is his mother’s voice across the line, miles and miles away, echoing through the crackling static: sometimes it just isn’t worth it.
VI.
Past: November, 2009
Kris is, in every sense of the word, entirely numb.
He feels as though he’s been hit by a train and then tossed off a cliff. He’s just spent an entire night in the middle of a desert outside of Los Angeles, hammering his fingers into a piano or strumming the same chords over and over again, singing along with the feedback of the same song for at least fifty or sixty takes.
The video shoot in itself was exhausting, and when he finally drags himself home at some God-forsaken hour in the morning, all he wants to do is curl up in bed and sleep.
Instead, Kris walks inside to see Katy sitting cross-legged on their sofa, a slew of little white sticks splayed out in front of her on the coffee table, blue eyes wide and shining. His vision blurs, but he undoubtedly sees the tiny pink pluses, the smile that consumes her face.
And he uses whatever energy he has left to smile and hold her, the way he’s supposed to.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
“Kris?”
It isn’t the first time Kris feels awkward in front of Adam, but it’s the first time where Adam isn’t trying to make him feel comfortable. He stands on the front porch of Adam’s house, and he’s lost track of the time, fucked up his sleeping schedule and ruined whatever biological clock he had left. But Adam’s hair is standing up in pointed directions, and he’s in plaid pajama bottoms, and Kris knows it isn’t a decent hour.
“I’m sorry,” he blurts. “I…I wanted to talk to…someone.”
“Next time I wake you up in the middle of the night, you better not give me shit about it,” Adam mutters, his way of inviting Kris in.
Kris realizes, upon crossing the threshold into Adam’s house, that he hasn’t actually ever been inside Adam’s house.
“You want the grand tour?” Adam asks, as if reading Kris’s thoughts. “Or you want to just cut to the chase?”
Kris gazes around the front hall, from where he can see into the living room and kitchen. The entire place radiates Adam: there’s a ridiculously ludicrous piece of three-dimensional art hanging on the wall by the stairs, but on the small end table near the door there’s also a black and white photo of Adam and his brother dated 1999.
“Katy’s pregnant,” Kris says, running a thumb along the concave photo frame.
“That’s great,” Adam replies. “…you came here, now, to tell me that?”
Kris pauses, the corner of the frame digging into his thumb, and lifts his eyes towards Adam’s. Once he had a kid, he would not allow himself to become the kind of dad that wasn’t around, that never talked to Mommy. He’d been blindsided by this, but he wasn’t going to back down. Only now, the prospect of something he thought he might have always wanted was beginning to fade.
So Kris crosses the small space between them, fixes a hand on the small of Adam’s back, and pulls him down into a rough kiss.
And God, it’s perfect. It’s everything he’d imagine it to be-soft and hungry and gentile and heavy all at the same time.
And when they part, much to Kris’s surprise, Adam does not say a word. He says nothing as he tugs Kris’s hand up the stairs, past the freaky artwork, into a dark bedroom. He says nothing as Kris lays down on the already-rumpled bed sheets, his body conforming to the mold. He says nothing as his lips trace lines down Kris’s face and chest and abdomen, as his hands slide Kris’s blue jeans over his slender hips.
And Kris says nothing, either. Not even when Adam presses inside of him, fills him, splits his entire body in half. Kris muffles whatever noise was crawling up his throat against Adam’s collarbone, closes his eyes and runs the tips of his fingers along Adam’s spine.
Even when Adam is inside of him, though, Kris still feels empty.
VII.
Present: July, 2010
Calendars are either daunting or inviting, never really anywhere between, and Adam makes an impromptu decision to dispose of the one on the kitchen counter.
It’s one of those daily calendars, one with Seinfeld quotes on every day, because Kris knew that entire show like the back of his hand. And while he knew it was wrong, Adam couldn’t sit there and eat breakfast and feel that goddamn calendar burning holes into his skin, the June turning into July and the days increasing by number.
Adam grabs it and begins tearing off the sheets, fast-forwarding through August, September, October. He rips off pages and pages of days until he reaches December thirty-first and realizes that the calendar ends there. He can’t flip to next year, or many years from now, in the hopes that it would somehow be better than right this second.
“Adam?”
Adam glances up to see Kris’s face, eyebrows knit together and hand still on the railing of the stairs. And he sees what Kris is seeing: scattered sheets surrounding him like a white halo, days and months thrown about the kitchen.
Kris picks up the blank frame of the now-empty calendar frame. “Why…why did you do that? You know I loved this thing.”
Adam lifts one of the pages. November fourth, 2010. In the center is a quote from George that reads, Remember, Jerry, it’s not a lie if you believe it.
“I…was just looking. For this. Quote.”
Kris stares, and for the first time Adam notices the hollows that are carved deep into his cheekbones, dark circles that outline his aithochrous eyes. All those nights that Adam had assumed Kris was asleep in his arms - had those been lies, too? Was this all just an illusion?
Adam half expects Kris to leave, but he doesn’t. He sits, cross-legged, across from Adam on the floor of the kitchen, on top of the mess of days Adam had left in his wake.
“Adam,” Kris murmurs. And he stops there, voice hanging on a hinge, and Adam hears something - some pattering, ticking noise, and he realizes it’s gently raining outside.
“I don’t know if I’m…lying, to myself, to everyone. Or not. I don’t know. So I don’t know what to believe.”
Adam feels himself shake, from the inside. Chills. When he was younger someone once told him that chills meant someone was walking over your grave. Adam never understood this because he wasn’t dead, not yet.
“If you could have any super power, what would it be?”
They did this sometimes. A game - if you could be an animal, what would you be? If you were about to be executed, what would your last meal be?
“Fly,” Kris says after a moment. “Be able to fly to all the different corners of the world whenever I wanted. Skip over traffic jams, crowded airports, and just fly.” He hesitates. “What about you?”
Adam leans his head against the side of the cabinet, his head rolling against his shoulder. Outside, the sun began to peak through the thick blanket of ashen clouds, a soft rain still falling. Sun showers, his mother used to say, are kind of unnatural, but sometimes the most unnatural things are also the most beautiful.
“Manipulate time,” Adam breathes. “Stop, pause, rewind. Fast-forward.”
They sit there until the sun dissipates into the horizon, until the wind from the storm howls through the open windows and picks up the scattered calendar days, swirling them into their own little tornado.
VIII.
Past: January, 2010
Kris dreams that he’s flying.
Soaring, and he swear he can literally feel the wind beneath his arms. He dives for the clouds, and they swirl around him in a marshmallow cocoon. The air is so cold, freezing up here, that he can hardly breathe, but it’s kind of wonderful at the same time, his lungs paralyzed.
And then he’s startled awake by a scream.
Katy’s grip on his forearm is so tight, she leaves half-moon nail marks across Kris’s skin. It takes him a moment to register the fact that she’s screaming, and another moment to register that it’s his name. Kris. Kris!
Kris sits up, his spine unfurling from sleep, and throws back the blankets. He feels wet, and he’s thinking about the clouds, and is he still dreaming? He reaches over, flicks on the light so he can see, and Katy begins to sob.
Their mattress is covered in blood.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
He’s supposed to call, and he hasn’t.
It shouldn’t bother Adam as much as it does, but every time the phone rings he finds himself jumping to retrieve it, knocking things over in the process. And every time it isn’t him, Adam feels his chest constrict.
So when Kris does call, early in the morning, Adam has lost the will to be excited.
“Now you call? At eight in the fucking morning?”
“Katy,” Kris says, half-breathless.
“No,” Adam mutters, a thickness tingeing his voice. “My name is Adam.”
“No, it’s Katy,” Kris snaps back. “She…we’re at the hospital.”
Adam sits up, suddenly awake. “She…she didn’t go into labor, did she?” It was too early, and it couldn’t happen, not now. Not yet. He knew that neither he nor Kris could handle it right now.
“No,” Kris breathes. “She had a miscarriage.”
Adam pulls the receiver away from his mouth and let out a deep breath-one that he’s sure he’d been subconsciously holding for quite some time, but for some reason, he’s afraid of Kris hearing it.
“So she…lost the baby?” Adam murmurs quietly.
“Yeah,” Kris sighs. “She’s a mess. I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m sorry, Kris.” Adam isn’t sure what he’s apologizing for, but it’s the only thing he can say with some assurance.
“Me too,” Kris says, so softly that his words are almost lost in the static.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Kris touches Katy, and she curls away from him.
“Listen, Katy,” Kris murmurs, sitting at the edge of her hospital bed. “We’re going to have more kids. We can have a houseful of babies, if that’s what you want.” He leans down and gently kisses her forehead. “It’s going to be okay.”
She nods slightly, dipping her chin to touch her chest, and splays her fingers across her abdomen. “But I wanted this one,” she whispers, tears trickling from her swollen eyes.
Kris is about to say me too, but he instead breathes “I know” into her ear. Because right now, he can’t bring himself to lie to his wife.
IX.
Present: July, 2010
When Adam has finally fallen asleep on the sofa, underneath the blanched glow of the television, Kris silently untwines himself from Adam’s arms and tiptoes into the kitchen. He grabs the cordless phone and slips outside.
He’s barefoot, but at this point he couldn’t care less. He half-runs across the backyard and down the dirt path, wincing as his skin cuts into roots and bristles. Two minutes down the path, and the dirt begins to fade into sand, until he’s standing on the beach.
Adam had chosen this house specifically with the beach in mind. It’s just beyond their backyard, close enough so that they fall to sleep listening to the cyclical lull of the waves every night.
Kris sits down in the sand, lies on his back so that he’s staring at the night sky. If you hold up a grain of sand to the sky, it’s the same size as a star, Adam had said, the first night they were there. And if it’s double the size, it might be an asteroid. Or even a planet.
Where’d you learn all this? Kris had smiled.
Adam shrugged. Life, he’d murmured.
Now, Kris digs his toes into the sand and finds a small grain, lifting it over his head and squeezing one eye shut. It isn’t the same size as a star, nor is it double; it’s somewhere in between, and Kris wonders what Adam would have to say about it.
His fingers tremble as he dials the number, so engrained in his memory. He presses the receiver to his ear, still lying on his back, and presses the palm of his free hand into the sand.
On the fourth ring, the hollow tone stops; there’s static, white noise, a small sigh. Kris feels his stomach contract.
“Hello?”
Her voice is softer than he remembers, or maybe it’s because he’s probably woken her up. It’s tender and raw and thick as honey.
“Hello? …who is this?”
“Katy.”
The silence is so heavy that Kris assumes she’s hung up, but she hasn’t, and after a moment her voice cuts through and the softness is gone.
“Why are you…why are you calling? Why now? God, Kris, what are you doing to me?”
“I…I mi-”
“Don’t,” she says sharply. “Don’t tell me you miss me. You have no right calling me, Kris.”
“Will you listen to me?” Kris breathes. “Will you listen to me for five fucking minutes, Katy, and let me explain myself?”
It takes her another moment. “Fine,” she whispers.
“I love you,” Kris began, closing his eyes. “I’ve always loved you. Always. I didn’t marry you and make a promise with the intention of breaking it, and you know that. But I…” he swallows. “I never knew that there was a spectrum-different kinds of love, different ways to love. And I met Adam and I…felt this, this thing, something I’ve never felt before.”
“How long?” She breathes. “How…when did this…”
If he’s not honest now, he knows he won’t be able to live through this without ever wondering if the outcome would have been different. “Since November,” he whispers.
There’s a stifled sound, something between a cry and a choke, and Kris feels his jaw tighten. “November what?” She stammers. “What was the date?”
“I…I don’t-”
“Goddamnit, Kris, what was the date?”
“Fifteenth.”
She’s crying now, undoubtedly, and it comes through the line like a smack in the face. “You found out I was pregnant, you acted so excited…and then you went and slept with him?”
“I know,” Kris murmurs. “I know, I know. It was wrong. Everything…God, Katy, I fucked up. But I was having these feelings, for…for Adam, and I never thought…never thought I’d have these kinds of emotions for a man. Never even dreamed of cheating on you, but it…it just happened. It was wrong,” he repeats. “Cheating on you was wrong. Leaving was wrong.”
Katy hesitates. “Why are you calling me, Kris?”
He grips the phone with a shaking hand. “You don’t want to hear it,” he says, “but I miss you. I really do.”
“There’s a difference,” she whispers, her voice wavering, “between calling me to tell me you miss me, and coming home to say it to my face.”
Kris nods, forgetting that she can’t see him. “I know.”
“So are you?” She says after a moment. “Are you coming home?”
X.
Past: May, 2010
“I need to go.”
Adam seems immune to Kris’s words, and he tugs on the waistband of Kris’s jeans, pulling him back into bed and silencing him with kisses.
Kris succumbs to it for a moment, then pulls back, resisting. “No, I really have to go.”
“Stay,” Adam pleads, knowing it’s useless. “It’s late. She won’t know-”
“I can’t,” Kris cuts him off before he says the words. Adam drops his hands from Kris’s hips, leans back in bed as Kris pulls a shirt over his head.
Kris sighs heavily. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, leaning down to kiss the corner of Adam’s jaw.
“Yeah,” Adam breathes. “Me too.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Kris has mastered the art of sneaking back inside, even at the darkest hours of the night, and even though he shouldn’t be he’s a little proud of it. Even on nights when Adam liquored him up on tequila shots, he’d still slip into bed without waking Katy.
So when he tiptoes into their master bedroom, crossing the floor silently, the sudden flick of a light switch throws him off-guard.
Kris jumps back, stumbling over an empty laundry basket in the process, barely catching himself before he falls. Katy is sitting up in bed, arms-crossed, eyes red and bloodshot.
“Katy,” Kris breathes, and he knows it’s too late to erase the shocked expression that paints his face. “I was just-”
“Don’t,” she cuts him off. Her blonde hair cascades in sheaths across her face. “Who is she?”
“What?”
“She must be important,” Katy continues, kicking back the sheets and climbing out of bed, walking to stand a foot away from Kris. “You’ve seen her three times in the past week.”
“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kris’s words dissipate at the seams, and he remembers the time Adam had warned him to be careful because they both knew he was a terrible liar.
“Don’t lie to me, Kris,” she whispers. “There’s absolutely no excuse as to why you’d keep leaving in the middle of the night, sneaking back in hours later.” She inches closer. “The least you could do is tell me who she is.”
Kris closes his eyes and feels himself falling, as though the floor beneath him has caved in and the earth has swallowed him whole. “It’s not a she.”
When he opens his eyes again, Katy is five feet back, edging further and further away from him. Her clear eyes are fiery-wild, confused and anguished.
“He?” She breathes, her voice barely audible. “It’s…you mean you’re…”
Kris nods, feeling the tears press fervently against the backs of his eyes. “I’m sorry, Katy. God, I’m so sorry.”
She stands there, arms at her sides, and it makes Kris’s heart hurt, how helpless and alone she looks.
“I think maybe you should leave,” she whispers.
“But I want to-”
“Go.” She shakes her head. “You can’t make this right, Kris. God, I can’t even look at you right now.”
In essence, Katy is telling Kris exactly what he wants to hear. This was what he’s been waiting for: someone to tell him what to do. Someone to let him go.
But it still takes him another minute, maybe five, to uproot his feet from the floor of his bedroom and carry himself out the door.
XI.
Present: July, 2010
Adam’s phone has been vibrating most of the day, but he can’t bring himself to silence it.
He knows what the text messages and voicemails say, who the missed calls are from. He’s been dreading this day since May, when his PR manager quietly cut him a deal: make a decision by July thirty-first, and we might be able to salvage your career.
It isn’t his decision to make, though. And he isn’t going anywhere unless Kris is going somewhere.
After a seventh buzz Adam grabs his phone and hurls it at the sofa, walking out of the living room with his hands clamped over his ears. He walks through the kitchen and out the back door, slamming it shut behind him.
Kris is standing on the beach, toes buried under the sand, with his neck craned backwards so that his face is tilted towards the sun. His eyes are closed and he’s smiling, the warmth soaking into his skin, and Adam stops for a moment to savor the image.
Adam walks up behind Kris and effortlessly wraps his arms around Kris’s waist, nestles his chin into the hollow of Kris’s collarbone.
“It’s over, isn’t it?” Kris murmurs, reaching down to find Adam’s hands. All summer Adam hadn’t worn any rings, because they prevented Kris from intertwining their fingers together.
“It’s your call,” Adam says, breath cool against Kris’s burning skin.
Kris peels himself away from Adam and walks forward, until the gentle ocean waves lap at his toes; until he’s waist-deep in water, staring out at a stretch of endless nothing that bleeds into the horizon.
XII.
Past: May, 2010
“Point Arena,” Adam says declaratively. “Population four hundred and seventy-four. About an eight-hour drive, if we take I-5 north.”
Kris presses against the top of his suitcase, his curved shoulders hunching over the weight, and yanks the zipper closed. He sighs and sits on the edge of Adam’s bed, watching Adam pour over a map of California.
“What’s going to happen to us, Adam?” Kris murmurs.
Adam sighs, tucking the map into his bag, and sits on the bed next to Kris. “You remember that time we performed in February, in New York?”
Kris feels his lips curling into a smile and nods. It had been the first time they were on stage together since the summer before.
“You remember what I said to you after? Backstage, when you were breaking down, and you thought we weren’t going to see each other again?”
Kris remembers, clear as anything, but he shakes his head just because he wants a reminder.
“I said, ‘I’ll see you soon.’ Actually, I promised it.” Adam touches Kris’s hand. “I carried through with that promise, didn’t I?”
Kris smirks. “You made love to me that same night. So yeah, I guess you did.”
“Made love,” Adam scoffs, lightly punching Kris’s arm. “You’re such a girl.”
“That’s why I take it like a girl,” Kris grins, wrapping his arms around Adam’s neck and planting a kiss on his lips.
Adam peels himself away. “Come on,” he smiles. “We really have to get going.”
Kris’s grin dissipates and he unfurls himself from Adam.
“Listen,” Adam murmurs. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
Kris feels his heart shattering underneath the cage of his ribs, climbing up his throat and echoing around his head. “No,” he finally manages, standing and grabbing his heavy suitcase. “I could use the vacation.”
XIII.
Present: July, 2010
Adam has not seen Kris in hours.
It shouldn’t be hard to lose someone in a place like this, but somehow Kris manages to disappear. And Adam is drained, losing both the energy and the will to try and find him. He sits on the granite kitchen counter top, a pint of Ben ‘n Jerry’s in hand. He isn’t hungry, though, and the ice cream begins to melt.
Minutes, hours trickle by, and when Kris finally walks through the door, it’s almost two-thirty in the morning. He’s barefoot, clothes rumpled and wet, sand sticking to the tops of his feet.
“Where the hell were you?”
Kris jumps, his breath catching as he makes out Adam’s silhouette in the dark. “On the beach,” he sighs, flicking on a light.
“For six fucking hours?” Adam says, tossing his spoon in the kitchen sink. “You’re avoiding me, Kris, I know it. You still don’t want to be the one to have to do this.” Adam stands, walking towards Kris. “Well, allow me to bring you back the fuck down to reality. You have to make this decision.”
Kris’s face contorts slightly, and Adam’s heart plummets to his stomach. “I’m sorry,” he whispers quickly. “I…didn’t mean it like that. But you do,” Adam sighs. “You have to.”
Kris walks around Adam, pulls open the fridge. He roots around one of the drawers for a moment before finding an apple. He tosses it from hand to hand, shining it on the sleeve of his worn T-shirt.
“I don’t think now is the time for a snack,” Adam mutters, folding his arms over his chest.
“Katy was the apples.”
Adam blinks. “The fuck are you talking about?”
Kris sinks his teeth into the fruit, feeling the juice pool around his lips. Apples had always been his favorite.
“You remember the first few days we were here, and I went to the grocery store and had to choose between apples and oranges?” Kris says, taking another bite. “And I told you that I imagined you were the apples, and I chose apples.”
It takes Adam a moment to remember. The beginning of the summer seems like years ago; he even feels as though he’s aged significantly between then and now. “So…you lied to me?”
“Yeah,” Kris says bluntly. “I did. At the beginning of the summer, I thought that there was no way I would stay with you. I thought it was inevitable that I’d go back to Katy. I thought that being with you would just screw everything up, more so than it has - my career, my family, everything.”
“Why did you lie to me?”
“Well,” Kris shrugs. “I really like apples. The association was accidental.” He tosses the core into the trash, walking up to Adam. “And I was thinking about it a lot…now, looking back, which would I really choose? Apples,” he gestures to the trash, “or oranges?” He touches Adam’s chest.
Adam says nothing, and Kris figures he doesn’t want to venture a guess.
“And then I called Katy the other night-”
“You…you did?”
“Yeah,” Kris murmurs. “She asked me if I was coming home. And I heard something in the background and…” Kris chuckles softly. “And she was eating an orange. I thought, God, that’s so fucking ironic. That’s got to be something - a sign, an omen. I don’t know. Do you believe in that kind of thing?”
Adam opens his mouth to form the words, but no sound emanates from his lips.
“Well, I never did. Not until then.” Kris shakes his head. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“The decision, Kris,” Adam reminds him gently. “Apples or oranges. Me, or…or her.”
“I lied again,” Kris says, smiling slightly. “I wasn’t at the beach today. Well, I was, but not for seven hours. So it was kind of a half-lie.”
“Kris,” Adam says, growing frustrated. He rubs his hands over his face. “Kris, just…please. Just tell me.”
“You want to know where I was today? …you can’t get mad though.”
Adam sighs, giving in; at this point, he’s not sure if anything can catch him by surprise. “Fine. Where were you, Kris?”
Kris walks over to his bag on the table, reaches in and grabs a sheath of papers. He tosses them at Adam, leans back on the counter and casually crosses his arms.
“What…what is this?”
“I bought it.”
“Bought what?”
Kris stretches his arms wide, throwing his head back and laughing. “This. All of this.”
“You…you bought the house?”
“Don’t be mad,” Kris smiles again. He walks up, sliding his hands around Adam’s waist. “But I want this to be ours. Forever. I want to wake up every morning and realize that the reason you’re not lying next to me is because you’re making me breakfast. I want to run down to the beach whenever I feel like it, run head-first into the ocean and feel like I’m drowning with you.” Kris reaches up, thumbing away the tears at the corners of Adam’s eyes. “I want to build an addition here - maybe a few more bedrooms. I want our kids to be raised here and grow up right on that beach and…and I want us to fight, to yell and scream and eat cartons of ice cream at two in the morning until we make up, because that’s what we do. And I want to…I want to grow old with you, Adam. Right here, right in this kitchen.”
“Really?” Adam breathes after a moment, his hand grazing Kris’s cheek. “You promise? Promise me, Kris. Please, promise me.”
“I’ll see you soon,” Kris whispers. And he smiles into Adam’s lips, the untouchable burden being lifted.
XIV.
Future: June, 2011.
He’s been told a million times over that this wouldn’t work.
At first, he was sure it wasn’t going to. But he’d been religious about it, vigorous, fertilizing every three weeks and watering every six days, unless it rained. He’d mulched to conserve water, protected it whenever the temperature dropped.
And now, its thin branches arch towards the sun, winged leaves shaking in the breeze. Kris takes a step back, plants his hands on his hips, and admires his handiwork.
“Adam?” Kris calls, turning back towards the house. “Adam, come here!”
“…yeah, okay. I’ll call you back.” Adam pulls the phone from between his shoulder and hangs up. He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt and his hair is jutting out at absurd angles, and Kris is sure he’s just rolled out of bed.
“Looking good, Allen,” Adam grins, tugging at the gardening gloves Kris was wearing. “Hey, the tree looks good.”
“I think it’s ready,” Kris smiles.
“Ready for…? Oh, right. This is all part of the mystery, isn’t it? You never even told me what kind of plant this is.” Adam steps forward, running his fingers over the bark of the trunk.
Kris grabs his stepladder, climbing until he’s obscured by a shroud of leaves. He reaches in, towards the center, until he finds the perfect one.
“Hey, Lambert,” Kris says, stepping down. “You hungry?”
Adam catches something, and it’s cool and smooth in his hands. He glances down at the perfectly ripe orange in his hands.
“An orange tree,” he smiles, peeling away at the skin. “I can’t believe you planted an orange tree.” He walks up, kissing the corner of Kris’s forehead.
“They told me it wouldn’t work here,” Kris murmurs. “That the climate wasn’t right, that it wouldn’t grow properly. But they also said that if, by some chance, I was able to do it…it’ll live for another eighty years.”
“So basically,” Adam says, biting into the fruit, “if all the conditions are right, if you take care of it and it grows…it can last for the rest of our lifetime?”
Kris smiles, tawny rays of sunset filtering through the leaves of the tree. “Something like that,” he sighs, leaning against Adam’s shoulder.
They stand there, in the wake of a miracle, long after the sun has disappeared over the horizon.
Author: heroes_and_cons
Pairing: Kradam
Rating: PG-13 (language, mild sex)
Word Count: 8,404
Summary: Adam and Kris escape to a small coastal town in Northern California when Kris and Katy hit a rough patch in their marriage, but despite the distraction of blissful peace, Kris must ultimately determine his fate before the end of the summer.
Disclaimer: don’t own
Author’s notes: The story takes place in both the past and present, so each section flips back and forth, jsyk. Also, I obviously have nothing but respect for Katy and Drake.
I.
Present: June, 2010
Kris’s life seems to be composed entirely of decisions.
He has an orange in one hand, an apple in the other, and it isn’t a metaphorical situation-he’s standing in front of the produce section at the grocery store, debating over which fruit to purchase.
“Um. Excuse me? Do you…need help?”
Kris glances up to see a scrawny kid, probably still in his teenage years, wearing a smock and nametag. He looks slightly terrified of Kris, eyebrows raised and feet shuffling.
“I’m just trying to decide,” Kris mutters. “It’s all about apples or oranges, isn’t it?”
The kid clears his throat. “Um. You could always get both…”
“No,” Kris says, growing frustrated. “I can’t. Sometimes you can’t just pick both, okay? Sometimes you have to go with one or the other. Sometimes you just have to…” Kris closes his eyes, clears his mind, and feels his left hand drop the fruit it was holding. He looks up to see that he’d dropped the orange, and held on to the apple.
He glances back at the kid, who looks as though he wants nothing more than to run into a corner and hide. Kris tosses the apple in the air and catches it in the palm of his hand with an audible smack. “Never really liked those orange peels, anyway.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
“I kind of had a revelation in the grocery store today.”
Adam snorts, dipping his chin so he can meet Kris’s eyes. “Really? In the grocery store?” He smiles, grazing his fingers over Kris’s tussled hair. “Okay, I’ll bite.”
“It has to do with why I bought so many goddamn apples.”
“What the hell happened in that grocery store? You come home with fifteen apples and now you’re swearing?” Adam smirks.
“I’m serious,” Kris says, untangling himself from Adam and sitting up, hugging his knees to his chest. The moonlight filters through the glass French doors, framing his face in an eerie silhouette. “I had an apple in one hand, and an orange in the other, and I couldn’t decide which I wanted.” He swallows. “And then I started imagining it like it was you and Katy, and I couldn’t choose. And this kid, an employee, he said, ‘You can have both’.” Kris picks at the frayed edge of the blanket. “And I realized I couldn’t.”
He feels the bed shift as Adam sits up next to him, wrapping his arms around his legs. The sheer curtains over the opened doors swish in the gentle summer breeze. Somewhere in the distance, not too far from the house, they can hear the rhythmic lapping of waves against the shore.
“So, tell me,” Adam murmurs, clasping his hands together. “Were you imagining that I was the apples, or that Katy was?”
Kris bites down on his lip, hard enough to taste blood. “You,” he whispers, meeting Adam’s gaze.
Adam smiles, wraps a hand around the base of Kris’s neck, and pulls him in for a kiss before the fall back onto the bed together. But even as Adam takes control, effortlessly easing Kris into the numbing sensations of ecstasy, all Kris can think of is how guilty he feels for the lie he just told.
II.
Past: September, 2009
The final show of the three-month, fifty-city tour was much less climatic than Adam had been expecting it to be.
He throws his fist in the air for the last time amid a shower of bubbles and flashing lights, having capped off Don’t Stop Believing for the last time. The audience erupts, and Adam feels Kris’s arm around his waist, other arm still in the air. The ten of them stumble off the stage, arms linked, hopeful for the future.
Within the hour, Kris and Adam are sharing a limo to the Manchester Airport to catch a red-eye back out to Los Angeles. The rest of the contestants are opting to stay the night before returning home, but Kris and Adam are both pressed to record the next day.
“I can’t believe it’s over,” Kris murmurs, gazing out the window as the night rolls by them.
“Yeah,” Adam says. “But, hey, now we get to do everything else, right? Cut an album, tour on our own…”
“With riders,” Kris grins. “And a bus to myself.”
Adam reaches for a bottle of wine and two glasses on the side of the limo, popping the cap off with his teeth-“Classy,” Kris interjects, to which Adam rolls his eyes-and pouring them each a cup.
“Cheers,” Adam smiles, tipping the rim of his glass towards Kris’s.
“What’re we toasting to?” Kris asks, tentatively sipping his drink.
Adam hesitates, staring into the blood-red wine that swishes against his glass. “To the future,” he murmurs, before closing his eyes and downing the alcohol.
III.
Present: June, 2010
“Kris. Get up.”
Kris groans and rolls over, pressing his face into the mattress. Even with his eyes closed, he can vividly see Adam as he walks across their bedroom, tossing the curtains back and pushing open the balcony doors.
Kris blinks several times, allowing his vision to return, and forces himself to sit up, his legs tangled in the blankets. He realizes then that it’s still relatively dark outside; that his body is screaming at him to return to sleep.
“Adam,” Kris mumbles, “it’s four in the morning. What are you doing?”
“Come on,” Adam says eagerly, reaching over and tugging on Kris’s arm. “We’re gonna go for a walk.”
“Now?!” Kris says, kicking back the covers and stumbling out of bed. But Adam is already gone, disappearing into the hallway.
Kris goes through the motions of his daily morning routine, but halfway through brushing his teeth, Adam throws open the bathroom door. “Hurry up!” He says, tossing Kris a smile. When Kris finishes and emerges in the kitchen, Adam hands him a bagel and a thermos of coffee and starts for the door.
“If you’re not going to let me eat, can you at least tell me what’s going on?” Kris mutters, slipping on a pair of Adam’s flip-flops that are much too big on him, but too comfy for him to care.
“Nah,” Adam smirks as they leave the house. “It’s a surprise. Just trust me on this one, okay?”
Kris wants to laugh at the fact that Adam actually asks him for his trust. Kris has been trusting Adam since the first day they met.
They start down the dirt path just off of the house, and are on a main road within ten minutes. They don’t pass another residence for fifteen minutes-a feature that drove Adam to choose the miniscule coastal town of Point Arena, population 474.
After walking for ten more minutes, they reach the base of a hill when Adam abruptly stops and turns, smiling at Kris. “Close your eyes,” he instructs.
Kris blinks, still dazed after being woken up so early. “…what?”
“Close them,” he insists. Adam takes his hand, gently intertwining his fingers between Kris’s. “Come on, I’ll lead you up, okay?”
Kris reluctantly closes his eyes, and Adam pulls at his hands, leading him up the slope. “Okay, keep going…watch out, there’s a rock on your left…okay, a few more steps…”
He feels Adam stop, and a strange sensation of wind against his face. Adam makes his way behind Kris, situating his hands on Kris’s hips.
“Okay,” he whispers in Kris’s ear. “Open.”
It takes one simple muscle movement for Kris not to care about having been woken up at four in the morning anymore.
He instinctively feels a rush to his lungs, and he gasps without thinking; it’s overwhelming, literally breathtaking, the kind of thing that, when he sees it, completely clears out every measure of doubt or insecurity or worry in his mind. The fiery sphere of a sun is just beginning to surface over the horizon, tawny rays arcing over the ocean, colors Kris can’t even find a name for reflecting off of the water. The clouds, stretched and puffy, cascade out away from the sunrise, breaking into dawn.
“So?” Adam murmurs, his breath warm against Kris’s cheek. “What do you think?”
Kris reaches down, taking Adam’s hands in his own and interlacing their fingers. He leans his head back slightly, so that it’s lying in the crook of Adam’s neck.
“Totally worth it,” he smiles.
IV.
Past: October, 2009
The tour has seriously fucked up Adam’s sleeping schedule.
The last show had been more than two weeks ago, and yet he somehow can’t pull himself from the pattern that had grown into a routine over the three-month tour: sleeping until noon, energy peaking at night, up until one or two, before falling back to sleep under the lull of the moving bus.
His insomnia now could easily be contributed to a number of things, though: like how he was stressing over the album, how it would do numbers-wise, getting everything finished. Or the constant traveling, jet-setting to places outside of L.A. to record or do photoshoots or press.
Or, more reasonably, the cause for his restlessness at night was the strain on his and Drake’s relationship. The fact that they no longer fell into a rhythm of natural conversation, like they had been before; the fact that Adam was forced to be away from him for longer periods of time, and Drake was inevitably distancing himself. But what kept Adam awake at night wasn’t any of these details-it was the fact that when he had to travel, he saw it as a relief, and found himself not wanting to go home again.
It’s three in the morning now, and Drake isn’t home. The empty space on the bed next to Adam feels void, uncomfortable, foreign-yet at the same time, he can stretch, spread his limbs across the mattress, if he wants to.
It’s three twenty-seven when the bedroom door creaks open, and Drake tip-toes across the floor, slipping into the bed. Adam waits for a moment, subconsciously debating over whether or not to speak.
“Where were you?”
Adam can feel Drake tense next to him, even in the dark. It’s funny, how after being with someone for so long, you can read their body language with eyes closed; and even now, Adam knows that in a minute or so, Drake will begin running his fingers through his hair, the way he always does when he’s anxious or frustrated or exhausted.
“Out,” Drake mumbles, his answer lying in the tone of his voice.
Adam sits up, the loose blankets making a drape across his knees. He flips on the light, glances down at Drake’s lightly bloodshot eyes, worn skin. He looks older, somehow, tired, and Adam wonders if he looks the same way, too.
Adam swallows hard against the lump in his throat. “We need to talk,” he whispers.
Drake sits up next to him, folding his knees beneath the sheets. He’s in the same clothes from earlier that day-V-neck t-shirt, cut low enough so that Adam can see the edges of his chest tattoo, and low-rise jeans that had been a gift at some point. “I know,” he murmurs, but it’s more than just a response to what Adam has just said.
Adam reaches over, lightly outlining the D inked against Drake’s bicep. Drake turns into him, leaning his head against Adam’s freckled shoulder. “You know I’ll always love you, right?” Adam breathes.
Drake smiles, but it trembles underneath the pressure. “Always.”
They stay like that for a moment, feeling a burden lifted, before Drake sighs and lifts himself away from Adam. He turns, brushing his lips against Adam’s forehead, before slipping out of bed and walking towards the door.
He turns back, but only for a heartbeat. And then he is gone.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
“So then we left the restaurant and Alli was like, ‘Did you pay?’ And I totally skipped out on the bill. But it was an accident, you know?” Kris laughs and shakes his head, digging his fists into the pockets of his jeans.
Adam forces a smile, reaches over and pays the cashier before taking his coffee. “Yeah,” he murmurs absent-mindedly as they leave the Starbucks.
“Okay,” Kris sighs. “What’s going on?”
Adam cocks an eyebrow and shrugs. “Nothing. You know, I’m not talkative all the time.”
Kris smirks slightly. “Right. In the…what, almost a year that I’ve known you, you’ve never been this quiet. Something’s wrong.”
For some reason, it irritates Adam that Kris can read him like a book. He’s rarely closed off about anything, but there are times when he wishes his poker face was a little stronger.
“Come on, Adam,” Kris says as they round the corner. Paparazzi catch sight of them, and the unmistakable sound of shutters flashing echoes from across the street. “What is it that you can’t tell me about?”
Adam glances into his frappuccino, watching the caramel syrup pool at the bottom of the plastic cup. He swallows and shakes his head. “Nothing.”
Kris is growing agitated, and Adam can tell. “Nothing,” he mumbles. “Right. I’d tell you if something happened that made me all depressed.” He pauses. “What, something with your label? Your designer? Did Skingraft go out of business or something?” By now, Kris is grinning, clearly teasing Adam. “Or did they discontinue your favorite line of-”
“Drake and I broke up.”
It takes Adam a moment of walking to realize that Kris has stopped, and he turns to see Kris planted to the sidewalk, a few feet behind him. His brow is knitted together over his dark eyes, bowtie lips slightly parted.
“You…what?”
Adam half-shrugs, gripping his coffee hard enough to turn his knuckles white. “We broke up. It was mutual. Mostly.”
Kris swallows. “Why did you let me go on like that? Adam…God, I’m so sorry. Really. I had no idea.” He takes a few steps forward. “Are you…are you okay? Are you going to be okay?”
Adam ducks his head slightly, turns and begins to walk again. Kris falls into step with him. “I have to be,” he sighs. “It was mutual, I guess. I mean…” he pushes his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. “It’s always hard, losing someone you love.”
Kris can hear his heartbeat echoing in his eardrums, loud enough to shatter them. “I know,” he murmurs.
Adam glances at him and, for a moment, looks as though he’s going to ask something like How could you possibly know what I’m feeling right now? But he doesn’t, and Kris is thankful, because even Adam realizes that, at that moment, the two of them have more in common than they think.
V.
Present: June, 2010
“What’s going on?”
Adam closes his eyes and leans his head against the wall. It’s a loaded question, with an equally loaded response, one that he doesn’t feel like delving into right now. And if it were any other person calling, he probably wouldn’t have.
“I don’t know what you mean,” he says softly, a blatant lie.
“The tabloids, Adam. They all say the same thing.” There’s a rustle of papers being shuffled in the background. “Lambert and Allen: California Getaway. Trouble in Paradise: Allen’s Marriage in Shambles. An Idol Affair: Allen and Lambert, Vacationing Together.”
The silence that follows is hideously long. Adam curls the cord of the phone around his index finger before pulling it back.
“You know I don’t ever believe this stuff,” Adam’s mother says quietly. “But you haven’t called in days. You haven’t told me where you are. You…” She lets the sentence dissipate.
Adam clears his throat, pushes the soles of his feet against the door. He’s in the small coat closet under the stairs, and even though Kris is sleeping in the bedroom, he speaks in a husked whisper, afraid that Kris will somehow overhear him.
“I’m in Point Arena,” he whispers. “A little south of Fresno.” He hesitates, licking his chapped lips. “And I’m with Kris.”
Another ache of silence blankets them, and Adam realizes he’s unknowingly holding his breath. When Leila speaks again, her voice has changed, tinted with something Adam’s never heard before-not concern, not anger, but something trapped in between. “Adam,” she murmurs. “Do you realize what you’re getting yourself into?”
He bites his lip hard enough to taste blood. “Yeah, Mom,” he whispers, his voice cracking slightly. “I do. I really do. I know that he should be focusing on his marriage. I know that it’s making me look bad. I know that it’s probably going to hurt both of our careers. I know that people are going to frown upon it and I know I’m only feeding the goddamn fire by doing this but…” his voice trails off, leaving a storm in its wake.
“But?”
Adam presses the palm of his free hand against his forehead, hard enough to leave a permanent imprint. “But it’s so worth it.”
For a moment, Adam feels as though his mother might say something reassuring, the way she always does: You’re doing the right thing. Follow your heart. As long as you’re in love…
But her voice returns, heavy and unfamiliar, cutting through the static like a knife: “Sometimes it’s not worth it, after everything is said and done.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Kris has a small cluster of moles on the back of his neck, sloping into his shoulder blades, that looks like a star.
Adam harbors this seemingly meaningless fact like a secret, as if it’s something meant only for him; this is close to the truth, because Kris was never shirtless in public and that was the only way you could see it.
Adam outlines the star with the edge of his index finger, connecting the five points before planting a kiss on Kris’s back. He feels Kris moving against him, rolling over, a faint smile outlining his sharp cheekbones.
“So,” Kris sighs, voice heavy with sleep. “Your mom knows.”
The statement is so blunt, so simple, that Adam almost misses it completely; when he registers the words Kris has just said, it comes as a smack in the face. “You heard?” He murmurs.
Kris’s smile twists slightly at the corners. “Yeah. You know there’s vents in that closet that come up right by the stairs here.” He hesitates, glancing up at Adam. “Judging from how quickly you hung up, she doesn’t think this is worth it.”
Adam swallows against the lump in his throat. “It doesn’t matter what she thinks,” he mutters, lying so that Kris’s head is in the nook of his arm.
Kris is silent for a moment, and in the dark, Adam thinks he’s fallen to sleep. His breathing is steady and shallow in Adam’s arms.
“But it matters what I think.”
Adam blinks, taken aback by the sound of Kris’s voice. “What you…what?”
Kris shifts away from Adam’s hold. “Every day, these little things happen with you and all I think is, ‘This is worth it, worth everything.’ Like when we’re just lying in bed or watching the sunrise.”
Adam swallows, already sensing the imminent conjunction that is going to shatter Kris’s sentence.
“But then I…I think of her. And everything that’s happened with us.” He hesitates. “And what I did.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” It’s Adam’s immediate response, internally embedded into his reflexive answer to that statement.
Kris sits up, hunched silhouette outlined by the blanched moonlight. “There isn’t much of a difference between doing something wrong, and knowing you did something wrong.”
All Adam can think about is his mother’s voice across the line, miles and miles away, echoing through the crackling static: sometimes it just isn’t worth it.
VI.
Past: November, 2009
Kris is, in every sense of the word, entirely numb.
He feels as though he’s been hit by a train and then tossed off a cliff. He’s just spent an entire night in the middle of a desert outside of Los Angeles, hammering his fingers into a piano or strumming the same chords over and over again, singing along with the feedback of the same song for at least fifty or sixty takes.
The video shoot in itself was exhausting, and when he finally drags himself home at some God-forsaken hour in the morning, all he wants to do is curl up in bed and sleep.
Instead, Kris walks inside to see Katy sitting cross-legged on their sofa, a slew of little white sticks splayed out in front of her on the coffee table, blue eyes wide and shining. His vision blurs, but he undoubtedly sees the tiny pink pluses, the smile that consumes her face.
And he uses whatever energy he has left to smile and hold her, the way he’s supposed to.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
“Kris?”
It isn’t the first time Kris feels awkward in front of Adam, but it’s the first time where Adam isn’t trying to make him feel comfortable. He stands on the front porch of Adam’s house, and he’s lost track of the time, fucked up his sleeping schedule and ruined whatever biological clock he had left. But Adam’s hair is standing up in pointed directions, and he’s in plaid pajama bottoms, and Kris knows it isn’t a decent hour.
“I’m sorry,” he blurts. “I…I wanted to talk to…someone.”
“Next time I wake you up in the middle of the night, you better not give me shit about it,” Adam mutters, his way of inviting Kris in.
Kris realizes, upon crossing the threshold into Adam’s house, that he hasn’t actually ever been inside Adam’s house.
“You want the grand tour?” Adam asks, as if reading Kris’s thoughts. “Or you want to just cut to the chase?”
Kris gazes around the front hall, from where he can see into the living room and kitchen. The entire place radiates Adam: there’s a ridiculously ludicrous piece of three-dimensional art hanging on the wall by the stairs, but on the small end table near the door there’s also a black and white photo of Adam and his brother dated 1999.
“Katy’s pregnant,” Kris says, running a thumb along the concave photo frame.
“That’s great,” Adam replies. “…you came here, now, to tell me that?”
Kris pauses, the corner of the frame digging into his thumb, and lifts his eyes towards Adam’s. Once he had a kid, he would not allow himself to become the kind of dad that wasn’t around, that never talked to Mommy. He’d been blindsided by this, but he wasn’t going to back down. Only now, the prospect of something he thought he might have always wanted was beginning to fade.
So Kris crosses the small space between them, fixes a hand on the small of Adam’s back, and pulls him down into a rough kiss.
And God, it’s perfect. It’s everything he’d imagine it to be-soft and hungry and gentile and heavy all at the same time.
And when they part, much to Kris’s surprise, Adam does not say a word. He says nothing as he tugs Kris’s hand up the stairs, past the freaky artwork, into a dark bedroom. He says nothing as Kris lays down on the already-rumpled bed sheets, his body conforming to the mold. He says nothing as his lips trace lines down Kris’s face and chest and abdomen, as his hands slide Kris’s blue jeans over his slender hips.
And Kris says nothing, either. Not even when Adam presses inside of him, fills him, splits his entire body in half. Kris muffles whatever noise was crawling up his throat against Adam’s collarbone, closes his eyes and runs the tips of his fingers along Adam’s spine.
Even when Adam is inside of him, though, Kris still feels empty.
VII.
Present: July, 2010
Calendars are either daunting or inviting, never really anywhere between, and Adam makes an impromptu decision to dispose of the one on the kitchen counter.
It’s one of those daily calendars, one with Seinfeld quotes on every day, because Kris knew that entire show like the back of his hand. And while he knew it was wrong, Adam couldn’t sit there and eat breakfast and feel that goddamn calendar burning holes into his skin, the June turning into July and the days increasing by number.
Adam grabs it and begins tearing off the sheets, fast-forwarding through August, September, October. He rips off pages and pages of days until he reaches December thirty-first and realizes that the calendar ends there. He can’t flip to next year, or many years from now, in the hopes that it would somehow be better than right this second.
“Adam?”
Adam glances up to see Kris’s face, eyebrows knit together and hand still on the railing of the stairs. And he sees what Kris is seeing: scattered sheets surrounding him like a white halo, days and months thrown about the kitchen.
Kris picks up the blank frame of the now-empty calendar frame. “Why…why did you do that? You know I loved this thing.”
Adam lifts one of the pages. November fourth, 2010. In the center is a quote from George that reads, Remember, Jerry, it’s not a lie if you believe it.
“I…was just looking. For this. Quote.”
Kris stares, and for the first time Adam notices the hollows that are carved deep into his cheekbones, dark circles that outline his aithochrous eyes. All those nights that Adam had assumed Kris was asleep in his arms - had those been lies, too? Was this all just an illusion?
Adam half expects Kris to leave, but he doesn’t. He sits, cross-legged, across from Adam on the floor of the kitchen, on top of the mess of days Adam had left in his wake.
“Adam,” Kris murmurs. And he stops there, voice hanging on a hinge, and Adam hears something - some pattering, ticking noise, and he realizes it’s gently raining outside.
“I don’t know if I’m…lying, to myself, to everyone. Or not. I don’t know. So I don’t know what to believe.”
Adam feels himself shake, from the inside. Chills. When he was younger someone once told him that chills meant someone was walking over your grave. Adam never understood this because he wasn’t dead, not yet.
“If you could have any super power, what would it be?”
They did this sometimes. A game - if you could be an animal, what would you be? If you were about to be executed, what would your last meal be?
“Fly,” Kris says after a moment. “Be able to fly to all the different corners of the world whenever I wanted. Skip over traffic jams, crowded airports, and just fly.” He hesitates. “What about you?”
Adam leans his head against the side of the cabinet, his head rolling against his shoulder. Outside, the sun began to peak through the thick blanket of ashen clouds, a soft rain still falling. Sun showers, his mother used to say, are kind of unnatural, but sometimes the most unnatural things are also the most beautiful.
“Manipulate time,” Adam breathes. “Stop, pause, rewind. Fast-forward.”
They sit there until the sun dissipates into the horizon, until the wind from the storm howls through the open windows and picks up the scattered calendar days, swirling them into their own little tornado.
VIII.
Past: January, 2010
Kris dreams that he’s flying.
Soaring, and he swear he can literally feel the wind beneath his arms. He dives for the clouds, and they swirl around him in a marshmallow cocoon. The air is so cold, freezing up here, that he can hardly breathe, but it’s kind of wonderful at the same time, his lungs paralyzed.
And then he’s startled awake by a scream.
Katy’s grip on his forearm is so tight, she leaves half-moon nail marks across Kris’s skin. It takes him a moment to register the fact that she’s screaming, and another moment to register that it’s his name. Kris. Kris!
Kris sits up, his spine unfurling from sleep, and throws back the blankets. He feels wet, and he’s thinking about the clouds, and is he still dreaming? He reaches over, flicks on the light so he can see, and Katy begins to sob.
Their mattress is covered in blood.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
He’s supposed to call, and he hasn’t.
It shouldn’t bother Adam as much as it does, but every time the phone rings he finds himself jumping to retrieve it, knocking things over in the process. And every time it isn’t him, Adam feels his chest constrict.
So when Kris does call, early in the morning, Adam has lost the will to be excited.
“Now you call? At eight in the fucking morning?”
“Katy,” Kris says, half-breathless.
“No,” Adam mutters, a thickness tingeing his voice. “My name is Adam.”
“No, it’s Katy,” Kris snaps back. “She…we’re at the hospital.”
Adam sits up, suddenly awake. “She…she didn’t go into labor, did she?” It was too early, and it couldn’t happen, not now. Not yet. He knew that neither he nor Kris could handle it right now.
“No,” Kris breathes. “She had a miscarriage.”
Adam pulls the receiver away from his mouth and let out a deep breath-one that he’s sure he’d been subconsciously holding for quite some time, but for some reason, he’s afraid of Kris hearing it.
“So she…lost the baby?” Adam murmurs quietly.
“Yeah,” Kris sighs. “She’s a mess. I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m sorry, Kris.” Adam isn’t sure what he’s apologizing for, but it’s the only thing he can say with some assurance.
“Me too,” Kris says, so softly that his words are almost lost in the static.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Kris touches Katy, and she curls away from him.
“Listen, Katy,” Kris murmurs, sitting at the edge of her hospital bed. “We’re going to have more kids. We can have a houseful of babies, if that’s what you want.” He leans down and gently kisses her forehead. “It’s going to be okay.”
She nods slightly, dipping her chin to touch her chest, and splays her fingers across her abdomen. “But I wanted this one,” she whispers, tears trickling from her swollen eyes.
Kris is about to say me too, but he instead breathes “I know” into her ear. Because right now, he can’t bring himself to lie to his wife.
IX.
Present: July, 2010
When Adam has finally fallen asleep on the sofa, underneath the blanched glow of the television, Kris silently untwines himself from Adam’s arms and tiptoes into the kitchen. He grabs the cordless phone and slips outside.
He’s barefoot, but at this point he couldn’t care less. He half-runs across the backyard and down the dirt path, wincing as his skin cuts into roots and bristles. Two minutes down the path, and the dirt begins to fade into sand, until he’s standing on the beach.
Adam had chosen this house specifically with the beach in mind. It’s just beyond their backyard, close enough so that they fall to sleep listening to the cyclical lull of the waves every night.
Kris sits down in the sand, lies on his back so that he’s staring at the night sky. If you hold up a grain of sand to the sky, it’s the same size as a star, Adam had said, the first night they were there. And if it’s double the size, it might be an asteroid. Or even a planet.
Where’d you learn all this? Kris had smiled.
Adam shrugged. Life, he’d murmured.
Now, Kris digs his toes into the sand and finds a small grain, lifting it over his head and squeezing one eye shut. It isn’t the same size as a star, nor is it double; it’s somewhere in between, and Kris wonders what Adam would have to say about it.
His fingers tremble as he dials the number, so engrained in his memory. He presses the receiver to his ear, still lying on his back, and presses the palm of his free hand into the sand.
On the fourth ring, the hollow tone stops; there’s static, white noise, a small sigh. Kris feels his stomach contract.
“Hello?”
Her voice is softer than he remembers, or maybe it’s because he’s probably woken her up. It’s tender and raw and thick as honey.
“Hello? …who is this?”
“Katy.”
The silence is so heavy that Kris assumes she’s hung up, but she hasn’t, and after a moment her voice cuts through and the softness is gone.
“Why are you…why are you calling? Why now? God, Kris, what are you doing to me?”
“I…I mi-”
“Don’t,” she says sharply. “Don’t tell me you miss me. You have no right calling me, Kris.”
“Will you listen to me?” Kris breathes. “Will you listen to me for five fucking minutes, Katy, and let me explain myself?”
It takes her another moment. “Fine,” she whispers.
“I love you,” Kris began, closing his eyes. “I’ve always loved you. Always. I didn’t marry you and make a promise with the intention of breaking it, and you know that. But I…” he swallows. “I never knew that there was a spectrum-different kinds of love, different ways to love. And I met Adam and I…felt this, this thing, something I’ve never felt before.”
“How long?” She breathes. “How…when did this…”
If he’s not honest now, he knows he won’t be able to live through this without ever wondering if the outcome would have been different. “Since November,” he whispers.
There’s a stifled sound, something between a cry and a choke, and Kris feels his jaw tighten. “November what?” She stammers. “What was the date?”
“I…I don’t-”
“Goddamnit, Kris, what was the date?”
“Fifteenth.”
She’s crying now, undoubtedly, and it comes through the line like a smack in the face. “You found out I was pregnant, you acted so excited…and then you went and slept with him?”
“I know,” Kris murmurs. “I know, I know. It was wrong. Everything…God, Katy, I fucked up. But I was having these feelings, for…for Adam, and I never thought…never thought I’d have these kinds of emotions for a man. Never even dreamed of cheating on you, but it…it just happened. It was wrong,” he repeats. “Cheating on you was wrong. Leaving was wrong.”
Katy hesitates. “Why are you calling me, Kris?”
He grips the phone with a shaking hand. “You don’t want to hear it,” he says, “but I miss you. I really do.”
“There’s a difference,” she whispers, her voice wavering, “between calling me to tell me you miss me, and coming home to say it to my face.”
Kris nods, forgetting that she can’t see him. “I know.”
“So are you?” She says after a moment. “Are you coming home?”
X.
Past: May, 2010
“I need to go.”
Adam seems immune to Kris’s words, and he tugs on the waistband of Kris’s jeans, pulling him back into bed and silencing him with kisses.
Kris succumbs to it for a moment, then pulls back, resisting. “No, I really have to go.”
“Stay,” Adam pleads, knowing it’s useless. “It’s late. She won’t know-”
“I can’t,” Kris cuts him off before he says the words. Adam drops his hands from Kris’s hips, leans back in bed as Kris pulls a shirt over his head.
Kris sighs heavily. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, leaning down to kiss the corner of Adam’s jaw.
“Yeah,” Adam breathes. “Me too.”
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Kris has mastered the art of sneaking back inside, even at the darkest hours of the night, and even though he shouldn’t be he’s a little proud of it. Even on nights when Adam liquored him up on tequila shots, he’d still slip into bed without waking Katy.
So when he tiptoes into their master bedroom, crossing the floor silently, the sudden flick of a light switch throws him off-guard.
Kris jumps back, stumbling over an empty laundry basket in the process, barely catching himself before he falls. Katy is sitting up in bed, arms-crossed, eyes red and bloodshot.
“Katy,” Kris breathes, and he knows it’s too late to erase the shocked expression that paints his face. “I was just-”
“Don’t,” she cuts him off. Her blonde hair cascades in sheaths across her face. “Who is she?”
“What?”
“She must be important,” Katy continues, kicking back the sheets and climbing out of bed, walking to stand a foot away from Kris. “You’ve seen her three times in the past week.”
“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kris’s words dissipate at the seams, and he remembers the time Adam had warned him to be careful because they both knew he was a terrible liar.
“Don’t lie to me, Kris,” she whispers. “There’s absolutely no excuse as to why you’d keep leaving in the middle of the night, sneaking back in hours later.” She inches closer. “The least you could do is tell me who she is.”
Kris closes his eyes and feels himself falling, as though the floor beneath him has caved in and the earth has swallowed him whole. “It’s not a she.”
When he opens his eyes again, Katy is five feet back, edging further and further away from him. Her clear eyes are fiery-wild, confused and anguished.
“He?” She breathes, her voice barely audible. “It’s…you mean you’re…”
Kris nods, feeling the tears press fervently against the backs of his eyes. “I’m sorry, Katy. God, I’m so sorry.”
She stands there, arms at her sides, and it makes Kris’s heart hurt, how helpless and alone she looks.
“I think maybe you should leave,” she whispers.
“But I want to-”
“Go.” She shakes her head. “You can’t make this right, Kris. God, I can’t even look at you right now.”
In essence, Katy is telling Kris exactly what he wants to hear. This was what he’s been waiting for: someone to tell him what to do. Someone to let him go.
But it still takes him another minute, maybe five, to uproot his feet from the floor of his bedroom and carry himself out the door.
XI.
Present: July, 2010
Adam’s phone has been vibrating most of the day, but he can’t bring himself to silence it.
He knows what the text messages and voicemails say, who the missed calls are from. He’s been dreading this day since May, when his PR manager quietly cut him a deal: make a decision by July thirty-first, and we might be able to salvage your career.
It isn’t his decision to make, though. And he isn’t going anywhere unless Kris is going somewhere.
After a seventh buzz Adam grabs his phone and hurls it at the sofa, walking out of the living room with his hands clamped over his ears. He walks through the kitchen and out the back door, slamming it shut behind him.
Kris is standing on the beach, toes buried under the sand, with his neck craned backwards so that his face is tilted towards the sun. His eyes are closed and he’s smiling, the warmth soaking into his skin, and Adam stops for a moment to savor the image.
Adam walks up behind Kris and effortlessly wraps his arms around Kris’s waist, nestles his chin into the hollow of Kris’s collarbone.
“It’s over, isn’t it?” Kris murmurs, reaching down to find Adam’s hands. All summer Adam hadn’t worn any rings, because they prevented Kris from intertwining their fingers together.
“It’s your call,” Adam says, breath cool against Kris’s burning skin.
Kris peels himself away from Adam and walks forward, until the gentle ocean waves lap at his toes; until he’s waist-deep in water, staring out at a stretch of endless nothing that bleeds into the horizon.
XII.
Past: May, 2010
“Point Arena,” Adam says declaratively. “Population four hundred and seventy-four. About an eight-hour drive, if we take I-5 north.”
Kris presses against the top of his suitcase, his curved shoulders hunching over the weight, and yanks the zipper closed. He sighs and sits on the edge of Adam’s bed, watching Adam pour over a map of California.
“What’s going to happen to us, Adam?” Kris murmurs.
Adam sighs, tucking the map into his bag, and sits on the bed next to Kris. “You remember that time we performed in February, in New York?”
Kris feels his lips curling into a smile and nods. It had been the first time they were on stage together since the summer before.
“You remember what I said to you after? Backstage, when you were breaking down, and you thought we weren’t going to see each other again?”
Kris remembers, clear as anything, but he shakes his head just because he wants a reminder.
“I said, ‘I’ll see you soon.’ Actually, I promised it.” Adam touches Kris’s hand. “I carried through with that promise, didn’t I?”
Kris smirks. “You made love to me that same night. So yeah, I guess you did.”
“Made love,” Adam scoffs, lightly punching Kris’s arm. “You’re such a girl.”
“That’s why I take it like a girl,” Kris grins, wrapping his arms around Adam’s neck and planting a kiss on his lips.
Adam peels himself away. “Come on,” he smiles. “We really have to get going.”
Kris’s grin dissipates and he unfurls himself from Adam.
“Listen,” Adam murmurs. “You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
Kris feels his heart shattering underneath the cage of his ribs, climbing up his throat and echoing around his head. “No,” he finally manages, standing and grabbing his heavy suitcase. “I could use the vacation.”
XIII.
Present: July, 2010
Adam has not seen Kris in hours.
It shouldn’t be hard to lose someone in a place like this, but somehow Kris manages to disappear. And Adam is drained, losing both the energy and the will to try and find him. He sits on the granite kitchen counter top, a pint of Ben ‘n Jerry’s in hand. He isn’t hungry, though, and the ice cream begins to melt.
Minutes, hours trickle by, and when Kris finally walks through the door, it’s almost two-thirty in the morning. He’s barefoot, clothes rumpled and wet, sand sticking to the tops of his feet.
“Where the hell were you?”
Kris jumps, his breath catching as he makes out Adam’s silhouette in the dark. “On the beach,” he sighs, flicking on a light.
“For six fucking hours?” Adam says, tossing his spoon in the kitchen sink. “You’re avoiding me, Kris, I know it. You still don’t want to be the one to have to do this.” Adam stands, walking towards Kris. “Well, allow me to bring you back the fuck down to reality. You have to make this decision.”
Kris’s face contorts slightly, and Adam’s heart plummets to his stomach. “I’m sorry,” he whispers quickly. “I…didn’t mean it like that. But you do,” Adam sighs. “You have to.”
Kris walks around Adam, pulls open the fridge. He roots around one of the drawers for a moment before finding an apple. He tosses it from hand to hand, shining it on the sleeve of his worn T-shirt.
“I don’t think now is the time for a snack,” Adam mutters, folding his arms over his chest.
“Katy was the apples.”
Adam blinks. “The fuck are you talking about?”
Kris sinks his teeth into the fruit, feeling the juice pool around his lips. Apples had always been his favorite.
“You remember the first few days we were here, and I went to the grocery store and had to choose between apples and oranges?” Kris says, taking another bite. “And I told you that I imagined you were the apples, and I chose apples.”
It takes Adam a moment to remember. The beginning of the summer seems like years ago; he even feels as though he’s aged significantly between then and now. “So…you lied to me?”
“Yeah,” Kris says bluntly. “I did. At the beginning of the summer, I thought that there was no way I would stay with you. I thought it was inevitable that I’d go back to Katy. I thought that being with you would just screw everything up, more so than it has - my career, my family, everything.”
“Why did you lie to me?”
“Well,” Kris shrugs. “I really like apples. The association was accidental.” He tosses the core into the trash, walking up to Adam. “And I was thinking about it a lot…now, looking back, which would I really choose? Apples,” he gestures to the trash, “or oranges?” He touches Adam’s chest.
Adam says nothing, and Kris figures he doesn’t want to venture a guess.
“And then I called Katy the other night-”
“You…you did?”
“Yeah,” Kris murmurs. “She asked me if I was coming home. And I heard something in the background and…” Kris chuckles softly. “And she was eating an orange. I thought, God, that’s so fucking ironic. That’s got to be something - a sign, an omen. I don’t know. Do you believe in that kind of thing?”
Adam opens his mouth to form the words, but no sound emanates from his lips.
“Well, I never did. Not until then.” Kris shakes his head. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“The decision, Kris,” Adam reminds him gently. “Apples or oranges. Me, or…or her.”
“I lied again,” Kris says, smiling slightly. “I wasn’t at the beach today. Well, I was, but not for seven hours. So it was kind of a half-lie.”
“Kris,” Adam says, growing frustrated. He rubs his hands over his face. “Kris, just…please. Just tell me.”
“You want to know where I was today? …you can’t get mad though.”
Adam sighs, giving in; at this point, he’s not sure if anything can catch him by surprise. “Fine. Where were you, Kris?”
Kris walks over to his bag on the table, reaches in and grabs a sheath of papers. He tosses them at Adam, leans back on the counter and casually crosses his arms.
“What…what is this?”
“I bought it.”
“Bought what?”
Kris stretches his arms wide, throwing his head back and laughing. “This. All of this.”
“You…you bought the house?”
“Don’t be mad,” Kris smiles again. He walks up, sliding his hands around Adam’s waist. “But I want this to be ours. Forever. I want to wake up every morning and realize that the reason you’re not lying next to me is because you’re making me breakfast. I want to run down to the beach whenever I feel like it, run head-first into the ocean and feel like I’m drowning with you.” Kris reaches up, thumbing away the tears at the corners of Adam’s eyes. “I want to build an addition here - maybe a few more bedrooms. I want our kids to be raised here and grow up right on that beach and…and I want us to fight, to yell and scream and eat cartons of ice cream at two in the morning until we make up, because that’s what we do. And I want to…I want to grow old with you, Adam. Right here, right in this kitchen.”
“Really?” Adam breathes after a moment, his hand grazing Kris’s cheek. “You promise? Promise me, Kris. Please, promise me.”
“I’ll see you soon,” Kris whispers. And he smiles into Adam’s lips, the untouchable burden being lifted.
XIV.
Future: June, 2011.
He’s been told a million times over that this wouldn’t work.
At first, he was sure it wasn’t going to. But he’d been religious about it, vigorous, fertilizing every three weeks and watering every six days, unless it rained. He’d mulched to conserve water, protected it whenever the temperature dropped.
And now, its thin branches arch towards the sun, winged leaves shaking in the breeze. Kris takes a step back, plants his hands on his hips, and admires his handiwork.
“Adam?” Kris calls, turning back towards the house. “Adam, come here!”
“…yeah, okay. I’ll call you back.” Adam pulls the phone from between his shoulder and hangs up. He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt and his hair is jutting out at absurd angles, and Kris is sure he’s just rolled out of bed.
“Looking good, Allen,” Adam grins, tugging at the gardening gloves Kris was wearing. “Hey, the tree looks good.”
“I think it’s ready,” Kris smiles.
“Ready for…? Oh, right. This is all part of the mystery, isn’t it? You never even told me what kind of plant this is.” Adam steps forward, running his fingers over the bark of the trunk.
Kris grabs his stepladder, climbing until he’s obscured by a shroud of leaves. He reaches in, towards the center, until he finds the perfect one.
“Hey, Lambert,” Kris says, stepping down. “You hungry?”
Adam catches something, and it’s cool and smooth in his hands. He glances down at the perfectly ripe orange in his hands.
“An orange tree,” he smiles, peeling away at the skin. “I can’t believe you planted an orange tree.” He walks up, kissing the corner of Kris’s forehead.
“They told me it wouldn’t work here,” Kris murmurs. “That the climate wasn’t right, that it wouldn’t grow properly. But they also said that if, by some chance, I was able to do it…it’ll live for another eighty years.”
“So basically,” Adam says, biting into the fruit, “if all the conditions are right, if you take care of it and it grows…it can last for the rest of our lifetime?”
Kris smiles, tawny rays of sunset filtering through the leaves of the tree. “Something like that,” he sighs, leaning against Adam’s shoulder.
They stand there, in the wake of a miracle, long after the sun has disappeared over the horizon.